This story is a sequel to The Life and Times of a Winning Pony
The changeling attack on Canterlot left the city devastated. Chrysalis and her swarm brought Equestria to its knees, and it was only through powerful magic and more than a little luck that the pony civilization survived.
Yet, an attack of this scale requires careful planning and preparations--and information that only guardsponies close to Princess Celestia would have. Guardsponies like Major Nimbus Gust.
For an infiltration on this scale, Chrysalis needs an agent with more independence and free will than any changeling under her control possess. Fortunately for her, though, not all changelings in the world are under her control—and for the right price, some would even be willing to help.
———
Part of Chengar Qordath's Winningverse.
A very impressive look into the mindset of Changelings, and some fun worldbuilding on top of it. Plus, Comma gets to keep up his running trend of doing bad things to ponies' mothers.
Comma shows more of his hatred of mothers and small children.
I liked the alien feel of the changelings here along with the world building. The changeling here was an interesting character who gave a unique viewpoint.
Comma doesn't always do world building.
But when he does, there's usually a dead mother involved.
Also, it's a fantastic story. And creepy.
typo?
Also, somebody played Mass Effect and remembered the Hanar.
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Fixed, thank you! And you would be correct.
Huh. So that's how Chrysalis got an independent mind. I was thinking that she spent the last centuries improving her technique at giving her drones more independence. After all, it was a good idea, it just had some bugs that needed to be corrected. You don't throw away a blueprint just because the completed project doesn't work right.
Oh well. Interesting look into a changeling mind.
3248953 Nice to see another Colorado brony on here too.
One word: Wow.
Seriously, those last two paragraphs were something else. This whole thing was something else. Loved it, every word.
Changelings and the winningverse.
It's about damn time.
Wow this is very close to how I envision the changeling hive mind to function. Loved getting into the logic of the Free Mind and the back and forth of it and the the Old Mind. Would love to see more of this.
I enjoyed this story, however I will pick up one bit (heh heh) Biting into a gold coin to test purity? Well if it was Gold, there would be no marks, however if the bit was not gold, (usually the substituted metal was lead) then you would have that give, so in essence the Old Mind has given our infiltrator counterfeit currency
The Incredibly Annoying [Adj] of a [Noun] [Pronoun] Strikes again!
God, why? Why do you test my faith so!?
Well, that was neat. And I hadn't quite realized how recently she'd been taken. kinda gives a new perspective on things, which I guess was the point...
Two questions: What was the Old Family? is that just the non-Chrysalis HIve?
2) where, vaguely, is Freeport? Other than "south-ish"
Well this was pretty interesting! I like how "this one" seems to consider children a moral grey area, and even appears to enjoy being around them despite the fact that it's a ruthless and essentially alien mercenary. I'm just a little disappointed that it's only one chapter. It seems there's a lot of potential for more interesting stuff to explore while this changeling goes about its mission before Cloud finally kills it.
I see you ultimately did have to resort to using images for some part of the story.
Anyway, a fine balance between alien and intriguing, you did a good job expanding on the universe with an insight on the Changelings of the Winningverse.
You definitively opened up the door for many more possible stories involving the Changelings in the Winningverse.
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Actually, it would in fact leave a mark. Real gold is extremely soft and malleable. What gives it value is not that it's a hard metal, but that it's one that almost never reacts to anything, so lasts practically forever. So you will never "lose" money because it rusted.
Praise: Excellent story. Enjoyed seeing the Winningverse through the eyes of a Changeling.
Query: Did anyone else read the Hive's dialog in HK-47's voice?
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Response: Perhaps, meatbag.
(In all honesty, I've never actually played KoToR. Need to, though.)
Huh, I don't know if the changeling details or the Freeport information teases were more interesting.
I gonna go out on a limb and guess that Freeport and the Old Families are made up of rebels from the Lunar Rebellion that left Equestrian rather than make amends with Celestia. The comments we got from "this one" about the White Pony and about Shadow and Gale are just too suggestive of that sort of history.
I really like the way you characterize This One. Even with all the horrible stuff she's going to do, and even now that's it's been clarified she's doing it to further the (evil) goals of someling she can barely stand, she's strangely more likeable than a character like her should be.
Oathbreakers, huh? Why do I get the feeling Freeport was founded by exiles from the Lunar Rebellion.
Hmm, an outlier town, founded by individuals dissatisfied with how things work back in civilization, called Freeport.
Oblique Freelancer ref?
Is it bad that the Freemind Changling immediately was assigned Blasto's voice in my headcanon?
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I mostly read it with Legion's and other Geth voices from Mass Effect.
Blast it, this story made me actually like the changeling. You know, the changeling who flippin' murdered Nimbus. Why did you have to go and make him a punch clock villain with standards?!
Yeah, that hive-text really is eye-catching.
I think using the images was the right idea too. Heck, even the fact that it uses a different font than the one I do is a neat addition. It really, really stands out.
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Because we're out to make your life a living hell, spacecowboy.
You, specifically, by name.
Really, it's why the shadowy, Winningverse-cabal came together in the first place.
Most people wouldn't think twice about seeing the occasional entry from a popular series showing up in the featured box. But we know it causes you no end to the psychic agony, and makes your life completely unlivable. Just as it was planned to.
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I knew it! The voices were right!
Next you'll confirm that the sky really is green!
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Comma-Kazie:
Messing with your emotions since 2011!
This one seems very, Agent 47-like. Professional. No unnecessary actions. Plans ahead. Not one to hurt innocents/children.
...
I like it.
I have conflicting emotions on this, on one hand, I'm liking this one because of it's professionalism and morals [I mean, no hurting children? You gotta like that!] and on the other hand, he killed Cloudy's mother.
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I heard Mordin for some reason
I'll follow this intriguing story. Love how you perceive Chrysalis and the hive (not how I'd do it, but I like it none the less).
I enjoyed this quite a lot! Very creative, and an interesting look in to the Winning Pony universe.
One criticism I'd give is that it felt that story that hadn't been completed, so much as stopped. I hope you add some additional chapters to it, because there is an enormous amount of potential for more here.
This was a fascinating read.
You proved that there is still a lot of room for creativity when it comes to the 1st person perspective, that seems to be a winningverse standard.
Getting into the mind of a changeling was interesting, especially one who could give us a certain amount of outsiders perspective. Furthermore, expanding on the winningverse history, is always interesting (still need to get around to reading The Lunar Rebellion :P).
I do have to agree with what others have already posted: It feels like this story ended too early.
The changeling was an intriguing character, and we still don't get to know much about her time posing as Nimbus Gust, or any crossover scenes with one of the other winningverse stories.
Why did she need Nimbus Gust alive? I'm assuming it was to extract enough information about her personality and mannerisms to fool her family. I would have loved to see that, along with whatever resistance Nimbus put up before being killed.
Maybe all this criticism amounts to is that we liked this so much we want to keep reading more of it.
Ahh, a look into the dark side of the Winningverse, for we all know that there is either sexual tension or dead moms; it just ain't a winning story without one of them. hehe, puns
You didn't make me cry this time. You must be slipping
In all seriousness though, this was very well written and I enjoyed it thoughly. Bravo sir!
So I really liked it up until she picked her up from school. I don't really see how anything past that has anything to do with anything.
An interesting look into this universe's changelings, the converging mass of a singular thought was a neat effect. Though it could be just because I've been playing the games recently, but now I can't help seeing these changeling as kinda kin to the Geth from Mass Effect. Like them, an individual normally is little more than a wild animal, but quantity is needed to reach sentient level intelligence and a loss of numbers equals a loss of intelligence. Not to mention that I had to stop myself from reading all of Chrysalis' dialogue in Harbinger's voice after you said she "could assume direct control".
it says complete but you could easily make this a multi chapter, the mind of a changling not affiliated with chrysalis is an interesting thing, and i would very much like to see what you come up with for the day to day life, for instance i imagine that chrissy would not be too happy about one of her drones dying while on mission
Really nice world building moment
I like the characterization of the free minded changeling... I wonder how the other 6 are doing in that Freeport...
So many new questions
I'm not a big fan of changelings, but this was still a very enjoyable read.
The "written imagery" was slightly ruined by my tablet's display, so I'll need to revisit that bit of art on a normal screen later. Despite that, I think it was still very successful in conveying the hive to me. Your reservations about it in your a\n were overly humble I think.
If I had to offer any negative feedback, it would be that you mistakenly tagged this story as "complete." In this case I do admit some bias that I merely want more of a good story, but it is also serious. While the end was a good stopping point for a chapter of a larger work, it felt especially lacking as the end of a story.
The story touched on too many details that, in the end, were fairly irrelevant to this tale. Some, like the fairly detailed mention of the other freeminds, I feel crossed from the realm of enriching background elements and into what felt like foreshadowing. Freeport, despite never being visited in any scene, was given nearly as much mental screentime as Equestria.
I realise this story seeks to be a short story, but the events were just too big to fit into that structure. Little to nothing would need to be changed to convert this one into chapter one.
I hope the cancerous effect isn't too literal, if so, poor Alula.
I suppose it's no surprise that Dinky is catnip to Changling.
I've got a very strange mental image of Chrysalis snorting Dinky "That's the good stuff!"
The Old Families have a sort of Mafia feel to me although that doesn't mean they weren't originally formed from Equestrian exiles.
Shh, shh everything is fine. You like doing fantastic work like this. You want to do this again.
Serously great work and the hivemind part was awesome, especialy the combining.
I must admit I heard Chrysalis afterwards as the Queen of Blades, you gave such a perfect "I am the Hive!" feeling.
But there are 2 things I want to ask.
)
1. Can we please, please, please get more of this Ones past? (Damm you for making me like this villain!
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2.
I smell a story behind this one, can you tell it to us?
DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERPY!!!
*AHEM* Great story, really great, a sequel to it would be fantastic, I would love to see the mission-impossible-esc planning that might go on in it. It is delicious I MEAN!
tinyurl.com/mbho6go
I have to say that the way this is written reminds me of Mass Effect in many ways. Chrysalisis assumes control like the harbinger, and the changeling (Main Character) thinks like the jellyfish species. Not sure if they are the Elcor or the Hanar. And the whole idea and thought process of the hive reminds me of the Geth and Legion.
So.... was it just me that's wondering why 90% of the text was white and I had to highlight it to read it?
(Specifically, between the first "Alert" and the "confirmed"s and everything after "Come in" incuding the author's note/)
I'm... sort of guessing, since no-one else had mentioned it, it's some sort of unintended foul-up or something...?
This is interesting. For one, I actually like this character. Despite all that he's doing, he's still morally ahead of Chrysalis, because he's at least concerned for what happens to Alula. Now I feel sad, 'cause I know Cloud Kicker kills him. I would've liked to see more of this guy.
This one enjoyed the story and take on changelings.
3250369 I read it in the voice of a hanar from mass effect
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Funnily enough, I read it in the voice of The Harbinger...
Believe me, this was NOT easy for me to read; I've got a bit of a soft spot for Nimbus Gust, so it was absolutely horrible having to read that whole detailed scene about her abduction. That said, this was excellently written; very unique writing style you came up with for the Changelings, both the Hive Mind and the Free Mind, and really a lot of fun to read in the sense that it was uniquely written. Still left a pit in my stomach, but it was still wonderfully written, even if the events were just dreadful. Great job Comma Kazie!!!