Rebellion Leader - Silver Lining

Credit to Windhover

If you had taken the pony Silver Lining was before the war and put her into the situation she’s in now… She would have been terribly unfit to lead a rebellion. She was a higher class pony, what some people would call a “snob”. Physical work was below her, despite being an earth pony, and any kind of dirt better stayed at distance. Clever and self-confident, but to a point where it could only be described as arrogant. She had proven her abilities to lead others to herself a little too often, and a steep career in Trottingham’s politics made her self centered. However, despite her often not pleasant attitude, she knew how to keep the city working, especially in times of crisis.

War changes everypony. Deprived of her old lifestyle, she had to get used to living rougher. Today, she still shows where she comes from and prefers looking proper, but she’s not afraid to get her hooves dirty, only reluctant if unnecessary. What is necessary… whatever it takes to fight back the griffons. If that means Silver has to walk through a swamp and cobwebbed dungeons, then so be it! Though, expect her to take a three hour bath afterwards.

While Silver is willing to do physical work, it’s not what she’s made for, earth pony or not; Her true strength lies purely in leadership. She has top organizational talents, and winning a pony over? No problem, as long as she’s certain in her goal. Stepping up to a crowd and throwing a speech causes her no trouble, and her charisma, not overshadowed by arrogance anymore, does the rest. Even if she’s insecure, she puts on a mask of confidence, but a mask simply isn’t as efficient as the real thing.

She’s good in persuasion, and dislikes it if others remain stubborn, but on the other hoof, she is quite stubborn herself. If she has put her mind on something, she does her best to see it through, and doesn’t give up easily. It helps that she doesn’t take decisions lightly in the first place and tries to see all up and downs of an idea before judging it.

One of the hardest things for her to get used to were ponies ponies dying under her lead regularly. It wasn’t really something new, many kinds of disasters take lives and it doesn’t need a war for that, but the way it happened was entirely different: Ponies staying behind to possibly hold of pursuers, ambushes, and all kinds of cruelties the griffons did. It hit her hard, but eventually she realized that if she was pulling through her rebellion, she would at some point give a command that sends ponies into certain death, and it would happen more than once. Realization isn’t true acceptance though, and approving of missions that clearly will cost is difficult for her.

For this reason, as well as personal inexperience regarding military command and operations, she focuses more on the civilian side where she truly excels. But that doesn’t mean she completely keeps out of it: It’s something she has to learn, and so she involves herself even in the details of military planning to the best of her abilities, and lets no big operation get through without her understanding it. It helps that with Prism she has a pony on her side who has a lot of military experience.

Silver was born to a well off family in the city of Trottingham. She was an only child and her parents were both normally busy during the day, so she was mostly raised by her nanny. When she was at the age to start school she was sent to the best private school in Trottingham, where she easily made friends became practically the leader of her group.

Silver never cared very much about getting her cutie mark. She had absolute confidence that it would come and that it would turn out just fine. No need to hurry and bother about what _every_ pony got. There wasn’t a single exception known to the filly, and so she didn’t worry and simply enjoyed her life as a blank flank. Eventually however, she found an exception. A colt well beyond the age, but without a mark.

Everypony had one, except him. A pony without a special talent… particularly good at nothing? Silver found that thought ridiculous, but he thought otherwise. For him, it was a curse he had to live with, but hardly couldn’t. When that cheery, popular filly approached him he first thought she wanted to make fun of him and trample on his feelings, and closed off towards her. However, when she didn’t even address the sore topic, at least not instantly, he began to open up. It took time and effort, but eventually Silver got through to him, gave him hope again that he would eventually find his calling. It was as if his cutie mark had only waited for this moment, for it appeared on the very same day. Fascinated by his joy, Silver only noticed her own mark when he pointed at it. Helping ponies see the light at the horizon? She always had known it would turn out fine.

When she was older she started to show a lot more interest in her father’s work in the city council and started to join him when he went to work. He would often give her little task to test her skills and she started to show great promise so he eventually got her a job within the council office.

After a few years of working with her father she was given a chance to travel to Canterlot and rub hooves with some of Canterlot’s most influential ponies. Her father was supposed to go with her, but as he fell ill she ended up going by herself. She ended but learning a lot from a number of those in councils roles. She really had a good time even if she had to be followed around by a royal guard.

Once she got back to Trottingham she held onto some of the contacts she had made in Canterlot, helping her a lot in getting favor and soon leading her to a seat in the city council. Her family was overjoyed with what she had done in a short time. She was very much liked in her council role and she was quickly getting support of the local pony folk and there were talks of her running for mayor when it was time to vote again.

Before she could make any plans for a campaign the war broke out and the shocking news of the fall of Canterlot had reached the ears of the ponies of Trottingham, then the news of Cloudsdale. Ponies were scared and worried what was going to happen next. This was when Silver stepped up and kept the spark of hope alive within Equestria and the ponies’ victory in Stalliongrad strengthened their confidence. This however didn’t go unnoticed by the griffons, and soon they launched an attack on Trottingham to crush the beacon of hope, but the ponies were ready for them.

This was the first time that ponies had seen anything like the siege weapons that the griffons brought to bear on the city, and the shield keeping the shells out cast a heavy shadow on the population. Silver continued to stand out and keep the citizens morale up and keep them calm. Everything was going fine, Silver was becoming known all across the city and many ponies would come and listen to her talk, but none of her deeds would pass any farther than Trottingham as the shield that was keeping them safe was also keeping them locked away from the rest of Equestria.

Then on the third day of the third week, just after sunrise, the shield failed and the whole of the griffons’ might fell down on the city. It was clear that the griffon’s were not going to let anyone leave alive as even after the military tried to surrendered they kept up the bombardment and killed anyone that tried to leave. Silver did what she could to keep the ponies that were with her or came to find her calm, and for the most part it was working even though on the inside she was an emotional wreck. She didn’t want to die not here. The town hall where they were hiding was one of the few buildings that were still standing and had been left almost untouched, but it wouldn’t stay this way for long as the booming was getting close once more. In that moment the door was kicked open, causing everyone to hide except Silver, who stood her ground, not willing to hide herself from the attackers coming to kill them. But it wasn't a griffon unit, just a single red unicorn. At least he looked red, it was hard to tell under the ash and dirt that cover his skin and what was left of his military amor. There was a family of three with him and he had come looking for survivors as he had a way out. With that, Silver called out to the rest of the group that they had been saved, but she spotted the look on their would be rescuers face change as he saw all the other ponies come out. As the other ponies were cheering she talked to the stallion and quickly found that he planned to teleport them out, but hadn’t thought there were this many.

Just then a shell landed right outside the building and the red pony took over and called everyone to get as close to him as they could, as he could only do this once. All fifty ponies crowded around him. Silver did her best to point out how crazy this idea was, but she was drowned out by the whistles of incoming shells and the red unicorn had already started his spell. His horn glowed a bright white, brighter than any other unicorn’s horn she had seen when they were casting spells. In a moment the room around them was gone and they were on the side of a cliff near the city, seemingly safe, but then came the screams from the ponies around her. She looked around and there weren’t the fifty ponies that had been in the town hall - there was only about half that number and in some cases with parts missing. As she scanned the area round her she saw that in some cases only half a pony had made it. That was when she felt the warm flow of blood run down her neck. She quickly checked her head and found that she was missing an ear, all of it.

She turned the the would be rescuer and started shouting, pointing out how much of a crazy a plan it was and shouting about losing her ear, until he turned to face her. Her whole expression changed when she saw he was missing his right eye, all of it: the eye, the eye lid, all there was was a hole in his head. He only got out one word and that was “I” before he collapsed to the ground. It was at that point that soldiers who seemed to have been waiting here came rushing over. Apparently they knew him personally and a few got very defensive over him with Silver, saying she was lucky to be alive and that he went back into the city to look for survivors.

The journey from that cliff side to the closest safe point was a long one and some of the more worse off ponies didn’t make the trip. To her surprise, their rescuer whose name she had learnt was Steel Prism, survived the trip, clearly he had a lot of willpower. Silver was treated for her injuries before moving on. She wasn’t a soldier so there wasn’t any point staying at this outpost so she made for the closest city.

Silver had a few days of walking, slowed down as she had to hide from some griffon units that were moving around the area, as she had heard the stories of what happens to ponies that were found alone. After a few days she arrived at Dodge Junction. It wasn’t one of the large cities but it looked like the griffons were already here. As she had been on the road she needed some food and a drink, and the town was still in the hooves of the ponies, so she sneaked in..

The place was a mess. The small number of forces there were doing their best to hold the line, so much that they didn’t do anything to help keep the civilians calm. The place was in a panic and was falling apart from the inside. Silver couldn’t stand by and watch this happen, she had to do something. She was tired and hungry, but she still walked into the middle of the town, pulled together some boxes and called out to the townfolk of Dodge Junction. She made a speech calling for calm, for everypony to stay together and they would get out of this together. She kept talking and calling out, and the crowd started to grow. They had come to listen to her words.

Before long she had the townspeople organized and working together, helping the young and old alike. Within a few hours she had the town ready to get out, but there were a few that wanted to remain behind, who didn’t want to leave their homes. Silver tried her best to convince them, but eventually had to give up, leave them in the not existent mercy of the griffons. Silver had gotten together as many of the townsfolk as she could, they had food and water for the long walk and enough safety in numbers that any of the wildlife would leave them alone. Their plan was to head to Hoofington.

Silver ended up in a number of cities over the time, many times helping to keep ponies calm and organized so that they could espace places that were under attack or generally very hostile. When the war finally seemed to come to an end and the news that Equestria had new rulers spread around, it hit all ponies hard. But Silver wouldn’t take this laying down and started looking into what she could do.

It was not easy for her to get started and she did a lot of searching moving from place to place, trying to get help from whoever or whatever she could, and it was not easy as most would turn her down or would give her very little support. After almost 2 years of looking she had got a few that would give her resources but none that would follow her and what she needed were bodies to help start building things up.

It was not till she came across a little out of the way village that she found someone she had met previously in the war, who had left an impact on her, and that was Steel Prism. They talked, and she soon found out that there was still fight left in him. She left with the first member of the rebellion that she had recruited.

Things were starting to look up, she had a member and she could start making some plans, some real plans for once, and with having her frist member be from the military this ment that she found out a number of things, like a fall back place that the military had set up that was most likely abandon now. This place was deep in the Everfree Forest, safe from prying eyes. Prism had been there near the end of the war and knew of its location, and led them there.

What they found was an abandoned outpost. There were still supplies that they could use and so they decided that this would be there base till they could work out anything else. They then planned out what to do next. Silver sent the next year pulling up the resources that she had gotten from ponies and getting them shipped over. The transport was mostly handled by Prism personally, so that they could keep their outpost a secret from those that had allied themselves with the griffons.

Once they had built up the base and made it a place they could defend if they needed, they started planning on where they could get members from, as this was what they needed now the most. There was no point having this stuff and no pony to use it. Their first plan was to head to Manehatten as the stories coming from there made it sound like the worst place to be in Equestria right now.

It turned out to be the right choice. Though the conditions were as bad as expected on the surface, the discovery of the Undercity was a stroke of good fate. Diamond dogs had created a safe haven, a place that provided protection from the griffons. Compared to the rest of Equestria, beneath Manehatten the spirits were still high. Recruiting more ponies would be easy here, and Silver expected quick results, but the diamond dogs didn’t want to play along. Yes, they had a safe place, and they wanted to keep it that way. That meant not drawing attention to the Undercity, and besides, they weren’t keen on giving ponies so much control over the place, for housing a rebellion meant exactly that. They didn’t even listen.

Despite the setback, they recruited. They would need to find someplace else in Manehatten, but they wouldn’t leave here. After some success, the dogs would have to listen. Luckily for them, it didn’t take success, but a single influential pony. Silvern Gleam, introduced to them as an artifact merchant, knew how to deal with the canines - namely: with a lot of gems and skill in finding them - and secured the rebellion a home in the underground city, next to immense magical knowledge and artifacts. After this, there was no stopping the rebellion anymore.

Year 4, Nov 30 to Dec 1 - Founding of the Rebellion
The first strike against the griffons is a full success and the Rebellion comes to life.

Year 4, Dec 15 - Stroll through the City of Hope
Silver Lining takes a casual walk through the Undercity.

Year 4, Dec 17 - Missing in action!
A panicked mare storms into Silver's office and reports that Captain Prism and some other rebels have been ambushed during a supply run for the hospital.