TO: Ministry of Peace head office, Ministry Walk Canterlot

Hello Miss Fluttershy,

It is good to see that your first year as Ministry Mare of the Ministry of Peace has been successful. My name is Dr. Winter and I serve under your command. As you know, Equestria is suffering from a new epidemic, though not viral or bacterial. There is a whole new type of disease that is affecting ponies not only at home but also abroad. The name “Wartime Stress Disorder”, or WTSD as most ponies are referring to today, was proposed in the wake of the battles which occurred during the first few years of the war. My colleagues and I believe that there is enough evidence to show that this is an increasingly worrying issue that needs to be carefully researched and assessed.

Currently the treatment options have been kept to a minimum, counseling and rest in most of the cases, in hope to return ponies to active duty, or at the very least to insure they would be able to function normally when they return home . As you can see from my reports which aren’t alone in pointing out the trouble. This psychological illness has been increasingly difficult to document as with multiple cases where the cause of the WTSD was unknown. Furthermore, we have been seeing a steady increase in the use of our most drastic treatment options: This, of course, is the removal of the pony’s affected memories. It has had the highest success rate so far despite many reports showing that the patient is not the same after treatment.

I have figured out a way to analyse the causes of WTSD, and with consent of the patients and the Ministry, I would like to submit this project for approval. I would like to use a recent technologic innovation known as memory orbs to store the memories of my patients. From there, I will be able to start to build an archive of my patients for further review and research. I have included a list of several patients that are volunteering to have their memories removed, including patients that had suffered from terrible traumas since the beginning of the war, which often led to harmful behaviors. With your approval, this will allow me to analyse the events that triggered this pathological disorder. My research aims at finding ways to cure the future patients differently from the drastic measures we have been using so far.

With your blessing, I would like to set up a Memory Orb Archive in my home office in Vanhoover. If approved, we will create an initial database and archive of the volunteering patients, which will not be restricted to just Equestrian soldiers. As you’ve no doubt already noticed, we’ve begun seeing an increase in cases of WTSD from multiple cities, and not just among the army, especially after the tragedy of Little Horn.

I believe that we need to stop this epidemic as quickly as possible before we start losing more ponies to this strange and devastating illness. I fear that if we do not find a solution to this growing problem, Equestria’s health and morale may begin to crumble. Thank you for your consideration, and I await your quick response.

Thank you, Miss Fluttershy

Sincerely, Dr. Lilly Winter, Vanhoover Department of Health head psychologist and grief counselor.