//------------------------------//
// Chapter 33: The Planned Invasion – A Royal Wedding 
// Story: Equestria: A History Revealed 
// by Hoofry_Poneigher 
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	The 2012 Royal Wedding was pretty significant. Not because of the whole “importance of the couple’s love” thing, but in general. A Royal Wedding like this would understandably be a pretty big deal in Equestria. Celestia was unmarried (probably so she could stick to her bachelor humpin’ days), and Luna… ignoring the awkward mass of a doppelganger we have here, even the original Luna wasn’t exactly the type that ponies would swoon over. Sure, a few weddings of Celestia’s extended family during the Stagnation occurred, but they weren’t exactly “royal royal”. More like, “pompous douchebag”. Which is a subset of “royal royal”, I suppose. But yeah, this would be the first official wedding of an alicorn princess. And as you know, there was a lot riding on this. The pegasi’s love and support for this coupling, thousands coming to Canterlot for the occasion, and all eyes of Equestria on the couple.

But little did they know that a deal was already made between Celestia and Chrysalis. This momentous occasion would be fraught with deception, lies, and more lies. Wait, deception is just another word for lie, isn’t it?

Well, technicallyyyy I know I promised that I would reveal the secret deal behind the Royal Wedding of Celestia and Chrysalis, but unfortunately, my transcription cut out right before that. Seriously. It covered the whole kit and caboodle of their meeting and befriending of each other and then it just went CAPUT! But don’t worry, I’ll be covering the secrets behind the Royal Wedding yet, transcription or no transcription.

In true essay style (that I’m only breaking out 33 chapters in), I’ll break this event down piece by piece. Well, maybe not piece by piece. More like a vandal who chips off pieces from statues of the Canterlot Art Exhibition as souvenirs however they see fit. Which by-the-by, also fits me to a T.

What? The gift shop didn’t have anything impressive! And what, I’ve got to pay for that junk?

Using these clues, these events that surpass coincidence, I will uncover the truth. I will reveal the exact plan that went down, the foul deal that was made. And the clues Celestia left behind for us, much like a cookie thief would leave a paper trail. Of cookies.

Things that nopony in history could ever know of, things that went down behind closed doors and hushed whispers. For everything is connected, and upon pinning the tail on the dotted donkey, you will see the truth. This is Conspiracy 101 guys! Which was a shitty course to take. The prof didn’t even mention orgies once.

Wake up SHEEPLE. Oh god, I’m so, so sorry. Nopony should ever be referred to as sheep. As an apology, I’ll give you vouchers to buy my book, “An Abhorrent Offense: Princess Luna and the Invasion of Privacy”.[564]

Time to open your eyes to the truth. Yes, popular consensus is that Chrysalis had planned the attack on her own, unprovoked, to replace Cadence and marry Shining Armor to sap away his love and feed her hive. That’s the commonly accepted story; Chrysalis and her Changelings were just some obscure terrorist species who just decided to attack Canterlot for the shits and giggles. Not even to feed her starving hive, as many incorrectly believe, they just did it because they were EVILLL. Villains as deep as we’re ever gonna get, guys, at least according to the MAN.[565]

But it’s time to wipe the slate clean, cuz that’s all wrong. Seriously, even the first sentence of that whole thing is wrong (as it contradicts my previous chapter), so I’m not even gonna bother taking that shit seriously. No, Celestia clearly planned this attack with Chrysalis. Fo’ sho’.

False flag attacks aren’t exactly anything new to Celestia. In fact, I feel like at this point, it’s just expected from her now. But it was the overcomplex methods that she had attempted to use to hide her role in the matter that makes this certain case so interesting. Of course, as I said, she just couldn’t resist leaving behind that paper fortune cookie trail behind for us to follow, cuz she gets off at the concept of being caught. Ignoring all the “for national security and stability” stuff, it seems she totally likes to endanger state secrets to satisfy her fetish. But if I can be honest too, if I was ruler of Equestria, I’d totally put my nation’s safety in jeopardy if it meant satisfying my fetish. Fifty Larry overload, mmmMMMMmmm.

I’ll be right back.


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Getting back on track here, it’s time to reveal the totally true stuff I’ve learned from analyzing this event. Let’s do this.

First things first, why would Celestia choose to jeopardize her planned Royal Wedding? After all, a lot of things were riding on its success, and if anything was to go wrong, the pegasi nationalism/anti-unicorn sentiment could be brought back at full fighting force. Why would she choose to take such a risk?

Well, she wasn’t taking a risk. She had it all planned out from the start with Chrysalis. In fact, for Celestia, her alliance with Chrysalis was made purposely to strengthen the effects of the Royal Wedding.

Strengthen? By planning a false flag terrorist attack on the same day?

Yes, if you’ll just sit tight and shut yo’ mouth. It will make sense as it goes along.

So now we know Celestia’s intentions here; her plot with Chrysalis did not use the Royal Wedding as a cover, no, it was based entirely around the Royal Wedding. But what about Chrysalis? What was she getting out of all this? Well, that was easy.[566] But that’ll be covered once the Royal Wedding is over, to fully appreciate at the juicy, context goodness. Just sit tight for now. It’ll all be revealed at the end of the chapter, believe me, I’ve got something that’ll blow your minds.[567]

With the details of payment all sorted out,[568] it was time to put the plan into motion. But I haven’t exactly answered the question I posed at the start of this.[569] Why would Celestia choose to influence the Royal Wedding? Why go to all the effort to use Chrysalis and promise her some unclear reward for something that could easily backfire?

Well, I suppose Celestia shared certain traits with her banished sister yet. That’s probably why they were related. Because it seemed that Celestia too thought that if you’re gonna go all in, you gotta go all in.[570] And ironically enough, she would choose to pull off such a great gamble at the very same city where Luna had attempted the gamble of her own. Only for Celestia, it made even less sense to do such a “high reward but higher risk” gamble than it did for Luna. But the key difference, I suppose, was that Celestia actually managed to pull it off without a cinch. I’m not even gonna yell this time. Just…goddamnit Celestia. History sure loves to suck you off every chance it gets, huh?

Maybe it was her adequate planning, or the fact that she didn’t even have an enemy, it was more like she was putting on a performance for all of Equestria to see. Appearance is everything, something she learned of when she chose to ascend to alicorn status. And it was exactly for appearance’s sake that she would take this risk.

Let’s think back to the reasoning behind the Royal Wedding in the first place. What, did you think it was a celebration of Shining Armor and Princess Cadence’s 2pure luv 4 each other? Noo. I mean, yes, they had a loving, genuine relationship,[571] and yes, that’s why they thought they were getting married. But I’m talking about Celestia’s reasoning for the Royal Wedding. She set up the Royal Wedding, even set up Cadence from birth (but without telling her about her true origins or even letting her know about the hypnosis chip in her brain of course; Cadence was blissfully ignorant to all this) all for what? No, tell me, I forgot.

Oh that’s right! Thanks for reminding me, have one of my “You Tried.” stickers. ‘Cause you really did.

The Royal Wedding, and the “birth” and “rebirth” (alicornification) of Cadence was all for the appeasement of the pegasi; to entangle pegasi and unicorn beliefs so deeply together with the couple’s union so that they could never be freed, like an orgy of snakes experimenting with the Kama Poonta.[572] Sure, if the marriage was to go on as normal, everything would be fine and dandy, and Celestia would succeed in her goal.

But I guess she didn’t just want to succeed 100%, she wanted to go the extra mile. So what, add 1609.34 meters to 100% I guess. Not sure how the conversion on that works out, but I’m 91% sure that’s over 100%.

She wanted to prove to the public that their union was strong by having their love beat a seemingly unbeatable foe. And in doing so, it would fulfill another separate agenda of Celestia’s, which will be explained when we get to it. Sure, the Pegasi Spring had ended well over a decade ago and the pegasi were already satisfied, but Celestia had to go one step beyond. She had to ensure that pegasi nationalism would never be a problem again, and this Royal Wedding was to be the best way to accomplish such a feat.

In the end, the Chrysalis invasion was all just a ploy, a method to make it seem as though Cadence and Shining Armor possessed a love more powerful than anything in existence. And it had another intended after-effect; to beef up Cadence so she would be more respected, and to satisfy the fear that she was just a powerless figurehead (which she was, but Celestia didn’t want that leaking out). Most importantly of all, she needed Cadence front and center, in order to sell more copies of that month’s Playfoal when she was the featured centerfold (which I’m sure was totally a thing that happened).

Sometimes, with all this perfect manipulative planning to ensure things always go Celestia’s way, it makes me think she’s smarter than I give her credit for. But then I think back to all the times she was a terrible leader and the über dumb, and I settle right back into my old beliefs. And I feel better about myself.

Celestia would take this risk. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too. Which is a physical impossibility.[573] But she would try it nonetheless, and because history has such a raging boner for her, it seemed that she would succeed in it.

Now when it came to The Echelon and their role in things here,[574] it seemed that they, like the Royal Couple themselves, were left mostly in the dust. Maybe not to the same extent, but still very significantly. For while they knew the Royal Wedding was planned for its role in ceasing pegasi nationalism (probably because they were behind the wedding’s preparations as well, given their role in setting up the couple’s romance in the first place), they did not know of the creation of Chrysalis and the deal that took place. I guess even Celestia keeps some secrets from others too. The Echelon knew a lot, but when it came to her false flag attacks, Celestia probably saw it better to leave them ignorant on those matters.

So, let’s see how this Celestia-Chrysalis plan really went down.

First things first, Chrysalis needed an army. This was supposedly to give Chrysalis a greater presence and to help her appear like more of a threat. After all, if it’s just one infiltrator to the wedding, then whatever. But if it’s a whole army of ravenous spawns of evil, well now you’ve got ponies’ attention!

As per according to the deal (a deal that I admittedly have not seen, but can easily guess what was on it and who promised what through simple logic), Celestia promised to provide the army. And did so she did.

Time to bust out that simple logic I was just bragging about in the parentheses above. The proof, the proof! How did I know Celestia promised to give her an army? Well, don’t you find it suspicious that Celestia’s entire kitchen staff was laid off?

I mean, yeah, they were fired after Celestia’s recent cake outburst that was behind Chrysalis’ birth, but I get the feeling she does that sorta thing all the time, and calls crawling back to them once she gets hungry again. But this time they were laid off permanently. This even resulted in having to bring in freakin’ Applejack to manage the catering of the entire Royal Wedding, with only minimal help from the royal servants. So why was Celestia’s staff permanently laid off?

Because Celestia had to make Chrysalis’ army alone in secret, which meant there could be no kitchen access for all non-Celestia personnel for the next few couple of months.

Of course, this meant that she would be making the army all by herself. It was probably hard work at first, but once she reduced the portion size of the recipe she used to make Queen Chrysalis, she’d be making baker’s dozens full of smaller Changeling soldiers by the hour. That would explain why all the Changelings had both horns and wings and look exactly the same as one another; they're all based off the recipe for the original alicorn clone, Chrysalis. And Celestia probably saw it as good practice too, should she ever get around to making her own evil clone army. And with this, within the month of the wedding, Chrysalis would have her minions.

The only question was how she would get them out of Canterlot. She obviously couldn’t just release them out in the streets during the event; ponies would wonder how they got through the defensive barrier in the first place and start pointing hooves.

So taking a page out of her supremely evil predecessors, the Nightmare forces, she would smuggle them out through the underground. Heck, I bet she even used some of their old tunnels too, as it was a convenient underground network spanning all of Equestria. After Celestia found of the existence of these tunnels when dealing with the aftermath of the Second Battle of Canterlot, if you were her and were presented with such an advantage, wouldn’t you want to keep that for a rainy day?

And in dealing with the taking of prisoners (the real Cadence and eventually Twilight, as part of the plan), the forgotten Canterlot Crystal Caverns just above the Nightmare caverns would prove to be an effective prison. Sure, she could’ve trapped them into the Nightmare tunnels themselves, but that would risk their discovery of the fact that Celestia was using them for her own personal gain. The Crystal Caverns would prove good enough. They weren’t easy to get out of, but not impossible either, so long as a pony present there knows how to fly.[575]

All of these preparations in Canterlot would also force Celestia to keep Twilight and her friends away for a while. Yes, they would unexpectedly come as the replacements for the Cakes for the Equestrian baking competition (something that held more significance in history than you might think), but for the most part, Celestia kept most of her foul preparations away from them. After all, if they were to burst into the royal kitchen without permission under the innocence of “exploring the castle” or “looking for the Little Filly’s Room”, the ruse would be discovered. And worse, if the mane six were to find the truth, the resulting cognitive dissonance could spell havoc for Celestia’s friendship plans. Also, the dark essence of the Elements would most likely rip them apart with all the stress of such a discovery. Probably. Hopefully.

That’s just how Celestia rolls I guess. So you better keep ‘em from discovering your secrets! We wouldn’t want a certain newly alicorn’d lavender Princess to go exploding, now would we?[576]

Princess Celestia of course accomplished the six’s ignorance by purposely spreading misinformation on who sent the engagement letter to Princess Twilight. Confusing Shining Armor into thinking his imaginary counterpart, Shining Amour already sent a copy of the letter to her (for some reason he actually fell for that, how the heck anypony could fall for that just astounds me. Maybe he was already stupefied by Chrysalis’ mechanisms at the time), then saying Princess Cadence sent it. Then Luna. And I’m sure Celestia milked this cycle of “who sent what” to its fullest potential before finally promising to inform Twilight about it. And by that, I mean literally waiting until the last second and sending an abrupt wedding invitation in the mail. After all, pissing Twilight off over the marriage was all necessary for the plan’s success. As I said, Celestia knew exactly how Twilight thinks. She was counting on it.

So the mane six were sent to Canterlot, all with their own missions given to them by Celestia. Whatever, only Twilight and Applejack’s role had any real importance out of ‘em all. As I always say, two out of six…is totally superfluous to this point. Why would you even bring that up?

Anyways, supposedly there was a threat made against Canterlot, which provoked its defensive mechanisms. But let’s look at this logically.[577] Under the official story, why would Chrysalis even announce her intentions? If she had already infiltrated Canterlot and had taken Cadence’s place as a foreign intruder, why choose to keep everypony on edge by announcing a threat anyways? Why even warn them of this?

Now back to my explanations; it was a plan by Celestia to incite the public into worry and fear, and to make the Changelings seem like a huge threat. And after all, when the populace is afraid, they’re stupid. And more accepting of things that don’t make a lick of sense. Making the threat well beforehand would keep them afraid and stupid for the events to come. An absolute necessity for Celestia.

Now let’s talk about some of Canterlot’s defensive strategies before the Royal Wedding itself, mainly the protective barrier cast around Canterlot. Regarding barriers in general, whenever a serious threat was made in Canterlot, it became traditional policy (following the Second Battle of Canterlot) to create a defensive barrier to be powered by a unicorn squad.

But Celestia subverted tradition and placed all the responsibilities of the barrier’s creation and maintenance surely on Shining Armor. But why? The official reasoning was that Shining Armor was the most capable of defensive spells, and he could really show off his stuff as a magical prodigy and Captain of the Royal Guard.[578] But I call bullshit on that one.

Sure, this barrier was far weaker in technique and power than Celestia’s during the Battles of Canterlot, but nonetheless, holding a barrier alone for such long periods of time still tires ponies out very easily (as seen by Celestia’s usage of this during the Battles of Canterlot and Cadence’s barrier during the Crystal Empire’s return). Why not return to your tradition of having a whole bunch of unicorns maintain the barrier to boost its power and offset the magical strain like what happened in the Second Battle of Canterlot? Why only use Shining Armor, the very groom himself, who’d be sure to already have a lot of stress preparing for the wedding?

Because Celestia needed to tired him out. While Chrysalis’ threat was needed to provoke the ponies of the city into a state of panic, it would be far too suspicious if, in light of this threat, Celestia declined to put up a barrier. So Celestia was forced to have a barrier to satisfy the public in the short-term, but she went out of her way to make sure it was the shittiest barrier ever, to ensure that the Changeling army could eventually break in. And she would choose to do so by tricking the tired Shining Armor to do this. But Celestia, if you wanted to have the shittiest barrier ever, you could’ve just held it yourself. OOOHHHHH

And having Shining Armor in a weakened state would make him more prone to hypnotism by Chrysalis. More significantly, it would make him less observant when it came to his contact lenses.

For it was said towards the Chrysalis-infiltrated Royal Wedding that Shining Armor had green eyes due to hypnosis.[579] It would make sense, Chrysalis' magic color was green, so his eye color meant that she took control over him. Or maybe, what I find more likely was that Shining Armor needed contacts (he was supposedly a nerd after all back in high school, it wouldn't surprise me that he would need corrective eyewear, although admittedly no data of this exists), and Celestia mixed green hypnosis potion into his saline solution to dull his senses, giving him the green eyed look. That makes sense.

So by weakening Shining Armor even further, as well as keeping him under hypnosis for the time being (because he needed to be kept out of the picture at the moment, until his time to shine finally came), Celestia orchestrated this whole shebang. And I’m sure she loved it.[580]

Moving on, why don’t we cover some other ponies who should’ve been relevant in this scenario? Mainly Celestia’s primary reinforcements, Princess Luna and the army of royal guards.

As we’ve already said, Princess Luna was replaced with a doppelganger a while back. But a pony of doppelganger Luna’s ineptitude (both social-wise and magical-wise; though I suppose she had sufficient power for some darkness shows and cheap tricks, like turning spider plushies into real spiders) and her total lack of understanding overall ensured that Celestia had to purposely keep her in the dark on this one. While keeping Luna out of her plans should have been a good omen for the plan’s success (doppelganger or not, Luna’s name alone was associated with many failures so far; the Equestrian Civil War, the return of Nightmare Moon, etc.), this instead made her into a wild card, something that could not exist in a plan that needed to go as smoothly as this one.

I mean, all that shitting on doppelganger Luna aside, I’m probably making her sound worse than she really was. She had adequate intelligence (for a failed clone I suppose; above the Royal Guard clones at least), blended in with pony society well (as a social cripple who needed to be taught by Twilight how to use her inside voice in public), and never made her identity as a clone obvious (probably because she was still oblivious of this fact herself). She was nowhere near as great of an idiot as Celestia. But that’s like comparing the toughness of a stone to a diamond; Celestia’s neigh unbeatable on this one. Luna was just simple, awkward (even more than the original, which is really saying something), and easily satisfied; let’s just leave it at that.

Let’s get back to looking at this. Going off the official story that Luna was redeemed and turned to the side of good and that Celestia wasn’t behind the Changeling invasion, why the heck wouldn’t she seek her out for help in this situation? Luna was (supposedly) an alicorn princess too, with powers at least close to Celestia. If Chrysalis really was such a powerful threat, Luna could have at least showed up and helped Celestia fight her.

And where the heck was Luna anyways? I know that “officially” (we’re just all gonna ignore that doppelganger thing like it’s the elephant in the room I guess) Luna didn’t exactly feel much warmth towards the extended family program, especially as it was pretty much made to replace her, but the first ever alicorn Royal Wedding in history, as well as the wedding of your own alicorn niece, and you MISS it? This just screams conspiracy. And if she was so busy “watching the skies for danger” as the excuse was, how could she not notice the extreme danger when the Changelings were smashing themselves against the barrier and its ultimate collapse? See, all these official explanations fall flat. Another possibility that’s not so official, but also thrown around as a popular rumor was that she fell asleep after staying up all night.

And that sounds normal enough, if it wasn’t for the fact that things would be so much more convenient for Celestia (and me) if the reason was simply because she was an ineffectual doppelganger who would just get in the way of the false flag attack, and was locked up in her tower to ensure she wouldn’t interfere. To be honest, I like this explanation better than the falling asleep thing. I mean, I know you’re supposedly nocturnal and everything but JEEEEEZ.

So Celestia needed to keep Luna occupied, probably telling her to go back to looking at the “pwetty lights in da sky with your birthday telescope” from the tower and to ignore any screams of terror in the city and the citywide magical barrier bursting in a theatrical display. Stick to your starwatching and applebobbing, buddy. And I bet she said it in a demeaning tone like that too.

Heck, not even that. I bet Celestia just tricked Luna with the stargazing by taping a piece of black construction paper with white dots to the end of the telescope and telling her it was the sky. Celestia was seen with the telescope beforehand and changed shifts with her sister; she was probably just setting everything up to keep Luna out of the loop and non-involved when the Changelings did break-in.

And the military! Ooh yes, let’s talk about the military. During the Royal Wedding itself, keeping in mind the huge threat made before the event, you’re telling me that not one guard could be bothered to even show up at the ceremony itself or try to stop Chrysalis as soon as she revealed herself?

How can it be that in just one episode (of this saga we call history) there seem to be multitudes of them all over Canterlot, but in the next, they're all gone? Seriously, so these guards are present for the dress rehearsal wedding but not for the actual wedding itself?

And let’s not forget the fact that there were hundreds of royal guards ready to protect the city the day beforehand, literally marching through the streets, but upon the moment of invasion, they all seemed to vanish. Only one or two could actually be recorded to be seen during the invasion itself, and they were totally ineffectual too.

Ineffectual? Sounds like our good friend,[581] the Luna doppelganger. So there’s a clear relationship between the two, Luna and the royal guards, during all this.

Sure, there was the obvious connection that the royal guards were clones too as well, and were also obviously fiercely loyal to Celestia. But their continued clone deterioration and low intellect also ensured that throughout the years they could no longer be trusted to the same extent as before, and could no longer be Celestia’s ace in the hole. In essence, to put it bluntly, like Luna, they became wild cards during the event themselves. As I said, even despite their loss in usefulness, they were kept for appearance’s sake. But they were no longer the perfect clone army Celestia had desired them to be, which was why she worked so hard in better-perfecting the cloning process. As wild cards, like with Luna, they needed to be dealt with.

To answer the age-old[582] question on where did all the bulk of the protective forces go, there’s a clear answer. Celestia made the unorthodox and unprecedented move of relieving all of them from duty (except for a couple who seemingly missed the memo) right before the wedding, and telling them to disperse. Like before, if there were too many of them when the invasion began, that could prove to be a problem, right? Canterlot would erupt into a full war zone between the Changeling forces and the useless royal guards. And the last thing she needed was a third Battle of Canterlot jumbling up her carefully crafted plans. Such a bloody battle between forces of such numbers would surely take precedence over the Royal Wedding itself, and I would think the public and the historians would remember the wedding not for its success in quelling the aftermath of the Pegasi Spring, but for the bloody battle that occurred in the city at the same time. Which would destroy the whole point of the thing.

And the only reason the royal guards and Changeling army were there in the first place was for appearance’s sake anyways, to make it seem like Canterlot was gearing up for a threat and to show the danger of the threat respectively. Celestia was in no way preparing to have them both fight a battle with each other.

So conveniently, all the royal guards were sent away from their posts on Celestia’s own personal orders. But these were secret orders, so there’s no real evidence of this.

What, I’m no military captain. I’m not exactly in a position to get a copy of these state secret orders. And if you think I’d ever volunteer to join Celestia’s army in the first place, you must be high on shrooms.[583]

But this is the best explanation on why most of them disappeared, especially after that accelerated build-up of forces a day before. While probably most of them were kind of confused over the whole thing, they had to obey the absolute words of their princess (for they were clones after all). They all had left their posts a few minutes before the barriers fell to ensure they wouldn’t interfere and to minimize all probable casualties from the guards who had no idea that there was no real threat. Yes, I’ll repeat it, ALL the guards did this in the span of a few minutes. Don’t underestimate the power of Celestia’s secret military orders.[584]

And thus, the army was gone for the scene, and the only ones who could fight Chrysalis’ army were the mane six. I suppose Celestia set this up too so they would have something important to do to keep them relevant in the sphere of history. And also to ensure their defeat due to the Changelings’ overwhelming numbers (and ambush), and to guarantee the non-use of the Elements of Harmony.

But with all that in mind, where did all those royal guards go? With numbers of that size, where could they have gone to stay completely out of the city while the invasion was going on? Well, Celestia probably just tricked them and locked them in a room with Luna to play Yahtzee until the whole thing blew over.[585] Told you that “ineffectual” connection would come back. As I said, eliminating the possibility of casualties would make the wedding still be fondly remembered in history, keeping the Changeling invasion as a footnote to strengthen the appearance of the power of love between the royal couple. The lack of guards on the streets made it seem like that Changelings were able to defeat them all, which would give them the impression that they were a bigger threat than they actually were (even though in actuality, most of the royal guards were with Luna, probably arguing amongst themselves on whether a straight or a full house was worth more points). The Changelings get a beefed up appearance and the royal guards (and Luna) are kept safe and oblivious over the whole thing. What a surprise, Celestia crafts another win-win scenario for herself.

Still doubting me? What if I told you that upon my own personal infiltration of the Royal Castle the night after the wedding,[586] in Luna’s private quarters I found a pair of dice.

Dice?

Dice.

Yahtzee.

We have surpassed coincidence and entered the void. Let go of your earthly tether to what you call “realism” and “logic”, and join me up here in the “enlightened pony realm”. We’ve got enough Doritos for all, friends![587] Beware all who enter here without thought, only true truth seekers need apply.

In the end, the only pony who was available to confront Chrysalis during her reveal was Celestia. Who already planned out the entire confrontation beforehand, for as we already know, she was in cahoots with Chrysalis. This just goes to show that Celestia deliberately set things up so she’d be the only one to face her. But why?

Because this was all part of her plan. For in their confrontation, Chrysalis, who was supposedly strengthened after feeding upon the pure power of Shining Armor’s love, apparently had the power to overwhelm Celestia.

This accomplished two things. First, it showed the pegasi and unicorns across Equestria that the power of the couples’ love for each other was strong enough to even beat Celestia, their all-powerful goddess! That would get them thinking, “That must be one strong love then,” further substantiating the legitimacy of the couple and serve to promote positive relations between the races even further.

And second, it would prove that Celestia could be defeated. Many traditionalists were shocked at seeing their princess defeated, power of love or not, and were sure to spout out many an excuse. Oh, she was just stressed out at the time, guys! She didn’t get enough sleep the night before! Or, she was suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome beforehand and just didn’t want to worry anypony!

But I wouldn’t fret too much over it guys, this was all part of Celestia’s plan. This whole show was just to show that Celestia wasn’t as all-powerful as previously believed (a fact already revealed by me back in Chapter 12), which would help break down her powerful cult of personality.

And why would she want that? To pave the way for her replacement and eventual retirement in favor of her chosen heir, Twilight Sparkle! It was to be a sign that she could be defeated, maybe even that she was slipping. Which would make her succession by Twilight all the more accepted by everypony.

Chrysalis was quite the good actress too apparently, she even nailed the "smiling with incredulity after beating Celestia" part. But she shared her genes with Celestia, the greatest actress of them all. For Celestia can pretend to be actually competent and a good ruler for over a millennia. I think that deserves a Golden Hoof Award right there.

Upon Celestia’s defeat, the Changelings broke through the barrier and entered the city. What is this, the third time Canterlot fell under attack? And it certainly wouldn’t have been the last.

As I said, the royal guards were no longer present in viewable sight in Canterlot at the moment, they were all occupied with an intense Yahtzee match with their Princess of the Night. But conveniently, at that very moment, the streets were empty of civilians and tourists as well. And don't go saying that most of the ponies would be in the castle, watching the wedding. This was supposed to be a big event, and even though the castle was huge, it wouldn't be able to fit everypony.

The streets were literally empty. Almost like the citizens of Canterlot were told to leave the streets open to keep them out of danger. And I know this order to be a fact, ‘cuz I was there. A royal order was sent out the night beforehand, declaring that all ponies who were not officially invited to be in the castle were all told to stay inside as the ceremony began (under the guise of the threat, and to avoid overcrowding at the moment of the wedding). But how nice of it that we are told to stay inside at the very moment coinciding with when the battle began (which also coincided with when the wedding was happening, but whatever).

Sure, I didn’t really want to stay in at the time, and I never listen to royal decrees either. But it seemed like my door was unable to be opened. It wasn’t because I had a massive hangover and overslept the entirety of the Changeling invasion or anything, no, it must’ve been because Celestia put a magical lock on all our doors. That rat bastard.

So yada yada yada, the mane six escaped Chrysalis’ clutches briefly, only to be thrown into an all-out brawl with her forces. Supposedly, it was quite a fight to behold.[588] Not like I would know, I don’t have any actual sources or accounts of this event, besides the words of immediate news articles, probably rife with Celestia-approved inaccuracies. Supposedly all other ponies were “good little citizens, and obeyed Her Majesty’s royal orders”, especially after seeing the Changelings burst in, and thus, no witnesses to the battle between the Changelings and the mane six were seen. But it’s not like you saw it either, so get back down into the mud like the rest of us.

The six apparently fought very valiantly, but were overcome by sheer numbers, as well as ambushed in the room where the fake Elements were kept. But this brings up even more questions. How the heck did the Changelings know where the fake Elements were? After all, they were just shown to break through the barrier. How did they know that that should be the first place to go to ambush them? And how could such a huge horde get into that location so quickly without being noticed by the six beforehand? Well, that’s easy peasy.

For Celestia deliberately planned the absence of the use of the Elements. Even though she told the mane six to seek it out upon her defeat (instead of grabbing somepony who seemingly should’ve been more helpful, like Luna. Conspiracy hint hint!), with this ambush, she ensured they wouldn’t be used. The Elements couldn’t save the day in this event; that would just be another notch in the already full belt of the façade of the power of friendship. No, in this scenario, Celestia needed the power of love, which is why she set up the six’s failure.

As to how they got in so quickly? As I had mentioned before, there were still a few Changelings lying in wait in the Crystal Caverns. They all did have wings after all, and upon receiving the signal that the magical barrier was broken, they flew right into a hidden passageway that led to the Elements room and lied in wait to complete the ambush. And that’s how the mane six were defeated (good thing for Celestia that they never questioned this).

With Celestia defeated, trapped in a Changeling cocoon (for appearance’s sake only. She was probably enjoying her time surrounded in syrup), the mane six captured, Shining Armor still in hypnosis, Cadence stuck to the floor with green goo, and Luna and the guards in the middle of the deciding round of their Yahtzee tournament, it seemed as though the day was lost.

So what did all the Changelings do once Chrysalis declared their victory and told them to “go wild”?

They only cornered and tied up the few stragglers still in the streets (probably the tourists and the one or two royal guards that missed the memo) who ignored the curfew warning. Oh no, what a terrifying punishment from these monstrous conquerors! Rope burn can hurt a lot! And what if they're tied too tightly? Oh, would somepony think of the children!

Wait, they weren’t even tied up with rope! No, they were tied up with sticky green syrup, the same green syrup that was easily obliterated with a simple spell from Twilight to free Cadence.

Celestia, I feel like all of your actions in trying to make the Changelings as little of a threat as possible is only proving to be counterintuitive to your original intentions. Well, whatever, it’s not like you ever listen to my advice before.[589]

The Changelings did supposedly fire green magical bursts into the city to accentuate the destructiveness of their invasion. But curiously, they didn't really destroy anything. It’s not like they toppled buildings or started fires or whatever. Those spells were literally just appearance-based, causing thick grey smoke to bellow from the ground. Almost like it was all a show. Evidence? I'd think so.

So sheesh. This was a lame excuse for an invasion if I’ve ever heard one. The one time the enemy gets into Canterlot, historically known to keep out some of the greatest threats Equestria had ever seen, and they don't do anything.[590] They don't even burn down orphanages, and I'd think that's the first evil thing anypony in their situation would do. No, they tied ponies up and snarled. Menacingly! Give me a break.

Another sign that this was all fabricated by Celestia. After all, this invasion was super lame. And anything super lame can be sure to have Celestia's hoofprints on it.

Getting back to the events in the castle now, while Chrysalis sung about her victory (why ponies even break out into spontaneous song in the first place still astounds me), she had said that she had always had the objective was to feed on a place like Canterlot since she was small.[591] But, if she really did have this dream since she was small, why only attack now? Why not immediately? I know most scholars say she had to build up her forces, whatever. But this still doesn’t make sense, at least when it comes to my theories, because she was born full-grown. Well, perhaps “small” meant back when she was still dough. Batter can have dreams too you know. Not all life starts in the oven!

And at this moment, when Cadence was freed and reunited with Shining Armor (and Chrysalis just let it all happen, probably because she was told to by Celestia), she gave him strength through the power of love, and with the union of their hearts as one, they re-formed the protective barrier and kicked Chrysalis and all her Changeling forces to the curb.[592]

So what, just touching the ends of your horns gives you strength? I suppose I know the power of the phrase, "just the tip", but this is just ridiculous.

And upon using the spell powered by love, the two's magical bodies briefly formed the shape of a heart. How lovingly dovingly fantastic. Celestia probably placed the innate knowledge of this spell into Cadence’s mind when she was created, just like how she set up her genes for her cutie mark, and gave her the ability to spread love. Celestia's really just trying to push this power of love thing now if she needs to rely on visual symbolism too.

And what the what, it worked. With the Changelings’ defeat, everypony was fooled and believed that the power of love saved the day. The Royal Wedding would continue a few days later to the rejoicement of all, and everypony just totally forgot about the terrorist attack and the terrifying powers of the Changelings of a few days prior. I mean, the ability to transform into others could easily wreak havoc on any political system and society itself, but who cares? There’s a Royal Wedding dance party I gotta get to!

So in the end, the Royal Wedding completely succeeded in its intentions, with both pegasi and unicorns well-satisfied, as us earth ponies just kinda stared at the whole thing awkwardly, wondering when it would be our turn to be manipulated by Celestia.

And with its completion, and the Changelings conveniently not being vaporized like the Nightmare forces were as soon as they touched the barrier (further evidence that Celestia chose to have Shining Armor put a weaker version of the spell on purpose, and weakened it even further herself), but rather just getting “blasted off again”, it ensured that they’d be back. Back for their payment at least.

For now that they had fulfilled their part of the bargain, it was time for Celestia to fulfill hers.

So let’s cover Chrysalis’ terms of the bargain.

Like the public explanation and her own admission had explained, Chrysalis desired to feed. For like Celestia, she too had an insatiable hunger. But not for baked goods, what, you think she was some sort of cannibal or something? That’s disgusting.

No, she ate live ponies.

Let me explain. If Celestia, the pony, has an insatiable hunger for baked goods, it is only obvious that the Celestia clone made out of baked goods would have an insatiable hunger for ponies. As I said in the last chapter, it would make even less sense for them to eat love. Can I eat friendship and rainbows too? And poop butterflies?[593] That whole love thing was only said as a ploy by Chrysalis to give a logical reason on how she could be strengthened by Shining Armor’s love, that’s all. If you give what she said more thought than your five seconds of acknowledgement, you’d remember that love isn’t a tangible thing; you can’t even hold it,[594] let alone eat it. No, this whole “eating live ponies” thing is the only logical explanation.

And that whole “putting ponies into green cocoons” thing, covered in ooze? Well, that was just their practice of putting prey into cocoons to keep ‘em warm. Also, because they secrete green syrup and its part of their blood, they were probably just sweetening them up. What’s a donut without a good glaze?[595] With all this in mind, it makes you wonder how Celestia even made clones with such monstrous abilities. But that’s a question for her, not me.

Of course, it’s not like this was the only thing Chrysalis wanted, but it was her most pressing desire at the moment. What’s the point of becoming a powerful queen if you just starve to death in a week afterwards? Especially as Celestia did vow that if they were to murder any ponies for food without her permission, she would go to the ends of the earth to punish them. She’s sort of honorable in that way I guess. Y’know, if there was any evidence that she ever said that. Which I shall choose to believe there isn’t.

To break it down then, Chrysalis was lacking a decent food source. A problem that Celestia would only be so glad to solve if Chrysalis was to help her. A “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” sort of deal. And Chrysalis would be given a small kingdom of her own (that was literally to be titled “The Changeling Kingdom” and was totally a place that existed before, according to Celestia) far to the south of Equestria (where no pony would ever come across them under normal circumstances) as an added bonus.

Celestia promised to feed them these live ponies (as they needed to eat), so she gave up her secret military force, the 10th legion. The legion that nopony had ever heard of before (as there is only known to be nine legions, which are all then divided into various subset regiments) and with no record of their existence. But don’t you find it suspicious that the military force that nopony had ever heard of before was never heard from again after this incident? Almost like they…disappeared. Not because they never existed, but because they were given in a deal to be feasted alive by unholy sentient baked goods. Can you now fully appreciate the extent of Celestia’s crimes?

It was perfect, the multitudes of ponies who nopony had ever heard of would feed the new Changeling hive for many a year at least. And because nopony knew them, nopony would even notice. With the trade of that many ponies as food, it ensured Chrysalis would be satisfied with the deal and her new kingdom, isolating herself from interfering further in Equestrian politics, and more importantly, it would keep her mouth shut regarding Celestia’s involvement in the whole thing. Win-win for Celestia and Chrysalis! Not so much for the 10th legion I suppose, they’d be eaten alive. This is what you get for be so deathly loyal to Celestia. And for being clones too, but I suppose they couldn’t exactly control that.

To ensure the longevity of the new Changeling Kingdom, Celestia even ensured that it would be near a forest. After all, as I said, all forests with thick brambles and twisted vines hold mirror pools, right? As long as the Changelings always left one guard alive, they could keep making more and more batches of food for themselves. And unlike Celestia, they wouldn’t mind the clone deterioration; it’d probably make ‘em easier to chew anyways.

It sounded as though Celestia had the plan all worked out. The only problem was that she couldn’t exactly meet Chrysalis herself; that would be excessively suspicious and bad for her image. She needed an excuse.

Which is why shortly after the wedding, the mane six and Celestia were known to meet up with Chrysalis. Sure, the official reason was that Ponyville was infiltrated by Changelings seeking revenge, three obscure blank flanked fillies were kidnapped (I think one of them was that Sweetie fella, but I don’t care either way), so the mane six had to go rescue them. But this was the aforementioned excuse to allow Celestia to meet up with Chrysalis privately with her royal guards.

After all, as I said, the Changeling Kingdom didn’t come into existence until that very year (otherwise more ponies should know what a Changeling is, not just the pony who was kidnapped by them), but before the crisis, Spike would burp out a message and a map from Queen Chrysalis herself, conveniently telling them what was going down and where to find her Kingdom.

But how did Chrysalis even find a way to deliver this message through Spike? After all, he was almost exclusively the magic mail deliverer-thing for Celestia. So only one pony could have provided Chrysalis access to the use of Spike-Mail© to directly contact the mane six. I’m not implying anything here, but I am directly yelling in your ear that Celestia’s behind it all.

And to top it all off, after the crisis and Chrysalis’ supposed “second defeat”, Celestia showed up to take everypony home and wrap it all up, like the cops arriving after the good guys had already saved the day.[596] But of course, this too was just a façade, to give Celestia the excuse the go see the Changeling Queen herself.

Seriously, at the end of this “Return of Queen Chrysalis” crisis, it is well documented that Celestia asked to see Chrysalis alone with her guards,[597] after meeting with the mane six when they supposedly beat her. Why would she need to do this? Because the whole adventure was just a ploy, a cover-up story, to allow Celestia the excuse to properly deliver her payment.

This explains why Chrysalis specifically attacked Ponyville; to provoke the mane six into action (after they didn’t do much in the first Changeling crisis) and to boost her own image as a threat so nopony would suspect connection between her and numero uno of Equestria. Nopony except me.

In the end, upon meeting with Queen Chrysalis, Celestia used a powerful space-time magic to transport the entirety of the 10th legion to her location (which was a necessity for this spell apparently), and completed the transfer and deal. Celestia would leave them to their fate as she returned to leave with the mane six, as the hungry Changelings prepared to enjoy their first meal. Probably with copious amounts of green syrup. Well, enjoy your retirement, guys. You’ve earned it.

With this, we can close the chapter on the Changelings. Forever. I mean it. And close off this chapter in general. The Royal Wedding may have accomplished everything it needed to, but this did not mean the changes that came with it would dissipate into thin air. There were to be some changes, and Celestia would have new plans (as usual). Let us march forward![598]