TThe Thousand Changeling Warriors

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Drama
• Tragedy

Thorax has defected to the land of Equestria, taking thousands of changelings with him. When Chrysalis launches a retaliation against Equestria, Twilight and her friends must repel her invasion with one thousand changeling volunteers.

• Death
• Violence
• Twilight
• Shining Armor
• Main 6
• Chrysalis
• Changelings

BradyBunch · 15k words  ·  28  6 · 867 views

After the Canterlot Wedding disaster, the rebellious Thorax defected from the changeling kingdom to come to the land of Equestria, and with him came many changelings who agreed with his message of peace. However, Queen Chrysalis, angry at his insubordination, launched an invasion against Equestria.

With their forces spread thin across the land, Equestria has no choice but to rely on one thousand reformed changeling volunteers as an assault against Chrysalis's main army. But will the plan to end the invasion force succeed? Or is hope doomed for all?

Happy, happy new year! 2020 is going to be filled with sooooooo many vision jokes

Setting and Plot

The Thousand Changeling Warriors eases the reader into the setting through a classic letter to Princess Celestia and telling them several important things about the narrative through that letter. In BradyBunch's Equestria, Thorax defected from his hive after the attempt to invade Canterlot and brought supporters with him, and they all metamorphized into the colourful forms we know of today. Unfortunately, Chrysalis didn't take too kindly to the betrayal and launched a large-scale invasion of Equestria, so naturally, war ensues

The story itself builds up to a climactic battle across several chapters, aptly named as the phases in the battle. While only 15k words long, BradyBunch did a nice job of expanding upon a short event into several chapters and making for a decent read. There are some aspects of the story that didn't resonate quite well with me, but I'll touch on those later. Otherwise, the story is fairly well written!

Rating: 8/10

Character Exploration

Since war is not a common topic in the FiM show, it's hard to say exactly how each of the Mane Six would act in a war situation so many in the community have taken some liberties in figuring that out. BradyBunch's interpretation seems to lean closer to how the characters are portrayed in the original show, as opposed to the more commonly seen battle-worn personalities. While they did write each character well, there were several moments that seemed to grab the original personalities, then either hug it tight and never let it go or chuck it into the sun. Go figure

One such instance was from Applejack when the army made up of the titular Changeling warriors made a break for cover in a forest and Twilight commanded the farm pony to burn the wagons:

As the first troops reached the tree line, Twilight pointed at Applejack. “Burn the wagons, Applejack! I don't want Chrysalis to take advantage of this!”

“But Twilight!” Applejack protested. “Ma homemade pies and fritters are in there! D'ya know how much TLC Ah put inta these things?!”

“You don't want Chrysalis to eat them, do you?”

Applejack widened her eyes, then nodded resolutely. “Ah gotcha, Twi. Ain't no mindless drone gonna feast on any Sweet Apple Acres apples!”

I would understand Applejack's hesitance at burning their supplies, but I don't understand her reasoning. I was expecting AJ to say that they'd be burning a week/month's worth of supplies, but her concern was about... the effort she put into them? A bit self-centred for her, in my opinion, and somewhat broke the immersion for me.

Rating: 7/10

Grammar, Formatting, and Consistency

Not much to really say in this category BradyBunch did pretty well on all three categories here! There were some formatting choices when it came to starting new lines and isolating sentences that felt a little strange to me, but otherwise well done.

Section rating: 9.5/10

My Little Nitpicks

Shining Armor's plan
Oh, risky move Chrysalis can't be that dumb, can she?

Chrysalis fell for it
Oh. She is that dumb

Ascension to power
Technically, Chryssie, a queen outranks a princess, so Twilight hasn't quite ascended to your "level of royalty" just yet. Keyword: yet. All hail Empress Twilight 🎆

Applejack's reservations
Sugarcube, I think there are far more important things happening than how much effort you put into your food

Big Brother Best Friend Forever
Foreshadowing.

The battle
Okay, the Friendlings (which is how I've dubbed them!) shifting to infiltrate the Changeling army like that? Ooooh that was a cool move! I love that.

No lethal casualties
Really? No lethal casualties? I'm... surprised? The Friendlings were young and not trained as warriors. I can understand the initial strike since they took their enemy by surprise, but killing 2000 more Changelings and no one in the Friendling army died is... odd when Chrysalis's troops were more trained than the Friendlings.

Final Thoughts

A good, albeit short, story! Keep at it, BradyBunch, and let a beta reader take a pass or two at the story to see if things need to be changed, like the Applejack thing

Final rating: ((8+7+9.5)/3)/10 = (24.5/3)/10 = 8.2/10

7101996
Thank you so much for reviewing it! I'm glad you liked it. I suppose I should have thought things through better, but I do hope you see other works of mine. You're awesome!