Natural Appearance:
Changelings are equine in their general form. Their skin is composed of dark grey hide covered with micro chitin plates that feel smooth to the touch. They have a crooked horn and are not especially gifted in areas of strength or magic. Most changelings can levitate small objects, and all changelings can fly with average proficiency. They also have a concussive energy weapon that is fired from the horn. It is primarily a defensive tool used to push away a threat so the changeling can make a safe retreat, preferably under disguise.

Changelings have a teal, stringy mane and a pair of fangs on both the top and bottom rows of teeth. Their wings are delicate in appearance like a butterfly's but are surprisingly durable. If damaged, they are easily regenerated via the changeling's natural ability. They have slitted pupils like dragons and cats, and an antennae cluster sits at the top of the head behind the horn. They also have several large holes in their legs and wings.

Transformation:
The primary ability of the changeling is that they can transform into what could pass for any particular creature of similar mass. Changelings can vary their body density to appear larger or smaller to a 20% margin plus or minus. Transformation is swift, taking only an instant as magical green fire envelops their body in a flash, leaving behind the new form. The transformation ability is so thorough that they can mimic a specific person convincingly enough that even close friends would not know the difference. Personality traits of the target are picked up from the Lifestream along with precise anatomy and form. Alterations such as cuts, tattoos, injuries or similar artificial traits would not be included in the transformation.

Changelings retain their flying ability when in either their natural form or the form of a pegasus. Likewise, they can levitate small objects and fire their defensive weapon either from their natural form or the form of a unicorn. Taking on the form of an earth pony causes them to temporarily lose both levitation and flight.

Changeling brains store all of the anatomical data of every creature they have transformed into, making the first attempt into a new form the most difficult. The brain and nervous system are the only parts of the body which do not change during transformation. The nervous system is designed to expect new anatomy and compensates for addition or removal of organs and parts. Holding a disguise is relatively effortless, but extended use is tiring. They must spend a certain amount of time in their natural undisguised state in order to rest. This is usually done while they sleep, although it can be any time they want. If they spend too much time disguised, they become sore and irritable. Further time spent disguised leads to increased problems resembling sleep deprivation.

Care must be taken when in a situation that might be emotionally charged. When a changeling becomes very upset, they may lose their disguise for a moment. Also, on occasion if a changeling is thinking about a particular other person, they may accidentally take on their form. If a changeling dies, they revert to their natural form.

Empathic Ability and Consuming Love:
Emotions are shed in a tangible way into the Lifestream, which is a metaspace dimension running parallel with the physical dimension. When someone feels a particular emotion, it lingers in the Lifestream for several hours before dissipating into the background base level.

Changelings can detect these emotions from the corresponding physical space. Different emotions feel like varying tastes or scents to the changeling. Generally, the more pleasant the emotion, the more pleasant the smell or taste. Also, the changeling is susceptible to unexplained mood shifts depending on the type of emotion detected. Stronger emotions can be detected from farther distances. This empathic ability allows a changeling to detect a good friend or mortal enemy within a couple hundred meters. This does not work with non-sapients, so animal threats would not be detected by a changeling. Because it works similar to taste and smell, direction is not generally indicated. Direction can be determined mostly by moving closer or farther from the target and testing whether the intensity goes up or down. This can be problematic if the target is moving or if there is a need for rapid location of someone. Also, unconscious targets cannot be detected.

There is no direct way for a changeling to explain what an emotion tastes or smells like. The best they can do is to use an analogy such as tasting like a particular type of fruit or bitter herb, although it is not literally like this. When it comes to love, which is the changeling's primary interest in their detection efforts, different types of love will taste different, but all types will have the effect of filling their bellies. Fondness and good will are like an appetizer. Affection is like a tasty snack. Romantic love or sincere gratitude are like a full meal. Selfless, sacrificial love is like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Sexual love is like the most delicious chocolate cake - highly pleasurable and fills the belly, but not particularly nourishing or long lasting.

There are two ways a changeling can feed on love. The first is an automatic absorbing of love that was shed into the Lifestream. A changeling does not have to actually "eat" this love. It simply happens as they take the love in without even having to be conscious of what is happening. This is a benign feeding which consumes something that was shed, and therefore, does not affect the person who was the source of the love. It normally takes an average of three or four healthy people to produce enough love to sustain a single changeling. Also, changelings themselves love, which can extend this to a degree, but with severely diminishing returns. Thus, a community of changelings tends to be either nomadic or very small and living incognito within a population of loving, friendly hosts.

The second way a changeling can feed is the active stripping of love from a host. This is widely considered taboo in changeling culture, as the effects on the host are devastating. A changeling can forcibly remove the love from someone for a quick and satisfying meal, leaving behind intense fear where love once was. The victim is left as a shell of a person, essentially having just been violently raped but without the physical evidence. This type of feeding is not in the changeling's best interest either because it will be a very long time before the victim can be useful as a source of food again. It is the equivalent of chopping down an apple tree to get at the apples.

Changeling Nectar:
Love is not the only thing that can be consumed by changelings. They can and do physically eat. Regular food is only useful if the changeling is not love starved. Otherwise, they cannot metabolize it to where it would be useful for their bodies. Regular food is used in conjunction with love to add body mass. When love is not in sufficient supply, the alternative is changeling nectar.

Nectar is made with a hormone from the changeling's body combined with sugar and cooked into what appears as a sort of hard candy after it cools. It is customary to form the nectar into sticks which changelings like to suck on when the love around them isn't quite enough to keep their bellies full. When a changeling is exposed to enough love that they are "full", their body distills the excess love into a pure form which is secreted as a liquid hormone out of a pair of glands located between the hind legs similar to equine milk production. Collection of this fluid is generally considered by changelings to be a very private matter and can easily lead to embarrassment.

The changeling hormone is highly psychoactive if consumed by non-changelings. The brain chemistry and nervous system of the changeling is specifically tuned to use this substance for nourishment, but if a pony were to consume it, they will immediately have an intense dissociative reaction causing temporary impairing of motor functions and cognition. It also has the effect of killing pain sensation throughout the body. The effect is intense, but short lived. Usually the subject will return to normal in between two and ten minutes depending on dosage.

Reproduction:
Equestria in particular has been a stable environment for the changelings to live due to the typical pony family's love for one another and for other ponies. The changeling population has never been very high because too many changelings would upset the love supply and increase the risk of being discovered.

Reproduction occurs in the usual way. When a female changeling is pregnant, she cannot transform, but the pregnancy compensates for the need to revert. When the child is born, it is fixed to the form that the mother was in during the pregnancy. Being disguised as a zebra would result in a baby changeling that looked like a zebra. When the child is about the age of eight to ten, the transformation mechanism in the brain matures and allows them to finally change form.

Managing injuries:
The changeling itself could be said to be just a brain and nervous system that is surrounded by a philiomorphic shell. The body can readily move its mass around to take on new forms. However, if a changeling is wounded, it disrupts the linkages between the nervous system and the rest of the body, making transformation very painful and draining. Small injuries can be easily "reset" by activating the transformation mechanism. Large injuries should be mostly healed first, and then the changeling can transform, finishing the healing process. Attempting to transform with a very serious injury could be fatal.

History and Culture:
Changelings have existed in a delicate balance with ponies for many generations. The only sustainable way they can survive is by feeding off love from the Lifestream. This love is shed by sapient creatures only. It cannot be harvested by force without damaging the host. The number of ponies it takes to provide enough love for one changeling to survive varies widely, as some are much more loving than others. Changelings are not naturally hostile, and their ability to blend in has primarily served to allow them to live incognito among others without alarming them.

The most important law among the changelings is to protect their true identity by any means necessary. The discovery of changelings living among ponies would upset the balance which they rely upon in multiple ways. First, it would draw attention to them causing the need to take extra measures to remain undetected. Second, it would strike additional fear into the hearts of ponies which would in turn reduce the food supply. Fear is the opposite of love, and changelings must not spend too much time in an area where the fear/love ratio is too high.

Changelings must maintain an adaptive culture which allows them to integrate seamlessly into their hosts' culture. Privately, they would avoid living a uniquely changeling culture mostly because switching back and forth makes one prone to error. Some changelings may seem rather eccentric to other ponies, but for the most part, they do well. Certain specific complications may occur due to carelessness. Changelings usually don't spend the night in the presence of ponies, or engage in any other high risk activity such as getting into situations that are emotionally distressing or potentially fatal. Changelings may eat with ponies, but they don't eat as much because they metabolize food more efficiently with love, and physical food only serves to add mass to their bodies.

Most changelings are agreeable by nature because causing conflict or having a tendency to get into controversial topics with others increases tension and reduces the amount of love being shed into the Lifestream. Most like to have professions working closely with ponies because it gives the opportunity for close contact. Working from home would be a poor career choice for any changeling. Many become teachers, entertainers, childcare professionals, or spa workers.

Chrysalis' Gambit:
Some years ago, a changeling named Chrysalis was dissatisfied with the changeling's culture as a whole. She devised a plan that intended to forcibly extract the love from ponies rather than feeding passively off what was shed into the Lifestream. If it worked, they could have a nearly unlimited food supply and stop living incognito, at the cost of actively enslaving ponies and causing them to live in abject fear, being drained of all love.

Unknown to the changelings living among the ponies, Chrysalis convinced over a hundred other changelings to join her in attacking Canterlot. The attack was on the day of Shining Armor and Cadence's wedding with Chrysalis herself impersonating Cadence. It was foiled by Twilight after she discovered that Cadence was an impostor. This event was tragic for the rest of the changeling population because it caused an unwelcome awareness among the ponies as to what changelings were, and also that they were not to be trusted. After this debacle, the importance of maintaining secrecy had never been more serious.

The destruction of the changeling system:
The population reached a peak of 31,000 changelings during the latter years of the trade agreement between Equestria and the zebras. It was a period of high prosperity and celebration, and life was comfortable for the changelings. Population distribution typically favored larger villages and small cities, since the larger cities had a balance of love that was less effective for the changelings due to the presence of counteracting emotions left behind by certain equine urbanites polluting the Lifestream.

When the Great War with the zebras began, life became very difficult for the changelings. The economic shockwave caused by the loss of imported coal sent fear through the pony population making food scarce for the changelings. Certain low-tech areas of Equestria weren't hit very hard, and many changelings migrated there, moving where the love was. They needed to be careful as to not cluster together too tightly, because a bunch of new ponies suddenly desiring to move to an area for seemingly no reason was quite noticeable and raised too many questions.

When the war intensified, changelings lost all safe havens. The disruption of the love supply became so severe that most changelings went hungry. This caused further problems in living among the ponies because of the questions raised as to why certain ponies were so malnourished. Eventually, the famine became an epidemic, and changelings began to actually die of starvation by the hundreds. Despite the heartache of this loss, they needed to remain discreet even in death. The dead were hidden from the ponies and excuses made as to why certain citizens mysteriously vanished.

5 1/2 years into the war, the situation had become unsustainable. The changelings knew they could no longer hide what was going on. Reproduction had come to a complete stop because there was no nectar being produced. If they were to keep from going entirely extinct, they needed to break their most sacred law. They needed to reveal themselves to the ponies and beg for mercy. Five delegates were chosen to meet with Celestia and Luna at the Palace in Canterlot. The very awkward meeting took three hours as they carefully explained the situation and pleaded with the sisters for help. Celestia had not forgotten the attack on Canterlot ten years prior. Ultimately, an agreement was reached.

Integration:
The changelings were granted amnesty for their generations-long deception. They were granted legal citizenship of Equestria, although news of this was only accepted by about 80% of the general population, causing integration to be difficult. In addition, the problem of needing to live in a loving community meant that their famine was not over. What the integration did provide, however, was Celestia's promise to help seek a solution. Within a week, that solution presented itself as a changeling family which had moved to the Crystal Empire worked with a crystal pony arcane-scientist to tune the Crystal Heart's love radiation into a form which could feed changelings. The scientist reported that the city-state now provided more nourishment than all the changelings could possibly consume.

Word spread, and another meeting was held which included Princess Cadence. She decided to allow the entire remnant of the changelings, which now was down to 4925, to move to the Crystal Empire. Two weeks after being granted amnesty by Celestia, the migration was complete. Having no negative stigma against the changelings, the crystal ponies readily accepted the newcomers and helped them build homes. The Crystal Heart artifact amplified the love given off by the indigenous ponies to a degree that there was no longer any threat of starvation to the changelings.

The Vanishing:
27 weeks later, when two dozen zebra assassins attacked the Royal Guard ceremony held in the Crystal Empire, Shining Armor was nearly killed by a sniper. Cadence was distraught over the attack which could have easily left her a widow and hundreds of civilians dead. Up until this point, the Crystal Empire had been largely ignored by the zebras, being on the opposite end of Equestria from the zebra border to the south. It was not a location of strategic importance to the zebras, and its citizens had enjoyed a more or less normal lifestyle for the first few years of the war.

All of this changed when the zebras attacked the ceremony being held in the botanical gardens. The new Captain of the Royal Guard was killed, as well as three civilians. Cadence was not willing to risk her citizens further and decided to take preventative action. She met with Twilight in private, explaining her concerns. By this time, it was apparent that the Great War was not likely going to be ending anytime soon, and if it got a lot worse, it could conceivably lead to the fall of Equestria. StableTec had already been approved, a year prior, to begin design of its massive underground sustainable dwelling project, "just in case" Equestria fell. But what if that failed? A backup plan was not a bad idea to preserve ponykind in a worst case scenario. Even if the Stable project succeeded, would it be capable of preserving the classical Equestrian culture?

Cadence convinced Twilight to allow her to use the Time Key which was given to Twilight by Derpy Hooves for study. It had already been demonstrated to be able to send ponies a short distance into the future and seemed to have the ability to be amplified if given enough magical energy. Twilight let Cadence take the Time Key and hook it up to the Crystal Heart artifact. If they could not remove the zebra threat, then they would remove the city itself. It had been done before. Over a thousand years past, the city had been transported into the future. Without any information on how far it would go or if it would even work, Cadence activated the device. The Crystal Empire and all who were within its borders (including the changelings) vanished. Nopony knows how far it was sent, but it is presumed that it was set to the "maximum setting". The Time Key was found sitting in the snow on a cold, cloudless day, and the entire city-state was nowhere to be found. Almost everypony believes that the changelings are completely gone now. Many suspect that the entire population of the Crystal Empire was killed.

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Without the headache of trying to explain myself over the course of an hour without everything being picked apart trying to find every inconsistency, I'm going to summarise my points of what changelings could be like, in terms of abilities etc like how I originally wanted to do.

Two kinds of transformation: Physical and illusory. Physical is emulating the physical aspects of a pony. A changeling-pegasus will malt feathers and regrow them, but it's a trick of the disguise to make it more believeable. Illusory is when a changeling, as an example, emulates a manticore. The cast spell will make their outward appearance seem larger while the form itself tangeble.

Going off the lore of the 'Supernatural' TV show.
- Strength. Not super-human, but only 10-15% stronger than a pony of equal size and stature. You can still hold your own against a fight with one, though.
- Shapeshifting. Self explanitory.
- Agility. Some insects can use their gossamer wings to quickly change direction. And because they don't weigh as much as feathered wings do, can be much more dextrous.
- Invulnerability. In the show Chrissy and co. get expelled by a wave of 'love energy'. WHile Changelings feed off of it, too much energy can be their achilles heel. It's a case of the "Biggest strength is it's greatest weakness". In Supernatural, changelings can only be killed with fire. Torch a drone and it dies. Torch the Hive Queen (or King) and the entirety of the drones they spawned will erupt in flames.

Vulnerabilities.
- Family. As I said, Killing the Hive Queen will kill the rest.
- Fire. KILL IT WITH FIRE!
- Mirror. Its true self will show in the reflection of a mirror. Don't know if this has been touched upon or not but eh.

The points that I was trying to convey via steam that should have taken ten minutes but ended up taking over an hour of digging into every detail. This is it. Take what you want and mold it to your liking. Doesn't matter if you don't use any of this or not, just didn't want to get into an "OH BUT..." debate.

Also, if you have any interest what-so-ever in the episode, here you go: Supernatural Season 3 Episode 2. You can watch it without any foreknowledge.

4341861
Interesting ideas - I don't mind incorporating anything that would serve the story well and be consistent within the established laws of physics and metaphysics. For Flitter to be a properly balanced character, I'm going with physical transformation. She has very close, tactile relationships with characters in the story, and she's in-disguise during nearly 100% of her waking hours. Illusory spells and such, I've given to Windy Scarlet with her holo-pony illusion. I'd rather Flitter not be able to cloak, which is exactly what she would be capable of if she had illusory disguises. It's still interesting to see other changeling headcanons (I know there are many) to pick what elements might be useful!

I've updated the original post to reflect the following changes.

Alternate sleep / unconsciousness model:
Changelings have a need to spend a certain amount of time in their "natural" form, but do not automatically revert to it when they sleep or go unconscious. Instead, they take the natural form deliberately (usually when sleeping). As long as they don't spend too much time disguised, they are fine. But if they do, then they become sore and irritable. It would be analogous to real life lack of sleep, or sitting still for way too long. It can be done, but it's uncomfortable, and the longer the changeling holds a form, the worse they feel. Death may or may not revert them, I haven't decided.

Alternate reproduction model:
Rather than the whole "Hive" thing, changelings reproduce just like normal ponies, with a couple exceptions. First, the pregnancy allows the female to hold a disguise for the duration of the pregnancy. In fact, she cannot transform until the birth. Also, whatever form she is in when she becomes pregnant is the form the child will take. Changeling young would remain in that form until they reach a certain age. Let's say around the cutie mark age or so. This would prevent the changeling kids from accidentally losing their disguises since they don't gain the ability to transform until they are old enough to manage it.

This gets rid of the whole problem with managing their young, and having too short a childhood.

What it requires though, is an explanation for these things:

I hate compensating for the show's lazy writing and animation in my writing. I'd prefer to just say that all changelings look the same. The ridiculous blue eyes with no pupils make no sense. Why don't they have manes? Why are they small? Why are their fangs bigger? I'd like to discard all of this and just go with one type of changeling, and that is the kind at the top of this thread.

Alternate attack on Canterlot:
As for the incident with Chrysalis - her motive can be the same, but rather than being the overseer of the "hive", she is simply a cult leader who tricked a bunch of changelings into following her foolish plan. Maybe we can pretend that the blue-eyed hairless changelings didn't actually look like that. The whole Canterlot Wedding attack is so full of holes as it is. How did those changelings survive up until that point if they require love? The only way the love requirement makes any sense is if the changelings are not hostile, and they live incognito among the ponies. The idea of a hive full of the things led by a "queen" who tries to take over a whole city and forcibly consume their love is a ridiculous mess. They could have solved that entire plot by making changelings consume fear. Oh my.

Damage model added:
The changeling itself could be said to be just a brain and nervous system that is surrounded by a philiomorphic shell. The body can readily move its mass around to take on new forms. However, if a changeling is wounded, it disrupts the linkages between the nervous system and the rest of the body, making transformation very painful and draining. Small injuries can be easily "reset" by activating the transformation mechanism. Large injuries should be mostly healed first, and then the changeling can transform, finishing the healing process. Attempting to transform with a very serious injury could be fatal.

Many thanks to nioniosbbbb for a stellar analysis, and for asking me lots of questions regarding the changeling headcanon via PM!! I'll answer them here so they don't get lost in my PM history and so others can comment if desired.

They also have a concussive energy weapon that is fired from the horn. It is primarily a defensive tool used to push away a threat so the changeling can make a safe retreat, preferably under disguise.

Is that even needed? I mean they can do it with magic so why even say it's in their biology?

Capabilities would be important to know about for when writing how a character handles a tricky situation.

Changelings have a teal, stringy mane and a pair of fangs on both the top and bottom rows of teeth.

My advice if you give them manes is not to give them all the same color manes.

Hmm, that's fair enough.

and an antennae cluster sits at the top of the head behind the horn.

Are you describing the place when a Queen has the crown? Eeeeh... not exactly my taste to put a spongebob reference in there.

lol well... I figured that was some sort of crown, and then I saw a number of drawings that depicted a changeling that was most surely not Chrysalis but still had the doohicky at the top of the head. Soooo... I figure what the heck, maybe it's antennae. If that's clearly not the case, it's totally not needed for the story.

any particular creature of similar mass.

Aaand why can't they transform to something bigger? Just curious.

Conservation of mass. So, altering size by more than +/- 20% would result in noticeable density problems. There may be magic involved in this universe, but I do try to follow a specific set of natural laws and make things as realistic as possible.

to a 20% margin plus or minus.

Why such a specific percentage? I mean is there a reason they cannot pumpt themselves with more air and stuff?

Well, 20 would allow for things like a female appearing to be a full grown stallion, but not say... Trouble Shoes or someone of similar size. Narratively speaking, it limits the transformation's use so as to not do silly things like transform into an adult dragon or a rabbit. Practically speaking, density would be a problem because once your body is the consistency of a marshmallow, your mobility is going to be seriously messed up. It would be like walking around on the moon. On the other side, too much density would put a lot of stress on the physical structure of the body. It's just not a good idea to stretch or squish someone too far. The exact number isn't important, but consistency is, so I picked an arbitrary 20%.

green fire envelops their body in a flash, leaving behind the new form.

Here is an interesting headcanon you choose to take. My opinion is that while the old changelings chose this way, those who are loyal to X leader for example will choose their way of transitioning through forms to show their loyalty. Others choose other transitionary forms depending on their magic. For example my King who's magic is maelstorm elemental ((water and lightning)) makes a wave rise and engulf him before he transitions.

Hmm... So, there may be different ways to do this? That's fair enough, though I've only seen what was depicted in A Canterlot Wedding, and that's why I wrote it in like this. Personally, I think there could be several more creative ways of transforming. I'll keep an open mind about it, though I'd have to be sure to edit existing chapters.

Personal thoughts are private though, so a changeling doesn't have access to that.

In your blog post about the lifestream you said this. Yet..

Personality traits of the target are picked up from the Lifestream

They can take personality traits? I mean how come the private thoutghts can't be accessed? I mean it's good that they are there but are safe but that just means something is protecting them and that that something can be broken. So... what is protecting them?

Excellent question!! I appreciate how observant you are of tiny details.
The answer is that I'm going off the model that certain personality traits are intrinsic to the person, and thus separate from personal experience. Lifestream metadata of a person would contain only intrinsic information. Things that they are born with, such as any trait encoded into DNA. That would include physical form as well as base personality. Knowledge and memories that a person acquires over their lifetime would all be private. The idea behind this is that when a changeling encounters someone that they want to mimic, they need a mechanism for "knowing" what to transform into. Changing into someone's physical form without at the very least acting a little bit like the person would be a dead giveaway. There's still a risk of course, not having specific knowledge that the target carries, but if you are going to change into Pinkie Pie, you'll be bouncing around with a smile on your face at bare minimum.

Alterations such as cuts, tattoos, injuries or similar artificial traits would not be included in the transformation.

And that means that a changeling has to imitate those manually?

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that, but it's a valid idea. I'd say yes. A changeling ought to be able to manually change things, and this would require two things. First, it would be a bit more effort. Second, it would require direct observation. The Lifestream metadata allows for an exact copy of the "natural" target without examining them, but other than that, you can't copy what you don't know about.

defensive weapon either from their natural form or the form of a unicorn.

Are you referring to a unique-changeling spell? I would suggest using the psionic blast from the mind flayers of Dungeons and Dragons. Very effective Very useful.

I was referring to the green energy weapon fired from the horns (after Chrysalis tells them to go feed in A Canterlot Wedding). They didn't seem to have any real damage potential, but were perhaps some kind of concussive weapon or even a distraction. Open minded here but I think it'd be useful to have some kind of built-in defense that didn't have much damage potential if any.

The brain and nervous system are the only parts of the body which do not change during transformation.

But... there are
creatures with entirely different nervous systems and that they are different sizes.

Yeah, exactly. But this is the problem with a perfect imitation. If in theory you could become exactly like someone else, well... you'd be stuck in that form because your target is not a changeling. You'd essentially cease being a changeling because you'd become your target. Something needs to retain its original form so that you can revert. The best candidate is the brain and nervous system. It would have to be an adaptive nervous system which not only creates the new form but reconfigures itself to operate the new form.

The nervous system is designed to expect new anatomy and compensates for addition or removal of organs and parts.

Again... does that include size?

If the nervous system was adaptive and can create the connections on the fly to sync with a very different bodily structure, then it would be okay. Again though, regarding too much size variation there are density problems if pushing it too far. Having a creature that is as big as a manticore but the mass of a pony would be problematic.

Holding a disguise is relatively effortless, but extended use is tiring.

What kind of energy does it consume? Magic? Love?

For the changeling, it could drain their love reserves as a consequence of holding a disguise too long. That's not a bad idea. I was more thinking that it makes them feel exhausted similar to when someone is sleep deprived. It would be increasingly difficult to focus, and you'd get irritable or have other side effects.

If they spend too much time disguised, they become sore and irritable.

I have a personal headcanon that some changelings if spending too much time disguised they end up suffering a shapeshifter psychosis called "Immersion". Immersion is a real life phenomenon that occurs when someone is "deep" in an experience so much that they forget the real world exists. Simiraly proverbs like "When you wear a mask for too long you become it..." and "Fake it till you make it" can apply here.

Not bad! That could be one of the "late stage" consequences of holding a disguise too long.

Further time spent disguised leads to increased problems resembling sleep deprivation.

That's fine and all and it leads to that but... why?

For the same reason why not sleeping feels the way it does. There is something (iirc scientists don't even know why we have to sleep) that needs recovery time after holding a disguise too long, so shifting back to normal form at night is the safest way to manage it. If that's not an option, then the next day might feel a bit off for the changeling. If they have to hold it for several days, they could have some serious side effects. This has good narrative potential, adding limits and consequences to the changeling character. I have no idea how much of this might get depicted in the story, but it's great having the detail fleshed out and available.

When a changeling becomes very upset, they may lose their disguise for a moment.

What do emotional disturbances cause so that changelings drop disguises?

A disruption. Emotional reactions often have a physical disruption of the body. Breath "catches in the throat" when someone senses tragedy or a deeply moving situation. Faces flush when embarrassed or nervous. Palms can get sweaty. Heart rate can increase. Any number of bodily reactions can occur. For the changeling, they might lose their disguise for a second or so if they are emotionally distraught. Or, they could just lose it entirely if it's bad enough.

If a changeling dies, they revert to their natural form.

Again why does that happen? Does that mean changelings mentally or with magic hold these forms?

I'm 50/50 on the idea of death causing reversion. Up until today I had sleep causing a reversion, basically saying that the changeling needs to be conscious in order to hold a disguise. Not that it's much effort, but it's like muscle tone in real life. Everyone holds muscle tone without even trying. When you fall asleep, that stops. Same thing. But again, I'm 50/50 on whether to keep this one.

Emotions are shed in a tangible way into the Lifestream, which is a metaspace dimension running parallel with the physical dimension. When someone feels a particular emotion, it lingers in the Lifestream for several hours before dissipating into the background base level.

My personal headcanon says that the changelings may basically "see" into this metadata or "Lifestream" as you call it ((I may adopt this headcanon I am not sure)). Emotions basically look like the aurora borealis.
http://mlpforums.com/blog/2091/entry-13569-changeling-theorycrafting-lore-worldbuilding/ There is an outdated version of my headcanon but the views on emotions or others may interest you.

Very cool, thanks. Yeah I think there definitely needs to be a "space" where this love is shed into that holds it until the changeling can consume it. And the changeling needs a way to detect it. Thus came all the stuff about them being empaths, where they have an emotion sonar of sorts. Having this nailed down prior to writing is pretty important. Flitter demonstrates this ability rather dramatically right away in chapter one.

Generally, the more pleasant the emotion, the more pleasant the smell or taste.

What are "pleasant" emotions? And can someone feed of fear? Do they have preference?

I was getting at the idea that if you place emotions on a linear scale of positive to negative, each one would smell or taste a certain way that corresponded to the emotion's position on that scale. Some emotions are neutral, such as feeling perplexed or curious. Some are quite negative. Terror, rage, hatred, etc. Some are very positive such as love, excitement, joy, etc. As for what emotions the changeling can actually use for nourishment, it would need to be one of the variations on love as I listed. Friendship, affection, romance, altruism, erotic, etc. Each would taste different but all would be nourishing to varying degrees.

This can be problematic if the target is moving or if there is a need for rapid location of someone.

So it's like a beeper or something?

More like a scent that a tracking dog has to try to follow. So if an enemy gave off a signature feeling from a certain location, that would linger in the spot it was given off, even if the target moved to a new location. Tracking mechanics would then apply. The changeling would need to try to "follow the trail" to find the target.

out of glands in the changeling's body.
Collection of this fluid is generally considered by changelings to be a very private matter and can easily lead to embarrassment.

Where are those glands? Why do they even need fangs?
You make it sound like it's their jizz or something.

This is one of those things I intended to leave to reader imagination, but in actuality, the idea is something much more parallel to breast milk. It makes good sense if you think about it. The stuff is pure nourishment. Equine "crotch nipples" apply. I very likely won't reveal any of that in the story.

The effect is intense, but short lived. Usually the subject will return to normal in between two and ten minutes depending on dosage.

Is it a drug? You explain to me generally what it does but you say nothing about how it does it.

Well, it's a hormone made from pure distilled love. Being a fictitious chemical, I'd say that it behaves exactly like a drug when consumed by non-changelings. I'm not going to design a molecular formula for it if that's what you're wondering. I depict this in chapter 2 where Rumble has a taste of one of Flitter's nectar sticks and hilarity ensues.

The changeling population has never been very high because too many changelings would upset the love supply and increase the risk of being discovered.

That doesn't explain why they chase them in the first place.

I'm sorry, I don't understand the question. The point I was making here is that changeling population is balanced with their need to remain incognito. Too many changelings intermixed with non-changelings would be a pretty high risk at being discovered. Also the idea is that if there are too many changelings, they would gather at the high density love areas and a lot of arbitrary migrations would be quite noticeable by others. Then there's the idea that the love supply only supports so many changelings.

but the pregnancy compensates for the need to revert.

To revert to what?

To the natural changeling form (to rest). Yes, this is a contrivance because honestly, a transforming pregnant changeling would totally kill the unborn child.

I'm going to have to call it a night here. It's 2:20am and I need to get up in 5 hours. There's more questions but they will have to wait.

When the child is born, it is fixed in the the mother was in during the pregnancy.
a baby changeling that looked like a zebra.

Yea I don't understand anything here. In any case how long does the pregnancy start? Does it have stages? Do we have eggs? Gestation? Or both? ((personally I employ both and can tell you about it if you wish)).
Okay... why though?

Typo on my part. Meant to say "the form of the" not "the the".
What's going on here is that the unborn child takes on the form of the mother because the mother's physiology works identically to whatever she's shifted into. So, if she's a zebra when she gets pregnant, the pregnancy will proceed exactly like a zebra's and the foal will pop out looking like a zebra. The pregnancy would follow along with the "active plumbing at the time". This is why it's important the mother not transform during the pregnancy as well, since changing the plumbing would be incompatible with the child and all. That, plus scrambling about one's insides with someone in there would be a similar trick to when Bumblebee the Autobot transforms with passengers inside. Probably not a good trick to do with the unborn.

So, after the birth the child would be "stuck" in that physical form until they matured enough to do transformations. Having babies transform is a pretty bad idea for trying to live an incognito life. As everybody knows, babies do whatever their urges suggest regardless of whether this is convenient for the parents. This solves the issue of raising young among the ponies. Otherwise I'd have to have them raised in a hive or something separate from ponies. If reproduction was a really bizarre mechanism, it would likely be found out by the neighbors - plus, it really only makes sense that it be normal if the mother's physiology is set to a certain way during the pregnancy. This all serves both narrative and practical purposes, but as to what specific physical mechanism is going on, eh... well I'm not sure how much detail to put into it.

When the child is about the age of eight to ten, the transformation mechanism in the brain matures and allows them to finally change form.

Okay what is this "brain" mechanism and why does it have to wait until 10?

As in real life, different parts of the brain serve different purposes and control different things. Hypothalamus, pituitary gland, etc. For changelings, there would need to be some part of it which controlled the transformation process. This part of the brain would mature at a certain point in the child's life. Age 8-10 is as good as any. They'd likely be trustworthy enough to understand the reason to hold a disguise around non-changelings at that point. As for "why" - well, why do parts of people's bodies mature at a certain age? It's how they work. Can't have sexually mature four-year-olds now, can we? So, if it works this way in real life then it should be okay to do it for changelings as well.

a philiomorphic shell.

A what now? Please explain.

lol. Yeah, I made that word up. philio: "friendly toward" - morphic: "change".
What this means is that the physical body of a changeling that surrounds their nervous system is "geared toward transformation". Its matter is readily shuffled around to take on a new form as commanded to via the nervous system and whatever magic it wields. Contrast this to a regular person's body which is matter that, if shifted around, tends to... die horrifically.

Attempting to transform with a very serious injury could be fatal.

Question... why would it be fatal?

This has high narrative potential. The idea here is that there needs to be a distinction drawn between "matter getting shuffled around due to transformation", and "matter getting shuffled around due to injury". Otherwise, changelings could "fix" any level of physical damage by simply transforming, making them pretty much invincible provided you don't kill the brain or explode the body into a million pieces frozen-T1000 style. We can't have that, so if changelings are to be able to suffer damage at all in a way that makes sense, then there needs to be a reason why "healing" and "transforming" are separate. If we allowed transforming while serious injury existed, there's no way to explain why the changeling would still be injured after the transformation, since the matter is all able to be shuffled around.

Narrative requirements aside, from a physical standpoint, imagine it like a device which can change shape. Autobot/Transformers would be a good example, though I don't think they follow it in the movies. If a complex machine is damaged, then the moving parts can't operate properly. If someone breaks a leg, they can't walk on that leg until it's sufficiently healed. If you walk on a leg with a broken bone anyway, you will damage it further, and it will likely hurt much worse than the original injury. Along this train of thought, if a changeling is seriously wounded, tranforming would be incredibly painful and traumatic, possibly causing death or at the very least, a worse injury.

It cannot be harvested by force, although an attempt was once made to do exactly that.

Are you referring to Chrysalis? Surely she would know if what she was doing wasn't going to work... right?

As with most maniacal schemes, they are prone to error. Chrissy has already demonstrated herself to be fairly retarded when it comes to understanding viability. She dismissed Cadence's statement of the power of love, despite just minutes earlier talking about how Shining's love he gave her made her more powerful than she expected! I'd say it's safe to assume she was mistaken in the rest of the plan as well. She seems to have a flaw in her understanding of what precisely the mechanics of love actually are.

Fear is the opposite of love, and changelings must not spend too much time in an area where the fear/love ratio is too high.

You know I get it... but couldn't they just reveal themselves, strike like a deal, and say that you know... we just want to feed and stuff?

This would come from the classic "I'm making assumptions based on incomplete past experience" problem, aka the Hasty Generalization fallacy. This is not without justification. Essentially, the changelings have experienced rejection when trying to openly integrate with another culture. Most people are slightly xenophobic as it is, and changelings definitely appear quite frightening. Even if they used a disguise, others would know what they are. In addition, most people do not like others "taking advantage" of them, even if it does not harm them directly in any way. Simply the act of siphoning off the ambient love from the local Lifestream could cause some people to object strongly out of principle, perhaps theorizing that the love in the Lifestream contributes to their local population in some beneficial way. Some would consider this offensive, and reject the changelings. Past experience with this type of rejection and prejudice would lead the changelings into a long time policy of not revealing themselves to their host culture.

Working form home would be a poor career choice for any changeling.

Uhmm what?

Generalized statement. "Poor choice" is still a choice, though. What I'm getting at here is that close proximity to others is what recharges the changelings' love battery, right? Staying home writing stories all day is not particularly conducive to close proximity. A changeling is wise to choose a career that gets them in close contact with people from their host culture.

Changelings must maintain an adaptive culture which allows them to integrate seamlessly into their hosts' culture.

Personally my changelings were once called "Proteans". Protean as an adjective means that someone is mutable, adaptable, capable of assuming many forms. Proteus is the Greek God of Elusive Sea Change a shapeshifter that could transform into any material imagineable like water, fire, earth, air.

Yep. I was refeerring directly to cultural adaptability in this instance. What this means is that the changelings would not have their own unique traditions and customs, but would adopt those of their host culture. They would do their best to genuinely behave like regular ponies when integrated into a pony society. Even when in private.

If it worked, they could have a nearly unlimited food supply and stop living incognito, at the cost of actively enslaving ponies and causing them to live in abject fear, being drained of all love.

To be honest you could just say that she saw the whole situation of living under disguise and fake inconceivable. I would agree with her... I'd get tired of being a parasite and begging for love. I'd rather be on top. That doesn't mean I support her actions but still I understand why she would be tired of this situation and want to change. She did do a mistake and attacked instead of actively trying to change society but that's what makes her what she is *shrug*.

Yep. As pointed out earlier, Chrissy isn't particularly bright, and she's impulsive. Not a good combination. She saw a legitimate problem and came up with an inappropriate solution for it. In the ideal scenario, changelings would be openly accepted (as they eventually almost were in my backstory). Their unique gifts would provide much benefit to the host culture and they could have a nice, stable symbiotic relationship.

he population reached a peak of 945 changelings during the trade agreement between Equestria and the zebras.

ARE YOU SHITTING ME? I'm sorry I'm sorry but... 945 changelings? ONLY? HOLY SHIT THAT'S VERY FEW!!! Why aren't they protected species or something? How many inhabit Equestria? What timeline is this? What the... THERE SHOULD BE MORE. Like Millions! Except if this is Fallout Equestria.

How many hydras are there? How many tatzelwurms? How many ursa majors? How many minotaurs? How many chimeras? How many manticores? How many sea serpents? How many dragons? How many draconequus? How many alicorns?! (a major subject of my story)

This is Equestria: home to all assortment of mythological fantasy creatures. The show depicts a very plausible low-population count for quite a few of them. Yes, I understand that most of these are non-sapient monsters/animals, but that doesn't change the fact that there aren't millions of them. We have a planet here that has a smaller sun and moon orbiting it! There's a whole lot that is not parallel to our world. So yes, while real life ecosystems can't sustain themselves with such low numbers, it stands to reason that in a fantasy world such things are indeed possible.

Secondly, from a narrative balance perspective, changelings are incredibly powerful. Imagine having a population of a million discords. It's ridiculous. Look at what one crafty changeling managed to do by simply impersonating a high-profile princess! She very nearly married Twilight's brother (though honestly, I'm not precisely sure what that would have gained her). Changelings can do darn near anything they want if they only applied their talents. Having millions of them would just annihilate the global balance of power.

Practically speaking, as I've said earlier on the topic of "The changeling population has never been very high", there are reasons keeping a low population is the best choice for what is literally a parasitic society.

It was a period of high prosperity and celebration, and life was comfortable for the changelings

THAT was a period of prosperity? Holy FUCK! How many changelings existed in poor times? 10? Wtf... This is extremely dense population for Equestria. Dude add 4 zeros to your numbers presto! Of all species if that satisfies you!

Part of this is dependent on total population impressions in the show. I've heard many theories on how many ponies exist, and they span a couple orders of magnitude. In theory, there could be many more changelings if we just multiply all the global population numbers by a factor as you suggest.

However, there is one rather important and inescapable problem with this from a narrative perspective. In my story, I'm trying to reduce the changeling population down to what would fit comfortably inside the Crystal Empire. That is the target figure. I picked 158 arbitrarily as the changeling remnant after the famine holocaust that the war caused. The intention is to cram the entire changeling population into the Crystal Empire, and then dispose of the city itself, causing Flitter to be "the last changeling".

Why are such low numbers important? Again, because of balance. Changeling abilities are absurdly powerful. Having a handful of people with this power is an interesting balance for a story with a wartime setting, but having lots of them would be devastating to plausibility. Imagine what ten--thousand changelings loyal to Equestria could do to the zebra nation! The war would be over in the span of a week. Sorry, I just don't see any way to properly balance that many changelings. If you have any alternate ideas, I'm open to hearing them. If we can find a way to prohibit changelings fully utilizing their powers in a way that drastically impacts the war itself, then I'm open to the changeling population being as large as you like.

Regarding the "peak figure", well, I was being kind I suppose in regards to their famine tragedy. 945/158 = 6, so that means five out of six changelings died of starvation during the first 5 1/2 years of the war. That's pretty tragic as it is. I could easily add a zero to the 945 giving them a peak population of 9450 and saying that only one in sixty did not starve to death. That's pretty dark. Could be done, but again, I still maintain that a population of changelings (with their established capabilities) over 1000 is highly problematic from a balance perspective unless we can find some plausible reason why they don't take over the world. Perhaps they have internal taboos about sedition?

When the war intensified, changelings lost all safe havens.

WHEN did it intensify? Why didn't they even join the ponies or Zebras to win? Why did this war even happen in the first place?

The war intensified gradually over the first 9 years, and then the shit hit the fan making things exponentially worse for the following 11 years. After that, the nuclear apocalypse.

Why didn't they join an army and fight? I'd say because... they were too busy starving to death. Even if they tried to fight alongside the ponies disguised as fellow ponies, conflict seriously drains them. They live on love, and in war, fear abounds. Especially on the battlefield! They aren't particularly good combatants, being much more predisposed to peaceful, harmonious living. The exception is if they somehow had a supply of nectar to keep them going while taking part in the war. This is Flitter's situation because they don't live on the front lines or anything, and Nyx & Rumble are very loving ponies providing Flitter with what she needs to survive and a little extra for the lean times.

Why did the war happen? You can read a summary timeline of the Fo:E historical account here

news of this was only accepted by about 80% of the general population, causing integration to be difficult.

There should be like only 100 changelings left then holy fuck that's exctinction with the axe only a hair above you. Dude add zeroes to your numbers... This... this is too sparsely populated to say there are only 1000 changelings max. Like... Ponyville isn't a home to 100 ponies only now is it? I propose numbers similar to our world.

I'd be fine with that if changelings weren't so inherently powerful. Again, narrative balance is important for plausibility's sake. See above explanation on this topic.

Within a week, that solution presented itself as a changeling family which had moved to the Crystal Empire reported that the city-state provided more nourishment than they could possibly consume.

You mean the Crystal heart provided it? Or the people? And HOW? Why wasn't it noticed up until then? It was like 10 years that the empire opened? Almost... in any case how come none noticed until then? Wtf.

Valid point regarding "why did the changelings not know about the crystal heart's ability to sustain them ahead of time". Sigh. I will have to come up with something. Thanks for spotting that one.

the entire remnant of the changelings, which now was down to 158, to move to the Crystal Empire.

Holy shit... Again if there's something that frustrates me really with your headcanon is the freaking ABSURD numbers. Like ABSURD ABSURD.

See above statement on narrative balance and population caps for a parasitic society. Regarding this particular number, it is designed to fit in with the Crystal Empire's relatively small size, and the narrative balance of the story's sequel, which follows to where the Crystal Empire appeared along with all its changelings. Look, if I can somehow justify how changelings could exist in a world and not radically disrupt things with their highly powerful natural talent... then I'm open to it. But in a world of war and competing factions where the balance of power can be thrown off by something as simple as capturing and impersonating a faction's leader... (cf. Canterlot Wedding, you can see the power that one changeling has, nevermind 158 of them. I'm open to alternate solutions!

Two weeks after being granted amnesty by Celestia, the migration was complete.

Hehe... did you really just move an entire nation and dissolved all the changelings political powers like that? I mean... what? Didn't they like... have a kingdom? What about globalisation? Cultural absorbtion? How did the changelings even HAVE a culture since they practically had to imitate everyone everytime? This requires A LOT of explanation. And seriously right now Equestria feels like the America of mlp. Which says something about how much I HATE America.

I think the disparity here is coming from our different paradigms on what "changeling society" represents. Is it a fully functional, independent culture filled with average citizens who individually have relatively low influence on their own kingdom? Or is it something else? What I'm proposing (to balance with the changeling's natural strengths) is that they are a nomadic, parasitic society. They have no central leadership, and they fully adapt to the cultural climate of their host society. So, in this case, yes I'd say Cadence opened up the doors to the Crystal Empire, inviting the remnant to come inside, and they readily did so, for staying outside meant near-certain starvation.
... And yes, Amerika is not what she once was.

Having no negative stigma against the changelings, the crystal ponies readily accepted the newcomers and helped them build homes.

Didn't the Empire exist before? Why is there no stigma now?

The Crystal Empire appeared after the debacle with Chrysalis. The crystal ponies never experienced the attack, though they would likely have read about it. These particular ponies are also very high on the "love scale" and with love comes a lack of stigma. They may be cautious but they would not likely prejudge.

the Time Key which was given to Twilight by Derpy Hooves for study.

The what by who and what?! I probably am missing A LOT here.

Yes, this is an artifact in my story that was a gift given by Derpy's lover Doctor Whooves. It's essentially "The key to time" from Doctor Who lore, but not quite so powerful. We'll just say that the Doctor decided to hide it in Equestria for "safe keeping". After the war started, Derpy (not having any personal use for it) gave it to Twilight for study. The artifact was found to have several specific abilities, one of which was to be able to send objects into the future. Another was to be able to slow time down to nearly a stop from the perspective of whatever/whoever is touching the device at the time. This is the technological predecessor to S.A.T.S. which was incorporated later into all of the PipBucks. We see S.A.T.S. used by Littlepip quite regularly, but it was never explained exactly how this technology was developed. My head talisman researcher is currently working on the problem.

The Time Key was found sitting in the snow on a cold,

Why did the Key get left behind? Is there a reason for that?

Narratively, it allows the device to be reused. Having the artrifact travel into the future with them would remove it from my story, and also add it to the future where the Crystal Empire appeared. The reverse is better. Also, it is very much like the "Myst books" which when used, send the user to a new place but are left behind, making it a one-way trip.

I'd prefer to just say that all changelings look the same.

That kinda makes OCs redundant and begs the question why Chrysalis was different. Here's a proposal of mine. The changelings ((except their Queen because she was arrogant maybe)) choose a default form while in changeling form to mask their ranks so that none ever figures out who their leader is so that they can kill them. The same way Royal Guards are the same unicorn/pegasus stallion to promote uniformity and solidarity... It's an illusion.

I really like this! It solves the problem with the dumb looking drones quite nicely! Perhaps the "natural" form of a changeling is more like Chrissy, where the drones were them hiding behind stormtrooper outfits essentially. I'm going to adopt that.

How did those changelings survive up until that point if they require love?

The card of a changeling in the mlp cardgame says that they consume all strong emotions. So I guess they can store and consume all kind of emotions if they want to.

There's a MLP card game?!!
About consuming all kinds of strong emotions, well, that actually solves the problem with the Canterlot attack, since they caused fear and panic, and could just slurp it up. But that's not what was stated in the episode by Chrissy. She said they feed on love, so I guess I'm going to keep that. Besides, everything I've put into changeling culture and behavior and backstory so far would be violated if I allowed them to be sustained by fear.

The idea of a hive full of the things led by a "queen" who tries to take over a whole city and forcibly consume their love is a ridiculous mess.

I personally view "hive" as a substitute word for Kingdom and the same for Drone/citizen.

Yep, that's fine. As long as it doesn't have the structure of a classic insect hive on earth.

NOW FOR FLITTER though I have to ask if you even thought about what happened to Chrysalis after that.

I figured she and her followers perished. She demonstrates a very poor understanding of the love mechanism, and during a time when the changelings were struggling to find viable love zones to survive, Chrysalis would probably have been at a loss for what to do and not survive.

Thought just occurred to me regarding the crystal heart problem.

What if the changelings don't naturally benefit from the crystal heart the way it was configured? Meaning, let's say the crystal heart's love radiation didn't actually benefit the changelings at all during the war, and so they had no idea it could help them. So, being incognito they would not have had any way of talking to the ponies about their predicament and they would have begun starving to death until it got to the point where they broke silence.

Then... with the amnesty and integration the changelings would be free to talk about their problem. Any changeling who moved to the Crystal Empire could have been discussing the issue with Cadence and (being a love specialist) she was now aware of the situation, and the need. She could have made some changes to the crystal heart's configuration (or whatever) to allow it to provide the kind of love byproduct that the changelings need to survive. At that point, the solution is at hand and they gather the whole remnant into the city, solving the famine.

4346020

Capabilities would be important to know about for when writing how a character handles a tricky situation.

What I mean is it even needed for them to call it a separate ability rather than an instictive use of a spell that's in their default memory? *shrug*

Open minded here but I think it'd be useful to have some kind of built-in defense that didn't have much damage potential if any.

Psionic Blast is a spell-like attack Mind Flayers use to stun their victims. They conjure an orb that travels towards their target and once it reaches them it "freezes"/stuns them in place. Mind Flayers use this to safely assault their victims and kill them swiftly by absorbing/eating their brain matter. The point is it's relatively harmless as by itself it's an incapacitation spell rather than an offensive/blast spell.

Yeah, exactly. But this is the problem with a perfect imitation. If in theory you could become exactly like someone else, well... you'd be stuck in that form because your target is not a changeling. You'd essentially cease being a changeling because you'd become your target. Something needs to retain its original form so that you can revert. The best candidate is the brain and nervous system. It would have to be an adaptive nervous system which not only creates the new form but reconfigures itself to operate the new form.

I suggest in this case that you read about the animorphs and how they transform and how they do it. It's a really interesting thing. In fact if you wanted to imitate that show in terms of transformations that would be cool because it's pretty well thought out I'd say.

Not bad! That could be one of the "late stage" consequences of holding a disguise too long.

Two of my characters ((which are changelings and I'd be willing to offer btw. One is mine the other is a friend's who has granted me permission and I would have to ask before I do this.)) are changelings that suffered from exactly that condition.

iirc scientists don't even know why we have to sleep

Actually they do... It's mostly to rest the brain and allow a recollection and reorganization of things.

This has good narrative potential, adding limits and consequences to the changeling character. I have no idea how much of this might get depicted in the story, but it's great having the detail fleshed out and available.

I think this should depend on the mental strength that a changeling has, meaning that if e.g. a changeling cannot control his urges mentally and stuff they can't maintain a disguise for long. You could always imitate the Animorphs here and say that the more a changeling stays in a single form that the more it becomes difficult the shift to another. It's like the changelings are water, and they have to shapeshift often to keep the flow or the "water" running. You could always say that shapeshifting itself helps metabolize their magic.

I'm 50/50 on the idea of death causing reversion. Up until today I had sleep causing a reversion, basically saying that the changeling needs to be conscious in order to hold a disguise. Not that it's much effort, but it's like muscle tone in real life. Everyone holds muscle tone without even trying. When you fall asleep, that stops. Same thing. But again, I'm 50/50 on whether to keep this one.

You could say that it's a brain thing and it's instinctive... That instinct is lost when the brain dies, or when supply to the organ that keeps the disguise stops. Which means that moments or until the day after the changeling dies the transformation reverts to normal.

Very cool, thanks. Yeah I think there definitely needs to be a "space" where this love is shed into that holds it until the changeling can consume it. And the changeling needs a way to detect it. Thus came all the stuff about them being empaths, where they have an emotion sonar of sorts. Having this nailed down prior to writing is pretty important. Flitter demonstrates this ability rather dramatically right away in chapter one.

It could also make for a very beautiful sight, one that could have our protagonists show to non-changelings or others with a spell. Just throwing it out there. Generally if you saw in that link I said positive emotions are like suns radiating energy around, colorful and stuff, while negative emotions are like black holes sucking the energy all around and the light.

See we instinctively feel "vibes" or "auras" when negative or positive emotions are in play. So it's not illogical to say that emotions "radiate" all around and affect those around them.

As for what emotions the changeling can actually use for nourishment, it would need to be one of the variations on love as I listed. Friendship, affection, romance, altruism, erotic, etc. Each would taste different but all would be nourishing to varying degrees.

Here's an idea... I see love as an alternative for "life". What do I mean? Remember proverbs like "Life is nothing without love..." and how we feel "alive" when we love? Heck life is created through love. So this doesn't stop the changelings from associating love with the positive life-force of the environment all around them. Yes you could say love is more "tangible" when a sentient creature experiences it, but at the same time the definition of "love" of a sentient creature becomes highly subjective. When a dog loves his owner what do we say then? When a plant gets affected by music and grows what about that? In any case you could always say that love is ambient, and it's like a shallow lake but when a creature has it it's like a well, meaning it is in larger quantities.

Equine "crotch nipples" apply. I very likely won't reveal any of that in the story.

And that's fine really... you don't want to challenge more of your audience's suspension of disbelief this way. Neither do you want to side with crotch nipples and stuff or others.

where Rumble has a taste of one of Flitter's nectar sticks and hilarity ensues.

Then there's the idea that the love supply only supports so many changelings.

Sure, but the question yet remains why it even was needed for them to live this way. I mean there must have been a time when the changelings could live with them peacefully. Did something happen?

This all serves both narrative and practical purposes, but as to what specific physical mechanism is going on, eh... well I'm not sure how much detail to put into it.

Right right... I am just wondering if any changeling has originally been born a changeling.

They'd likely be trustworthy enough to understand the reason to hold a disguise around non-changelings at that point.

Alright there's a small problem though. How do they keep that transformation for so long since you said there are negatives in holding a transformation for so long?

ontrast this to a regular person's body which is matter that, if shifted around, tends to... die horrifically.

Right. I imagine that shapeshifting and healing wounds would entirely depend on how good one is with transformations which means that the mental prowess to shapeshift helps in healing wounds.

Otherwise, changelings could "fix" any level of physical damage by simply transforming, making them pretty much invincible provided you don't kill the brain or explode the body into a million pieces frozen-T1000 style. We can't have that, so if changelings are to be able to suffer damage at all in a way that makes sense, then there needs to be a reason why "healing" and "transforming" are separate.

Well you could always say that the pain itself disrupts the focus of the changelings and transformations while wounded are really painful. Which means that the pain in the end would take its toll upon the mind of the changeling and eventually force it to be unable to transform. I think it should depend upon skill and be only for those who are "elite" in transformations.

Along this train of thought, if a changeling is seriously wounded, tranforming would be incredibly painful and traumatic, possibly causing death or at the very least, a worse injury.

There's a difference between autobots and changelings. Autobots re-arrange their parts while changelings can basically melt down and reform themselves. But I don't mind. I've already suggested other limitations btw you cold use. Just saying.

Chrissy has already demonstrated herself to be fairly retarded when it comes to understanding viability.

I'd really appreciate it if you kept that kind of vocabulary on low use. Other than that? I think she understood the power of love, rather considered the sentiment itself and the way the changelings fed upon it in comparison to all other creatures that practically feed upon solid food and stuff... ridiculous. I would agree with her on that. It is ridiculous how you can feed on something that is intangible. It is peculiar indeed.

he dismissed Cadence's statement of the power of love, despite just minutes earlier talking about how Shining's love he gave her made her more powerful than she expected! I'd say it's safe to assume she was mistaken in the rest of the plan as well. She seems to have a flaw in her understanding of what precisely the mechanics of love actually are.

Again I think she was referring to the sentiment in itself rather than the power of it. In any case in my head she might have been lied to so many times by false lovers who wanted her position and power that she stopped believing in true love. It's really something that is sad to me...

Past experience with this type of rejection and prejudice would lead the changelings into a long time policy of not revealing themselves to their host culture.

But we're not that "old" I mean the ponies basically have made peace with carnivores ((griffins)) and Minotaurs. I mean what would stop them from understanding this? Surely in the old times that could happen, and before the Princesses I don't doubt that the ponies might have been a LOT worse, but that doesn't have to be the same way today. However that doesn't mean that paranoia can't exist... I just doubt it would be as intense.

Generalized statement. "Poor choice" is still a choice, though. What I'm getting at here is that close proximity to others is what recharges the changelings' love battery, right? Staying home writing stories all day is not particularly conducive to close proximity. A changeling is wise to choose a career that gets them in close contact with people from their host culture.

Unless love is stored and provided to them via storage means, or they are wealthy enough. *shrug*

Yep. I was refeerring directly to cultural adaptability in this instance. What this means is that the changelings would not have their own unique traditions and customs, but would adopt those of their host culture. They would do their best to genuinely behave like regular ponies when integrated into a pony society. Even when in private.

But... not having their own traditions, their custom no nothing? Why are they even separate from other creatures then? How can they even call themselves changelings when basically cutlural identity doesn't exist? I... I think that is a regrettable headcanon I simply don't favor. I mean I could get if changelings had their own cultures and customs that exercized in private, but that just makes them too much like ponies. Like a 4th or 5th tribe... and basically makes the "changeling Kingdom" null and void.

Having millions of them would just annihilate the global balance of power.

Not if the analogies were kept the same. I mean just increase the numbers but keep the analogy the same. Look at the population of Greeks. basically they are like 0.01/6 of the whole world. But anyways better use this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_diaspora it will help you trust me.

Practically speaking, as I've said earlier on the topic of "The changeling population has never been very high", there are reasons keeping a low population is the best choice for what is literally a parasitic society.

That all depends on how parasitic it is and to what extent. We already have established by Chrysalis that love provides them power so it might be more of an issue of having power rather than food.

Again, because of balance.

But there's a limit of choices in mates then, and not all choose to have a gazillion children and stuff. I mean... look at it this way... do you know how hard it is for such a low population to recuperate and reproduce? It's not like in today's society of 6 billion where one kid is born per 10 seconds while 1/2 die. *shrug*

Sorry, I just don't see any way to properly balance that many changelings. If you have any alternate ideas, I'm open to hearing them. If we can find a way to prohibit changelings fully utilizing their powers in a way that drastically impacts the war itself, then I'm open to the changeling population being as large as you like.

As I said. Simply by increasing the numbers and keeping the analogies the same, or limiting them otherwise is good. You make it sound like they are better than other races. I think that because of their spreading too thin of their resources in flight and magic that they have to try harder than other races to compensate.

Perhaps they have internal taboos about sedition?

What's sedition?

The exception is if they somehow had a supply of nectar to keep them going while taking part in the war. This is Flitter's situation because they don't live on the front lines or anything, and Nyx & Rumble are very loving ponies providing Flitter with what she needs to survive and a little extra for the lean times.

Well yea with supplies lots of things can happen. My worry is that you seem to say that fear acts like a negative food.

I'd be fine with that if changelings weren't so inherently powerful.

Again I think you're overestimating them.

Valid point regarding "why did the changelings not know about the crystal heart's ability to sustain them ahead of time". Sigh. I will have to come up with something. Thanks for spotting that one.

I'd say that the love from the heart is not directly collected and the changelings had to find a new technology on how to harvest it. See "love collectors" in "The enemy of my enemy" by Pen Stroke.

(cf. Canterlot Wedding, you can see the power that one changeling has, nevermind 158 of them. I'm open to alternate solutions!

It all might just have with the competence of the guards too. Equestria hasn't seen war for many a year and this causes them to be somewhat inexperienced in that kind of warfare. Also... suprise attack from the inside.

I think the disparity here is coming from our different paradigms on what "changeling society" represents. Is it a fully functional, independent culture filled with average citizens who individually have relatively low influence on their own kingdom? Or is it something else? What I'm proposing (to balance with the changeling's natural strengths) is that they are a nomadic, parasitic society.

Yes... but that makes them different only in biology... and you can exploit that only so much before you begin to capitalize on it too much. You can only go so far with biological differencies.

The Crystal Empire appeared after the debacle with Chrysalis. The crystal ponies never experienced the attack, though they would likely have read about it. These particular ponies are also very high on the "love scale" and with love comes a lack of stigma. They may be cautious but they would not likely prejudge.

Poor Chrysalis... if only she knew... What I mean however is that the Crystal Empire likely existed ((As did the changelings)) a thousand years ago. Does that mean that 1000 years ago there was changeling prejudice? Where were the changelings 1000 years ago? Why didn't they discover it then and feed off of it?

There's a MLP card game?!!

Oh yes there is!

About consuming all kinds of strong emotions, well, that actually solves the problem with the Canterlot attack, since they caused fear and panic, and could just slurp it up. But that's not what was stated in the episode by Chrissy. She said they feed on love, so I guess I'm going to keep that. Besides, everything I've put into changeling culture and behavior and backstory so far would be violated if I allowed them to be sustained by fear.

Again you assume that they feed of the emotions directed to them, and that's not necessary if love and emotions equal to the intesity of life. But the thing is that you assume that those emotions are going to be directed towards them. None stops them from just taking those emotions by force when they are directed towards others.

Yep, that's fine. As long as it doesn't have the structure of a classic insect hive on earth.

My idea is that their natural residences are a combination of Mines of Moria, Dwarf castle in the lonely mountain, and Minas Tirith or Helm's Deep.

hrysalis would probably have been at a loss for what to do and not survive.

You could always say that the changelings that followed her were also looking out for themselves and betrayed her and assasinated her since they were nothing but power hungry selfish mongrels.

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Several interesting points, to be sure. A few which I would like to clarify:

Love being the emotion to feed on, and why not other emotions:
A big part of my story is the exploration of virtues, and love would be one of the most virtuous traits. It's consistent with my story that this would be something which Flitter would strive to be around. Being her companions are loving, it fits well with her that they are together.

As for the situation with the war, it is a plausible disruption in the food supply that could have led to a mass starvation. I'm not suggesting that the love needs to be directed at the changeling. Not at all, in fact the model I proposed says the opposite. It is that the changeling can consume the love which is shed into the Lifestream, which only they can detect. So as long as love abounds with the host civilization, the changeling will be fed. This process is disrupted by the presence of counteracting emotions.

What I'm getting at is not that "love goes away during a war" as much as "fear replaces love and acts as a counteragent, impairing the use of existing love". You said you were worried that I was depicting fear as being a "negative food". But what's wrong with that? It's a pretty solid concept and fits well with the narrative, making things more realistic. If love is a tangible thing like food, and fear is a tangible thing like poison, then it stands to reason that if you add poison to food, you have something you cannot eat.

This would explain why the changelings are able to sense all types of emotions, because they would have to seek out "untainted love" in order to feed. We can even go as far as to say that the most pure kind of love (altruism) is actually a purifying agent which reverses the effects of fear and hate, cleansing the Lifestream. Perfect love casts out fear. During war then, only the most selfless acts of love would provide nourishment for changelings. Probably why they haven't all starved.

Fear being a counteragent to love is demonstrated quite dramatically in the episode with Sombra. The crystal ponies were doing well until they started fearing. Of particular interest is that once the crystal ponies realized that the fake heart was indeed a fake, their fear surged enough for Sombra to gain an advantage over Cadence's efforts to block him out. A major theme of that episode was the battle between love and fear. Even the magic door at the bottom of the spiral stairs was all about inducing fear. The only thing Sombra feared was the crystal heart, which is why he had it hidden. And once the crystal heart (pure love) was found, it "cast out fear".

Which leads to...

Crystal Heart + New Tech = Famine Solution:
This was the biggest plot hole in my headcanon, so it's good to get this out of the way. Your idea of an additional technology is good. So to begin with, let's say that the crystal heart (which could arguably be said to be a dead alicorn's horn, according to my alicorn metaphysics headcanon) does not actually emit usable love into the Lifestream. It does, however, emit love radiation of a sort. Being of no use to the changelings, it would not have been considered a solution to their famine. However, once the changelings were integrated into Equestria officially, Celestia would have directed that pony scientists work on a solution to the famine. One of the scientists at M.A.S. could have been responsible for developing a "conversion" talisman which could be applied to the crystal heart and use its energy to fill the local Lifestream with love that changelings can use. At this point, Cadence could have opened the doors to all the changelings to migrate to the Crystal Empire and live safely there.

Why do they live incognito, and did they at one point have a peaceful coexistence with others?
You asked about why the changelings don't just live "on the level" with their host culture. I think this is answered best by returning to the concept of fear counteracting love. For the most part, a sizable portion of a host culture would be xenophobic to a degree. The changelings as a concept and in their natural appearance are frightening to many, and so this fear would taint the love supply, making food more scarce than it needs to be. The solution is to be able to shapeshift and integrate without the host's knowledge, thus preserving the love supply.

Ancient times with changelings:
You asked about what the changelings would have been doing thousands of years back in their history with other cultures. I suppose it depends on who the host culture was. My story has the current mortal civilizations starting up about 5000 years ago, which gives sufficient time for there to be diverse cultures and species in the world. Changelings would be a part of that group of species trying to rebuild. Perhaps the changelings are one of the species left over from the last great alicorn cataclysm.

Changeling society and culture separate from host:
Okay, you've convinced me that it's probably best to give them some sort of individual identity as people separate from their hosts. Perhaps not a "major power" or anything, but at least something which makes them unique. As far as what that might look like, I have no idea at this point.

Balance and population:
The second big issue you raised was the problem of numbers. How many is too many changelings? This is a narrative balance mostly. You suggest I'm overestimating their power. Consider Mystique for a moment. What damage is she capable of if she really applied herself? Pretty significant. Now imagine a half million of these running loose. You better believe that people would be constantly worried about whether someone was genuine or not. Everyone would be paranoid. How is the ability to perfectly impersonate anyone you want not overpowered?

To answer this question, there are several mechanisms to put into play. First, we could say that while appearing exactly like someone, perhaps impersonating them is more difficult. As previously noted, changelings would not have access to personal memories. So they could be found out by simply lacking knowledge the target ought to have. This could make long-term impersonation difficult. Short-term would still be easy because you can shift into someone's form and just not do much talking. You could get past biometric security systems, or walk through a secure area without being suspected. Also changelings could form their own self-identity within a host culture quite well, since that's their actual purpose for changing. It really depends on how effective infiltration is.

This is all very Mission: Impossible of course. A trained changeling could be a perfect infiltrator. The average changeling might get caught somewhat quickly. Another thing I was thinking is that maybe the changelings are very much against the idea of trying to impersonate leadership in the host culture because it increases the likelihood of them being discovered. (Sedition is "plotting to overthrow the government", btw). If changelings have a personal taboo in this regard, it would make them poor infiltrators.

There could also be varying skill levels in shifting. Maybe some of them can only appear to look like another species but aren't that good at looking exactly like a specific person.

So perhaps population isn't quite as big a deal.

To address population, first we need to work backwards from the present situation. Currently in my story, there is Flitter who believes herself to be the last changeling. It could be possible that there are a handful of others who exist, but if they do, they are laying low not letting themselves be found out. What's more likely is that any other changelings caught outside the Crystal Empire when it vanished would then starve to death, making Flitter the last changeling anyway. Nobody in my story has any knowledge of any changelings existing apart from Flitter.

The next step is to figure out what the population of the Crystal Empire would be. If we want to fit all of the changeling remnant into the city and also maintain a 2% population density among the ponies, how many changelings is that? If we assume a million ponies, then that makes 20,000 changelings in the remnant. The Crystal Empire doesn't strike me as a city with a million ponies, though. Maybe 100,000. That would bring the changeling population down to 2,000 after the famine.

The step after that is to decide the mortality rate of the famine. If it's 90% then that means the total changeling population prior to the famine would have been 20,000. Does this seem like an acceptable figure?

Chrysalis:
She really did get portrayed as a maniacal villain in the show. I'd call her a "cult leader" if anything, from the changeling perspective. So if she convinced several dozen others to follow along with her plan to take over Canterlot, then that could be history. What happened to them after they were expelled is questionable. As far as my story is concerned, all that matters is that she's not present. So, if she reformed and joined the remnant, then there you go. If she didn't survive, then that could be for any number of reasons. If the famine had a 90% mortality rate, she could easily have just been a casualty of that. Either way, she would probably not be looked upon too favorably by the remaining changelings because of what she tried to do.

And her plan itself was inherently flawed because if changelings feed on love, then causing ponies to be driven into a fearful panic would automatically destroy your food supply. Maybe her plan was to use some sort of extraction device kind of like the whole plot with Monsters Inc where the "scare factory" would be replaced by actually holding kids captive and extracting energy from them forcibly. It doesn't quite fit with the show where Chrysalis says "go and feed", but hey, it cant' be perfect.

Changeling babies:
You asked if changelings are ever born in their "natural state" or why they hold their birth disguise for years without getting tired.

First, I'd say if a changeling was in her natural state during the pregnancy then the kid would be born in such a way. This would of course, be a very unpopular choice, given that there would be no way the child would be socially accepted in a host culture. It might work in an integrated society where they were somehow accepted by the hosts. I would say this is simply a choice to be avoided.

As for why the babies don't get exhausted... well that's a good question. Perhaps what makes the changeling exhausted in holding the form is the extended use of the transformation mechanism in the brain that is responsible for this. In the very young, they would be "locked into" their birth form, meaning they aren't actually using the transformation mechanism at all because it hasn't matured yet. Once they begin using this, then any form which they take deliberately would require a small amount of effort.

Transforming with injuries:
Okay, so maybe transforming with injuries is something of a complication. Maybe when a changeling is injured, it causes pain and increased effort when trying to transform. Maybe instead of being an instant-flash thing, it takes several seconds, or even minutes to finish the transformation, all the while being in agony. The time could be dependent on the level of injury. The end result would be no injury, as the transformation would have healed it. But the pain and time involved would be a disincentive to heal via that method. Also, perhaps doing it this way would be especially draining, requiring much more of their "transformation magic" than usual. This could lead to a dangerous or even fatal situation if serious enough.

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You said you were worried that I was depicting fear as being a "negative food". But what's wrong with that?

Nothing in itself but the fact that one may simply use it against them if he/she knows about it. All it would take is some smearing rumors to make the changelings not trusted, and end up in purposeful starvation. I suggest that you at least make the changelings have some sort of barriers. Sure those barriers aren't invincible but they act like damns in a river.

It's a pretty solid concept and fits well with the narrative, making things more realistic. If love is a tangible thing like food, and fear is a tangible thing like poison, then it stands to reason that if you add poison to food, you have something you cannot eat.

True... but you can "cook" your food in real life, and there are ways to extract food from poison. It stands to reason that if one can't find a way to avoid being poisoned... they die. It also stands to reason that chickens with diseases in them are still edible if cooked well. If one knows how this weakness of the changelings they can easily poison them and force starvation through insidious means... For all their "might" your changelings appear to have glaring flaws and not use their power as much. I mean if they are peaceful, what does it matter if they have power? If they don't get involved in conflicts? It makes them like second class citizens... though I might be using a wrong term. Aaanyway...

Fear being a counteragent to love is demonstrated quite dramatically in the episode with Sombra. The crystal ponies were doing well until they started fearing. Of particular interest is that once the crystal ponies realized that the fake heart was indeed a fake, their fear surged enough for Sombra to gain an advantage over Cadence's efforts to block him out. A major theme of that episode was the battle between love and fear. Even the magic door at the bottom of the spiral stairs was all about inducing fear. The only thing Sombra feared was the crystal heart, which is why he had it hidden. And once the crystal heart (pure love) was found, it "cast out fear".

I think it was more of a light-vs-dark and fear-vs-courage thing. Love is not the opposite of fear... courage is... In any case the heart's purpose was to act as a warding crystal and a lock for the Umbrum... the Shadow Ponies living beneath the Empire. Look it up in the comics.

It does, however, emit love radiation of a sort.

Right... so you could say that this radiation was reflected and amplified by the crystal ponies' bodies. That it was simply too "thin" and it was simply "undetectable" by the changelings thus was ignored. Because if they can see it it makes me wonder why didn't they delve upon it?

, Celestia would have directed that pony scientists work on a solution to the famine.

Being the major problem to their existence wouldn't changelings have scientists of their own? Please have them have scientists and stuff, or contribute as well.

M.A.S.

Remind me what that acronym means?

"conversion" talisman

Aren't talismans like necklaces to be worn? Just say that they modified the heart, or added upon its mechanisms or magic.

The changelings as a concept and in their natural appearance are frightening to many, and so this fear would taint the love supply, making food more scarce than it needs to be. The solution is to be able to shapeshift and integrate without the host's knowledge, thus preserving the love supply.

Yes, but behind closed doors and under peace... civilization thrives. If you haven't done it yet then try to do it now.

Changelings would be a part of that group of species trying to rebuild. Perhaps the changelings are one of the species left over from the last great alicorn cataclysm.

I think that it was mentioned somewhere ((not in the comics where their holes are illogically assumed to be caused by Celestia... Seriously this is medically WRONG on so many levels)) that their holes are a sign of them being "incomplete". You could say that they once were a glorious species with their own civilization but got corrupted somehow and it manifested as the holes and their need to love. I dunno it's a popular fanon I think.

Changeling society and culture separate from host:
Okay, you've convinced me that it's probably best to give them some sort of individual identity as people separate from their hosts. Perhaps not a "major power" or anything, but at least something which makes them unique. As far as what that might look like, I have no idea at this point.

How about remnants of a once greater civilization? I can provide legends, tales, or even other interesting stuff. Remember I told you about Proteus? He could be the first changeling King or stuff.

What damage is she capable of if she really applied herself? Pretty significant. Now imagine a half million of these running loose. You better believe that people would be constantly worried about whether someone was genuine or not. Everyone would be paranoid. How is the ability to perfectly impersonate anyone you want not overpowered?

There is a species in the Avengers that shapeshifts the same way... but the truth is that they got the dependability upon love, and you have added negative effects to their transformations. *shrug* The only real problem is that you haven't actually accounted for changelings like Chrysalis essentially making the changelings too... "benevolent".

If changelings have a personal taboo in this regard, it would make them poor infiltrators.

Again... too benevolent?

There could also be varying skill levels in shifting. Maybe some of them can only appear to look like another species but aren't that good at looking exactly like a specific person.

There could also be "illusionary" shapeshifting and "actual" shapeshifting. You decide how different these are with the illusionary being like a coat.

To address population, first we need to work backwards from the present situation. Currently in my story, there is Flitter who believes herself to be the last changeling. It could be possible that there are a handful of others who exist, but if they do, they are laying low not letting themselves be found out. What's more likely is that any other changelings caught outside the Crystal Empire when it vanished would then starve to death, making Flitter the last changeling anyway. Nobody in my story has any knowledge of any changelings existing apart from Flitter.

Oh I see... that makes sense sure.

down to 2,000 after the famine.

Sounds... acceptable? To me at least. *shrug* If I knew about your purpose in the narrative that would be different.

The step after that is to decide the mortality rate of the famine. If it's 90% then that means the total changeling population prior to the famine would have been 20,000. Does this seem like an acceptable figure?

I guess? I mean I don't know...

She really did get portrayed as a maniacal villain in the show.

Eeeh maniacal? No... Sadistic maybe? Yes... I mean she doesn't cackle, her eyes don't twitch... she sings which says she has sanity. She's ambitious, perhaps she has a kind of delusion as to what she's going to achieve... but she definitely an unstable factor.

So, if she reformed and joined the remnant, then there you go.

I like this... thank you. In fact if I had any effect on this I would just say that she lived her last moments with her true love regretting it all because she got betrayed. She died in the countryside a peaceful death, oddly her wish for self-peace being granted. *shrug* Or maybe her daughter/son survived. If that helps the story that is.

It doesn't quite fit with the show where Chrysalis says "go and feed", but hey, it cant' be perfect.

Maybe they found a way to produce fake love or a substitute or purify it. Like margarine is a substitute to butter sometimes?

First, I'd say if a changeling was in her natural state during the pregnancy then the kid would be born in such a way.

Okay here's my big question... how and when does the "transformation freeze" start? I have adopted a similar thing so I want your feedback on it as well... Do changelings get an instinctive tingle when they are pregnant or something? They could have like a sixth sense for these things.

As for why the babies don't get exhausted... well that's a good question. Perhaps what makes the changeling exhausted in holding the form is the extended use of the transformation mechanism in the brain that is responsible for this. In the very young, they would be "locked into" their birth form, meaning they aren't actually using the transformation mechanism at all because it hasn't matured yet. Once they begin using this, then any form which they take deliberately would require a small amount of effort.

I... I think you can do somewhat better. It's a little flimsy is all.

be a disincentive to heal via that method. Also, perhaps doing it this way would be especially draining, requiring much more of their "transformation magic" than usual. This could lead to a dangerous or even fatal situation if serious enough.

Acceptable. Nice!

All it would take is some smearing rumors to make the changelings not trusted, and end up in purposeful starvation.

I'd say that the changelings are a bit more resilient than that. I didn't mean to imply that the effect of fear and hatred had that much negative impact on a changeling. The impact it would have is chronic, rather than acute. Any such hypothetical scheme against the changelings as you suggest could not be a direct attack anyway. Inciting fear on your own citizens just so that the local changelings are suffering? Nobody is going to poison their own culture in order to attack changelings.

The risk is being surrounded by those feelings for an extended period which would lead to hunger, but the changeling could still counteract with nectar sticks as long as they had a break occasionally to make more. About the only way a changeling would be in any actual danger from too much fear and hatred would be if there was simply no respite for months. Cases where it is widespread fear - such as during an international war when you are on the defending side and your nation's survival is at risk. In the scenario I've depicted, the war had gone on for years before things got desperate for them and their survival as a species was threatened.

For all their "might" your changelings appear to have glaring flaws and not use their power as much. I mean if they are peaceful, what does it matter if they have power? If they don't get involved in conflicts? It makes them like second class citizens

Flitter regularly goes out with Nyx and Rumble to get in combat situations. She's no sissy or weakling. She has her role (misdirection, infiltration, medical) and she does it well. There may not be any usable love on the battlefield, but she's got her nectar and then they all go home as a family and Flitter recharges. And this is in a pretty bad scenario with the Lifestream mostly void of usable love. For Flitter, it's like being stuck on a planet with a different kind of atmosphere, but she has all the equipment to compensate (like in Avatar). It's not as bad as you suggest.

Love is not the opposite of fear... courage is.

I guess that depends on your philosophy regarding love. I see courage as more internal resolve, with love being external and "others focused". When you fear, courage is how you counteract it yourself. Receiving love (from another) will also counteract it. So when I'm talking about love, there's a lot of variations. Different languages even have entirely separate words for the different types. Like "philio" which is more of a brotherly friendship love. Or "eros" which is sexual love. There's a lot of different types, so each one would have a different beneficial effect on the changeling.

Technically, to be the most accurate, I'd accept the "opposite of love" as something along the lines of: impatience, unkindness, envy, boastfulness, pride, rudeness, selfishness, being easily angered, and unforgiveness.

Oh, and I haven't read any of the comics yet. I should probably check them out at some point.

Because if they can see it it makes me wonder why didn't they delve upon it?

Hmm... Well I can just say it doesn't emit usable love into the Lifestream. As an amplification mechanism, maybe it draws its power from the Aether, which is my 2nd metaphysical domain but also the source of infinite energy. It's in my blog post. If the crystal heart is drawing power from there when activated by the love of the crystal ponies, that power could be redirected into the Lifestream with a talisman for the changelings to use. Problem solved

Being the major problem to their existence wouldn't changelings have scientists of their own? Please have them have scientists and stuff, or contribute as well.

Absolutely! Changelings would have people of all walks of life.

Remind me what {M.A.S.} means?

Ministry of Arcane Science. Each of the mane-six was appointed the head of their own ministry by Luna after she dissolved the old government. This is Twilight's.
The others are:
Ministry of Wartime Technology - Applejack
Ministry of Image - Rarity
Ministry of Peace - Fluttershy
Ministry of Morale - Pinkie PIe
Ministry of Awesome (no, really) - Rainbow Dash

Aren't talismans like necklaces to be worn? Just say that they modified the heart, or added upon its mechanisms or magic.

In Fallout: Equestria, talismans are extremely powerful crystals that do a very specific thing. Some produce energy. Some purify water. Some enhance conventional weapons. I've got one of my OCs as the head talisman researcher at MAS. He's currently trying to reverse engineer the time key artifact so that he can make the talismans that are incorporated into the PipBucks' S.A.T.S. feature. Flitter is the owner of a particularly useful "examination talisman" which allows her to perform surgery on someone at any magnification level without having to cut them open. It takes the form of a gem set into a horn ring.

their holes are a sign of them being "incomplete". You could say that they once were a glorious species with their own civilization but got corrupted somehow and it manifested as the holes and their need to love. I dunno it's a popular fanon I think.

That sounds interesting. If it fits with my ancient history model, I could include it.

How about remnants of a once greater civilization? I can provide legends, tales, or even other interesting stuff. Remember I told you about Proteus? He could be the first changeling King or stuff.

It really depends on how much detail the story needs. Flitter isn't even the main character. Most of my backstory is regarding the alicorns actually. But I certainly don't mind having it as part of the universe because I may end up writing side stories for this and some of those could include changeling stuff. Especially the sequel which should follow the Crystal Empire into the distant future where all the changelings went.

There is a species in the Avengers that shapeshifts the same way... but the truth is that they got the dependability upon love, and you have added negative effects to their transformations. *shrug* The only real problem is that you haven't actually accounted for changelings like Chrysalis essentially making the changelings too... "benevolent".

That's because I'm trying to portray Chrysalis as an aberration. Not a typical changeling at all. Misguided and ambitious simultaneously, leading to a disaster. Like any society, there could be a number of these types.

Again... too benevolent?

Yeah, probably. I can tone that down, but there needs to be something to explain why they haven't taken over the world by becoming the puppet masters of every civilization using their infiltration and impersonation prowess.

There could also be "illusionary" shapeshifting and "actual" shapeshifting. You decide how different these are with the illusionary being like a coat.

Yeah, I see way too many narrative problems with the illusory type of shapeshifting. I touched on this up above.

Sounds... acceptable? To me at least. *shrug* If I knew about your purpose in the narrative that would be different.

Well, my objective (regardless of subject) is very consistent. I'm trying to make a believable, realistic adventure story with great care taken to make sure everything actually makes sense. If I have a changeling in my story, I need to explain why she's the only one without resorting to hand waving (seriously, that's a good link). There needs to be as much backstory regarding her species as necessary to feed all the narrative bits which might touch on her history. Most authors would simply gloss over it, but I'm rather fond of employing realism as much as I can. Having all this stuff figured out early on makes writing the characters so much easier. Writing Flitter in particular has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of making this story, and the more I am in her head the easier it is to write her dialogue.

Eeeh maniacal? No... Sadistic maybe? Yes... I mean she doesn't cackle, her eyes don't twitch... she sings which says she has sanity. She's ambitious, perhaps she has a kind of delusion as to what she's going to achieve... but she definitely an unstable factor.

lol fair enough

I like this... thank you. In fact if I had any effect on this I would just say that she lived her last moments with her true love regretting it all because she got betrayed. She died in the countryside a peaceful death, oddly her wish for self-peace being granted. *shrug* Or maybe her daughter/son survived. If that helps the story that is.

Mmm, redemption stories are good, yes. If she was actually reformed, that is. I very much dislike "evil villain is good without truly changing" themes. I still have Flitter upset with her for what she did.

Okay here's my big question... how and when does the "transformation freeze" start? I have adopted a similar thing so I want your feedback on it as well... Do changelings get an instinctive tingle when they are pregnant or something? They could have like a sixth sense for these things.

Good question. Perhaps transforming carelessly in early pregnancy would actually abort it! That'd be pretty tragic and dark though. I'd lean more toward that the mother knows when the embryo has implanted, and undergoes some sort of neural shift disabling her transforming mechanism. This could come at an inopportune time if disguised as the enemy or something! It should also be noted that in my story, ponies have reliable birth control via "heat suppression spells". I'm not sure about other species though. Best one doesn't get pregnant when one might be involved in a high risk lifestyle.

Regarding the changeling children... well, yeah I wrote a difficult to support concept. The problem of course, is the need for incognito living as families. To do such a thing means babies will be born and need to be disguised or removed. I thought of having them raised by a hidden nursery of changelings until they could control their abilities, but that was problematic because of how long childhood is. No, it's better to have them raised within the host culture.

One idea might be to allow for transformation to be induced externally. Like, by the parents. So if a baby's transformation mechanism isn't mature enough yet to transform, maybe an adult changeling can interface with it and change for them, causing the baby to transform. This could be a further drain on the parent, (parenting is hard work) requiring them to be near the child to refresh the spell regularly. I prefer having changeling abilities be all internal, but for the kids this one may require an exception.

( please read all the way to the end before beginning to respond)

all of this is very good except for one thing and that is a thing that has been brought up again and again.

That population appears, at first blush, to be way too low.

Look I understand your concern about changelings being overpowered, and I especially think you make a good point about the ratio of changeling to pony having to be very very low.
but
just one question

How do these creatures, umm reproduce?

I don't mean the physical act. I mean like, well they no longer live in a hive, and there is so few of them, that I have to wonder how they go about meeting dating courting marrying getting pregnant etc.

LIke say they are a thousand changelings, intermingled with say ten million ponies over a land scape of say a million square kilometers.
that is one changeling per thousand square kilometers!
Seems like a changeling could very easily go his or her life without meeting another changeling! I just think a species with such a spread out social order in the middle of such a spread out social system with such a tiny population would fall below replacement rate real fast and die out.

I think here of the wizarding world in harry potter. Like changelings wizards in harry potter have to hide themselves from the masses. The total population of wizards in the Uk + ireland has beeen calculated by fans as being in the 20k- 30k range, so about 1 wizard for every 3500-2500 muggles. However the difference is that the wizards have areas ( diagon alley hogsmeade) that while small are ALL wizard and around which wizarding life flows. Similarly a large percentage of the population seems to meet their husband or wife to be at Hogwarts, it appears that this is part of the hogwarts experience.

None of these social structures seem to exist in your changeling society. I suggest that maybe you build some.

At the very least there has to be with such a tiny population, some sort of social mechanism through which all the changelings who are looking for love ( ie with each other) can meet and date . A sort of breeding grounds basically

Perhaps the changeligns emit pheromones that allow any other changeling to detect on of their kind is nearby. And perhaps, thosugh some sort of pheromone system there is some kind of mass communication system that allows unattached changelings to know when to go to the courting lands and you know flirt and whatnot. Perhaps unattached Changelings from sexual maturity onwards gather for a month ( assuming their pony cover " allows" them do to so") in these breeding grounds to meet date and court other " unattached" changelings.

my point is that you have to create a societal mechanism that allow such creatures to meet date etc, since otherwise their population density will be so low that they may not meet each other and could easily die out.

as for the population total I propose 5,000 originally = 2,000 in the crystal empire ( 60% death rate is tragic enough!). if we use the wizarding to muggle ratio in harry potter this gives us a a pony population of 12.5-17.5 million which is probably bigger than what is shown on the show but I think is defintiley within the bounds of reason for the world of your story.
But yeah, create that changeling social structure that allows changelings to date meet etc, because even this number I am sure is way below replacement value.

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That population is way too low.

My updated population figures from this post are 20,000 changelings at their peak numbers.

how they go about meeting dating courting marrying getting pregnant etc.

I haven't decided if interspecies fertility applies to changelings. It very well could if their biology was a good enough imitation to the real thing. Conceivably, a changeling could breed with a regular pony and produce what appears to be a regular pony with a 50/50 chance of inheriting the changeling brain which would eventually allow for transformation. We've already seen how pegasi and unicorns can come from earth ponies, with fully functioning body parts, etc. It seems reasonable that interbreeding would work, though there would need to be sufficient changelings born to keep up with population drops. Meaning, over 1.0 changeling children per couple on average. That means over 2.0 children born per couple on average. As in real life, this means "family ponies" need to make up for those who choose to not have children for whatever reason. Also naturally, if two changelings paired up, they would have a 100% chance of producing changeling children, but they also need over 2.0 offspring on average since there are two changeling parents to replace.

LIke say they are a thousand changelings, intermingled with say ten million ponies over a land scape of say a million square kilometers.
that is one changeling per thousand square kilometers!

That assumes that they disperse like a gas to evenly fill their available area. No intelligent population does this. Changelings ought to be able to somehow sense one another, and not disperse so thinly that they can't hook up. Low population numbers of any group are not a problem as long as they maintain some sort of respectable population density in at least one region. If a city of 100,000 ponies has 2% changelings, that's 2000 changelings to choose from when finding a mate. Factor in demographic filters like being heterosexual, and finding a mate of child bearing age, and you've probably got at least 200 potential partners to choose from in the city. If there is some kind of changeling radar that allows them to sense one another while incognito, this solves the problem nicely, like your breeding grounds suggestion. Heck, in theory all you really need is a couple dozen as long as nobody minds marrying close relatives.

This changeling radar could be pheromones like you suggest. Or it could use the emotional detection mechanism that the story has established. If they can detect love (and other emotions) effectively within say, a 350 meter range, then changelings could easily sense one another and form secret communities within a population, knowing who each other is without the host culture being aware.

Changelings ought to be able to somehow sense one another, and not disperse so thinly that they can't hook up. Low population numbers of any group are not a problem as long as they maintain some sort of respectable population density in at least one region. If a city of 100,000 ponies has 2% changelings, that's 2000 changelings to choose from when finding a mate. Factor in demographic filters like being heterosexual, and finding a mate of child bearing age, and you've probably got at least 200 potential partners to choose from in the city. If there is some kind of changeling radar that allows them to sense one another while incognito, this solves the problem nicely, like your breeding grounds suggestion. Heck, in theory all you really need is a couple dozen as long as nobody minds marrying close relatives.

I don't think so, I still think that assuming the density of changelings tracks the population density of ponies the density is too low for replacement without some sort of social structure designed to facilitate courtship etc.. Look at any endogamous population that makes up a small proportion of the overall population, the obvious examples being small religious communities that only marry amongst themselves ( orthodox Jews, Mennonites, Amish, etc) their population density does NOT track with the United States population as a whole , instead they cluster near each other in geographic locales. That is their density patterns do not track with the population as a whole. Indeed if you look at any group anywhere that makes up a very small minority of the population, they are not spread out in the same manner as the majority population, but instead cluster near each other.

I would also like to point out of course that in the above mentioned endogamous communities ( that is small communities that prize marriage only with other member of the community) do indeed have many social mechanisms to encourage courtship with other members of the community. they go to school together, the religious leaders set up youth groups, there are entire social functions ( barn raisings in the case of the rural communities , specific festivals in the case of the urban ones) based around introducing eligible young members of the group to each other , the orthodox jews even have matchmakers! They most definitely DO NOT leave it to " oh eventually a mennonite will run into another mennonite".

Compounding the above issues are that a. again, these groups IRL tend to cluster together, (not a good strategy for Changelings since the whole point of their low population is that the population of their host species does not notice them, if all the changelings were to say cluster in Manehattan or a specific region, this vastly increases their chances of being noticed) and b. the above groups actually and purposefully have a very distinctive Look/ dress code, so you can easily tell who is a member just by looking at them, this is the opposite of the changelings that are trying to " blend in" ( though this point can be fixed if they have some sort of pheromone system where they instantly detect each other)
IF changelings are more or less equally as spread out as the ponies ( i.e in any given population there is a changeling for every say, thousand ponies, and I will say that 20,000 changelings and 20 million ponies do sound like good numbers to me), as would be ideal for them to keep their cover, then relying on " changeling runs into another changeling" seems highly inefficient, even if they have a pheromone system were they instantly sniff out each other. This would lead to them not breeeding in replacement numbers or at least a massive genetic bottleneck, ESPECIALLY for rural changelings .

Of course some of this would be fixed if changelings could cross-breed with ponies, but that brings up a host of other problems. Firstly there are a whole bunch of emotional issues ( does the changeling parent reveal their identity to the other parent when they get pregnant? how many pregnant changelings would then get abandoned at their moment of greatest need by husbands who feel they were tricked/ fooled etc? do they wait until the child is of X age to reveal this info to the pony partner, thus causing the same problem as a bove? Does the changeling never reveal their nature to their pony partner? if so how do they break the news to their kid of what they are? does the kid now have to hide something for the rest of their life from at least one of their parents? Does the changeling parent just brainwash the other parent forever and ever? I mean there are just oo many emotional moral and ethical questions here, as well as an increased chance of detection. it is rather obvious to me that changelings would like to have a mechanism , a societal mechanism, to gather with other changelings in case they cannot find a willing pony partner.

I really think you should take a cue from t real life societies that are a very small proportion of the population and encourage endogamy, like the above mentioned Amish, Mennonites and Orthodox Jews. There really should be a festival or something that allows young eligible changelings to actually be able to look at teh changeling dating pool. It is also a great opportunity to name it something punny like " the swarming". Obviously this should take place far from pony eyes, maybe in the badlands. Perhaps that is how Chrysalis found so many willing changelings to join her cult , because she lived near there and recruited during " the swarming"?

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Look at any endogamous population that makes up a small proportion of the overall population, the obvious examples being small religious communities that only marry amongst themselves ( orthodox Jews, Mennonites, Amish, etc) their population density does NOT track with the United States population as a whole , instead they cluster near each other in geographic locales.

Yeah, I'm fine with that. So if we had for example, a city of 100,000 ponies and 2% are changelings, you'd probably see a distribution pattern such that over half of the 2000 changelings would be clustered in a certain part of the city. And since they're living incognito anyway, the others wouldn't even notice the difference. As long as they blended in with the host culture rather than having a vastly different culture, then it would probably never be noticed. I'm reminded of when I was about 14 years old living in Wisconsin back in the early to mid 1980's. There was a huge influx of immigrants from Laos. They were generally poor and lived in the parts of the city which the less fortunate lived. Downtown and the like. This was a city of roughly 55,000 people with no larger cities for about 90 miles. The Laotian population might have been a thousand people at most. But I very much doubt they intermarried with the predominantly Caucasian population where I was living. What the rest of us did notice however, was that they did have a fairly different culture than we did. Our culture was practically a stereotype of typical Midwestern White middle-class America. An Asian culture being inserted suddenly into the mix back in the 80's was highly unusual. But if they were changelings and culturally adaptive, I could see them still living in a cluster, but not really being noticed by everyone else.

do indeed have many social mechanisms to encourage courtship with other members of the community.

I would expect the changelings to have something similar to this, yes. Perhaps if they can sense one another even while disguised, they have some sort of courtship custom which fits their unique situation. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at inventing such things. And in the case of Flitter being the last of her kind, it's not quite relevant at least to this story. Perhaps the sequel when we catch up with the Crystal Empire. I'm not sure if Flitter should find love in this story or in the next.

based around introducing eligible young members of the group to each other , the orthodox jews even have matchmakers! They most definitely DO NOT leave it to " oh eventually a mennonite will run into another mennonite".

You're right, that's a much better model.

not a good strategy for Changelings since the whole point of their low population is that the population of their host species does not notice them,

Not only that, but they would need to be sensitive to the love distribution in the Lifestream. The very nature of the changelings physiology prohibits too much density because they'd have to forage out for love, rather than just being able to find enough in their local home zone. Get too much population density in a small part of the city, and there will be a love gap, causing hunger issues.

relying on " changeling runs into another changeling" seems highly inefficient, even if they have a pheromone system were they instantly sniff out each other.

I dunno - picture this. In rural areas, you have individual houses that are roughly 400 meters apart. In the city, houses are 20 meters apart. (guessing here). Rural population density is so low, and yet it's not a problem for people who live there, right? Imagine if you overlapped a dense population with a sparse population. From the perspective of the ponies, the city is densely populated. But from the changeling perspective, they would simply ignore the ponies as if they did not exist, and they would see the changeling residences that are distributed more like the rural countryside. This would be problematic if detection was difficult. So it really relies on how effective this changeling sense actually is. Plus, if you're living in a town, you do get to know the layout. You get a feel for where the other changelings are, etc. It's not so much like bumping into them while on the move.

Overall, I'd say that I agree with the idea of changelings having some sort of physical community where they cluster in loose (but not too loose) numbers while living among the ponies. In the case of Ponyville itself, that's a case where you'd see at most 20 changelings in a town of 1000. This is a little problematic but if they want to find mates, I'd say they probably need to go somewhere else to find them, and then bring them back to Ponyville to raise the family.

a whole bunch of emotional issues ( does the changeling parent reveal their identity to the other parent when they get pregnant? how many pregnant changelings would then get abandoned at their moment of greatest need by husbands who feel they were tricked/ fooled etc? do they wait until the child is of X age to reveal this info to the pony partner, thus causing the same problem as a bove? Does the changeling never reveal their nature to their pony partner? if so how do they break the news to their kid of what they are? does the kid now have to hide something for the rest of their life from at least one of their parents? Does the changeling parent just brainwash the other parent forever and ever?

Interestingly, there's a story called Flitter which addresses the situation where a male changeling lives with a regular female pony in a long term monogamous relationship in Canterlot. When Cadence's spell dispels all the invading changelings, this particular resident changeling loses his disguise. I have not yet read this story, but it's on my list! You should check it out.

There really should be a festival or something that allows young eligible changelings to actually be able to look at teh changeling dating pool. It is also a great opportunity to name it something punny like " the swarming". Obviously this should take place far from pony eyes, maybe in the badlands.

Not bad - or perhaps such a ritual could even be held in plain sight among regular ponies. But the festival would seem very benign to them, and only actual changelings would understand its meaning, which is the way that changelings find one another to hook up.

I read flitter years ago haha! not sure I remember all of it. 2,000 changelings for a population of a hundred thousand seems high, i really like the 1/ 1000 ratio that something like 20k changelings/ 20 million ponies provides ( of course perhaps there will be 4000 changelings in the crystal empire which might have 100k-200k ponies but that concentration is because they are refugees from a famine, a much different circumstance than the normal)

My point being that given that changelings are parasitical you probably DO want them to be roughly equally spread out in per capita terms with the pony population and NOT to cluster n... which I have said is not how tiny minorities operate. This really emphasizes why they should hold a festival or something similar, and yes it could be in plain sight if they are all wearing their disguises, though something of a rural location would probably work better, if the changelings operate at a certain level of paranoia.

I actually thought of another reason why the Changelings should be endogamous ( " mating with only other members of the gorup") and why i don't think you should make it possible for them to crossbreed with equines. Simply put, even if changelings were upfront about their identity AND most pony changeling relationships fell through right then and there, in situation where ponies outnumber changelings a hundred to one or a thousand to one, the changelings would eventually get inevitably diluted through intermarriage and crossbreeding ( avoiding this is precisely why the groups I used as examples only marry within the group) Perhaps a half changeling half pony can still maintain the changeling abilities, but what is going to happen when most changelings are really only like one eight changeling and 7/8ths pony? No it is better if for the purposes of actual reproduction changelings either can't mate or purposefully won't mate with ponies.

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the changelings would eventually get inevitably diluted through intermarriage and crossbreeding

Correct - which is why I'd have to use the "changeling offspring are pure changelings" model of reproduction which seems to be the situation with other MLP breeds. We see the three subcategories of ponies as all "pure" within themselves, and yet can bear offspring of any type. It does not seem to follow any sort of Mendelian genetic model. If an earth pony marries a pegasus and they have a pegasus foal, that foal is a fully functioning pegasus. Naturally, this flies in the face of real world reproduction, but this is the poniverse. Consistency is all that is required. So, the way this would work is if a changeling paired with a natural pony and they had a 50/50 chance of having a changeling foal, then that changeling would not be diluted or a hybrid. It would be a pure changeling. Likewise if the foal was a normal pony, it would not be "part changeling" at all. This model would allow for crossbreeding.

Agreed regarding the Crystal Empire situation - as refugees, they would have an abnormally large population. Perhaps 2%. And maybe the 0.1% standard population you suggest is good for the pre-war era. Small clusters in certain districts would be okay as long as they didn't create a problem with feeding. And yeah, some sort of festival does seem to be the best way to handle relationship hookups. If only there were such a thing in the real world!! *sigh*

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If only there were such a thing in the real world!!

There are among the elite. Look up " debutante balls" and " cotillions" Though it is a much slower and more political process than a " hook up". Also of course " assortative mating" ( like marrying like with like here meaning similar socioeconomic status ) is a large part of the appeal of eilte educational institutions, especially when it comes to prep schools at the high school level... Suffice to say that when a group decides that the only " right" people to marry with are other members of that group the formal social mechanisms to support this are put into place.

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Except in my group. We honestly have no such customs. And the world at large is mostly okay with things like night clubs and such for meeting people. Then again, those relationships are not likely designed to be permanent. I honestly have no idea where people like me find a potential mate these days. The dating scene has really changed since I grew up.

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Suffice to say that when a group decides that the only " right" people to marry with are other members of that group the formal social mechanisms to support this are put into place.

I was probably unclear. When i said the above quoted sentence I meant to imply a group that is a proportionately minor population within the society as large and wishes to marry only within the small population group. The elite, by definition, is a minority and so on. If you are part of the majority population ethnically economically and culturally, the pressure on the " majority society" to provide these support systems for its population is lessened since the danger of dilution is less.

That said , of course, you can mimic this through joining social organizations. A religious organization or something involving a cause or hobby you are passionate about are the best bets. The point here is that anything that causes its membership to be passionate about a shared concept AND has a marker effect ( I.e members can easily tell each other apart from the majority population, and yes the effect is further reinforced if the mjority pop can also distinguish members) wil function in a similar way.

Otherwise there is always online dating !

Oh I am sure you have already seen this but if not, here is something that is INSANELY relevant to your interests.

Not that we are considering KKAT word of god here, just as we don't consider the need to slavishly follow all of Pen Stroke's ideas. But i really like the whole " benevolent changeling queen" thing, if only because maybe Flitter could be that ( though I think your current plan is to have flitter time hop with Nyx and Rumble) Again KKat goes with the convention that the changelings live in insectoidal hives with a queen, whereas you have them more independent, still her description of Chrysalis's plan and motivation survives intact if you change " changeling queen"to " changeling cult leader")

4439654 Yeah, I haven't actually read that yet, though I was aware of it. Mostly, I recognized it would not be relevant to my story at all, given that it's regarding changelings in the wasteland specifically. And in my depiction, the changelings were dying en masse of starvation due to the love imbalance during the zebra war which was only a fraction as devastating as the post-apocalyptic wasteland itself. If I am to be consistent, I can't allow changelings to survive in the wasteland at all, unless they just happen to be in the near constant presence of multiple very loving ponies who are not living in fear. And even then, there isn't enough love to sustain more than a handful. Can't rely on the Crystal Heart either since I sent that forward in time during the first half of the great war.

You're also right in that I do plan to send Flitter forward with Nyx and Rumble to be reunited with her lost loved ones. That seems fitting for her, since her current situation is so tragic.

Speaking of tragic, I still don't like how I need to kill off three alicorns in order to maintain Fo:E consistency. All three, Nyx would have been extremely close to, and discovering that they were gone would be a major blow for Nyx once she got on the other end of the time jump. Also, personally I am very attached to Luna, and the idea of allowing her to be killed off and not being able to have her be a part of the continuing story is pretty sad.

. And in my depiction, the changelings were dying en masse of starvation due to the love imbalance during the zebra war which was only a fraction as devastating as the post-apocalyptic wasteland itself. If I am to be consistent, I can't allow changelings to survive in the wasteland at all, unless they just happen to be in the near constant presence of multiple very loving ponies who are not living in fear. And even then, there isn't enough love to sustain more than a handful

you should read it though, because she specifically addresses the behavior of Changelings in such a famine situation. which could appky just as well during the famine in your story as in the wastelands itself

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Mmm, redemption stories are good, yes. If she was actually reformed, that is. I very much dislike "evil villain is good without truly changing" themes. I still have Flitter upset with her for what she did.

More like she got... tired. There's a saying like "the sins of the parents torment the children" in Greek. Maybe it could be a story like that.

Well, it seems the most recent MLP episode has a few things to say about changelings.

Confirmed that they aren't necessarily all hostile to ponies.
The idea that they can change into inanimate objects is a twist. I won't be including that.
It was rather weird and intriguing to see their "nursery" where they hatch and have some kind of nymph form.

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I wonder if their open hostility is due to the influence of their mother? Could it be different for other Queens? If there are any more of course.

There's also the mention of a 'kingdom' of Changelings somewhere. Hopefully they might delve a little deeper into this with the double episode at the end of the season.

Perhaps. I suppose since there's canon comic material already available, they'll do something along those lines.

The stuff my story needs is a fair bit different, though, as it has them living among ponies as a primary lifestyle.

Oh, it's also worth mentioning that the episode seems to have completely forgotten the fact that there has a changeling being tolerated living in Equestria for at least as long as Slice of Life, where it shows up at the wedding. "I'm just here for the food".

And at that wedding, all the alicorn princesses were there. And the changeling was in plain sight.

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Yeah, Slice of life does kinda throw this episode on its head.

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This is a thoroughly impressive description, but I'm confused with a few details.Some of them might have been answered or implied already, but here I go.

Changeling Queens

I'm still unsure whether the concept of a "Changeling Queen" exist in this universe. From what I gathered, no prominent social structure or hierarchy exists implying that all changelings are created the same with no distinctly powerful leader.

Then again, this story integrates the Canterlot Invasion into its timeline. And here's the confusion I'm facing. I got that Chrysalis was essentially a cult leader with a ragtag group of followers, and not a queen of a hive. I see two problems with this.

Appearance. Chrysalis's model looks distinctly different from the average changeling, perhaps even doubling in size. This thread seemed to have addressed the problem by proposing that changelings are born unique but chooses to take a default cover disguise fot strategic advances. And I think that's a ingenius idea. But this raises a few more questions in itself.

Is Chrysalis's appearance real? If so, the model certainly suggests at least some significant amount of power difference than the normal changeling.
Or is it a disguise? In that case, is the disguise modeled after an existing sub species, or is it a completely fabricated disguise of an unexisting species? And can the changelings even do that?

The other problem raises some more serious repercussions. How powerful is Chrysalis?
Now, I'm assuming Celestia being bested isn't canon in this universe, but even without that, she displayes some impressive feats of magic. And that begs the question again, is this a normal changeling or indeed a sub species?

Magic Displays

More specifically, the two feats of magic we see performed in the Canterlot Invasion. Forced teleportation, and apparent mind manipulation.

Is this relevant in this universe? If so, perhaps it needs some explanations.
If not, the invasion might have had a different set of results. Perhaps Shining armor had been tricked expertly on his own voilition and thus will suffer more guilt and regret, becoming more paranoid. Maybe Twilight have had been put down by blunt force, causing some hatred on her part. That's a decision entirely up to you.

Misc
Is any of this canon?
As in,
- The Changeling detecting gel.
- Changelings can change into inanimate objects or non-sapients.
- Changeling Hives
- Changeling Containing Pods

Enlighten a newbie plez.

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Whew, old thread! But a good one. There have been some changes not covered in the above treatise.

First, Chrysalis is problematic. I am inclined to suggest that Chrissy found some kind of magical augmentation which gave her abilities uncommon to ordinary changelings. This would include some of the abilities you mentioned such as anything she used in Canterlot Wedding to overpower ponies. And yes, I do have a problem with Celestia's defeat in that episode. As I've stated in my story's FAQ, anything in canon MLP which depicts alicorns as somewhat weak, mundane, or incapable is not canon within this universe. MLP has basically done a "Worf" with Celestia, using her to lose every battle with every new villain as a demonstration of how badass that villain is. It's disgraceful. Anyway, moving on.

Regarding Chrissy's physical form, that is the form of a true changeling, minus the increased stature. They are ordinary pony sized, but they look like the image at the top of this thread. They do not look like canon MLP drones. And they certainly don't look like the Season Six "rainbow deer" models. Changelings have eyes much like Nyx, but green. They have hair like Chrissy. It's a better model, and I see no reason to withhold it from the changelings at large.

"Detecting gel"... I'm not sure what you are referring to. What episode is that from?

Changing into inanimate objects (like we see Thorax's brother do) -- No. They can't do that. The mechanism for reading the form of a target to change into comes from reading the Lifestream. And only other sapients are in the Lifestream. Having said that, a changeling can alter their exterior color scheme much like a real life cuttlefish in order to blend in with their environment.

Hives -- No. Changelings do not live in hives. They live incognito among ponies within their own civilization.

Containing Pods (or coccoons) -- Yes. As a natural combative ability, whether for defense or for predation, the changelings could use this to subdue their prey/victim/attacker. Duvet has a moment in the story he's currently writing where these pods are used.

Some new stuff:
Changelings were originally created by the Alcora over 150,000 years ago to be "pony tenders". Their function was to nurture Harmony among the ponies from an incognito position within their society. They helped foster cooperation and especially love (which they were engineered to require) among the ponies because that created an environment where Harmony could grow. The first changelings were initially created by altering selected ponies with advanced bio-technology. They were the final product of a series of quite cruel experimentation. The Alcora have a history of biological manipulation to influence societies and build subspecies which would serve their purposes.

Then, much later, Discord corrupted the changelings nearly 5000 years ago, altering their base form and providing them with the biological function of actively feeding on a pony's love. The result is devastating to the victim. After Discord was contained, the changelings had to form strict rules against active feeding. The changelings then resumed their historical role of pony tending, though they had long forgotten as a species why they were given this role.