On Why I Created the Megaspells
In my life, I've had many failings. My timid nature held me back from activities I would have loved to do. My temper, when finally ignited (I have a long fuse, which creates big explosions...I wish I could cut that part of me out entirely), has lead me to say things to my closest friends I later regretted. My talent for animals sometimes has lead me to put them above ponies on my priority list, even though I have always tried to care for EVERY LIVING THING as equally as I can. Without a doubt though, my greatest failing was the one thing I was certain would be my greatest triumph.
When I created the megaspells, it was never my intention that anyone should be hurt by them. I wanted to end the War by making the entire concept of war pointless. And how I set about doing that was to create a mass healing spell matrix that could conceivably heal any wound less than death itself. With the Zebras' own necromancy, I believed the megaspells would essentially eliminate death in battle. If neither side could suffer high enough casualties, if battles could be unending, the futility of it all I believed would push the leaders into negotiations instead of fighting a war that could conceivably last for eternity. That's why the phrase I used for the project was "Communally Assured Reciprocal Existence."
I had no idea that when I gave the technology and knowledge to make the megaspells themselves to the Zebras, that they would instead reverse engineer it and weaponize the matrices. I foalishly believed that even though the war had morphed from a resource bid into a jihad (that's the right word, isn't it?), that surely genocide was off the table. That genocide hadn't, and could never be, on the table. And that confidence bit me in the flank.
Littlepip's story, what she saw in my memory orb, could only convey how I truly felt the day that the End came to a certain extent. But needless to say, I was dumbfounded, then furious. I was so sure this was the right thing to do that I even risked my friendship with my oldest and closest friend, Rainbow Dash, over it. And then I watched it all dying in front of me. And then I turned that fury inward. I didn't deserve to live. Not with all the death I caused. Not when I handed the instrument of our final judgement into the hands of our enemies with my own hooves.
If I had any clue that my ideal, that CARE, was going to become Mutually Assured Destruction, believe me when I say I would have done anything, anything at all, to stop it from happening. I'm sorry I was so arrogant. I'm sorry that I was so cocksure. And I'm sorry that I failed you all so spectacularly.
