The Simple Solution
Discord groaned for what felt like the twentieth time as the group made their way towards the changeling citadel. "This would be so much easier if it weren’t a hostage situation."
Trixie gritted her teeth."What would make it easier would be certain draconequuses piping down for once!"
"For your information, the proper plural is 'draconequodes.'"
"Besides, you're only making it harder on yourself by talking as you walk."
"So are you."
Starlight cut in before Trixie could say anything beyond incoherent growls. "What do you mean, Discord?"
"You don't get to be the Spirit of Chaos without a decent imagination. If Queen Bugbutt really thinks one little null-magic zone could stop me, she’d have another thing coming. It’s simple: I’d just have to go into space, find a pre-existing meteor, and send it hurtling down on her tacky little castle. That hunk of nullstone she’s squatting on might drain magic, but it can’t do anything against mundane momentum. Next thing you know, BAM!" Discord smacked his talon into his paw. "No more throne. Or much of anything else for that matter. Rocks fall, everyling dies, just like my usual Ogres & Oubliettes game."
"So why don’t you do it?" said Trixie.
Discord gave her a long, disbelieving look. Slowly, as though speaking to a very thick foal, he said, "I already said why. It’s a hostage situation." He thrust an arm towards the castle. "Fluttershy’s in there!" After a moment, he added, "And, you know, some other ponies. Like Fluttershy’s friends, and literally every alicorn, including Flurry-Come-Lately. They could survive the impact normally, but doing it while they're in what amounts to a dead magic zone may be asking a bit much."
"Oh." Trixie drooped. "Right."
Discord ruffled her mane, smirking all the while. "You see, the thing those of us who have any actual magical power have to learn is that our actions have consequences. Granted, enough power and you can sidestep a lot of those consequences, but reassembling ponies after a meteor strike? I’d really rather not go through the trouble."
"Wait up, you two!"
Discord and Trixie both started and looked behind them, to where Starlight was attending to a wide-eyed Thorax. "Are you okay?" Starlight asked him.
He stared at Discord, his face a portrait of naked horror. "You… you really could’ve done that at any time?"
“Hmm?" Discord gasped in comprehension. "Oh! Yes, the gruesome deaths of all your friends and loved ones. Wait, no, most of them live in the Crystal Empire. All your acquaintances and hatchmates. Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?"
Starlight scowled at him. "Discord, this is serious."
"It wasn't already?" Discord turned back to Thorax. "You shouldn't be so concerned. Normally, I wouldn’t bother. Death is so final. The only change that come after that is decomposition, and all that’s good for is gross-out humor. Not my usual style. Besides, effort." He stuck his tongue out. "All the calculations, actually having to find the right hunk of space rock instead of just making one, getting the angle just right... No, I'd only do it if it were truly important, and I refuse to dignify Chrysalis with any kind of actual exertion of my will, as though she were a threat."
"I thought you were holding back because the yellow one was in there," said Trixie.
Discord shrugged. "Spirit of Chaos. You really expect me to be consistent?"
"You're a consistent pain in my flank."
"Spirit of Disharmony as well."
Starlight rolled her eyes. Thorax looked back and forth between the bickerers. "You really think we can do this?"
"We're Equestria's last hope. It doesn't matter whether we can do this; we need to." Starlight sighed. "That's what I keep telling myself, anyway."
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You know, there are variations to this.
One possibility being to teleport the entire Equestrian millitary to the edge of the null-zone, and tell them "the changelings captured the princesses".
Admittedly, not a good stealth approach, and more of an all-out war rather than infiltration, but... it's something to consider. Possibly to refine, somehow.
Or... teleport a large quantity of water to right above the null field. Mix with some other substance in industrial-scale quantities, possibly a sleeping powder or perhaps just every jello-powder Equestria has ever produced, then start dropping a steady stream of that.
Flush out all the changelings / get them all stuck / otherwise incapacitated, but not fatally so.
THEN summon the entire Equestrian millitary to the edge of the null-zone.
....I'm guessing since Chaos isn't about precision - plus, the Hive is ever-shifting and not even Thorax might be certain about the pinpoint exact location of the throne - Discord couldn't simply build some sort of "laser" and start cutting holes into the Hive from afar to aim at the throne, then essentially "snipe it" out.
But yeah... It's an interesting problem; all of Discord's powers at their disposal, but only outside the field... and magical constructs won't last inside of it. (Yikes, remind me to not write a "Mirror Pinkie visits the Hive" chapter for that Pinkie-clone story of mine!
)
7713783
There’s always the Trurl solution:
Conjure up a Twilight Sparkle from an alternate reality and ask her to think of something. Hey, it works wonders for Celestia!
If she doesn’t, get another one and repeat until they either come up with a solution or there’s enough of them to rush and disable the changelings using pure earth pony strength of an alicorn.
Heh. I hoped someone would point that out.
Does the magic field drain the strength-giving Earth Pony magic as well as a Unicorn magic? Because if not...
"I have an army."
"We have a Maud." [1]
[1] Combining with Oliver's suggestion: "We have 500 Mauds."
Discord is so under utilized
7714004 There's a slight problem with that, though:
None of the four even know Maud.
7714556
Discord has met her, but I suppose he might not know about her giant rock-breaking abilities. Given that she worked on the Pie's rock farm, I would think Trixie would know, [1] unless Maud was off at school at the time. Both Discord and Glimmer may have heard about her and her, um, peculiarities hanging out with the Mane Six: it's not like she isn't a memorable character.
[1] BTW, there's a whole Trixie-Maud comic on that basis, which I would recommend: a good place to start http://foudubulbe.deviantart.com/art/Awakening-470673992
7713783 7713866
Let's see what else we can come up with!
* What could be more chaotic than null-nullstone? Whip up a hunk of that, then march right up and through the door.
* Reverse gravity for the conoid of Equus that the hive rests upon -- problem solved. Whoops, hostage situation, right. I guess that also rules out the giant magnifying glass positioned to incinerate the hive.
* Giant bug zapper located just outside the nullstone field, the light tuned to attract changelings.
* Giant vacuum cleaner or leaf blower located just outside the nullstone field is used to suck/blow out everything in the hive not nailed down, leaving the cocooned ponies safe and sound.
* Confront Chrysalis! Just remember to go back in time and set up the traps after winning.
7715360
One thing that should be considered is that the anti-magic zone appears to be spherical. With this, it’s pretty certain that the throne is somewhere at the center. As long as enough reference points can be attained, the position of the throne can be determined precisely.
If we assume that the zone being anti-magic does not, by itself, prevent teleporting into it, there’s a large group of solutions based on the idea of keeping something manageable with magic, and expecting the magic to be dispelled immediately once it is within the null-zone.
For example, let Discord acquire a few thousand tons of real custard and super-compress it using magic into a single cup. Then, using the knowledge of the position of the throne room, he teleports the cup through to the approximate location of the throne room. The magic holding the cup together instantly gets dispelled, the cup explodes, and floods the throne room with custard, immobilizing Chrysalis. Since all the hostages are cocooned, they remain unharmed.
7715697
We've already seen that if Discord attempts to teleport into the null-magic zone, the teleport ends just outside the null-magic zone. (But I have to admit, that is a hilarious image).
7713866 But if no magic except changling magic works, don't earth ponies lose their strength inside the null zone? I imagine for an earth pony it's like Superman near Kryptonite.
Heck, if you're going to do something that clever, instead of Twilight Sparkle from an alternate dimension where she wasn't captured, go to an alternate dimension where changlings are good and helpful, and get a bunch of them to zerg rush the Hive. I think the Mirror dimension from the comics might qualify here.
7717019
Considering that Chrysalis is a poster child for love over there, their changelings might be a bit too considerate for this kind of work.
That’s not the trick with Trurl’s solution, though. Trurl’s approach to solving philosophical problems is creating a (sapient) machine to solve it for him. More than once, this machine immediately starts building a bigger machine (which repeats into infinity) because its computing resources are insufficient. This usually goes badly for Trurl. Mostly because he defined the problem wrong.
I don’t see why you couldn’t solve the problem of the changeling fortress this way. :)
7717978 Mirror Chrysalis got a stain glass window in her universe, presumably for some kind of heroism. I might not expect her to be vicious enough to fly in there and blow regular Chrysalis to bits, but I think her and her army of Mirror changlings could fly or teleport in and break the throne and/or rescue the hostages from their cocoons.
And yes, of course a Trurl solution would solve anything, I was just guessing that in your version, either the first alternate Twilight, or the third or fourth, would probably just say the same thing as I suggested about bringing in alternate changlings, I was just trying to skip a step. (Wouldn't a Trurl solution be closer to summoning an alternate Flim and Flam? They fit the protagonists of the Cyberiad better.)
7718537
That’s what I meant by “poster child,” yes. “Love” is what’s written under the window, so my guess is, she would try to reason with the local Chrysalis and express how much she loves everyone. Might not go so well. :)
It’s equally probable they’d cook up something based on the innate properties of darkstone that we’re not aware of, though. For example, the energy it consumes has to go somewhere. (in fact, here’s a peacetime use for a small chunk: Eternal ambient magic to electricity converter for mechanisms that need to last millennia) It could possibly be influenced to make it shatter all on its own by external means.
That would be a solution by means of a Trurl, not a solution Trurl uses, not quite the same. :) Mind you, Trurl and Klapaucius are neither brothers nor like each other very much, though they do work together on occasion…
7718576
I feel like that might be a little unfair. Even Fluttershy (Season 6 Fluttershy) would probably sneak in and smash the throne or free the hostages rather than try and talk Chrysalis around. Mirror Universe Chrysalis is represented by "Love." Who's the equivalent in this universe? Cadance. Mirror Chrysalis might well give Chrysalis Prime the same tough love Cadance gave Sombra.
That's a cool point. Either the energy is being channeled somewhere else, say into the changlings, and that energy could be poisoned, or the energy is just being stored in the throne, in which case it can be overloaded. (Overloading the enemies mystical energy-draining maguffin is a time-honored fantasy trope.)
Well, Flim and Flam can be induced to compete against each other quite viciously, remember. And you have to admit, the first time the FlimFlam brothers heard the rumor that Luna could move the stars, they thought "I bet we could convince her to put advertisements into the night sky."
There's also the mirror portal; even if it's downgraded to match Equestria's tech level, the sheer quantity that modern mass production can put out means that you have full kit for the entire guard that doesn't currently have anything to do because all the important pones have been kidnapped.
Why would I drop a mereor on this whole thing and call it a day? Fluttershy!!!!
I love this ^_^