A Memoir
Shining Armor offered me a persimmon last night.
Cadance never liked them. She loved peaches, soft, sweet and tangy. Nothing like the firm, subtle, and mellow flesh of a persimmon.
Though I wear her skin every night, Shining offered me a persimmon. As if he could acknowledge that I was not her, and yet he was comfortable with that.
I am not a changeling easily given to emotion, yet still the tears came.
***
I, Formica Chrysalis Cocytus Starspawn Gravian such-and-suchlike (I shall not list all my titles, for I have been bequeathed with many and earned many more) am queen of the changeling race.
I shall show no false modesty for my accomplishments as the ponies doubtless would, for my achievements are rightly great and terrifying. Not only has there never been a changeling queen like me, but there has never been one worthy of the title, any more than a particularly savage timberwolf would be ‘king’ of the Everfree.
Three and six-score years ago, before my first molting, there were no changeling hives. Between the Fecund Circle and the Inner Badlands there were no less than two hundred burrows, the very largest of which could barely support a gross of broodlings. My people lived short lives of desperation, fighting over scraps of food and mouthfuls of nectar, lucky to lure out a single minotaur to feed from their love. As nymphs, my sisters and I subsisted on the thin, flickering love of a mother rat for her pups.
Fifteen years later, I built the first true hive. I had taken a hoof-full of burrows, who could barely stop hating and raiding each other long enough to prevent their slow extinction from inbreeding and starvation, and united them into a clan of sisters who would each give their lives to save two others. We reached sapient societies once more, no longer living in fear of our hosts but blending into them like shadows in the night. The few minotaurs and griffons with the learning to know us and the spite to wish us dead were isolated and returned to the earth.
Thirty years later, there were a dozen hives, and they all called me their queen. We no longer had mere subsistence. We had society. All of our arts flourished, from the delicate cultivation of our myconids to the sweet shell-music of our storytellers. Some sapients even entered our domains willingly, and they fed us their knowledge and their love in return for part in a society that could truly appreciate them, like their own never could.
My people began to worship me as a god, the way the ponies worship their princesses.
I couldn’t help but think the comparison was misplaced.
The Royal Pony Sisters were powerful, true. And for all of their faults, they had done great things for their subjects.
But they came to power over subjects who were already united, who already had roads and guilds and universities. They cultivated Equestria for two millennia to achieve their current state.
I turned my citizens from a feuding mess of starving tribes to a continent-spanning empire in seven decades. The Pony Sisters were powerful beings, but even at their apex, their achievements pale before mine.
It’s strange to think of how things could have gone. If the Royal Wedding had occurred.
Equestria would have been conquered. Celestia and Luna would still have ruled, but as my vassals, ensuring the wellness of their subjects so that their subjects could better serve my subjects. My children would not have been interlopers and infiltrators in Canterlot, Manehattan and Fillydelphia, but nobles and diplomats.
The ponies would have flourished under my rule. Their natural subservience and trust would have been safeguarded by our cunning and our ambition. Their industrial practices and magical knowledge would have been spread around the world, unencumbered by ponies’ fear of the unknown, yet kept safe by our guile. Celestia would not have to play her games of compromise and appeasement with the fattened sons of nobility and the monopolist cartels of the guilds and cities. They respect her, but they would fear me. Between my blades and my spies, they would not be able to greedily hoard their treasure and power away from their fellow citizens. I could have taxed each mare, stallion and foal at a third of their income, and the average pony would still have double the wealth they would have otherwise.
I was so close. Canterlot had been infiltrated at its highest levels. I knew the Crystal Princess and the future Prince Consort of Equestria better than they knew themselves. We had even drilled Cadance’s capture.
And then the Strangest Day happened.
***
It started with the screams.
At the center of Tenthenon Hive, nymphs played in the warm waters of the spawning pools. A shimmer came through the air, and the waters boiled and hissed, turning to acid in an instant. A thousand nymphs screamed in agony as their chitin began to slough off into the waters around them.
Every changeling in the hive ran to the spawning pools, desperate to save them. As they risked their lives and waded into the boiling shallows, they found themselves screaming too. Not in pain — the water was cool under the froth, and the hissing acid was but a tingle. When they lifted their limbs out of the water as they seemingly dissolved in front of them, they found their legs whole and unscathed.
But the water made them scream. It made them cry out in apparent agony. No matter how much they tried to tell the others that the water was fine, that it was a trick, a mere illusion, all they could say was how terrible the pain was and how desperately they needed rescue. Changelings flooded in, and as they tried to rescue the others, they were blocked by more rescuers surging in to help them.
The waters did not kill a single changeling, but the stampede killed ninety-six of suffocation.
Hythacine was one such changeling.
I had known Hythacine since earliest nymphhood. When I slipped into a griffon camp to retrieve my first clutch, she was the only one who dared accompany me.
When I was discovered, and forced to offer my body and my few worldly treasures to survive, she crept in and slew a dozen of them before they had even noticed her presence, saving my children and I.
When we were ambushed by the Shadow-Weaver burrow and a javelin hit my throat, she stayed by my side and licked the blood from my wound so that our companions would not see how close to death I was. Only when she could physically swallow no more did she begin to spit the blood onto the ground. She even snuck into the Shadow-Weaver’s trenches and disguised herself as their broodmother — a taboo which they would have slowly flayed her for violating if she was discovered — so she could risk stealing some love-nectar and bringing it back to me.
When my own brood-mother ordered my execution, Hythacine hid me in her own burrow for sixty days, risking her own life and her family’s lives until we were able to poison the brood-mother and escape. Hythacine was not of my burrow — she was of a burrow ordinarily considered thieves and oath-breakers — but on the day she took me in, I learned the true meaning of family. I would have flayed each of my progenitors a dozen times over to save her once.
Without my Sacred Band of Sisters, the ten naiads, nine drones, three griffons and one minotaur who rode with me from my earliest days in the Outer Badlands, there would never have been a Changeling Nation. I love all of them dearly and could never choose between them, but even among them, Hythacine was one of the closest to me.
She died using her body to shelter three nymphs, none of whom were her own, from the crushing weight of the crowd around them.
I did not have time to mourn her.
***
Within hours my plans of conquest had been abandoned. Not only had the tragedy at Tentheon — and similar events around the other hives — thrown the nation into chaos, but we soon realised we did not even have the worst of it. The Ever-Shifting God, Discord, had appeared, and we were mere bystanders to his wrath.
I never held the pampered ponies in high regard — certainly not compared to the proud, cunning and strong changeling race — but I was still struck by the enormity of the Ever-Shifting God’s actions against them.
Within a week, the moon and sun held the same place in the sky at once, the pony cities were in open revolt, Luna had once more become the Terror In The Dreams, black fire covered Manehattan, and Princess Cadance of the Crystal Empire was dead.
I knew there would be no peace with this new god. I revealed myself to Celestia at the first opportunity, pledging my immediate, full, and unconditional aid.
Would I have reconsidered, had I known how pyrrhic our victory would be?
I truly do not know.
I know in my mind that the path I chose was better than the alternatives, as surely as I know that losing three legs is preferable to losing four.
But if I have learned anything in the months since the Strangest Day, it’s that loss can make you choose what you long for but cannot have, over the barren but possible.
***
We changelings had no words for the tragedy that next befell us, but the donkeys (who have known more than their fair share of tragedy over the ages) did.
They called it a holocaust.
My most elite infiltrators had helped Celestia’s personal agents recover a number of artifacts that could be used against Discord.
By the time that the ponies had made their final breakthrough, Discord had discovered our influence. He had already corrupted the Elements of Harmony — powerful tools of magic that gave the ponies their strength — and out of panic or anger or spite, he meddled with them further.
He altered reality to stop our ability to receive love. He could not block out everything, as our adaptations are many, but when that wave of change flowed through the world, a terrible thing befell my race.
A full fifth of our number died instantly of shock.
Another fifth came down with a severe influenza. The scientists in Canterlot told me later that Discord’s inhibition wave had played havoc with their immune systems and turned the most minor of infections into ones that even the strongest of changelings could not hope to withstand. Of my subjects who fell ill, perhaps one in two dozen survived.
Two-fifths were touched in the mind in some way or another, suffering from delusions and lunacies. Most of them were lucky, and have either recovered or now only suffer from intermittent episodes of madness. Many of them are irrevocably insane, or killed themselves before Discord’s magic could be stopped.
The lucky fifth of our race, including myself, were relatively unharmed. Our only affliction is the guilt of those who live at the expense of others.
***
I held Shining Armor in low esteem before these tragic events. He was strong, disciplined, and driven — for a pony. He still seemed as pampered and naive as the rest of his race. We changelings had grown amongst the wastelands, the burrows, the minotaurs and the griffons. A fighting pony was nothing more than a sheep in wolf’s clothing.
He did not collapse when he found out his love had died. Instead, he went into the chaos maelstrom of central Canterlot and began to rescue ponies. He had dragged forty-four ponies out of the melting streets and into the relative safety of the outer boroughs by the time I saw him. He had been blinded in one eye, his left ear was torn and half hanging off, and he needed magic to support a broken leg.
He put on an eyepatch and crunched his knee back into the socket, and then went back in to save another forty-four ponies before a healer could attend to him.
I saw Hythacine’s grim determination in him that day. Shining Armor was, and is, a pony. Soft and pampered by civilisation. He did not grow up in the Badlands.
But I feel that if he had, he would have fared well.
***
It was some time before I took Cadance’s form. Though taking the form of those that have been lost to comfort the survivors is a sacred duty in changeling society, I knew it was a taboo elsewhere.
It was only when I spied Shining Armor testing the strength of the ceiling beams in his palace bedroom, seeing if they could support a grown pony’s weight, that I intervened.
We talked of love, and loss, and guilt. Of regrets.
He lamented all the things he had wished to say to Cadance, but never had, and now could not.
I took her skin.
I thought he would push me away, at first. I thought he would strike at me, and curse me for insulting him and insulting his love’s memory.
He put his chin on my shoulder and wept.
I had seen him stoic and fearless, unwilling to let his emotions put ponies at risk. I had seen him empty and listless, unwilling to truly contemplate his emotions and risk breaking down.
This time, he bared himself to me completely.
He told me everything. The twenty-three ways he wished he’d told Cadance that he loved her. The names he’d thought up for their future foals. His dreams with her. His most twisted desires. Things he wished he had cooked for her. Places he wished they had visited together.
I had never felt love as pure as he gave me that night.
I held him as his sobbing quietened. He wished to make love to me, but I did not let him. Not in her form, not while he was in this state.
Instead, I took him to a changeling nesting house nearby. There were nymphs there that had survived the flu and the madness, but were still deathly weak from lack of love. I poured his love into them. It was more powerful than I could have predicted. I told my children that the love of the ponies had saved them, and bid them to repay the ponies in kind.
And thus, I showed Shining Armor that even now, Cadance’s love could save lives and mend bitter wounds. And that his love for her memory would keep her good deeds alive.
***
We lay together a week after that. His skill and endurance were impressive, and he only cried a little before asking me to change into my true form afterwards.
For some time, we kept this up. I learned of Cadance the best I could, not only the mannerisms I remembered, but what I could glean from her writings, her friends and her family about her. Her little ‘pet hates’ as the ponies call them. The things that made her coo and sigh. The things that made her moan and lift her tail.
When Shining needed it, I was Cadance again. He never had to lose her. And when the weight of it was too much and crashed down on him, I was there to hold him up.
When he first asked me to keep my green eyes as we made love, I thought it was guilt, that he was forcing himself to keep Cadance and I separate in his mind.
Then he started nuzzling me the same way he did Cadance even when I was in my own form.
Little things began to stay the same, and my two personalities began to blend. As they did, his actions towards me blurred even further. And further.
And further.
Last night, I wept with him as I ate the persimmon.
***
Today, we will visit her grave. It’s tucked away in the palace garden, surrounded by cherry trees and covered in pink spring blossoms. Shining will leave gifts and keepsakes, and talk to her. If it becomes too much for him, I will take her form and comfort him.
Today, I don’t think I will have to.
I think I have learned much about ponykind in the last two years. As fragile as Celestia is now, I know that many things I saw as abject weakness in her were nothing of the sort.
And from what I’ve seen of her protege and the other Element Bearers in the last two years, I see that many things I considered strengths were anything but.
As I have tried to keep my subjects and Celestia’s subjects safe, and somewhat ironically, in harmony as of late, I feel I have learned something of Celestia’s methods. I criticised her for being slow, for being content to let things work themselves out naturally, for not constantly and aggressively pushing herself and her race for betterment.
But as I reflect, perhaps there is a level where pure drive and ambition cannot sustain you forever. In the old days in the Badlands it was simple: we pushed forward because behind us was death and misery. A leader risked everything because there was so little to lose and so much to be gained.
It’s different here, I think.
Here, comforts don’t make you weak.
Sometimes, they are all that keep you going.
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*tears* All my likes. Have them.
I love these little Chrysalis monologues.
Geez that is a dark future. I may have to read what this is based off of. Excellent use of language as always. I seethe with jealously. Plus one!
So, they never stopped Discord?
4254210
I think we can infer that they did. That's why she calls it a pyrrhic victory.
4254210
Probably forgot to stick it in the story. They killed him, permanently.
A most excellent tale.
Good M/M clop? downvote-bombed.
Sad AU dark crap? 0 downvotes. What is this I don't even...
4254723
Well...homophobia is a thing, you know :-\
4254232
In the series I am writing that inspired Chuck's story, Discord was eventually defeated and turned to stone by the Mane 6, at the price of Twilight Sparkle's sanity and morality. Then Spike, fearing what would happen if Discord ever managed to break free again, smashed his statue. So he's dead. But Celestia is a broken emotional wreck, Twilight is cold, calculating and vicious, Fluttershy is a xenophilic rapist, and you don't want to know what Pinkie became. And Luna's dead. So basically the world has gone to utter crap.
My version of Chrysalis, in my series, is as much a villain as everyone else in this crapsack world, which is why Chuck's story is non-canon to my series, but it is awesome and if he'd written it before I'd built up plot points depending on Chrysalis being a villain, I might have changed my mind. :-)
*sniff*
imageshack.com/a/img513/3002/a53.gif
4254723 You do realize that it's probably JUST because it's Flash Sentry, right? Everyone hates him. He appeared in an episode for 2 seconds, with no lines, and no acknowledgement from Twilight, and everyone threw a shit fit. They just fucking hate the guy who's stealing their waifu. That's all.
4257046 I think they Flash and Twily looked cute together. I'm also gay.
4257509 Congratulations?
4255296 So basically it was yet another world where Discord is simply a god-mode villain in the vein of Darkseid rather than being anything like a chaos spirit.
I should think Mr. Myxlplyx and Discord are very similar entities.
He cannot be evil, because that implies a GOAL. Chaos must never have a set goal, because goals require PLANS, and plans require ORDER.
The moment a Discord in any world begins to plot and scheme, their power wanes dramatically and I can easily slip in and destroy them like the all-powerful god-mode white knight that I am!
4254232 Somehow, I think breaking Discord's statue wouldn't do a damned thing to a being of CHAOS. If anything, the resulting mess would simply set him free again.
People need to think about what it means to be an avatar of chaos.
4260726
Oh no, you misunderstand.
Firstly, Discord does have plans... zillions of them, because most of them fail. That's how he gets around the "chaos cannot have a plan" thing. Actually chaos can have a plan, as long as chaos has a lot of plans and is prepared to see most of them fail. (His biggest mistake in Return of Harmony was not having enough plans.) This tends to make him look like he's some kind of master planner when he's not, because you don't know about the plans he had that failed; only the ones that worked tend to be the ones the ponies find out about. It's less that he has contingencies and backups and more like he's too manic and ADD to stick to having just one plan. Also he flies by the seat of his pants, a lot, and makes up new plans on the fly. He does this whether he's being "good" or "evil" by our standards, because that's how chaos works.
Secondly, Discord wasn't muahaha master-planner evil in the backstory here. He managed to figure out that the Elements of Harmony were no longer discorded about 45 seconds before his canonical counterpart did, dodged it, and managed to come up with a way to corrupt the Elements themselves by merging all of them but Magic with their opposite principles. This prevented the group from harmonizing... not because they're not friends anymore (although to a certain extent they're not) but because Magic was out of sync. He then turned Luna back into Nightmare Moon so he could get some epic three-way fights going between himself, Luna and Celestia. Most of what he did during this time was more on the order of gleeful malicious trolling... the bad things that happened were largely side effects of his actions, not anything he directly did (Celestia killed Nightmare Moon, for example. This more or less broke Celestia... but it was never a plan of Discord's to have Celestia or Luna actually die.)
Since the point of the series is that canonical, semi-reformed, trickster spirit Discord went to this universe because he wanted to make it rain fish in Canterlot without Fluttershy finding out, so he went to a cognate universe where his counterpart was dead, and it turned out to be a really really really bad move on his part and landed him in a hellish situation... one of the things I'm doing with it is that canonical Discord and the alternate Discord are not that different. All the other characters are different because the alternate Discord made them that way or they became that way in response to his actions; Discord is the only one whose different choices drove the whole thing, and "our" Discord has to deal with the fact that what he most likely would have done if he had caught on to the Mane 6 being de-grayed in time would have been exactly the same thing. I'm basically hitting him over the head with "unrestrained chaos and disharmony have results that even you won't like".
And you hardly need to fantasize about trying to god-mode the story to defeat alternate Discord, because he's already dead. :-) Betrayed by the one being he had started to care about in a twisted way, turned to stone, and then killed by a baby dragon with a weapon designed to destroy gods.
4260729
Thought of that. It wasn't an ordinary sledgehammer; it was a weapon referred to as the Hammer of Celestia, with the legendary properties of being able to destroy gods. (I actually more or less ripped off the "Spike kills Discord" part of the plot from TheDescendant's "Variables", except that, since that story is based on canon, Spike doesn't go through with it, whereas in my story he does.) Our Discord establishes in the story that the weapon doesn't exist in our universe (he says he sent it to another dimension, and sort of implies it became Excalibur). And the result of the chaos avatar's death was fairly negative, in unexpected ways, something the alternate Twilight is trying to correct.
You're correct, destroying Discord's statue with an ordinary weapon would simply release him... or, if it didn't, it wouldn't kill him. His consciousness would be able to move freely between any of the individual bits of rubble, and if any part of him got free all of him would. You'd need a weapon that destroys gods. In the alternate universe, they had one lying around.
4261054 I read the story; I forgot it was a McGuffin. By the way, did you ever get around to explaining how Celestia and Luna beat him the first time if he was a Joker-like psychopath with god powers instead of just a trickster with a bit of a mean streak?
Cuz, really, they would never have gotten the chance. He'd have corrupted or killed them.
I take issue with all the grimdark Discords for that reason. The Sisters would have never won against him, not without their characters also being grimmer and more violent, which would likely have resulted in their society being grimmer and more violent, which would mean they'd have put up a better defense against invasions, meaning the changelings would have had to drastically up their game to sneak in...
Cause and effect... change a little detail, and it has the potential to change the future. Change a BIG detail, and the future may be unrecognizable.
4261080
I agree. Which is why I *don't* tend to buy into grimdark Discords. Momentary episodes of violent temper tantrums, maybe, but for the most part, Discord doesn't kill because breaking his toys will mean he hasn't got them to play with later, and death isn't fun. But I do think that thoughtless, selfish, trolling-ponies-for-lulz Discord could more or less accidentally create a grimdark world by pushing the wrong button. Hell, Twilight could accidentally create a grimdark world with some of the stunts she's pulled, and she's much more thoughtful and less malicious than Discord.
The point I was trying to make is that in neither universe was Discord ever a Joker-level psychopath (though alternate Discord accidentally turned Pinkie into one). He does things because they amuse him at the time and he does not think through the possible consequences. Turning Luna into Nightmare Moon was just supposed to create a lot of entertaining conflict. It wasn't supposed to result in either Luna or Celestia dying. Not that Discord would ever have apologized, or admitted that that was a consequence he'd never wanted, but actually it probably bothered him a lot that it went down that way.
Chuck's story is filtered through Chrysalis' perceptions, and most of the truly, intentionally malicious things he has Discord having done happened after there had been fighting for some time and Discord was feeling genuinely threatened. Discord didn't really make any Changelings melt; he just made them think they were melting, causing a stampede that accidentally killed a number of them. The thing that killed a whole lot of them happened later, probably after Chrysalis had come fairly close to killing him more than once. So there's no need to explain how the pony princesses ever defeated grimdark Discord; there was no grimdark Discord. There was thoughtless Discord who didn't consider the possible consequences of his amusement, and then pretended he meant it that way when things went wrong and ponies died, because admitting that it bothered him would be admitting to weakness. And there was panicked, angry Discord who had faced a couple of nearly successful attempts at destroying him and was seriously pissed off about it. That's all.
You monster. You make me feel for this AU Chrysalis and her relationship with a forlorn Shining. The idea that she is one spot of goodness in this grim world, that her children are a sort of sister's of mercy for all those who suffer loss, it is a beautiful, evocative image.
4261134
One author I particularly like had Discord comment on a war torn Equestria that "Nothing is more boring than a dead pony." I think most authors of grimdark Discords forget that simple fact.
In TD's Variables Spike spared Discord, refusing to change himself, but here he doesn't face the same limitations of his friend's love.
The last thing I need right now is to start yet another epic ponyfic. My interests at the moment are mostly smaller stories, but you have convinced me that I should check yours out.
Now this is a bit of character exploration I very much enjoy. In particular I fond you're interpretations of Chrysalis's plans for conquering Equestria a lot more sensible then the usual with people so often passing her off as a manic despot then a more calculated ruler. Also, well done on making a believable Shining/Chrysalis ship. It's not quite rare in of itself but it certainly is rarely done well. All in all very much enjoyed and I'm glad to be able to add it to a few groups I scarcely see activity out of. It's a setting I wouldn't mind seeing more of.
Nicely done, I take my hat off to you.
Fascinating.... absolutely fascinating...
4261134
First off, I really appreciate the feedback. You're one of my favorite authors on a whole site full of favorite authors, you did it in less than two fics, and I'm waiting so hard for the next EoO chapter so hard I'm physically vibrating.
I'm ashamed to say I didn't pick up on the 'two discords not so different' aspect when I wrote the story, and only arrived there as a lucky coincidence. I had thought Opposition Discord was a bit like Kid Miracleman — a terrifying example of what a near-omnipotent being can do as soon as they get a bit of spite in their head.
I've got a random question — you mentioned that Discord escaped death simply by using his powers to revive himself, even after he was technically dead. Can he do this to other ponies?
4272755
A lot of the stuff about Chysalis is based on another misunderstood conqueror — Temujin, or Genghis Khan as we would call him. Temujin also had a lieutenant who sucked the blood from one of his wounds, swallowing it so that his comrades wouldn't see how wounded he was, and so that he didn't dishonor the earth by spilling blood onto it. Before Temujin united the tribes of the steppes, they were literally beneath the notice of the civilised world. He then defeated the greatest militaries in the world with less soldiers than it takes to fill a large football stadium.
And in the same way, my Chrysalis was a tyrant in the same way Temujin was a tyrant — Temujin took over peoples by force, massacred cities who tried to rise up against them after surrendering, took slaves and wives/sex slaves (a distinction that gets blurry because as mongol wives, women and their daughters certainly had more rights than they did under the chinese or the Islamic states at the time). But at the same time, Temujin was much less of a bastard than everyone else at the time. Women were allowed to rule and didn't have their feet bound. Mass rapes and torture were forbidden. Although the cities he subjugated had to tithe, they'd already had to tithe to whatever warlord had owned them before. He didn't force everyone to convert to a new language or religion, he changed the crazed mishmash of caravan trails run by mortal enemies running from europe to china into a single line, and revolutionised trade. It still sucked to be conquered, just not as much as it did to be conquered by anyone else.
Same with Chrysalis. Still neutral-evil in the Loki/Walter White sense, just not as chaotic evil as we'd think. Definitely not Eakin's Chrysalis, who is a far scarier villain just as Tamerlane was far scarier than Genghis Khan, even if Tamerlane's empire was tiny in comparison.
4278548
Yes, but there's a hefty price for it.
In my main universe (the one that Elements of Opposition, Last Draconequus, and most of my other fics are set in), there are rules regarding death. Some can be broken with magic and some cannot. The land of the dead is a realm of extreme chaos and disharmony, at least in the area where the dead have initially entered -- there is a constant, steady influx of confused or unhappy sentient beings who have just died, so even after a given individual has gone on to their rest or whatever lies beyond the initial stages of death, and thus becomes calm, the "lobby" of death, the initial intake stage as it were, is an area where hardly any of the beings there are happy about being there, understand what's going on, or are feeling particularly peaceful about their situation. Thus, the initial intake of the land of the dead -- the pre-judgement area, if you want to think of it that way, though this isn't a Christian universe so we're not talking about judgement like "go to heaven or go to hell" -- is hyper-concentrated with the kind of energy Discord's magic feeds on. This means that when Discord dies, he can generally replenish his magic. Most beings who die lose all their magic and have no means of drawing more. (Even being a chaos mage wouldn't usually help because an ordinary chaos mage, as opposed to a chaos avatar, simply doesn't have enough magic to come back from the dead in the first place. Discord has a lot more magic than other beings, as well as the ability to replenish it after he dies.)
So Discord can return himself to life, when almost no one else can. But the rule he cannot break is that the power of the living cannot reach into the land of the dead. Generally speaking, if a living being wishes to resurrect the dead, they must kill someone else in order to open the gate so that their magic can enter. Otherwise, they can raise a body but it won't be inhabited by the previous occupant; it will probably end up occupied by some unquiet spirit who never entered the land of the dead. and even necromancers who are willing to sacrifice the living to resurrect the dead have an issue; it is hard to summon back the correct dead being. Opening the gate doesn't mean that the person you are trying to restore is metaphysically "near" the gate; it depends on how recently they died and how far they have progressed in their acceptance of their own death, and it's almost impossible to summon someone specific back unless you have a strong tie to them emotionally, and it's impossible to do it if the dead person has fully accepted their death and passed on entirely beyond the vestibule. So while unicorn necromancers have been known to raise the dead, they can only raise the recently dead, that they love or that someone involved in the ritual loves (or was loved by the dead), and they must kill someone to activate the ritual. (The rule about "recency" is very, very flexible because it depends entirely on the spirit's acceptance of their own death and how quickly they have moved on; many powerful pony mages who desperately wanted to believe their loved ones would never have chosen to accept death and leave them behind have initiated such rituals, only to discover that the one they loved simply isn't there anymore... which usually has very bad results, because when you have an empty available body and the gate to the land of the dead open and no specific entity to call back into the body, you get anyone who was determined enough to force their way back to life.)
Discord can get around most of that if he's willing to pay the price and take the risk. He has, in fact, resurrected the dead before. His method is much more certain than any necromancer's and does not require the death of any uninvolved party. But it's extremely dangerous, for him. Because the way he would bring back a dead pony, or any other being, is he'd die, go get them, and bring them back with him. Except that firstly it takes more magic to bring back another soul with him than to just bring himself back, and secondly, he has to trust that he'll be able to replenish the magic he loses upon dying with the chaos caused by the newly dead's emotional states fast enough that he won't forget that he's trying to come back before he has enough magic to do it; there's a Lethe effect at play, and as the dead accept that they are dead they lose interest in returning. The longer Discord stays in the realm of the dead the greater the odds are that he's not going to be able to make it back, or want to. So for obvious reasons there are very, very, very few ponies Discord would ever be willing to use his powers to resurrect. :-)
The time limit affects him too -- he can't bring back a pony who has accepted their own death and moved on, because they won't be there for him to retrieve. So he's much more likely to be able to resurrect a pony who died by violence or with regrets than a pony who died peacefully in old age. And he can't do any of this if his magic is sealed by the Elements. So the Discord who was killed in the alternate universe cannot bring himself back, and since Discord is currently himself sealed under the Elements' power, he wouldn't be able to bring himself back if he died.
4278703
That all makes a ton of sense. Thanks!
...I hope I haven't inadvertantly spoilered EoO. Again...
4278760
Naah, most of this stuff doesn't apply to EoO. I created it for a different story that I haven't written yet.
Definately deserves the 0 dislikes
4278629 Either way it's an interesting basis, one I very much enjoy. Though I do fear that if her plans for conquest went through she would find herself having to make a lot more examples out of those who resist, not getting the smooth take over she imagines.
Personally though I enjoy giving a bit more civilisation to the Changelings when world building, one built on the successful ideas of others they've seen around them and stealing technology from every race they've infiltrated. I got this odd idea in my head that they would take over and renovate abandoned settlements and to a limited extent follow the culture of the ones who lived there out of quirk of habit.
4260726
But don't you see? You've broken your own argument. By stating Chaos can never have a goal you have set a rule for chaos to follow and thus, give it an Order.
The problem is you people are mistaking the meaning of Chaos. It's not without it's plots as order is not without suffering, Nor is it the opposite of normal and thoughtless insanity.
It is disorder and confusion, and these things can be wrought in many ways
4320553 But if he follows through with a plan that is also order!
Perhaps he could make plans, then forget about them, then start to enact the plan... then act contrary to the plan... then make a new plan..
Basically, true chaos gets one nowhere.
4278703 Ah, this means a human from our world entering Equestria could be raised from the dead endlessly so long as their neurons haven't completely depolarized.
Just repair the physical damage and given the body a jumpstart!
We would totally screw up that version of Equestria so badly with our weirdo physics.
4322308
If we had the ability to forcibly regenerate a human being's physical damage within minutes, we could do the same thing. In one of my original novels I have a character who actually has the power to do just that... since neurons depolarize pretty fast, her window of time tends to be an hour or less, but as long as the person she's trying to raise has ATP in their cells (ie, it would be hard to save a starvation victim or someone who died of exhaustion), she can bring them back from the dead within 20 minutes reliably and at times as long as an hour and a half. At one point she saves a baby that has been dead for 8 hours, though it is possibly arguable as to what extent it was the same baby, given the degree of neurological damage she'd have had to repair.
Of course, that's assuming that the physics of Equestria doesn't alter the nature of a human who enters it. Humans in Equestria might actually have souls, the same as all the other sentient beings there. In which case the rules would be the same for them.
4322296
I think this is actually somewhat close to how Discord operates.
Discord does not and cannot represent pure chaos because pure chaos is antithetical to sentience; sentient minds exist at all to create order out of chaos, so a sentient being who represents pure chaos is impossible. Discord is more of a fairly heavy weight on the scale to tip the balance toward chaos, so yes, he's going to do some things that don't entirely fit with the whole theme of chaos (inventing a game that has rules, for one thing? Rules, shmules! Chaos don't need no stinkin' rules! Admittedly, he did cheat at it.) But to the extent that being a sentient being who has a consistent personality and is actually capable of accomplishing something occasionally allows, Discord is probably extremely disorganized, would lose everything he owned if he actually owned anything and didn't just make what he needed out of magic when he needs it, and for the most part probably doesn't have goals except "entertain myself". When he has a plan, it's going to go something like this:
1. Start a certain activity.
2. ???
3. Chaos!
where he fills in ??? on the fly as he goes. He's smart enough to make it look like he planned things, and he actually can carry through a plan if he can get all the activities to perform it done within a few days before he forgets and gets distracted by something else, but working with him as an ally would be a nightmare because he would perpetually forget what it was you told him to do, or decide he had a better idea anyway.
4322343 I shall now use your comment as proof that Discord is not pure chaos to oppose all those who make him out to be the penultimate arbiter of chaos and entropy.
They don't like to listen to me, even though I try to explain the exact same thing. Maybe because I insult their moms and stuff.
4322325 >>>Of course, that's assuming that the physics of Equestria doesn't alter the nature of a human who enters it. Humans in Equestria might actually have souls>>>
That would be quite an alteration... that's inducing a completely alien set of natural rules upon a being structured entirely differently at all fundamental levels.
I think either the human would just die or the universe would asplode locally or something.
4322372
I don't even think he represents entropy at all. Entropy is an inevitable side effect of some of his shit, but entropy and chaos aren't synonyms; entropy has as much to do with energy transfer and loss as it does with disorder.
The avatar of Entropy would be... not fun to deal with. Alex Warlorn's was pretty good, but personally, I imagine something like a tornado that sucks in reality and blends it into an incomprehensible mush.
4322343 >>>He's smart enough to make it look like he planned things, and he actually can carry through a plan if he can get all the activities to perform it done within a few days before he forgets and gets distracted by something else, but working with him as an ally would be a nightmare because he would perpetually forget what it was you told him to do, or decide he had a better idea anyway.>>>
This is exactly how I think of him. He's basically a flippant, powerful troll, completely irresponsible.
It's why I object to the 'grimdark Discords' who have these ultimate plans they never waver from for thousands of years and goals that are overly obsessive in nature.
Those characters are Discord in name and appearance, but no more are they Discord than is every human named 'John' the same person.
4322380 >>>I don't even think he represents entropy at all. Entropy is an inevitable side effect of some of his shit, but entropy and chaos aren't synonyms; entropy has as much to do with energy transfer and loss as it does with disorder.>>>
*tears of joy* FINALLY!! Someone else who understands that!
I had to do a massive dissertation on one fic to get people to grasp that!
Entropy results in the lowest possible energy state at the end, which ends up being a very even distribution of emptiness with no more energy available for work.
Though for most of time, it leads to a more disordered system, at the very end, the smooth, featureless frigid emptiness of a Big Freeze is unchanging and paradoxically very orderly.
Perhaps an interesting function of Discord might be that he continually adds new energy to their microverse, preventing it from every reaching equilibrium. He'd essentially be a constant, small-scale Big Bang, spewing chaos to keep the system in motion.
It makes him a fundamentally important part of their world, a natural chaotic neutral in his initial state.
4322296 You've completely missed my meaning, what your talking about isn't chaos, chaos is the outcome of disorder and confusion. Plans must exist to go awry, without order there is no chaos, no matter how orderly the plan no matter how many steps are needed if the outcome causes strife it is Chaos
4322296 On the other hand if we want to subject Discord to YOUR (completly
incorrect) interpretation of Chaos, Since you believe chaos cannot have order even thought the yin yang symbol represents how chaos and order flow together chaos containing order and order contain chaos encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQaJA5GKRScXydZ6C8vJayrXZYdg0CGkP1u1CauMscq4gbUVvYGRqN3QA lets just forget all that and say:
"Chaos can have no order" well since we've given it a rule it now has a order it must follow.
If it doesn't then it's not chaos and if it doesn't then it's again not following your definition of chaos.
Therefore your interpretation of chaos is that it is a paradox, something that cannot, but does, exist meaning that even thought you say he's using order he's also not, At the Same Time. so Grimdark Discords are perfectly viable. If not then your saying that there is a rule to discord and in your own logic that can not be. Discord is an existing paradox, and he is "true chaos"
4323296 Yin and yang? Why does everyone automatically assume that ancient Asian philosophy knows everything?
For crying out loud, some of em thought the Earth was on the back of a giant turtle!
And that mercury was good for you!
And besides, true chaos doesn't have order. That's more an observation than a law. It simply is a state of its being. The same is of the 'laws' of the universe. They are not imposed by those who discover them; they are simply the measured properties that naturally exist.
People may talk about the probabilities of 'orderly' things, like a car, spontaneously forming from a sea of particles, but the reality is that those probabilities speak more of the unlikeliness of such a thing occuring. Absolute chaos is even less than particles, which possess their own order and rules. From absolute chaos, there is no order. The probability of order arising from absolute chaos is nil.
It is the same as the probability of light spontaneously emerging in a void.
Our universe, even at its most chaotic, possessed fundamental quantum laws that governed how energies, forces, and particles interacted. There was never a time when a template didn't exist, unless it was at the moment before expansion; a moment we can never see.
But, this is the real world, and absolute infinities do not exist in the real world.
Neither absolute chaos nor absolute order can ever exist.
At least, we should hope they don't.
Speculating about them is constrained to fiction and philosophy, so far as we know.
4323794
Because I'm everyone and I'm talking purely about ancient Chinese philosophy
If chaos had laws that can be tracked to it's conception then true chaos has order
Yes they can, too ignorant it is to dismiss something because one cannot prove it, the real world you're talking about is merely your interpretation.I'll count my chickens after they hatch thank you.
hope indeed because the outcome would be horrifying
Seeing as there is nothing to be done about proof I'm going to take leave of this topic until the time comes we can continue on it.
So if in the case of an afterlife lets find study there together.
Also since we've flown way off topic... Grimdarkdiscords in fan-fiction don't so much not work as discord from cannon has plans he makes, never refers to himself as a made of chaos(only a self proclaimed king), and we've ever seen him, what i would call, enraged. Again we don't know if he'd be complete against killing or if he'd make examples out of those who would anger him enough.
But i do like a discord more like the shows, rather than "Death to all who oppose me!" and I'm starting to get annoyed with baaaaad forth wall breaking
4323870 Well, we can assume a few things.
If either absolute existed in our universe, we wouldn't be here to talk about it.
In any case, fictional entities that are 'concepts' in nature are rather dull when taken as absolutes. It robs them of having a personality, since their aspect is all they can be.
As such, they can never be 'perfect' to their aspect, and thus they always have a weakness to play upon.
The generalists tend to have the most advantages in the real world. Just look at humans, rats, ants, bacteria... all those species which can survive on almost anything, almost anywhere. Adaptability is paramount!
4324268
4323870 It's like two people argueing the description of a man they've never seen and not even in the same context
Took me a while to get around to this one, but wow, worth the wait.
4436706
Glad you liked it. Of all my stories, this was one of the fastest to write. I'm surprised how (relatively) well it turned out.
i liked this one a lot as a AU this was really well done! and i have to say i liked how chrysalis and shining got together
but anyway i hope to see more of this with your stories, though hopfully not as sad lol