Twilight Sparkle paced back and forth, clearly agitated, and the other Princesses listened even as Twilight continued to ramble, making no attempts to interrupt; if there is one thing Princess Celestia knew about her former faithful student and present peer, it is that once Twilight got a rant going, little could stop it from running its course. Better to just let the engine run out of steam on its own.
“…You knew about Chrysalis and her ilk all this time, even before the wedding, and you told nopony about it!” The purple alicorn accused angrily, “If you did, none of this would have to happen!”
‘This’, of course, refers to the jail-break Chrysalis and her swarm had pulled just hours earlier, enabling them to escape the castle they had been imprisoned in ever since the Secretariat Comet crisis. In her typical fashion, Queen Chrysalis had played Twilight for a fool, manipulating her and her friends into unwittingly releasing them during their interrogation about her and her swarm’s history – Or rather, her version of it. Celestia and Luna had already noticed how many lies and half-truths Queen Chrysalis had weaved into the yarn.
Of course, that was why Twilight was here now in Canterlot with them, trying to separate the conjured fiction from solid facts, still frazzled and in a mess from the escaping changeling swarm’s stampede; Twilight had spent the first half of the meeting in Princess Celestia’s suite apologizing profusely for her mistake between each question, despite their attempts to sooth her.
But then… once she calmed down, and the Princesses answered or clarified the information she had gathered, certain facts started clicking into place. When she did, however, shame and embarrassment turned to anger, and she directed it right towards the one who was in the centre of this revelation.
“My dear Twilight, we understand how this must look from your perspective, but the truth is much more – !”
“Complicated? With all due respect, how can this be any more complicated?!” Twilight snapped, interrupting Luna. She turned back towards Celestia, “The Pegasi sky-kingdom of Timbucktu was destroyed around a thousand years ago by Chrysalis’ swarm. While I can accept the explanation that you and Equestria were still recovering from Nightmare Moon and the Equestrian Civil War, you were there to stop the Swarm from overrunning the Empire of Trot. You even defeated Chrysalis personally in single combat!”
“The Empire of Trot was never as close to harmonious a land as Equestria, and neither were her rulers as wise and loving as we were.” Princess Celestia remarked, answering that unspoken question. “It’s a pity that while Chrysalis was defeated and sealed away with her army, Emperor Incitatus and his realm never truly recovered…”
“And that’s another thing – you put her and her Swarm army in a volcano – and told no-pony about it, either! WHY?” Twilight asked in exasperation, “I mean, it’s not like Tartarus is a worse option! It’s what it was originally made for, right? Sure, Tirek managed to escape while Cerberus was distracted, but if it was THAT easy to get out, every other prisoner in that place would had gotten out at the same time. Tartarus is not a cardboard prison, and yet, Chrysalis was not placed there! Instead, it was a confounded volcano, one which she escaped when a Great Wyrm, not knowing what was inside, tore it open to make it his lair, allowing her swarm to escape!”
“The sheer amount of hatred and malice permeating in the prison-plane would had been toxic to Chrysalis and her Swarm army…” Princess Celestia explained, but was interrupted again.
“Then why no guards around it? Why not a fortress garrisoned by an army, or even just layers after layers of magical wards if there’s a risk she might subvert the garrison, if they could even hear her at all?!” Twilight continued on, “A big sign encrusted upon the cliff-side, saying ‘DANGER! IMPRISONED EVIL HERE!’ would had helped. I mean, sure, it might just be a big advertisement to any morally-compromised people to free Chrysalis for their own ends, but what rational or reasonable person otherwise would be so ragingly STUPID to ignore all that possible warnings and precautions placed around it? I REFUSE to believe that letting her fly off to wreck havoc again, or leaving her unguarded, is simply the ABSOLUTE BEST THAT CAN BE DONE!”
She knew why Twilight was so angry, what she would say next, and she couldn’t exactly fault her for it.
“It just goes back to my point – You have had all that time to check on her and prepare for any invasion she would had planned! Equestria was literally THIS close to being conquered, and every-pony we know and love placed in cocoons and sucked dried of our love! Ponykind in Equestria would had gone the way of the Wuv-Cats Tribe!” Twilight seethed, “Chrysalis was an existential threat. Her attack on Equestria could had been prevented literally centuries in advance, and you. Did. NOTHING!”
“Now that is most unfair, Twilight Sparkle!” Princess Luna interjected, putting her hoof down, “My sister hath in fact did everything in her power to learn of Chrysalis and her swarms’ whereabouts, and had plans in place in case she returned. But if there’s one thing changelings do well, it is hiding from the eyes of others, and knowing Chrysalis, I wouldn’t be surprised if the others couldn’t find - !”
Celestia gasped, and Luna closed her mouth as soon as she realized what she just blurted out. Too late, of course.
“Wait, ‘others’?” Twilight queried, “What did you mean, others? I thought Queen Chrysalis and her changelings were… the only…”
Twilight’s eyes widened, her mind whirling as another fact clicked into place, and two greater revelations dawned upon her.
“But… she isn’t the only Queen, isn’t she? And neither is her swarm the only swarm…” She turned back to the two princesses with a look of shock upon her face, “And Luna… you knew about the changelings, despite Chrysalis only being active for around a thousand years… she lied about how she and her swarm were spawned from some accursed dark magic tree, didn’t she?
The two venerable Alicorn Princesses looked at each other, uncertain how to response. Then, with a sigh laden with regret, Princess Celestia spoke.
“You’re correct on both accounts, Twilight.” She began, “I’m sorry we never disclose many details about the changelings. it was done out of respect for Chrysalis’ TRUE parent. And if there’s one thing we should be grateful for, it is that there’s more to Changelingkind then just Queen Chrysalis…”
Introduction
While much has been known about the Changelings’ biology, until fairly recently, little remains known about other aspects of the Changeling civilization. Indeed, due to the general insularity of the Changeling race and the prevalent distrust and hostility between Changelings and Non-Changeling races, for much of its ten of thousand years of history Changelings remained an enigma to many. In fact, up until the failed invasion of Canterlot by Queen Chrysalis and her swarm, few ponies in Equestria even know of their existence, and what few that they do know are mostly negative, learnt first-hoof at the sight of the Changeling marauders standing over them, hissing in their faces as they prepare to subdue and cocoon them.
The usurpation of Queen Chrysalis and the transformation of her Swarm into the ‘New Changelings’ – the first swarm freed from their species’ ‘racial curse’ of perpetual hunger for emotions of non-Changeling races – under their new leader Thorax had proved instrumental in revealing new knowledge and insight into this formerly secluded and hidden race.
Not only had, for the first time in history, a non-Changeling polity – the Principalities of Equestria – openly formed an alliance and close relationship with a Changeling swarm, the promise of a cure to the ‘racial curse’ had caused an unprecedented upheaval among the rest of changeling kind, marking the beginning of what could be the long-awaited ‘Great Reconciliation’ between the formerly splintered Courts of the race, as well as with the rest of the world, as the other hives and swarms of the four Changeling Courts slowly emerging from their ages-long Masquerade to open relationship with other nations and species, both within and beyond Equestria.
Only time will tell how Changelings and Non-Changelings alike will adapt to this new world they have emerged into, and how they would be changed in turn by it, for both good or ill.
Changeling Polities
Contrary to popular belief among Equestrians until recently, Ex-Queen Chrysalis is not, in fact, the only Changeling Queen in existence, nor are her former minions, now subjects under an internationally-recognized provisional government headed by the changeling revolutionary Thorax, the entirety of the Changeling race. Both within Equestria and in the lands beyond, countless other hives and swarms exists, hidden among other nations or in remote corners of the world, both similar and different in many respects when compared to the Thorax Hive.
There are two basic types of Changeling polities – a Hive, and a Swarm, although both terms are interchangeable when describing a Changeling polity, which could rotate between these two phases multiple times during its history. The main differentiation appears to be dependent whether or not the polity have a definable geographical base. A fine example of a Changeling polity which experienced both would be former Queen Chrysalis’ swarm/hive, which currently exists in a hive phase. These Hives/Swarms could be as small as a few dozen changelings, especially if the polity is a nascent one, while the oldest, most developed Hives/Swarms could have potentially hundreds of thousands to millions of changelings.
A Changeling Hive is a Changeling polity which has a definable territory, usually based around a static colony structure where the polity has established a stronghold for habitation and governance. These polities are similar to traditional kingdoms and contemporary nations in terms of structure. These are usually formed when a Changeling Swarm, after months, perhaps even years and decades of migration and/or marauding, had discovered a location with bountiful resources – usually in the form of local sapient populations capable of providing love and other emotions that could sustain them. Population growths within Changeling polities usually occur at this time, which if exceeding the capacity of the main Hive, could lead to smaller, ‘satellite’ Hives forming some distance away, fulfilling the role of outposts, camps, hamlets, villages and towns among other races.
A Changeling Swarm by contrast is a polity whereupon possesses no definable territory, for it is mobile in its entirety whereas a Hive is static. These usually appear when the population of local sapient population within the harvesting territories of a Changeling Hive is no longer sufficient to sustain a static population of changelings, forcing them to migrate in a manner akin to the awe-inspiring herd migrations in the wild. Changeling polities during this phase resembles more the hordes and nomads of antiquity, although they do not necessarily behave like marauders and barbarians, plundering and harvesting across the lands and sowing desolation and despair in their wake, as the swarm of the former Queen Chrysalis originally operate as. A migrating Swarm could move as one enormous formation when mobile, or journey in dozens, even hundreds of smaller swarms which would often split and regroup many times during travel, but kept in contact by couriers and magic.
Normally, most Changeling Hives/Swarms are lead and ruled by Royal Changelings, a caste/breed of changelings which are denoted by their vastly greater height, physical strength and durability, arcane power, wing spans, and intelligence in comparison to the average changeling. A common trait among Royal Changelings are their silted eyes – a trait which they share with their Parents – and agelessness, which means they could live indefinitely upon reaching maturity, baring accident, disease or violent deaths.
Contrary to popular belief, a Changeling Swarm/Hive does not operate in the form of a hive-mind, with individuals within the polity acting as mindless servitors and the swarm/hive effectively an extension of the Royal Changeling’s body. Each Changeling that exist is an individual with their own free and independent will, even if the cultures of the hives and swarms generally discourages individualism, encouraging generosity and sacrifice for the greater good of the swarm/hive in question. That said, through changeling magic and pheromones, empathetic webs could be formed between individuals within the Swarm/Hive, which would enable communication and of changeling groups as if one unit, with the Royal Changeling or appointed leader at its heart coordinating its activities.
A Royal Changeling does normally hold absolute power within the hive, which make each swarm/hive an autocratic state by default. An organized hierarchy exists upon which the Royal Changeling rules, delegating their power to trusted subordinates who run day-to-day operations of their hive for them within the rules, laws and guidelines, not unlike a gentry/aristocracy among other nations. These are usually given titles such as ‘Overseers’, ‘Archons’ and ‘Matrons’ – titles and privileges of which are either elective, limited to the appointed changeling’s term, favour or life-span, or hereditary, akin to a gentry or aristocracy similar to the ones found in Equestria, the Griffon Duchies, and other monarchies in the world.
Given the disposition of some of these Royal Changelings, it is often questionable how they are able to maintain their power over the subjects for long without rebellion. However, it should be noted that Royal Changelings also share another common trait: the ability to draw ‘common’ non-Royal changelings to them, through a presence/aura of authority and/or charisma, which inspires loyalty and obedience. Although how many changelings they could influence is limited by the Royal Changeling’s age and power, as well as factors such as proximity of the changelings to their ruler, and the number of changelings in the hive. There could be too many Changelings to influence, or too far away to influence, and said influence could also be stressed to breaking point if the Royal Changeling mistreats their subjects sufficiently, as Chrysalis had done.
However, as Thorax has shown, rebellions and insubordination had occurred before against the authority of the Royal Changelings. And as it would be elaborated later, not all swarms/hives are necessarily ruled by Royal Changelings, a fact which many Royal Changelings had continually insisted is untrue, and all examples illegitimate authorities which needed to be brought back into the fold, or made examples of.
Each Swarm/Hive is a nation in itself, although they are categorized, by their leadership and disposition, to be in one of the major political groupings that most of the Changeling race ultimately answers to or belong in.
Origins of a Royal Swarm/Hive
In contrast to many of their subjects, a Royal Changeling begins life away from their kind, often among the non-Changeling races as the result of a union between their ‘True Parent’ with that of another mortal parent.
The ‘Spawn’ would either be born from the mortal parent, or is birthed from their Changeling parent and then deposited at the mortal parents’ home, under which the child, under the guise of the species of their mortal parent, would grow up unaware of their heritage, except perhaps for some unusual oddness in their form, behaviour and presence that might indicate their true nature. There are exceptions to this, whereupon the True Parent raise the child from birth themselves, but that is reportedly uncommon. A Royal Changeling’s character and personality are often strongly influenced by their experiences during this time period, which they would carry over to their eventual reigns.
At some point, often near or upon maturity, a Royal Changeling’s ‘True Nature’ would begin revealing itself, often in the form of subtle signs such as disturbing changes in their bodies or sudden manifestation of their Royal Changelings’ powers and strength. There would also be compulsion to seek out their ‘True Parents’ – a fabled process among Changelingkind called ‘The Errance’.
Upon meeting their True Parents, these Royal Changeling would learn of their true heritage, and upon accepting it, would realize their full potential and form under their True Parents’ guidance, they would shed the last remnants of their past-selves and mature into true Royal Changelings. Together with a population of common changelings that could either be drawn to their presence, or given to them by the True Parents, they would lay the foundation of their own Swarm/Hives.
As with many things with the Changelings, why this method of Royal Changeling procreation, and the exact arcane/biological mechanisms that allowed for viable off-spring between two biologically different species, remains a mystery, one which the Changelings themselves either don’t understand or unwilling to answer. It has been speculated by academicians among the non-Changeling races that it has something to do with the nature of the circumstances that resulted in the Changeling race.
As for their mortal families, their fates varied – some would find their fortunes greatly increased by their Royal Changeling in secret as a form of gratitude, a patronage that sometimes lasts generations. Other mortal parents meet darker fates, often at their own Royal Changeling children’s hooves, since their very existence could represent a liability and weakness that could be exploited…
The Seasonal Courts
To understand Changeling civilization, one must first realize that the Changeling race is politically divided into four major political factions, known as ‘Seasonal Courts’. Each Court diverges considerably from each other in terms of origins, structure, and temperament, although they do also share many similarities. All Courts are separate from all others for as long as recorded history of the Changeling race began, and relationship between them had been marked with considerable tension, mistrust and even outright hostility, although with the ascension of Thorax, this may be about to change.
Officially among the Changeling race there are only two Seasonal Courts: The Spring Court, and the Summer Court. It is under these two Courts that the vast majority of the Changeling race are subjects of. The other two Courts, the Autumn Court and Winter Court, are informal due to their internally divided nature, and not recognized as possessing any political legitimacy by the Royal Changelings of the two official Courts, although due to the fact that they could jointly account for 20-30% of the entire Changeling race at any one time, they remain a meaningful presence among the Changeling civilization despite the overshadowing presence of the Spring and Summer Courts.
The Progenitors
Of all the Changelings in existence, almost none are as mysterious or as notable as the Parents of all Royal Changelings: The Progenitors. No discussion of the Seasonal Courts can occur without discussing the two prominent figures around which the entire Changeling race ultimately revolves.
The Progenitors are said to be the oldest Changelings in existence, and going by their titles, are in fact the very first, and in coming into existence, they are responsible for creating the entire Changeling race. Because of this, both Progenitors are revered in their respective Courts as the ‘Parental Deities’ of their people. Although not all their children are Royal Changelings, every Royal Changeling owes their existence to the Progenitors, whether as their direct ‘Spawns’, or grand-spawns, effectively making each Royal Changeling a ‘demi-god’.
An important point to stress is that although these immortals are considered ‘Parents of All Changelings’, they are not, in fact, a single family. Both of them are parents only of their own separate lineages of Royal Changelings, and the originator of their own branch of the two great branches of Changeling-kind, from which came the Four Courts. There in fact exists considerable tension and bitterness between the two Progenitors, one which is shared by their respective branches. Interactions between changelings from both branches are marked with varying levels of mistrust and outright hostility, almost on an instinctive level.
The circumstances behind their origins, and what caused the hostility between the two, remains one of the most enduring mysteries among even the Changelings. To speak of it or even mention the existence of ‘The Others’ in each of the branches is considered one of the great Changeling taboos.