Concepts and Creations – No Heroes: Twelve Angry Ponies · 8:30pm Jan 26th, 2020
Another week, another story. Continuing with where we left off last time, today's we're addressing the second part of my changeling-centric No Heroes arc. This one is set a few short months after the events of No Heroes: Life of Pie, which itself took place after Octavia's little journey described in the last blog.
The story begins with Chrysalis, once more disguised as Cadance, appearing alone in Luna's Night Court. She promptly reveals herself and, before anyone can act, formally surrenders herself to Princess Luna. Obviously, she accepts, if warily. Celestia is quickly alerted and furiously bursts into the Night Court before Chrysalis can be escorted out. She summarily orders Luna to hoof custody of Chrysalis to her so that she may pay for her crimes against ponydom.
Luna refuses. She recognizes that Celestia is intensely biased against changelings and Chrysalis in particular. She also realizes that this is precisely why Chrysalis surrendered to the Night Court rather than the Day Court; she wants to do something but can't if Celestia gets hold of her first. Curious as to what the changeling queen is planning, she calmly reminds Celestia that the nature of the surrender means Chrysalis is now her responsibility. A brief argument ensues, but ultimately Celestia relents and grudgingly agrees to let Luna handle the situation, with a warning that if she sees even a hint that Chrysalis is up to something nefarious she will take over.
And now it's time for some background. Grab a snack or something, this is gonna take a while.
Changeling culture in the No Heroes world is a complex thing. There are numerous Hives throughout, all of which are ruled by a Queen. While the Hives are autonomous from one another, they do meet on a semi-regular basis to discuss important matters relating to all changelings. Every Hive has its own government unique from all the others, with only two universal truths: they are all ruled by a Queen and they are all, at least to some varying degree, democratic in nature. An interesting note: while the title is 'queen' and they are always referred to as a 'she' or 'her', the Queen doesn't have to be female.
Chrysalis's Hive in particular has a form of hereditary monarchy through democracy. The queen is required to have at least two children. Should the queen die or the changelings under her believe she is no longer fit to rule, the public votes on which of her offspring is to replace her. Chrysalis, it so happens, has three children: two daughters and a son.
In the centuries before Luna's exile, the Hive was ruled by a male queen known as Mantis. Mantis was a great many things: a statesman and orator, a warrior, a general, a spymaster. He was also an ambitious, aggressive warmonger with a profound loathing for ponies. Chrysalis's great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather, he spent centuries reworking the very culture of his Hive into a war machine operating under the unified purpose of conquering Equestria. This was a big cultural shift; for millennia, changeling culture in practically all the hives centered on remaining hidden and secretly coexisting with the other races. Mantis's vision was a paradigm shift of epic proportions, and most of the other hives wanted nothing to do with it.
He led his Hive against Equestria in the largest changeling/pony conflict in history during The Great Divide (you can read my blog post on that story here) and almost succeeded in bringing all of Equestria under changeling control. Then he died of natural causes, and his inept daughter bungled the rest of the war. The changelings were defeated shortly afterwards. Hive historians are almost unanimous in their agreement that, had Mantis survived just a few years longer, Equestria would be a very different place today. But Mantis's perspective pervaded the Hive and survived as the dominant culture ever since his death, with his descendants and their people still determined to bring down Equestria by any means necessary. The constant fighting, infiltrations, and even downright atrocities of the changelings over the last thousand years forced Celestia to ultimately accept that the changelings were the natural and eternal enemies of Equestria.
Until Chrysalis.
Chrysalis grew up on stories of changeling superiority, and in her youth she was every bit the proper pony-hating warmonger. Unlike her predecessors, however, Chrysalis was observant of the goings-on of her people. She visited other hives and saw their significantly higher quality of life. She kept an eye on the Hive's stores of collected love. She listened to her people even before she became Queen and realized that the desire to bring down the ponies was not fully dispersed throughout the hive. The more she studied, the more she realized that her Hive had spent the last thousand years slowly wasting away, dying because of a culture of war and hatred that was fundamentally incompatible with their race's biological needs. Still, there were far more who supported the old ways of conflict with the ponies. Chrysalis could change nothing without public support.
But the Hive was dying, as surely as the sun rose and fell every day. Chrysalis knew this, and was getting desperate for a solution. The Invasion of Canterlot was her final effort: if it succeeded then the Hive might survive from then on, and it also appeased the warmongers among her populace. When it failed, Chrysalis faced the bitter reality that Mantis's ways were untenable and would kill all her people in time. There were no more opportunities for victory; she'd used up everything the Hive had in that sneak attack. Aware of this doom hanging over their heads, she did the unthinkable and began making changes to Hive policy, hoping her people would realize the same and follow her to a peaceful resolution with Equestria.
But Mantis's teachings were too pervasive. A full two-thirds of the Hive refused to see reason. Discontent grew. Changelings were calling for a vote of 'no confidence' to see her removed. But Chrysalis couldn't let that happen. The survival of her entire hive was at stake. If she didn't alter the course of her people now, they would all be dead in a matter of centuries. She would have to defy the laws of her own Hive and start a civil war that she would be unable to win. To make matters worse, her own family was divided, with her eldest daughter favoring the old ways and the younger daughter seeking peace. Knowing that violence was coming no matter what she did, Chrysalis sent her youngest child, the son, overseas to a friendly hive for safekeeping.
Things continued to get worse. Hopes for a political solution were rapidly fading. Chrysalis didn't think she could stop the coming civil war. Worse, she was sure that if the Mantis-loyal changelings did fight and did take over, her warmongering daughter would use the high of victory to immediately attack Equestria in an effort to repeat Mantis's successful compaign all those centuries ago. That was a fight the changelings had no hope to win, though it would undoubtedly cause significant casualties among the ponies and only further deteriorate Equestrian views of changelings as a race.
And so Chrysalis did the only thing she could think of, the one recourse that might let her Hive survive the coming conflict: get Equestria directly involved now. Leaving her younger daughter in charge with instructions to keep the civil war from starting for as long as possible, she went alone to Canterlot to surrender herself to Luna. She would willingly stand trial for the war crimes her race had committed against the ponies in the hopes that, in return, they would go to her Hive and save her loyalists from the inevitable rebellion. Well aware that Celestia would see her executed or condemned to Tartarus as quickly as possible, she went to Luna instead.
Celestia, of course, refuses to believe anything that comes out of Chrysalis's mouth. Luna was gone for the last thousand years; she hasn't seen the atrocities of the Hive, the foals biologically altered and made into obedient minions, the kidnapped families, all the death and blood and pain. Celestia is tainted by centuries of constant conflict and has come to view all changelings as hated enemies, unaware that the traits she associates with all hives really only applies to one. But Luna, the cooler head in this scenario, still refuses Celestia's demands and proposes instead a trial. Not a public one, and not one headed by either of them.
Luna calls upon her ponies, the Order of Shadows, to hold the trial and determine not only Chrysalis's fate, but also the validity of her story. Fine Crime, Upper Crust, Octavia Melody, Lightning Dust, Jimmy Stone, and Nye Stone are summoned to Canterlot.
And all of that is the background to the actual story I'm meant to be describing: the Trial of Chrysalis. The story involves each of the ponies meeting her to discuss her story, often times bringing others with them, and then arguing amongst themselves about what the result should be. Lightning Dust brings her adoptive daughter Keen Arrow to talk to Chrysalis so that they both may have closure. Fine Crime, a large chunk of his job centering around weeding out changelings in Equestria, brings his second-in-command Fleur de Lis. Cadance and Shining Armor both get an opportunity to meet with her and, for all intents and purposes, vent. Select others get their opportunities, including Celestia and Luna, to face the Queen one-on-one. Twilight also gets a chance. After every meeting, the Order meet to discuss the situation.
In the end, the Order determines that they believe Chrysalis's story and strongly recommend sending an armed force into the Badlands to help deal with the Hive's problem. However, Chrysalis herself is to remain a prisoner of Equestria. She will be permitted to join the armed force so that she may provide guidance and advice in the coming conflict, but afterwards the Hive will take on new leadership (read: her younger daughter) and Chrysalis will return to Canterlot as a permanent... 'resident'. This decision would be where the story ends; you can imagine what the next one is about.
I'm really liking this!! Could be even greater if you add a few parties of espionage; Celestia's secret service to, in her eyes, reveal Chrys's true intentions (but obviously to validate Celestia's belief instead), maybe have some changelings secretly follow Chrys, say, some detractors trying to figure out what she's up to, all alone, who then decide to sabotage either her or the Ponies; or some ardent supporters who want Chrys to win.
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I can see you haven't read the original No Heroes series. That OC I mentioned as part of the jury, Fine Crime? He runs that secret service you mention. Except he works for Luna, not Celestia, and he's had enough personal run-ins with changelings to already have a bias to get over (see No Heroes Part II - The Journey Home and Reddux the Tyrant).
As for changeling espionage activity, see the last C&C blog. There was always intended to be a friendly changeling traveling with her, I just neglected to mention it.
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Actually, the events of Octy's side story would be an important aspect of this, as she's one of the jurors and, through her experiences with changelings in Nildia, would be the most vocal pony at the start for giving Chrysalis a chance. That makes her one of the more pivotal characters, but her role in the story makes no sense if readers don't already know her history and thus why she's doing what she's doing. There are other critical aspects of Octavia, aspects I've not brought up but which will be important in the next C&C, that would likely have to get their start here.
Because Octavia and her experiences would play such a heavy role in events going forward, I doubt it would be a good idea to write this one without hers being done first.
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Nope. When I referred to it as a "Changeling Arc", I very much meant it.
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Sorry about that, yeah it's on my list of To-Reads...