NNM: Ha! Is this the best you could bring forth to me, ‘Sister Dearest’? A shell of a Stallion and a Broken mare? If this is who you use to lead your armies, I can finally see why you needed my help.
 
Empress Celestia: …Luna, they aren’t-
 
NMM: Don’t. As for a strategy, I propose something much more direct. You are way too Passive. This is war, not a chess game. Patience might work sometimes but not every time. I say we send our units forward, throwing the enemy base into chaos and clearing a path for a main unit to strike.
 
Princess Cadence: [Monotone]That is a bad idea.
 
NMM: [growl] What was that?!
 
Princess Cadence: [Monotone] I said that is a bad idea.
 
NMM: And why is that!?
 
Princess Cadence: [Monotone] What you propose is a suicide mission with little to no benefit to us. Plus, if the soldiers find out our plan, their moral will surely suffer and we’ll have to deal with more desertions and/or possible coups. Such chaos will make any plan following yours useless since no one will listen to our orders.
 
Shining Armor: More importantly, we can’t go and waste resources like that. Most of our forces are volunteers, those who have suffered by the hooves of the empire and want revenge. Sending them to die is a waste. If we lose anymore of them unnecessarily, we’ll be forced to start a draft, which will further strain our infrastructure.
 

 
More from my Dark Star AU.
 
So quick recap: This AU takes place in the crystal war timeline and features the next gets of a few characters including Starlight, Twilight, Shining and others. In this timeline, Twilight was picked up by Sombra and ends up as one of his chief advisers (and consort). She works alongside him against Equestria. Shining is a broken stallion with (literally) no love in his heart due to being attacked my Chrysalis and Cadence is a traumatized mare after being imprisoned by Chrysalis under Canterlot for over a year. NMM decided to join forces with Celestia after getting her ass beat by Twilight and Sombra. Celestia is just trying to get through this war without losing too much of both herself or her citizens.
 
Here we see the strategy meeting (their first together) take place. NMM doesn’t respect anyone here and tries to take over and railroad them with her frankly reckless plan. Cadence, though not as strong as her, interjects and explains why said plan is reckless. Though she never looks NMM in the eye, her voice is very firm and direct. Without meaning to, Shining backs his ‘wife’ up with his own argument.
 
 
Note: To those wondering why NMM is here, it’s cause a million years ago, I set up a poll asking folks what they thought must have happened to NMM in the crystal war timeline. The choices were: