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This story is a sequel to For the Hive
A few months after the events of Queen Twilight Sparkle's reveal that she and her hive can produce love, the changeling hives find themselves in an arms race. As Aegis Altair watches over her queens haggling with the minotaur emperor, she finds something that just might give Phoenix's Roost the edge it needs to come out on top.
This is a short interlude before hive book 3.
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... so she's going anthro?
Anthropomorphic conversion? That would be something. Changelings adapted to walk on 2 legs.
Faved and thumbed up without even reading yet. Strangely, I did not get a sequel post update in my feed for this. Time to dig in.
Error:
Tittered. Three t's in that synonym for giggling.
Also, my speculation leans towards a multitude of possible configurations being developed. Bipedal is one possibility, tauric would be another. A third possibility remains for a variable configuration wherein a ling could have specialized joints and locks in certain bones allowing them to assume a bipedal stance as needed but also able to shift into a quadrupedal one on the fly.
This should be good.
You continue to do a good job with world-building, from the description of the minotaur capital, to their culture; everything feels very fleshed-out and cohesive. I like the little touches, like how more often than not, they'd prefer maces to swords, or that they'd be more fearful of disease than others. And nice Roman vibe as well. Overall, it kinda made me think of Klingons, but with enough differences to make them seem more than just a cultural carbon-copy. Keep up the good work.
Oh, and nice to see what's going on with Aegis personally, as well as for the hive in general, particularly with its relations with other countries. Definitely smells like a good amount here is setting the stage for future developments. Can't wait to see what happens from here.
Still not read the end of the second story but I'm just going to like and fav because I know its going to be awesome anyway.
PS: just a question any news on that Rainbow dash spin off you mentioned in a previous blog/chapter?
Haven't gotten around to reading the actual story just yet --- however I found myself quite a bit befuddled when this popped up in the sidebar without being notified about it in my feed.
Since this is marked as a sequel to "For the Hive", which I did indeed subscribe to, this troubles me as it may indicate a possible site-bug.
Or perhaps a mishap on part of the author, entering the sequel ID only after release of the story has been known not to notify readers...
That pic is little hmm low quality? Its looks just bad i though for nearly half story that it would be some kind of parody even when i saw tags.
Not sure if that sex tag is even needed.
Overall i would see this as another chapter just than outside oneshot but who cares still good piece of wordwork (you know like artwork)
Really good intro to the next book - however impatient I am for it. I can't wait for the sphinxes to walk in, accidentally step on said powder keg, and blow it up in their faces.
I do believe I like the direction this is going in. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
i.imgur.com/bctDV8f.gif
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WHY THE F*CK CAN'T I FIND- *takes a deep breath and lets it out*
Must have cute to calm down.
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That's better.
Yes. Much Happy.
I can't... I just can't get into the notion that Twilight is actually a changeling. It just doesn't work for me. So much retconning has to be done to make it work. It's like why I gave up on most superhero comics in the 90's.
5151133 This series kind of splits off from the main canon shortly after The Royal Wedding in "Of the Hive". It's actually a pretty good read.
5151171 I read a bit of it, and it suffers from the initial issues that kill most 'X Pony is a Changeling' fics... the conversion angle really doesn't work for me at all. It's too cheap and easy, and really doesn't make sense if you really think about how the changelings work.
The 'X Pony was ALWAYS a Changeling' trope actually makes more sense by comparison... when done well.
Those sorts of stories work better if you assume the pony in question already knew it was a changeling, was either a defector or from another hive, and/or was merely taking steps to avoid detection until the wedding. Then make the needed deviations from the canon to accomodate this altered background plausibly.
A certain Applejack-changeling Queen story did this convincingly with AJ being a bugpony princess adopted by the Apple family, who kept the truth a secret to protect her from prejudice and her dangerous relatives.
BUT THEY DONT HAVE HANDS
...
theiron-fist.net/eqdkpplus/plugins/bosssuite/games/WoW/images/bosses/big/chogall.gif
This guy? o_O
So... anthro. That's going to be interesting if it does happen.
5151451 i tought of him when i heard the name
...now I'm envisioning Aegis with fingers, Blackjack style.
Anthro anyone?
5151296
Magic
5151831 Maybe... Minos hybrids
YES the next book! Off to read chapter one.
Wait wait, I don't understand. The cover.
It's twilight right? Her changelings are purple and ageis has that weapon that I'm not sure what looks like so I'm uncertain.
If it is Twilight then what's up with the weapon?
And why timber wolves?
I don't understand!!!
5152361 Nope
Just an interlude.
A short part between book 2 and 3 introducing a major plot point.
book 3 will probably be a timeskip a while after that.
5152526 5150600
That's Aegis on the cover art. (Artist either forgot the glowing eyes, or wanted to depict her a royal ling) The piece was created midway through For the Hive by a different artist than usual, so the only real thing that this pic fits with the story is that the protagonist is on it.
As for the sex tag, I felt it was better safe than sorry for such a short story.
5151133
At least you're one of the people who gives a reason to down thumb, so i'll give you credit for that. Judging from your OtH comment, Twilight only suffers temporary amnesia that returns to her over the first book. Her actions during that time was my interpretation of keeping her core personality constructs intact, but without the memories to go with it.
The reasons the memories are temporarily lost to begin with is answered later. I picked this method of Ling-Twilight simply because the troupe you mentioned feels badly overused.
However, it seems to me that the story simply won't mesh with your views or personal headcanon, so I'm not going to argue. Hope you enjoy some other fics out there, there's plenty to choose from.
5152596
Oh.
5151210
How exactly do you think that the Ling-i-fication here is cheap and doesn't seem to work well?
I'm not trying to say that you're wrong, but I am just a bit confused. Personally I found it to be a pretty good way of doing it, as it made quite a bit of sense. Nor is it really easy or cheap, as it is something that takes a long time and isn't necessarily easy.
It's... yeah. I don't quite know why you would think that. Can you elaborate?
Edit:
Also, you say that "doesn't make sense when you think about how a changeling works." There's very little we know about changelings, and all we know is from Chrysalis' brood. I don't really think that argument counts. The Lings are pretty much a faceless thing with a huge "Insert Headcanon" sign on them... That might have sounded a bit antagonistic. Sorry 'bout that. Just wanted to point it out.
I smell anthro-lings on the horizon, that our it's minotaur steak.
TWILIGHT HAS A SCORCHER FLAMETHROWER FROM GEARS OF WAR!
Minotaurs are awesome. So are flamethrowers.
5153037 From a simple biological standpoint, one tends not to reproduce by physiologically altering your prey's structure into yourself. Even taking magic into account, unless you just throw away any principles of energy requirements and the sheer complexity of the task, it's completely unfeasible.
Magical transformations work best in fairy tales, where plausibility takes a back seat to forcing the wicked Queen to dance in red hot iron shoes until she dies, or getting the Beast to fall in love with Beauty, or harpooning Ursula the sea witch.
Intrinsically, it's not a viable method of reproduction. And, it almost always (in these sorts of stories) includes the head-scratching caveat that the transformation is irreversible (something I've seen annoys other readers among the various changeling fics which emply pony transformations as reproduction)... which makes even less sense given that magical transformations almost innately imply reversibility... since they're magic and all.
5153477 Converting Twilight was a ridiculously expensive procedure, and not the standard reproductive cycle at all.
The second book also has a long sequence where the ponies are going to use magic to change her back. So it's not 'irreversible' so much as 'pretty hard to reverse and by the time you get the option you don't want it anymore'. Which *is* kind of creepy.
5153477
But that's the thing, it's not really cheap. I think it was something like 300 years worth of "Love" that was required in those 2-3 months Twilight was in the chrysalis. That's not to mention that they don't reproduce by turning Ponies, but by laying eggs. Turning a pony is something that, as far as I could understand, is very rarely done, if not at all in Cadista's case.
I will be honest, I think you're grasping a little at straws for things to dislike about the story, as what you have mentioned are covered. If you don't like it, that's fine, not going to judge you. That's all :)
Oh, and on a side note: We know it's irreversible using the Changelings' alchemy, but it's possible that it can actually be reversed using pony technology/magic, but it just hasn't been discovered yet. The way I see it, they can't change it back because the Changelings have never had to, so they never tried to find out how, nor have the ponies had to. It's not so much a case of it not being possible, but simply not having been discovered yet, I think.
5154203
In his defense, I asked why he didn't think it made sense.
5154183 Scorcher flamethrower.
5154912 Also near the end of For the Hive we see Twilight with a white streak through her hair that the older drones dont have but the newer ones do
"cloying"
5153477
5154774
Here's why I have trouble reading too much of this story in one go: Twilight's hive is a Gary Stu.
Yes, I said it.
In a story where I expected Twilight to spend a lot of time trying to overcome being no longer a pony, how drastically that affects her life and those of everypony she's ever known, we instead get an almost immediate resolution to that problem and with no real kickback from anypony that matters to Twilight. (I understand that her acceptance was fueled by Cadista's assistance, but everypony else's...?)
We have a "reclusive backwater" changeling city with drastically higher technology than Equestria, better infrastructure (reclusive backwaters don't have the infrastructure to develop tech faster than others - this is also one of the big sticking points people have with "The Thousand Year Change"), a more efficient society on the personal level, and a leader who is just as compassionate as the princesses. These changelings can breed dozens of times faster than ponies, and with many times the children in one go, resulting in orders of magnitude more offspring than anyone else on the world is capable of. The offspring can be tailor made to new specifications with relatively little effort (see also: Twilight's children - not sure the effort put in by other hives). Now, thanks to Twilight, we have changeling hybrids that don't need to worry about hunting for love (a changeling's main weakness), Twilight's main ship is powered by "fake" Pegasus magic, and there's the changeling hybrid Twilight bred in months to have Earth pony magic. And Rainbow's transformation shows just how easily such things can be done now that Twilight's in charge (contrary to how difficult Twilight's transformation was).
Within a short span of time, and with relatively little effort, the changelings are getting pretty much everything they could ever have desired. The only thing that keeps them from dominating the world is some weird desire to not be seen by anyone.
I expect within a couple decades Twilight will rule the world through happenstance and the accumulated ability of her subjects. She could do it even faster if she tried.
But other than changelings being far superior to everyone else in the story, it's a really good story.
5155261
You have a valid argument, but there's one major downside that you haven't taken into consideration that is often mentioned: Food. The changelings don't just need love, but also physical food. As mentioned several times, Cadista and Twilight's hives are far smaller than the others' simply because they require so much more sustenance, protein, etc to function thanks to their higher brain power and individuality.
They can't just breed as fast as they want to because they don't have the means to feed all of the hive. That is also adressed in this story (albeit a bit off-handedly) when Aegis mentions that they "simply don't have the ling-power to do it themselves" in regards to the sewer system they offer the minotaurs.
I don't want to go into a full blown analysis, but I can at least say this: Yes, Twilight and Cadista's hives have some gary stu/mary sue elements, but there are also quite a few downsides which prevents them from being actual/full blown mary/gary stu(e).
Edit:
That's not to mention that what a Mary Sue is, is a character that is never challenged, which they have been numerous times already, and it just keeps going, despite how easy it may initially seems.
5155389
A Gary Stu/Mary Sue isn't a character that hasn't been challenged. It's a character that overcomes every challenge far too easily - the story bends to accommodate them. So far Cadista's/Twilight's Hives have been that.
Twilight even fantasizes about the numbers of children she could have within a handful of decades, so the issue of manpower is only momentary. Nothing so far tells me that Twilight won't be able to overcome the protein problem - especially since they have the ability to genetically engineer better food sources as soon as they think to try doing it. It has taken Twilight less than 5 years to wipe away every inherent drawback changelings have, improve the pertinent extant changeling capabilities, and match nearly everything ponies can do. All the while inheriting better tech than anyone else on the planet has.
The localized conflicts are well-written, but the greater background conflicts just aren't there because they get solved right away.
5155498
The same as what I said, if phrased a bit different, but anyway. As I said, you have some good points but I don't think that they overcome their challenges too quickly. I think that their challenges are suitably... challenging.
Anywho, I guess it's a matter of perspective and what you view as "too easy." I won't clutter the comment section with any more debates. At the very least, thanks for keeping it civil
5155498
Manpower and will always been an issue for Twilight's hive. assuming a life expectancy of 80 years and with both Twilight and RD at full egg production, the hive could just barely reach 0.7 million (which is well under North Dakota's pop as of 2013)
By contrast, Equestria probably has a population in excess of 80 million alone. (assuming Equestria is roughly the size of Europe or the Continental US. Given the ponys' average level of technology I took pop. figures from 1500s Europe.)
That's a core problem changelings have that I don't think many people realize. sure it looks like they have strong population growth at first with a single queen laying a dozen a day (now 24 with RD), but that's the max they can do. Mammals by contrast can populate exponentially higher and faster. Just look at our own population for proof of that. True they can just make more queens, but even if every hive uses Phoenix Roost's 2 queen system, they would need 57 hives to reach Equestria's current population.
The only real reason I haven't gone into the other major problems Twi's hive struggles with is because I felt going too deeply into it would have distracted from Twi's quest in book 2. There was only so much I could add in without dragging the word count too high, which compared to book 1, I overshot the mark by far.
I will say this about PR's scientific progress is problematic in 2 big ways: overengineering to the point of mad scientist levels at times, and Twilight tends to let the hive become too top heavy. Too many thinkers, not enough janitors.
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Here it is, two gallons of A1
While normally I'd be against most Anthro fics. I'd so be for this serie's Anthro's.I really think Best Queen is onto something.