Darth Wiki / Pink Alert 3

"All Your Equestria Are Belong To Soviet Pony Republic."

Pink Alert 3 is yet another as-yet unfinished crossover fanfic, composed by Deebro. Can be read here. The story concerns a rather re-envisaged version of Equestria and its neighboring countries, where the Equestrian Kingdom is not quite as helpless or friendly as its canonical counterpart, and military technology is a little more recognizably human. Emphasis on "a little".

Pink Alert features a mostly original cast, and centers around a young Commander of the Soviet Pony Republic, the oddly named Squeezie Heart, who is tasked with the intimidating job of leading the coming invasion of Equestria, or The Holy Equestrian Alliance, as it is called these days. Unfortunately, the famous but ultimately unsuccessful Communist uprising that created the Republic in the first place persuaded the Alicorn Princesses to make a few slight changes to the Equestrian Constitution, among a select few other things. Suffice to say that life in Equestria is far from what it used to be. All in all, it looks like when Squeezie and his Comrades arrive, they will find the Allies to be far from a simple pushover.

Of course, there's also the matter of the The Aquestrian Empire, a high-tech civilization of oriental sea ponies that has lurked beneath the waves of the eastern oceans for thousands of years. Exactly what role they will play in the unfolding conflict is yet to be seen, however, it seems more than likely that they aren't sitting around; they're just waiting for their chance.

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Pink Alert 3 contains examples of:

• The Ace: Colonel, and very soon afterwards Air Commander, Jalissa. A griffon born with deformed and completely useless wings, she befriended Squeezie in Military School due to a lack of other options. Also, naturally, every notable Mechasus in the Allied Air Force, and a lot of their other officers besides.
• Action Girl: Jalissa is likely the most prominent example, but she stands tall at the head of a crowd.
• A.K.A.-47: the Soviet Republic's iconic assault rifle is called the AFK-93.
• Amazon Brigade: the Lady's Pink Shadows are an all-female band of elite snipers so secret that their very existence is a point of discussion outside the Soviet military. They do not mess around.
• Anime Land: like one half of its source material, the Aquestrian Empire contains elements of this, particularly in the military department.
• Awesome Personnel Carrier: Squeezie's favorite vehicle, and one of the Soviet Pink Army's most robust and useful machines, is a six-legged, all-terrain transport called a Frogroach. These machines come equipped with a four-barreled turret to cope with the Allies' superior air units (which is also rather effective against soldiers and lightly armored vehicles), can paddle through water almost as well as they can scurry across land, and can comfortably carry a small squad of infantry. Their only significant weakness is their light armor and fragile hydraulic legs; a bullet in the wrong place will turn a Frogroach into a twitching wreck, and one rocket is all it takes to blast one to scrap.
• Base on Wheels: Commanders of all countries use vehicles called Mobile Command Wagons, which serve as both amphibious command vehicles and construction machines that can quickly build the facilities necessary to support an army. Squeezie and Tickles actually live in theirs, and several characters remark that they do so quite comfortably.
• BFG: Many. If you're talking about guns per se, then the Soviets pack the largest by far; their rival factions prefer more advanced and less brutish superweapons.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: In a funny contrast to the Red Alert series, compared to the oppressive Equestrian Alliance life in the Soviet Republic is tough and hard, but not so bad, and when the Pink Lady orders her armies to invade quite a few of them are partly motivated by the desire to free Equestrian citizens from the tyranny of the Alicorn Princesses. However, this does not change the fact that the Soviet Republic recklessly uses disposable clones as soldiers, believes democracy to be political poison and solved its war with the (admittedly hostile) Changelings by kidnapping their only surviving Queens, forcing them to surrender unconditionally and then wiping most of them out with a genetically engineered fungus.
• Boring, but Practical: The Soviet Republic's stubborn army runs on this trope, almost as much as it runs on uranium. While the Allies possess such fancy and extremely advanced weapons as invisible tanks, power-armored Pegasi fitted with rockets and jet engines and, of course, orbital space lasers, and the Empire's units sound like they would not be out of place in an episode of Code Geass, Soviet machines tend to rely on little more than their toughness and shooting big things at the enemy. When things go terribly wrong, however, it's usually the Soviets that bounce back strongest because of this. And of course, they are much cheaper to rebuild and repair.
• Caretaker Reversal: When Tickles suffered a traumatic head injury only a few days after they escaped Equestria and the Rebellion that was tearing the country to pieces, Squeezie found himself the sole caretaker of a sibling who was physically three years older than him, but mentally almost ten years younger than him. The experience left quite a lasting impression on the guy.
• Childhood Friends: Squeezie and Jalissa met at school, and despite their starkly different personalities haven't drifted apart yet.
• Darker and Edgier: Than the cartoon that inspired it? You bet. Even to an extent the game, which steers clear of the issue of genocide.
• Death Ray: The Alliance has access to an experimental weapon called the Astronomicannon. While not yet used in the fanfic, we know that it's in space, it's some kind of massive laser, and that the Alicorns are extremely confident that with it on their side the Soviet Republic's tanks aren't going to pose too much of a threat for long. For some reason, they are also saving it up for something.
• The Emperor: of Aquestria, to be specific.
• The Empire: Exactly what underwater societies the Aquestrian sea ponies conquered to form said Empire has not yet been specified; most likely rival clans.
• The Faceless: The Pink Lady is the Republic's mysterious Premier, and also the mastermind of the Pink Rebellion. The few times she actually appears to her people, it's always at a distance, and she always wears a pink robe and matching mask.
• Four-Star Badass: most notable is General Zulu, a grizzled, deep-throated old zebra and ex-Equestrian cop who went on to become one of the Soviet Republic's most famous and successful leaders. This being a ponified version of World War Three, there are probably plenty more like him on the way.
• Friendly Rival: Squeezie and Cinnamon, these days at least. Mostly.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Apparently, to some Squeezie is this to the more popular, famous and likable Jalissa. He could also be this to Cinnamon, depending on whether or not you'd define their relationship as friendship.
• Glass Cannon: Squeezie is a tactical version. He's an extremely clever Commander, and any foe facing him on the battlefield is in for an intense and often unconventional fight. As soon as he starts taking losses though, Squeezie will withdraw in all but the most critical circumstances, because he really doesn't enjoy throwing the lives of his troops away.
• Gorn: When an Electricorn hits something with a lightning bolt, the unlucky creature's internal fluid instantly boils, causing them to swell and burst like a balloon. If he lets his mind wander, the memory of the sight is more than enough to put Squeezie off his food.
• Gunship Rescue: General Zulu tells the freshly promoted Commander Jalissa that she and her Multicopter Gunships will probably need to provide Squeezie and/or Cinnamon with one of these during the initial invasion of Vanhoover, if things don't go exactly to plan. Which they probably won't, these being the Soviets.
• Hellish Copter: while the Soviet Multicopter Gunships are famously tough, the total aerial superiority of the Allied Mechasi - which are faster and more maneuverable than them in every way - means that the job of flying one is easily considered one of the most dangerous tasks in the Pink Army. And that is saying something, considering that it's the Pink Army.
• Soviet Dragoon Marksmanship Academy: The Pink Army's firearms are resilient, but not exactly expertly crafted; in addition to this, the Dragoons that use them are usually vaguely equine clones that have been given a week or two of training at best before they're shipped off to the front lines. These two factors mean that Soviet Commanders are not exactly encouraged to rely on their troops actually hitting their targets in a firefight.
• Interspecies Friendship: Squeezie and Jalissa, a pony and griffon respectively. Because the Soviet Republic is more racially tolerant than the Equestrian Alliance (not that that's a very hard thing to do), there are all kinds of different creatures all over the place, making this trope fairly common.
• Kill Sat: The Equestrian Astronomicannon could qualify, as it is a space-mounted weapon of an as-yet unspecified nature. The Soviets possess their own version, the less cataclysmic but still effective Electromagnetic Vortex Satellite, which can suck anything large and made of metal - ranging from armored infantry to ships - as far as the edge of space.
• The Kirk: Jalissa is not a leader by default, preferring to fly off and blast the bad guys to pieces with rockets by herself. But, with the interesting dynamic between Squeezie and Cinnamon, her level-headedness and pragmatism can be a very useful mediator when the two of them disagree.
• Lightning Gun: like the Soviet Union of Command And Conquer Red Alert 3, the Soviet Pony Republic makes extensive use of weapons called Thunder Coils, which are pike-shaped energy projectors that fire devastating lightning bolts with pinpoint accuracy that can destroy more or less anything in a single surge. Extremely large ones are used as fixed base defenses, and smaller versions are attached to the helmets of the Pink Army's heavy infantry, the bulky Electricorn Troopers.
• Lonely Together: Jalissa and Squeezie at school.
• Mad God: No-one in Equestria (other than one of the other Alicorns, maybe) would dare say as much to her face, but with her rapidly deteriorating mental health and equally rapidly growing Alicorn powers, Princess Twilight Sparkle definitely has elements of this trope. To her citizens, she's this, combined with a Mad Scientist for good measure.
• MegaCorp: Sparkle Industries, a large research corporation that exists only to serve the curious mind of one particular Alicorn Princess. Can you guess which it is?
• The McCoy: Squeezie is noted for being polite and friendly, and he won't hesitate to help absolutely anyone if their lives are in danger, even if it means putting victory, his own life and his career on the line. He is, or at least intends to be, an open critic of the Pink Army's more questionable practices. Funnily enough, he's the protagonist here.
• Mighty Glacier: Jalissa is a griffon, making her larger and more physically powerful than pretty much every other (usually herbivorous) creature she's near by default. Even so, she's particularly muscular even by the standards of her kind; just hugging her is something of an ordeal for Squeezie, and that's now that she's learned how to hug him gently. Despite this, because most vehicles and buildings in the Soviet Republic were designed for ponies and other similarly sized creatures, however, she often appears to be slow and ungainly. Yet she still manages to be a helicopter ace.
• Military Academy: The Soviet Patriotic Youth Academy trains young Communist creatures in the art of leadership. Jalissa, Squeezie and Cinnamon all excelled there, leading to the intense rivalry between the latter two.
• Military School: Squeezie went to one of these so that he and his sister wouldn't end up in an orphanage, or on the streets, soon after they arrived in the Republic. It was also where he first met Jalissa.
• Military Mashup Machine: contains a variety.
• One Lady Industrial Revolution: The introduction details how the Rebellion's mysterious instigator, the Pink Lady, was more or less solely responsible for the bizarre but robust machines and technologies that the Pink Army would go on to become infamous for employing, usually with devastating effect. Without these innovations and the revolution that they enabled, the war that the series explores would have considerably less complex, if possible at all.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Life in the Frozen North, where the Republic is located, definitely toughens a pony up. There are exceptions, of course, such as the notoriously fragile Squeezie.
• Opposites Attract: a non-romantic version with Jalissa and Squeezie. They could not be more different, but somehow, are the best and most loyal of friends. Lampshaded by Squeezie moments after her character is introduced.
• Pony Jars: TS-02 is a Unicorn clone of Princess Twilight Sparkle, who we first meet floating unconscious in a cylindrical vat of biogel with enough wires stuck into her body to power a small city. For the time being...
• Powered Armor: the Equestrian Mechasi are highly-trained Pegasi wearing lightweight power armor that comes equipped with folding wings, rocket launchers, two machine gun pods mounted on their forelegs, retractable blades on each limb and a pair of jet engines that make them the fastest things in the sky. The Soviet Electricorn anti-tank heavy infantry are a more literal example of this trope, wearing massive armored suits designed to give them some protection against, you guessed it, tanks.
• The Power of Friendship: in one of the pre-chapter world building excerpts from in-universe books, it is noted that if auto-arms had not been invented, then pretty much every modern weapon in the story would have been impossible to create. Had this occurred, the unnamed writer dryly observes that pony civilization would have likely had little more than this to defend itself from external threats. Exactly how effective it is at present is yet to be seen.
• Psycho Electro: the Electricorns are noted to particularly enjoy making enemy infantry messily explode with their high-powered bolts of lightning. Even other Soviets view them with caution, even if only because any direct contact with one of their Thunder Coil horns is more or less fatal.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Many of the protagonists are in positions of authority in whatever army they owe their allegiance to. Whether their special talent is commanding, piloting or fighting close and personal, this doesn't hold any of them back from turning the tide of battle single-handedly, or with whatever appendages they happen to possess.
• The Rival: Squeezie was once this to Cinnamon in the Academy, but their relationship has since cooled somewhat.
• Servant Race: The Soviet clonies are pony clones that were created to serve as low-ranging soldiers in the Pink Army. Beyond this task, they are more or less useless. More compassionate Soviets argue that they are more of a Slave Race, however.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: The Allies' Custodians are their front-line infantry, but were initially intended to serve as riot control; as such, they were issued with high-quality pump-action shotguns by default. Regardless of this, the Custodians' weapon of choice remains extremely effective against the sturdy assault rifles of the Pink Army, which are far from famous for being carefully aimed.
• Spider Tank: Going with their insect-like engineering theme, the Soviets have several, of various sizes.
• The Spock: Compared to a more sentimental Squeezie, the rational and razor-sharp Cinnamon definitely has elements of this.
• The Storyteller: Jalissa's comment when Squeezie returns from his chat with General Zulu seems to indicate that the old zebra has something of a reputation for telling tales wherever he can fit one in. Squeezie's own experiences earlier seem to confirm this.
• Sugar Apocalypse: This being a My Little Pony crossover, there is a very real possibility that the Soviet/Allied war could turn into one of these, if things don't go well for either side.
• Tanks, but No Tanks: Squeezie at one point notes that for some reason, the Aquestrian Empire does not employ any tanks or conventional armored vehicles in their military, preferring the use of shape-shifting robots and other unconventional fighting machines. And yet somehow, their forces are effective enough to conquer themselves an expansive underwater empire, and quite possibly more. In the same conversation, Jalissa dismisses the Empire as a possible threat to the Soviets, highlighting certain logical flaws in using walking mechas to fight wars. Her prediction may or may not turn out to be accurate.
• Tank Goodness: Considering what fighting force the Pink Army is based on, it is only natural that their strongest and most feared units are their numerous powerful tanks, most notably the 200 tonne Apinkalypse Tanks. The arrival of one or more of these things is an immediate invitation for whatever unlucky Alliance Commander facing them to make a hasty call for all the air support he or or she can get. Even the Armourdillos, the Soviets' standard medium tank, is both superior to its counterparts in many ways and much cheaper to build.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Squeezie, Cinnamon and Jalissa respectively.
• We Have Reserves: Squeezie, and a few other protagonists, are hardly comfortable with the fact that many Pink Army Commanders treat their clony troopers, which are essentially brainwashed into total obedience and loyalty to the Republic, with little more respect and care than they treat the assault rifles that the clonies carry into battle. Practically justified, in that an entire army of clony Dragoons can be grown, trained and armed within a few months. But, considering how the dim-witted clones are totally sentient, fully capable of experiencing emotions and uncomfortably child-like in a number of ways, the matter of their use as cheap and disposable infantry is enough to cause bitter disagreements between certain Pink Army officers.
• With a Friend and a Stranger: Squeezie and Jalissa are friends by anyone's standards. The third member of their trio, Cinnamon Twist, is enough of an unknown element to the both of them to qualify as a stranger of sorts.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: While the other three Alicorn Princesses seem to be more conventional paranoid tyrants, Princess Twilight Sparkle plays this trope uncomfortably straight, maintaining her friendly and chirpy personality but apparently losing all capacity for empathy and compassion and pursuing her new interests with boundless enthusiasm.
• Zeppelins from Another World: The Pink Army's Bomber Balloons definitely qualify.