Here we shall discuss the hidden histories, secrets, and cover-ups that the species would prefer others not know about such as: barbaric past wars, ethnic cleansing, secret rituals, failed regimes, embarrassing natural processes, secret conspiracies, cover-ups Etc.
Take nothing at face value and read between the lines.
The plastic tips at the end of shoelaces are called aglets, Their true purpose is sinister...
Discuss! Here's one I just came up with...
Equestrian flouride doesn't prevent tooth decay, it actually renders teeth detecable by tracking spells
There is actually a 13th volume of Star Swirl the Bearded's "Secrets of the Arcane" spell book series, However, it was censored by the Equestrian government due to it's references to Chaos magic and Nihilistic philosophies. All copies were destroyed or lost after the Reign of Discord. Except for one, which is kept in the Equestrian Archives "Black Hall" where knowledge that is considered dark or dangerous is stored

Never forget the long and bloody Fleece Wars that finally ended with the enslavement of all sheep under the tyrannical regime of ponies.

Luna once banished Celestia. It happened 1650 years before Nightmare Moon. A town had refused hospitality to a devout follower of Celestia, and the follower died from thirst. Celestia burned the town in her rage, and sent out emissaries to test other towns. Luna imprisoned Celestia's fiery rage in a soul well and kept her body preserved in crystal for 200 years before the rage could be leached away safely. In that time, she revolutionised several parts of diplomacy and trade, cutting out the kind of spite that led to Celestia's downfall. These 200 years were known as the Silver Age or Lunar Age, until shortly after Luna's return in 1000CE, when Celestia renamed it the Dark Age, as a Pranke, or practical jape.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, there was a sudden mutation in the changeling gene pool creating a sub-species of changeling that were unable to consume love and happiness and instead developed the ability to feed off hate, fear and paranoia. The "Backward Ones", as they were called, began to grow in number and eventually created there own hives. The two breeds were in immediate conflict due to their conflicting diets and close territory. Unfortunately, the same gene mutation that allowed them to feed on hatred and fear, gave them a severe weakness to the pure-blooded changelings love-based magic, in the form of a severe allergic reaction. The war lasted for only 5 years before it ended with the death of the "Backwards Queen" and the extinction of the sub-species. Only the current changeling Queen and her most trusted generals are aloud to know of this incident.

656054
That sounds like evolution at work... Which means that Changelings with this mutation might keep being born. So the Queen at the time created a team to research how this happened, and ways to seek out those with a dangerous mutation or just stop it from happening altogether. At the moment, they've only found the former. Each and every Changeling child is screened and if they have a mutation even remotely similar to the one that created the sub-species, they're taken away from their parents, studied, and eventually euthanized.

The parents just think that they're becoming a part of a special guard/research/something and don't protest. Being picked as a child is generally considered a great honor among the civilian Changelings.

656517

Ooh, what if some of them could be harnessed into a guard? They have their hate-feeding abilities stripped from them, and are only able to feed on the raw mana that other changelings convert into love, making them completely dependent on the hive. They could be used as highly reliable agents, since they don't get the fuzzy-headed love cravings and megalomania that comes with absorbing too much, and they're loyal to the tribe since without them, they will starve.

656523
Or you could just brainwash them then use them as power batteries. You capture a group of ponies (preferably a family) and have the backwards changeling torture the children or close friends, being a total dick all the while. Then you let it suck up all the hatred and you have yourself a super-soldier/ mana battery.

Alternatively you could send a brainwashed backwards changeling raised from birth to be fanatically devoted to the queen, then you could send him out into pony cities, ponyville in this example, and have him be obnoxious and 'mean' to various ponies while in disguise. Ponies tend to group together and develop emotions shared by a herd towards an outsider, such as in the case of discord or iron-will (who was entirely reasonable but disliked by all the ponies for petty reasons). He'd also be disguised as a griffin to further alienate himself, xenophobia should do the rest.

Well, in one of my fics (even though I horribly portrayed it), there was a secret government research project going on out in the middle of the desert where a huge facility was built around a huge white rock that appeared there from out of nowhere.
Here is said white rock:

656523

So, there's a special guard of backward Changelings who've grown up away from their parents and been brainwashed into being completely dependent on the Hive for food. They'd be a group of super soldiers who wouldn't know any better.

Although if stripping the hate-feeding abilities was possible, they might not have to be taken from their parents. So what if they can survive on just some sort of mana--like you said--as another side effect of the mutation, but hate makes them stronger? So, in order to keep them in line and subservient, they've never been told that they can feed off hate?

Did that make any sense?

656523>>656650>>657248
Unfortunately, Backward Changelings are utterly incompatible with pure-bred hives. Their severe aversion to love magic makes living in a pure-changeling hive intolerable. Also, the presence of hate and fear in a pony population inherently lowers the levels of love and happiness, bringing the two breeds of changeling into conflict over food and energy resources. They cannot have their hate feeding ability taken from them as it is genetic in origin and attempting to alter the genes magically would result in death or worse, more grotesque mutations. They also have no loyalty to the pure-bred queen as the gene-gap between the two species severs the connection that is normally between a changeling queen and her brood. This is what resulted in one of the backwards changelings metamorphosing into a backwards queen as it sensed the vacancy in leadership.

657046
Nothing good could come of that.

657727 What? Nah, of course something good will happen!

657966
Hmm, you are right, maybe they could sell that ornate rock to canterlot for use in the princesses statue garden. hilarity ensues.

657978 If by hilarity, you mean mass murder and a Convergence event, and you find that funny, then YES.

658035
I wonder if discord could stop a convergence event? Equestria may yet be (not even relativity) safe, or rather not as badly fucked as other places.

Considering the fact they have Celestia, Luna and Discord (I'm sure he wouldn't just standby and watch); how well do you think Equestria would fair against a marker infestation. Also which of the mane six would survive if any?

657589

And as a result of the two being incompatible and enemies, the Queen of the original Changelings is always doing her best to make sure that the mutation never reoccurs in great number,

658056 Nopony would survive. Discord wouldn't want to stop it, with all the chaos that goes on. The princesses would eventually go insane. They are made whole again. Altman be praised.

658417
You're pretty much right, but I'm sure they could set up a forcefield somewhere, discords magic would help with that. I doubt Celestia would go insane without marker contact or being susceptible to it's signal (which is probably actually considering smart people get horrible visions while stupid people can't comprehend it).

Question is, once they hypothetically got this all powerful magic shield up, how long would they last in the dome, would the necromorphs with a combined biomass of all the creatures on the planet Equus have enough strength to break through? would they be able to come up with a solution if they could survive for a few month.

Alright, imagine this:
The planet is lost, using the combined might of the princesses and discords great power the surviving ponies are sealed off inside a dome of nigh impenetrable magic. Within a matter of weeks the entire planet falls to the outbreak, convergence is nigh. the story could go one of a few ways:

1) The princesses and discord use their powers to phase the dome into another diemention, conversion bureau without the conversion or genocide follows.

2) The princesses and discord use their powers to lift the dome up into the sky and land on the moon, where they struggle to create a Luna colony before food supplies and magic runs out (discord can make food, but he has to run out of juice at some point).

3)Assuming this is a fanfic, They just sit and wait without any ideas. It takes months but eventually the shield cuts off. Everypony sees it coming and knows they'll all die, the fic would be about the months that the ponies spend coming to terms with that and how they deal with it. Sad/Tragedy fic, you could proably do some reconciliation of the purely platonic relationships between discord and Celestia, as well as twilight sparkle coming to terms with the deaths of her friends and her rapidly approaching mortality, the finial chat with the princess would also be interesting to write as the shield comes down and countless roars drown out her last words.

4) Discord pisses off, leaving the ponies to die. He goes back to his homeland, where he begrudgingly lives as a normal citizen among a race of gods, meets up with his family again and has to get a minimum wage job that he hates.

658541 Alright, I'm just gonna say stuff as I read your monolith of text.

The force field wouldn't protect against the telepathic signals the Marker sends out, as it isn't matter.
Don't need to touch the Marker to go nuts. Isaac never laid a hand on the Red Marker.
Convergence being nigh means that the Marker's Creator is nearby.
Celestia and Discord would never agree to work together, not with all that chaos outside for Discord.
The Moon has no atmosphere, so all the ponies that aren't alicorns or draconequui would instantly die.
They'd all kill each other in the dome within a month.
That was the only thing I agreed with, because Discord gives no fucks.

658633
Fair enough, but would the marker signal not be disrupted by the magic of the barrier?

Edit: And I assume you mean they'll kill each other due to marker induced insanity right?

658648 Yes, they will.
And radio signals don't exist as any of the normal four states of matter.

658657
Yes but magic doesn't either, so I'm saying magic will block all but the strongest signals such as the marker, hence why equestians haven't got T.V.

A solid wall of magic will definitely block the marker signal.

658669 Magic exists as a plasma-esque form.

658680
Yes but it's bound to have metaphysical properties, after all it's only plasma when concentrated by a unicorns horn. Therefore it's going to block gamma rays.

Edit: You getting mad yet?

A weired idea that poped into my head after reading this story.

The Changeling invasion of Canterlot was actually a cover for a far less sinister plot. During the mayhem of the attack in each home boasting a small family or at the very least a couple, a Changeling Nymph was deposited in a hidden corner. The reason being that due to severe famine there is no longer the food to sustain the next generation of Changelings.

It is the hope of the Queen that most of the Changelings will be taken in by a loving pony family. As a consequence any following purges may result in Celestia alienating her own subjects if she chooses to dispose of the Nymphs giving changelings leverage and possible safe havens when feeding in Equestria.

Alternatively this may slowly grow to the point where Changelings are not seen as a malevolent presence and feeding that does not include outright abduction.

The obvious one-all the statues in the Canterlot Sculpture Garden are really ponies,awake, altert, but trapped in stone with nothing to do but think. Some are traitors, some are murderers, some just got on the wrong side of Princess Celestia.

One of the pony schoolchildren died and her father got a Changeling to take her place without anypony finding out. (I did a fic based on this idea but it had several plot holes.)

Equestria has organized crime in the cities and developed a witness protection program. Ponies in it have their names and cutie marks changed.

670217

If the ponies in the garden are all real ponies, then that means there must have been a hidden race of giant ponies that were wiped out at some point.

Maybe Celestia enlarged them by magic after turning them to stone so that nopony would suspect what she did.

Another idea-Discord was sane and a good ruler once-and went insane and chaotic because of all the years frozen in stone.

Dark Secret: Sombra Planned Everything

King Sombra had more influence over the series' events than most recognize. Some of the events of Seasons One and Two led to the trouble with Sombra in Season Three.

Sombra Caused Nightmare Moon

- Sombra had massacred the incumbent kings and queens of the Empire, but a survivor escaped and sought sanctuary in Celestia's and Luna's realm. Sombra knew that the surviving scion would result in a descendant who would one day return to reclaim the Empire, and if they got to the Crystal Heart and used their powers to fuel it, then he was doomed. He also had to contend with the Elements of Harmony, which were the only things keeping him from expanding his Empire. So, he decided to weaken the enemy.

- Sombra was initially the one who encouraged Luna to seize power, exploiting her pre-existing envy for her sister. While Luna did resist him long enough to defeat him, the damage was done, and she tried to impose Eternal Night. This wouldn't have bothered Sombra: being shadow, he didn't need to eat, and the Empire had lived in darkness during his reign in the ever-cloudy Frozen North without mass death. At the very least, Celestia and Luna would be weakened by in-fighting. In the meantime, Sombra put a curse on the Empire to prevent the scion from reclaiming the Heart, hoping that a thousand years would be enough for the bloodline of the Crystal Kings and Queens to be diluted.

- Princess Luna was still reluctant, however, which explains why her defences against the Mane 6 a thousand years later were so unimpressive: part of her was already unwilling to fulfil the takeover. Not that Sombra was aware of this, but his imperfect corruption of Luna had compromised his plans somewhat. So he arranged for a backup, just in case.

Sombra Caused Discord's Release

- Before the sisters caught up with him, and while he was still trying to corrupt Luna, Sombra sneaked into the Canterlot Sculpture Gardens and put a spell on Discord's statue so that, a thousand years later, Discord would escape and distract Celestia from her task of waiting for the Crystal Empire to return. He wouldn't want Discord released early because the powerful maniac could do all kinds of damage before Sombra had a chance to escape, and his timing was off only because Twilight and co. gained possession of the Elements too early. He'd been counting on Celestia still possessing them when he awoke.

- After making these precautions, Sombra was defeated and locked at the gates of Tartarus on the borders of the Frozen North. His security measures in the Empire still worked, however, and all he had to do was wait for the right moment.

- Problems arose because of awkward timing. Sombra and the Empire vanished before Luna was imprisoned in the moon. Both events were supposed to change in a thousand years (Discord's release was timed a little earlier so that he could do some damage before the Empire returned), which would have meant that Sombra had to content only with Celestia, who in any case would have been overpowered by Discord. While Celestia was distracted, Sombra would escape and reclaim the Crystal Heart when it appeared, using it to deal with Discord and Celestia.

Cadence and Twilight Unwittingly Throw A Wrench In His Plans

- Yet, the Empire appeared later than it should have done. Cadence was born, and came into contact with Twilight, who carried the spark needed for the Elements of Harmony to work. When Celestia discovered Twilight's gift, she began training Twilight in the hope that she would bear the Elements one day and free Luna. Celestia even rewrote the legend to bring the "deadline" forwards and arranged to have Luna freed, knowing that, when the time came, Luna would be too reluctant to make more than a haphazard attempt at stopping her own redemption.

- Not only had Celestia successfully found a replacement bearer for the Elements, but had reclaimed Luna and defeated Discord. Moreover, word had gotten around the kingdom that a Princess was remarkably proficient with love-based magic, far more so than Sombra had expected. In the meantime, Cadence and Shining Armour were beginning to develop feelings for each other, giving even more power to the Crystal Princess. Naturally, this threw a wrench in Sombra's plans. His two trump cards gone, and with several powerful players still in the game, Sombra was forced in the present day to attempt a new plan from his prison. And fortunately for him, one of his in-mates gave him the inspiration.

Sombra Caused Chrysalis' Takeover Bid

- While incarcerated, he nevertheless tricked Cerberus into leaving, giving him a chance to escape and hide until his Empire returned. Since Chrysalis was one of the horrors hidden in the prison too, his actions gave her a chance to escape and reunite with her banished changeling army.

- In fact, Chrysalis' escape was also planned by Sombra. While imprisoned, he'd promised her freedom and power in exchange for a team-up. He knew the Crystal Princess would one day return to reclaim the throne of the Crystal Empire, and learned from the changeling spies Chrysalis had loaned him that Cadence was to marry the Captain of the Royal Guard. Using the changelings as his own spy network, he was able to get information about the security arrangements of the wedding, and devised a plan that would give Chrysalis the land of Canterlot and dispose of the Crystal Princess in one fell swoop.

- While he was at it, Sombra directed the changelings to get to the Elements as quickly as possible and smuggle them out of the city. However, Chrysalis and the swarm were exiled before he could succeed, losing the Elements for both him and the enemy. This explains why Twilight and the others couldn't beat him with the Elements when they finally met. Celestia was able to track down the missing Elements eventually, but only when the light of hope and love shone out across Equestria, making them glow in kind, enabling her to recover the Elements before anyone realized they were missing from the tower. But that meant Cadence had to get to the Heart beforehand, which put priority on recovering the Heart first.

- When Chrysalis failed to take over Canterlot, Sombra was forced to hide before Celestia sent someone to check on the prison, not realizing yet that Sombra was behind Chrysalis' release. Unfortunately for Sombra, the Empire returned just then, Celestia discovered it sooner than he did thanks to her outpost in the Frozen North, and Shining Armour and the Crystal Princess got there first. Unable to stop and plan, Sombra was forced to go for a direct assault, forcing Cadence to exhaust herself defending the Empire from him, and relying on his previous security arrangements to delay them long enough for him to wear them down. Of course, that didn't end well for him, ending a thousand years of strife and chess-playing against Celestia.

696889
I like the idea of trying to give Sombra a more important role, but I think making him responsible for EVERYTHING is a bit of a stretch...

709436

Mea culpa. The Chrysalis and Tartarus parts are probably the biggest stretches, as it relies on a loose reinterpretation of "locked away in the Frozen North". I suppose Chrysalis could break out all by herself and Sombra have nothing to do with it.

I do like the idea of Sombra being the bigger evil that corrupted Luna and freed Discord, though.

This is only a minor theory, but what if Star Swirl the Bearded was a changeling? He did think of the so-called amniomorphic spell, and created over 200 spells. What if he was secretly inside the Equestrian forces around the time of the first Hearth's Warming Eve? Then perhaps he was trying to lead the races of the world into a "golden age," filled with love and joy? That would help both the ponies and changelings!

784476 Neat conspiracy theory. I could actually see that working, hell maybe that's why he failed the alicorn spell. Well we know from Chrysalis that changelings can use powerful magic that increases with love and adoration.

784476>>785126
That's an interesting theory. But I'm more partial to the "Star Swirl = Discord" theory, especially with what Celestia said in the finale about him "not understanding friendship."

786816 Hey maybe the alicorn spell backfired and transformed him into a draconequus. His grasp on friendship was very thin, blasting him with the magic of Chaos in kind.

788474
That's a possibility. I thought that maybe it had something to do with his mysterious "amniomorphic" spell, as it has no clear definition, I've also heard fanon of it being mistranslated as "Omnimorphic spell (Omni being the Latin root for "every or all" and morphic meaning "shape" or "form") possibly explaining his seemingly god like powers of transforming things.

788510 Certainly some great theories, my story was he raised Discord but I gotta give credit for others interesting ideas

788537 I thought he raised Discord too!

Here's a kooky dark secret: Sombra and Chrysalis were ex-lovers. They were King and Queen, ruling the entire world between them and capturing territories as part of a gigantic conquest. However, Celestia and Luna confronted and defeated them. Chrysalis was cursed and turned into changeling form, and Sombra was turned to shadow and banished to the Frozen North.

Donkeys are the original, native inhabitants of Equestria. They no longer know.

>mfw this thread

891670

Huh? I don't understand. What's wrong with this thread?

894039
Nothing wrong with it at all

894108

(Cadence-like) Uh huh...

You do know most of the posters here don't take their own ideas seriously, right?

894123
I'm fully aware. Hence my joking

894125

I knew that.

Equestria is already under changling control thats why its such a happy place ponys lost the war agenst them a long time ago and now Equestria is one big farm but someponys where starting to wake up to see what was going on so the attack was a diversion so ponykind thinks they beat them but it was all just a show and now the changelings go back to another thousand years of feeding

But is this bad look how happy ponykind is no war or hate or hunger Equestria is an utopia but they cant have to much technology dont want any messy industrial revolutions explans all there random bits of tech in the show or cultural revolutions no poney 60s lol the changelings make sure there's no change lol just fat happy subjects to feed off of

On a side note they tried to come to earth but there first scouts landed in Auschwitz during ww2 and they got the fuck out asap they weren't ready for that and have never looked back since

Now rumors have it theirs a place where there are bears and they care a whole lot and so the ever hungry hive looks onwards