Very Quick Overview of Changeling Caste System · 5:41pm Mar 6th, 2016
Among my Changelings, the Royals (Queen and Princesses) are fertile, the other castes are not. The Queen can bear members of all castes including Royals, but Princesses can only bear members of non-Royal castes. There are also the possibilities of ultra-high-caste male Royals ("Kings" and "Princes") but they are much less common: most Hives don't have any.
Two Queens can't tolerate one another -- in the Age of Hiding, they would kill one another on scent, but after the advent of the High Queen Kindness, Fluttershy Wind, all-subordination to the High Queen meant that two Queens could regard one another as "Princesses" both marked by the High Queen's scent. They still don't like being around rival Queens, but they don't have to engage in mortal combat. (The same is true of Kings, but Kings are very rare so this almost never happens).
When a Queen dies or is overthrown by challenge, a Princess or Princesses in the Hive will grow pheronome crowns and hence become Queens. If multiple ones do this generally means civil war, hopefully resolved by challenge instead of mass destruction. If the previous Queen's death was due to challenge, normally only the victorious Princess will grow the pheronome crown.
The Changelings are consequently only moderately eusocial in the genetic sense. Everyling in a Hive is closely related, but everyling is not the Queen's daughter, nor even necessarily her daughter's daughter. They are, however, all at least fairly close cousins. One of the reasons why the Changelings are deliberately exogamic, especially toward male non-lings, is the need to avoid the genetic defects attending too little diversity.
Caste membership is partially genetic and partially epigenetic. A Changeling can in time through diet (both psychic and material) and training be "promoted." This is rarely more than one caste in a lifetime. The caste right below the Royals is what might be termed "Professional," but is better known as "Infiltrator" because that's what Ponies encountered them doing before the Reconciliation. This includes not only literal Infiltrators, but also Commanders, Scientists, Engineers, Doctors and the like.
Below the Professionals are the Warriors and Workers. Technically these are more or less equal castes, but Warriors require more resources to raise, and in war are more important.
A typical Age of Hiding Hive has about 85% (or more) Workers, 10% (or less) Warriors, 4% Professionals, and 1% (or less) Royals. Larger elite groups can only be supported by active raiding and conquest, which is dangerous, because it may fail and leave the aggressive Hive with too many Warriors and high-castes for the Workers to support, leading to a painful Malthusian die-off. It is also dangerous because it can spoil the Hiding. This is why most Hives were peaceful, even when they hated and feared the other Kinds.
A Hive attempting aggressive expansion (like that of Queen Chrysalis) would have a much higher percentage of Warriors and Elites. This is not sustainable save through plunder. Long before the attack on Canterlot, Chrysalis had logistically-committed herself to the attack. Queen Chrysalis, it should be noted, was not a sane Changeling, and hence was willing to take extreme risks. Compound's biography of her is instructive in this regard.
In the Age of Reconciliation, the Changelings became much richer in resources through open trade with other Kinds. Consequently, the ratio of Royals and Professionals to Workers increased greatly. Warrior production also increased for the Shadow Wars, but afterward dropped as Warriors were now needed merely for security purpose, and as a military export (mecenaries). Also, the subcastes of Workers and Warriors bred and trained were much more elite and specialized ones, and enjoyed much higher standards of living, than had the Changelings during the Hiding.
By the Age of Coalescence, the Changelings had fissioned into many Kinds with many Castes and subcastes unimaginable to their previous terrestrial ancestors. By this time, the Age of Hiding was remembered only as a nightmarish past, a dark legacy lurking in the back of their minds, to be overcome. It was, of course, also the topic of numerous simulations and role-playing games, and various lurid pulp-style novel series, viewed as a time of exciting adventure in which life was short and vivid.
Changeling society is always interesting. A species that combines aspects of insects and mammals offers a very interesting toolbox of biological, sociological, and magical traits that the author can combine into a wide variety of configurations. Yours is definitely one of the more intriguing, especially given the past and future of the species.
And yeah, with enough historical distance, people can romanticize just about anything. Just look at pirates. People don't think of the minimal hygiene, terrible food, or horrific acts. No, they just think of rum, buried treasure, and Johnny Depp in dreadlocks.
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Something strangely introverted and in limited ways extroverted in me loves and sympathizes with the Changelings, to the point that when I write them, I have to remind myself that the Age of Hiding Changelings treat outsiders horribly, including raping, enslaving and killing them. The Changelings of course don't see their behavior in this light, because they draw a very strong moral distinction between Hive-Sibling and Other.
This changes after the Reconciliation, and different Hives and Queens were more or less aggressive or cruel in this regard. Chrysalis was one of the most aggressive; some Hives were crueller. Most tended to be both less aggressive and less cruel than was Chrysalis.
Evergloom (the Hive that captured Landscape Carrot and eventually became Hive Carrot) was simply desparate. They were dying, which is one reason why they ultimately were willing to transplant themselves to Equestria as part of the Carrot clan. The other reason was that their alternative was being consumed by Hive Chrysalis.
Hidden Valley (the Hive that befriended Tree Hugger) was one of the nicer ones -- it had retained many Flutter Pony traditions and engage in covert symbiosis with both animals, and visitors to the woods, by protecting the local ecosystem. It was not safe to discover, though.
There were endless variations between Hives, especially because during the Hiding contact even between Changeling Hives was limited and infrequent. There is a caste of Professionals called "Heralds" whose task it was then to carry news and small items between Hives: their persons were traditionally inviolable. The Heralds of course still exist, under that and other names, into later ages.
Does this mean we're getting movement on your Ling tales?
I'd just like to ask, why did you use the idea of the Flutterponies becoming the Changelings?
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I got the idea from Alex Warlorn, but it makes a lot of sense. The Flutter Ponies are the only G1 Kind not to explicitly show up in the G4 series so far (the Sirens are obviously a sort of Sea Pony). The Flutter Ponies were the physically weakest Kind but had powerful psychic abilities. The Flutter Ponies lived in social units led by a Queen and were alternately friendly, then hostile, then friendly again to a race of Bee People. My assumption is that the Flutter Ponies grew steadily shyer and more eusocial on their own -- and then Discord Twisted them into the Changelings. Their most ancient records and myths speak of a time when they were the Flutter Ponies, and the guardians of the whole ecosystem.
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View at your risk. This level of cuteness has literally tamed a Chaos God.
Fluttershy knows she's descended from the Changelings by her unknown sire. What she does not yet realize is that she is also descended from the Flutterponies, and actually has concentrated considerable Flutterpony heritage from her maternal as well as paternal side. Another Pony who atavistically manifests Flutterpony traits is, of course ...
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Not quite as cute, but more attuned to the ecosystem in general
Fluttershy, is of course a Royal, which is why she is very strongly dominant, even when she appears submissive. And Tree Hugger instinctively senses and follows her leadership.
3794744 Got it. The reason I asked is because some people think that concept is "grimdark emo angst-wanking".
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I dunno that it's more so than the other horrible aspects of my deep background, including at least five major Dark Ages -- the one caused by Tirek the Annihilator (which wiped out 95% or more of Ponykind), the one caused by the Sundering of the Five Kinds, the one caused by the Cataclysm (which wiped out 99% of Ponykind), the one caused by the Coming of the Ice (which killed half of the Three Tribes), and the Age of Discord (in which among other things the Flutter Ponies were Twisted) -- and numerous smaller disasters, over a bit more than six thousand years. Though there are a heck of a lot of bright spots in that history as well.
3794796 Got it. I guess it's not really that dark, since there are still some changelings who aren't that bad.
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It's more tragic from the POV of both the long unnecessary suffering of the Changelings, and of their Captives. My quick description of it is "The Changelings had been hiding for so long they had forgotten why they had begun hiding, and of what they had originally been afraid. Now, they just hid out of habit -- and feared everything."
(the original reason they were hiding was to avoid Discord).
3794806 Got it. I'm glad the changelings got their happy ending after the Reconciliation. Also, I was just reading your story, "Fluttershy is free", and it made me want to give Fluttershy all my love.
I enjoy this dissertation on Changeling castes, which should be enough for us outsiders. Though I imagine that Changelings themselves would and could argue that no, there are many more castes and sub-castes of greater or lesser importance to the hive and the queen.
I also very much like the idea of 'sub-queens' or Princesses. Do you think it would be possible for a stray 'Princess' to be adopted into another hive or swarm by basking in the pheromones of the Hive Queen for a presumably lengthy period of time?
Though I never thought there were "royal" males myself, at least not in my setting. I thought that if a male drone or warrior somehow got into the Royal Jelly and ate enough to start their transformation to a Royal, they'd change genders and become female, another Queen. I do feel there are highly-valued male consorts who can act as 'princes', simply because the rest of the swarm knows of their favored mate status.
Great work as always!