Chapter 2 - Questions
For just a second, the two sentient beings merely stared at each other. The changeling´s piercing glare had softened into one of shock, almost mirroring Twilight´s.
”You understood-” The changeling Zichti chirped in surprise, before snapping its jaw shut, and forcing itself backwards in the cage.
“I understood what!?” Twilight asked rather loudly, her head running wild with all the information she had just pried from the changeling. “Wait, you just spoke Equestrian!” She announced, as if saying it would make sense.
“What!? No I di-“ Zichti snapped his jaw closed again.
“Yes! You just did!”
The changeling leered back at Twilight in defiance, yet held itself back from growling.
“This… You hear this?” Zichti asked hesitantly.
Twilight, while confused about the sudden change of demeanor from the bug-like creature, gave a calm nod. “Yes.” she confirmed.
For a moment, the Changeling looked away, as if contemplating something, before it returned its eyes to the confused Princess. “This is… fascinating.”
“What is fascinating-” Twilight stopped before she could finish as she realized it.
The Changeling´s mouth wasn't matching up to what she was hearing. In fact, thinking back on how the Changeling looked… It didn't look like speaking at all. It looked like… Clicking?
“Say that again!” She needed to know for sure.
Twilight´s command was directly refused, however. Zichti snapped its jaw closed and turned its head away.
Twilight was really not in the mood to be refused right now. She was just over the edge of one revelation, and a second one was so close that she could taste it!
“I said speak!”
The changeling was silent.
“I heard you speak before! Speak!” Twilight ordered with increasing frustration. She needed confirmation of her hypothesis! “Speak!” She glared at the bug. “Speak!”
“Roll over!”
The sudden appearance of another voice snapped away Twilight's attention. Outside the cage stood her number one assistant, the familiar purple and green scaled baby dragon, Spike, holding a file pack in his claws.
“Spike? What…?” She asked in confusion.
The small dragon shrugged his scaly shoulders.
“Well, you seemed to be barking orders at the changeling as if it was a dog, so…” He mumbled.
Twilight blinked a couple of times, taking in the words of her assistant. Her eyes shifted back and forth between him and the bug-like creature in the cage for a few moments, before she could feel a light blush arrive on her cheeks.
“Uhm... Right... How silly of me.” She admitted, trying to laugh it off. Also now she realized she had asked the guards to let Spike pass if he came.
While her laughter was gently dying down, Spike walked closer to the cage, peering inside at the Changeling who only returned a sideways glance at him.
“Wow. They really look odd up close. Not too scary when they're not hissing at you though.” He added with a soft smile.
The smile was actually returned to the assistant, and Zichti looked softly upon the small dragon.
Twilight in the meanwhile, was just trying to gather her thoughts back into coherence.
‘What in the sun and the moon is going on!? - How come I couldn't hear that one word in its head? - Where was the link between a philosophy class, and then invading Canterlot like a parasitic horde? - What is a Venerated? - And who is Queen Facadé?!’
“Twilight!” a pair of claws snapped in front of her, forcing the alicorn back into the real world.
“I… Huh - What?” She mumbled, shaking her head and looking back at Spike.
“You were spacing out again.” he chastised. “Were you just overthinking things?”
“Uuuhmm…” Twilight was tempted to go for the denial, but didn't get the chance.
“I thought so…” Spike said, slapping a palm against his own face in frustration. “You need a break.”
“What!?” Twilight was aghast at the notion. “But I have only just begun, Spike! I can't just stop before I get any real data!” She said, her hooves grasping the little dragon's face. “It goes against everything in scientific theory!”
Spike, however, held onto his cynicism. “And so does going on to research in a state of panic, delusion or theory-bias.” he retorted back to her.
For a moment, Twilight was silent, only responding by blinking a couple of times.
Spike decided to preemptively respond to the unspoken question. “Yes, I do, in fact read some of those books you give me.” He asserted confidently. Though he did fail to mention the key factor of that sentence was 'some'. Two out of a hundred could still be accounted as 'some'. It was no surprise that the second book had been on semantics.
“B-But-” Twilight tried to start, the surprise knocking her authority over some, although was interrupted again by her concerned assistant.
“No buts Twilight! You are freaking out, and you need to take a distance to this. At least for lunch!”
“What? I don't need lunch! I am perfectly full!” The alicorn said, willfully ignoring the low growl she was feeling from her stomach.
That was the last straw.
”That's it. You're taking a break.” Spike announced, as he firmly pushed the princess forwards in the direction of the stairs.
“Spike, I am telling you...” Twilight began, her hooves locking back and pushing against the ground, like a dog refusing to go to the vet. “I am completely fine! And I have more things I need to examine...” She said, her eyes staring almost longingly at the mystery in the cage.
“Well you can ask it, once you have gotten your breakfast! And with me here!” The small dragon casually threatened as he pushed the Princess step for step up the stairs.
“But-”
“No buts!” Spike cut off the alicorn again. “You're getting breakfast, and that's that! Don't make me mail Celestia again!”
For just a second, Twilight remembered countless times she already had been caught neglecting her material form by Celestia, and the disappointed look she had. The mere thought was enough to ruffle the new Princess´s feathers.
“You wouldn't dare...” Twilight hoped to call his bluff.
“Try me.” Spike glared back at Twilight, the two having a momentary staring contest. Neither side wanted to back down, And spike was ready to open the door now, leading out of the cellar. All he needed, was to turn the handle.
The princess lost the initial clash of the starring wars, as spike simply opened the door, and gestured out of the basement.
Twilight sighed in defeat. “Fine! I'll eat, but I gotta get back down there. I am on the verge of a breakthrough!”
“And of a breakdown.” Spike cynically replied.
Opening her mouth for a rebuttal, Twilight found herself unable to give an adequate reply. She couldn't deny her mind was flooding with questions, theories, and concerns for the future consequences.
‘Why did Zichti not just say anything?’ She bemoaned mentally.
Spike did a casual salute at the guards as they left the basement and went on into the long empty hallways of the castle.
While the castle had been spiffed up quite a bit by the girls, the hallways did still have that, ‘You are insignificant’ feel about them. And to remove that, would demand a bit too much work… Most likely involving lowering the ceilings.
Though it the comparison did make entering the specific rooms, that much more of a relief.
With a minimal amount of creaking, they entered the door to the kitchen. The sight of the rustic farm decor was like leaping into a warm bed after having trudged through a snowstorm. A warm sensation just bloomed within her as the two got properly inside, seeing the plaid rags, wooden kitchen counters as opposed to the main crystal, an actual fridge and firefly lighting instead of glowing crystal.
“Right!” Spike announced. “You sit down, and I'll have some pancakes ready for you in just a few moments!”
Twilight rolled her eyes slightly, her mind still stuck on the amount of time she was losing right now. “Spike, I can cook just fine-”
“Letter!” Spike threatened, with a claw lifted at the purple alicorn.
“Urgh” Twilight groaned in frustration. Spike was really determined to get her to sit down and eat. “Fine. But i'll just eat one! I have to get back to the research, and there is nothing you can do to distract me for any longer than ten minutes!”
Half an hour of civilized dinner later:
Twilight sighed in relief as she finally had downed the last pancake.
“Thank you Spike.” She conceded, accepting the dragon´s original proposal had been, the best choice.
“You're welcome Twilight. Now, do you promise me you will try to calm down?” The small dragon pleaded softly, holding his claws behind his back.
Twilight smiled. How could she say no to that?
“I promise, Spike.”
Happy with that, Spike´s face lit up happily, and he pulled his claws out from behind his back, holding a file pack.
“Hmm?” Twilight tilted her head. “What is that?”
“That, is a follow up report on the Changeling in your basement. Courtesy of the Canterlot Intelligence Agency.”
Instantly, Twilight's brain flared up in giddy interest again. She might have been confused by her direct studies of Zichti, but with the help of the CIA-
“Wait, Why didn't I get this report sooner!?” Twilight asked, seeing as this could hold critical information she needed when working on the changeling.
Spike shrugged gently, though gave a slight glare, as Twilight already seemed to be forgetting her promise already.
“Derpy said she heard something about a ‘cock-up’ at the Canterlot Intelligence Agency. But other than that, I don't know.” he said, not knowing anything further himself.
Yet another groan of frustration escaped Twilight as she clasped a hoof against her face. Nothing was going her way today. This was supposed to be one of the best days of her life. In the ideal world, she had just gone down there, examined the changeling thoroughly, figured out what evil it was going to do in Equestria, and she could start to write down her preliminary research notes by 15:45…
Instead she was bucked in the face, her notes almost unusable. And she had seen something she still couldn't believe. Zichti and its class.
Was it all a trick? She had read that it was possible for powerful unicorns to isolate an invader if an opponent tried to reach into their minds. It was possible that the subject could have shown her exactly what it wanted her to see?
All this hypothesizing just, collapsed in on itself, as one little detail returned to Twilight's conscience through her reflexion on the crystal table. She was Princess Twilight Sparkle, princess of magic, and one of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria. She didn't want to toot her own horn, but her own level of magic should be pulled into account. That was empirically provable after all!
Groaning loudly, Twilight dropped her head onto the table in frustration. Everything was suggesting what she saw was true… But… it couldn't be… Why then would they have invaded Equestria? If they had that level of intelligence, it makes no sense for them to attack a food source and ruin their entire race´s chances for ever gaining nourishment again! Revealing the fact that you can disguise yourself as anyone, kind of defeats the point of having that ability.
Clasping her hooves to her face, Twilight snapped out of her thoughts again.
‘One thing at a time, Twilight… One… Thing… At… A… Time’.
She took a deep breath, and shifted her focus to the report, picking it up in her magic and dropping it on the table in front of her.
Flipping open the report from Canterlot, and scanning over the first few pages, Twilight's heart sank.
According to this, the changeling had been impersonating a guest lecturer at Canterlot University. A pony by the name of 'Clear Cognition', aka ‘CC’ and ‘Cog’. So far, the guard has not found the real Cog, nor have they found any evidence of his whereabouts after searching Cog´s apartment. In fact they described it as 'Severely underused'. Interviews with the University staff did not gain much information of Cog as he didn't have many friends on the University itself. Looking down the page, Twilight did catch the names 'Smooth Talk' and 'Light Wing' however. Those were the only two who really counted themselves as friends of Cog. According to the report, both were acquitted of any charges as a detector spell came up negative on both.
'So...' Twilight thought to herself. 'The changeling by the name of Zichti, replaced a pony by the name of Clear Cognition and none of his friends noticed.'
That meant that Zichti was indeed, infiltrating, in some way or another. And if she had to presume the worst, Canterlot university did have…
She couldn't bring herself to finish that sentence.
Sure, Canterlot university was prestigious, but she could not think of ANYTHING there which could be deemed ‘Crucial to national security’. So why would Zichti even replace Cog? And what had Zichti done to Cog?
“Is there even a Cog?” Twilight suddenly mused. She flipped more and more through the file, though the details on this Cog seemed flimsy at best. There was enough information to state that he might have been a pony. Yet now that she was looking at it, looking for any holes a changeling could use, there was also quite a few details supporting her hypothesis. Cog had an apartment, but it was underused. Cog was according to the files, only hired as a guest lecturer, leaving the university at months at a time, and no current, close family to question. At least not within the nearest thousand kilometers.
“This seems… Sloppy.” Twilight mumbled.
“What does?” Spike asked, who had been mainly focused on clearing the table.
“This file. There is just a lot of papers out of place, and the details on Cog seems sketchy at best…”
Spike walked over next to Twilight, the young dragon doing only a quick, half hearted skim over a single page before shrugging. “Maybe the Canterlot Intelligence Agency just got a bit overzealous? Looking for problems where there weren't ones?”
“Or maybe somepony has tampered with the file…” Twilight said suspiciously.
With a frustrated groan, Spike slapped his claw against his forehead.
“Twilight, Not everypony is as thorough as you.”
“But this should exactly be a case where one was thurough!” A thump sounded from Twilight´s hooves hitting crystal. “The last time we saw any changelings, they invaded canterlot!”
“Yes, years ago…” Spike groaned. “Not even the guards who were in the battle for Canterlot is taking it as seriously as you do.”
“What!? How do you know that!?”
“Stand Vigil told me.”
Twilight blinked in confusion. “Stand Vigil?”
“You know, the guard who is assigned along with Sure Guard, who you placed at the door to the cellar?” Spike offered, hoping that Twilight would remember on her own.
However, Twilight's lack of a response and occasional confused blinking told Spike all he needed to know, and he groaned. “Go ask them yourself. Don't get another nervous breakdown just because you forgot to ask the name of someone you wouldn't normally ask the name of.” Spike shooed, waving his claws at the Princess, who was only just snapping out of her frozen state.
“Right! Ask them! Direct information! You're a genius Spike!”.
The little dragon, loved praise, so he allowed Twilight to storm out of the room with that comment. It was only way too late that he realized, that left him alone with all the chores again.
A drawn out groan escaped the dragon. “Well… I guess I got praised…” He chastised himself, realizing he fell for it once more. “Oh well.”
In the meantime, Twilight was already cantering down the hall, her thoughts circling around, and trying to copple everything together. Helped along with one larger framing device now. She had direct witnesses, the Guards.
It didn't take her long to reach the guarded door again.
The Canterlot guard had, as much other military forces, the uncanny ability to appear similar on the surface, yet once you got underneath their skin, they were all their different ponies. Taking off the uniform, and suddenly you found ponies all with different reasons for joining the guard and different ideals to uphold within the guard. Twilight found it incredibly fascinating, this way in which individuality could be retained, even as it was abstracted from on a daily basis.
Yet now, she needed one of these individuals.
She stood before the two guards, who were staring ahead as demanded of their training, yet still being at complete attention.
Twilight cleared her throat. “Which one of you is Stand Vigil?”
One of the seemingly identical guards turned his head to the Princess, bowing his head respectfully.
“Thats me, Your majesty.” He answered, giving a slightly confused tilt of his head as he looked back up at her. “Was there an order I forgot to follow, your majesty?”
“Oh no no no” Twilight shook a hoof reassuringly. “You've both followed your orders admirably. I just would like to ask a few questions which might help me in my study of the changeling.”
Now the confusion was almost painted on the guard´s face. “Questions?” He repeated, only a slight nervous twitch of his tail revealing to his comrade that he remembered their conversation earlier. “What could I add, your majesty?”
“I hear that you were also present during the invasion of Canterlot?” Twilight clarified with a slight tilt of her head.
That did not appear to make things any clearer for the guard. “I was, your Majesty. But... Why is that important?”
“I would just like to hear your opinion on it.” Twilight tried to prod. She wasn't completely certain herself what she was wanting to hear, but perhaps it could clear up her mind.
“My opinion?”
“Like, what did you experience? What did you see of the Changelings?”
Vigil took in Twilight´s question and allowed himself to consider it. He wasn't sure what his princess exactly expected, so he decided to pick whatever popped to mind.
“Well, I was part of a force which was pretty quickly overwhelmed by the bugs. They disarmed us and stuffed some of us into cocoons. I never got to that part, I was simply... glued together with one of my comrades.” he offered.
“What did you notice of the changeling´s behavior?”
“Behavior?”
“Did they appear to have any specific hierarchy?” Twilight clarified.
“Oh... Hmmm.” Vigil thought back. “There was a couple of them who appeared to be clicking more or less at the others. Much like lesser non-commissioned officers in a military force.”
“Did any of them look like they had a mane?” Twilight asked slightly hopefully.
“Hmm...” Vigil brought a hoof to his chin. “Now that you mention it. There was one.”
'Bingo!' Twilight thought. 'I knew Zichti was part of thi-'
“Though it seemed actually rather old.” Vigil added.
Once again, Twilight´s hypothesis was crushed before she even got it out of the gate. “What do you mean it seemed old?”
“Well, it was limping, and was actually supported by two others. Not only that, that mane thing, as you describe it, was pretty flimsy and almost ruined.
“Uh-huh...” Twilight tilted her head in confusion. “What did it do?”
“Well, it appeared to inspect us. Then it coughed quite a bit, and then it hobbled out again.”
Twilight made a very un-princess like groan and dropped her head completely.
Vigil´s eyes widened in slight panic. “I-Im sorry your majesty if that wasn't what you wanted to know-”
“Don't apologize for that, it's alright.” Twilight was quick to clarify. “I just... This doesn't make sense...” Twilight bemoaned. “Why would so many follow along to such an insane plan?”
“Well... If your superior officer gave the order?”
Twilight's head snapped up, attention shifting to the other guard, Sure Guard. “What do you mean?”
The other guard, while slightly uncomfortable by suddenly being questioned by the Princess, but he cleared his throat.
“Well, if it had been us, in the guard, and Princess Celestia had given the order to subdue the entirety of Gryphonstone and occupy the city, we would have done it.” The guard explained.
Twilight blinked in confusion. “What?! Why in all of Equestria would you do that!?”
While taken aback by the raised level of the Princess's voice, Vigil decided to back up his comrade. “We trust the Princess. Whatever she would have planned with such an order must somehow amount up to the best for Equestria.” Vigil clarified.
Twilight's head felt like suddenly a load of cogs were either turning or connecting. She was so close to get some sort of breakthrough here.
“But if that order appears in every way to be wrong?”
“Your majesty. We are guardsponies. We do our duty and follow orders. If we had to consider the moral ramifications of every order we get, considering the limited information we can ever get, the guard could never function.” Sure Guard asserted. “A guard follows without question, and a leader leads without doubt.”
Twilight bit her lower lip to stop herself from bursting at that comment. She didn't come to the guards to argue morality, and she knew if she just exploded in opinions, the likelihood of saying something she had not thought through completely was dangerously high. She just needed more information.
“Did you hear any of the changelings mention the name Facadé?”
Stand Vigil rubbed his chin in thought, before shaking his head. “No, does not ring a bell. The changelings barely spoke a word Equestrian. At least not when I was awake.”
Twilight felt her heart sink slightly along with a small sigh escaping her muzzle.
“Thank you, for your help, guardsponies. Remain at your post.” Twilight weakly commanded, before walking past both of them, onto the stairs leading to the lab, and closing the door behind her.
Stand Vigil and Sure Guard both exchanged a slightly concerned look.
“You think she is okay?” Stand Vigil asked. His comrade only shrugging.
“We can only hope so… I guess studying the thing might be just as hard as fighting it.” Sure Guard offered as his explanation.
“I dont know… I think she´s having it harder. Those things were smart after all. Once they were out in the open, you at least knew which way the bucks are coming from.”
On the other side of the door, the guards’ conversation was nothing more than a muffled mumble to the princess of friendship who had sunk onto her haunches.
And today was supposed to be such a good day.
Twilight didn't know what to do now. The guard had not been any help, and while Spike´s enforced break had been a welcome relief off her shoulders, she was only now right back into the pits of frustration. There was too many unanswered questions, and all the answers lay down in the head of an uncooperative changeling.
Twilight took a deep breath before she ventured back into the laboratory again. She needed to have the right... attitude this time. The correct mindset. A better way of handling this.
Down there was a sentient creature there was no denying that. But it was still dangerous. Too many questions lay unanswered. She would need to get an answer to those to determine whether or not it was to be trusted. One way or another.
Making her way down the steps had never really felt so... jarring before. It was as if she was walking down into a completely different place. Her conscience just made, everything feel off.
She shook her head, she needed to focus to get to the bottom of this.
As the cage came into view, and the form of the restrained changeling forced itself onto her, Twilight felt the distinct pang of cognitive dissonance. She needed to keep it restrained. It was a changeling, it was dangerous, it was a threat to Equestria! But... It was also... A changeling. Something she, really didn't know anything about beyond the invasion, and what she had forcefully dug out of its mind.
Gathering herself and focussing forwards, Twilight stood proudly before the creature again, who still refused to look at her.
“Venerated Zichti. I am Princess Twilight Sparkle.” She announced, pushing her chest forwards to not betray any sort of fear or worry. “I was there during the invasion your kind brought upon our capitol, and I saw the devastation it brought the city.” She spoke slowly, methodically. She tried just as much to convince herself, as the changeling. “A queen of yours brainwashed my brother, kidnapped my sister in law, hurt my teacher, and actually fought my friends… Your invasion was repelled, yet no recorded signs were found of any of your kind, before you were found.”
The changeling´s ears perked up just slightly, and it turned its head just enough to look back into Twilight's eyes with its own iris-less orbs.
This was a good sign, Twilight felt, so she continued.
“Considering Queen Chrysalis admitted she decided and wanted this invasion for the desires of both herself, and your race, this leaves you in the situation of being at best: Considered an accomplice, and at worst: An enemy of the state.”
Nothing. The changeling didn't even blink at her, as Twilight was summing up its situation, it didn't flinch. She didn't want it, but Twilight could feel a small tinge of anger bubble within her again. It didn't make any sense. If it was innocent, why didn't it speak? If it was guilty, why had she seen what she had seen in its head? She could not imagine someone like Chrysalis encourage philosophical discussion.
Shaking her head a moment, Twilight dismissed that train of thought, remembering ‘Queen Facadé’, another question which put a spanner in her theories.
“Now, with all that considered, it is my duty to find out whether or not you are still a threat to Equestria, and considering the last invasion came out of nowhere, the evidence is quite weighted against you, Venerated Zichti.”
Still nothing happened. The changeling refused her yet again… The pattern was repeating.
“And to do that, I will force myself into your mind, if necessary. Your thoughts could hold the secrets to another invasion.” Her words summing up what was going to happen, just as much to convince herself of the good of her action.
“So if you have anything you wish to say. Anything which would acquit you of these charges. Now would be the time to mention them.” Twilight said, her words firm, yet behind the feigned confidence, she really hoped that Zichti would begin to talk. Yet nothing.
She bit her lower lip. The changeling still didn't move or respond. She could not back down. She had to go in again…
“Are you certain you do not want to talk?” She tried one last time.
No response.
She sighed in defeat. Nothing more could be done about it.
“Well… Have it your way then…” She frowned. Her horn lit up again, as the spell prepared, and she towered over the restrained buglike being, ready to dig into its head again, and find something to protect Equestria.
“I better find something better this time…” She mumbled to herself. As she lowered her head, she thought back to the class she had seen in its head. She clenched her eyes shut. No, she could not think back to it. She had to think of this bug as an enemy. Just an enemy…
She couldn't… So she chose another childish way of easing her nerves.
“Besides, your theory about love is bogus.”
“Hey!! That's a ridiculous assertion, You didn't even hear the full extent of my the-”
Twilight’s eyes snapped open, immediately locking eyes with the Changeling who´s eyes grew just as wide as the pony before it, realizing it had just messed up and snapped its jaw closed again.
Thinking she might have found the perfect way to get the changeling talk, Twilight simply glared at the buglike being.
“I don't need to hear the whole thing! You're basing your argument on the point that we can't understand love because we can't quite get a hold of magic, or cannot perfectly understand it. But we do!” Twilight asserted.
“What!?” Zichti almost shouted, inhibitions apparently being thrown away and replaced with frustration. “That is firstly not what I said, secondly, are you seriously claiming you have a perfect understanding of magic!?”
Twilight smirked. “Of course we know what magic is. It is an energy, a field, something which exists around us constantly. Something which we, via will or something intrinsic inside of us, can draw upon to fuel different powers.” Twilight asserted confidently. All her years of studying the practice of magic was surging back into her mind, as the argument began.
“So, according to you, magic is a clear materialistic substance, which contains some kind of substantial existance somewhere?” The Changeling clarified.
“Exactly.” Twilight declared. “After all, magic can be experimented with, tested, changed, create new spells, it must be a material thing in order for material beings to completely interact with it.”
“But then what about friendship?”
“What?” That question felt a bit off and out of nowhere for Twilight, but the Changeling seemed intent on continuing.
“There is a saying, which you as Princess of Friendship, has proven on multiple occasions.” Zichti started, sitting itself upwards, grunting a moment as it was hard moving inside the straightjacket. “The idea that ‘Friendship is Magic’. We just clarified, that magic was material, and that it was something which could be directly experimented with. But if friendship also is magic, which you have shown with your defeat of Nightmare Moon and Discord, then should we assume that friendship also is a materialistic entity?”
Twilight blinked for a few moments, taking in the words of the Changeling. “I,..” She began, but Zichti interrupted her.
“Is Friendship, a metaphysically, and normatively, separate material entity, like your definition of magic, Twilight Sparkle?”
“I… Guess it would be.” Twilight said, deciding to bite the bullet on this one.
“So, by this definition. A magic spell, which would forcefully make you, my friend, would hold the same weight, as a friendship you had gained through interaction?”
Now that, struck a nerve.
“What?! No! I… How even… That's a logical fallacy!-”
“Twilight?”
“-You cannot simply go from questioning the metaphysical existence of love, to suddenly comparing coercion to voluntary action!-”
“Uhm… Twilight?”
“-I was saying that magic was a thing you could achieve in an internalistic way as well, and the same rules apply to friendship, and making the internalistic, voluntary and non coercive way a superior, and more reasonable explanation for the-”
“TWILIGHT!”
Finally the voice of her number one assistant forced itself into her reality, making her turn her head aside, seeing the dragon besides her again, but this time he was looking at her with eyes as wide as dumbbells.
“Why are you shouting at the changeling?... It was just clicking at you…”
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I really really REALLY dislike this twilight.
finally an update wonderful chapter
Suggestion: write faster
First, I gotta get this outa the way.
And now on to the constructive criticism.
It feels like you're trying to set up too much in one chapter. The CIA possibly having a changeling agent who meddled with the documents, the guards being involved with something, and the whole metaphysical debate Twilight and Zichti got into at the end.
Not to mention Twilight being able to understand click-clacky changeling language.
It just feels a bit overwhelming, and required me to read through it 3 times before getting everything (I think)
Long time in stasis is correct, I thought this was dead or at the very least on a back burner.
Maybe consider spelling Facadé differently? As it is right now, it would be pronounced Fah-ssah-day, which just sounds a bit awkward in English.
And thus are civilian villages burned to the ground.
Oh dear. Now it's on. There are things just just don't say to academics.
6092807
you do realize that it may be meant to be that way because they speak in clicks not English
6092857
No, I do not - but even if it was, I wouldn't really care, because I am reading it in English, not in clicks.
6092861 it's also a name spelled in any way they choose
Hold up one second here,I refuse to believe that the guards are this deliberately brainless. Sure, we can account to the fact that they're duty bound to Celestia but there would at least be a few who would question Celestia's sanity here. One example is Daniel V. Gallery, a navy Admiral, that opposed the secretary of defense at the time, Louis Johnson, decision to reduce the navy into a mere escort/convoy service for the military. A high ranking rear admiral posted several news articles calling into question his superiors ideas and leading to a debacle called the "Revolt of the Admirals". He just missed facing a court martial but still never gave into the S.o.D.'s actions.
6092694
Because of her line of thinking or how she doesn't seem to care about how she continues to carry on her less than savory actions?
You're using way too many commas.
This one is completely unneeded. I get it if you wanted there to be a small pause, but that's not the function of a comma. An elipsis (...) would serve this function much better.
This one would be better off replaced with a period and made into two different sentences.
Here we have the inverse. She's addressing Zichti, so it needs a comma.
Again, commas create pauses, not the other way around. In this case, the second comma is correct.
Hopefully you get the gist of what I'm getting at. There are extra commas littered all throughout this chapter. I don't remember if the preceding chapter had the same problem, though.
I'm liking the story so far, regardless. Getting someone indignant always makes them talk.
6092894 both her line of thinking is deplorable
and if equestrian has any sort of Geneva convention like system then her actions towards a prisoner well get her jailed for sure.
6092894
A rear admiral, which is the Navy equivalent to a low-ranking general in the US, isn't exactly a grunt who just follows orders. He is someone well-informed and whose opinion has some actual weight: There are less than like, 162 people who actually rank above any given Rear Admiral in the entire US Navy right now (statutory limit on the number of flag/general officers is 160, +SoD +President), and a 2-star rear admiral has around 42 people who actually outrank him (only about 25% of these officers can have more than 2 stars). We're talking about people who are not just the top 1% of the Navy, but people who are the top 0.05%.
In contrast, the guard in this story is probably an NCO at best, who do just take orders from up above and follow them relatively blindly. That's how the armed service continues to work like a well-oiled machine, and it's the only reason it operates with an actual effectiveness. If the foot soldiers are questioning orders all the time, no matter how strange they seem, then your army is going to get steamrolled.
Adding on to that: Enlisted soldiers oftentimes have no recourse when given such orders, and disobeying a lawful order will typically result in a pink slip or a court martial immediately. The only excuse to disobey an otherwise lawful order that you can get away with is if that order involves an immoral act, such as shooting confirmed civilians or prisoners of war. The only enlisted personnel I expect could pull the same thing as that Rear Admiral would be E9s and maybe the occasional E8. And it would be career suicide unless they were supported by other officers higher up than them.
6093091
There's a lot of truth in what you say. I guess my biggest peeve is with how the guardspony's example was. I feel like the guard is carry an idiot ball the size of a mountain here to state how he has no problem doing what he's told without any real sense of thought behind it. It just irks me.
Twilight understands clicking!
You went 2nd person there for a bit
Commas are unneeded and "hypothesising" should be "hypothesizing".
These should be one sentence, separated by a semicolon. Also, she's the Princess of Friendship.
First and third commas are unneeded.
Spike doesn't seem like the type to speak out the whole name when there's an established acronym.
Sentence fragment.
This makes no sense.
You go to prison for murder
This word doesn't fit here.
First comma is unneeded.
Second comma is unneeded.
Last comma is unneeded.
Comma is unneeded.
Not improper, but awkward. Statements in a third-person narration should be definitive. You should say "A load of cogs were tuning" or "a load of cogs were connecting". Personally, I'd use " the cogs suddenly shifted into place". Feel free to use it if you want.
Should be one sentence, separated by a comma.
Commas are unneeded.
First comma is unneeded, and sentences should be combined without a comma.
I noticed you have a lot of trouble with commas. I understand, as I, too, still have trouble from time to time. I'd recommend looking up a writing guide to help with punctuation.
Regardless, another great chapter. I must say, though, both Twilight and the changeling are going about this in the wrong way (though still very much in character). Anyway, I can't wait to see where this goes.
There are several case of Spike' name, not being capitalized.
I really love this story. It has lots of good characterization, a good plot line and enjoyable imagery.
You are hideously misusing your commas though. A comma can signify either a vocal pause, isolate a clause, or separate a list. For example:
The first sentence: "So, by this definition." is incomplete. Taken by itself it means nothing.
The second is a mishmash of sentence fragments. Taken as written it says the the changling is out of breath and that Twilight is his friend.
The key thing to remember about commas it the idea of a clause, and the simplest way to think of a clause is a small part of a sentence that can be removed and still have the sentence make sense. In the second sentence, there is no part that can be removed and still have the sentence make sense and there are no lists, so there should be no commas.
The correct way to write that quote is:
There are two clauses here: "by this definition" and "which would forcefully make you my friend". The subject is "a magic spell" and the predicate is "would hold the same weight as a friendship you had gained through interaction". The first clause is already separated out with commas, but the second is not. This is because it is a dependent clause, meaning if you took it out of the sentence it could not stand on its own.
Anyway, like I said earlier, this is an awesome story and I hope that this was a little helpful.
I highly recommend getting an editor. Minor grammatical and stylistic errors abound, and it completely clashes with the tone of pretentious academia that you have set up here.
Fell in love with this! Keep it up!
Is this resurrection somehow related with certain changeling in chapter 100?
Nice to see an update here. Looking forward to more when you can get to them.
I actually thought you had decided to drop this story, quite glad it got an update.
Great! I especially loved the argument since I'm pretty philosophical in personality and related to Zitchi's point. Other than that. Great story, but please don't leave us hanging for a month this time.
6092894
On top of the other response(s) to your post, I'd like to point out that Equestria appears to have a significant number of parallels to medieval Earth rather than modern Earth that one could easily extend to military matters. Back then, soldiers were expected to follow orders to the letter - this was the time of infantry squares and cavalry charges, after all, and it wasn't unheard of for soldiers to be sent to their deaths for no reason except that it was the expected thing to do. In comparison, our approach to such things today is far more individualistic - until relatively recently "I was just following orders" would have been a perfectly acceptable defense.
Thinking on it, it occurs to me that it's entirely likely that Equestria don't even have any sort of formalized Geneva Convention analogue. Equestria being as peaceful as it is, one could imagine that they have not had a war as horrible as either of our World Wars - and without that, what would be the impetus?
If you’re going to include the diacritics present in loan words, then you should use the right ones. Façade has a cedilla on the ‘c’, not an acute accent on the ‘e’.
As for transcribing clicks like 6092857 mentioned — not that I actually believe this was what you were trying to do — there are a number of extant systems, ranging from languages that actually make use of clicks to the International Phonetic Alphabet. See Wikipedia’s article on click consonants.
Yeah yeah yeah, light is both a particle and a wave, get a hold of yourself!
It's an interesting concept for sure, but if this is primarily going to be a debate on metaphysicality, we're not so sure you're going to keep us going.
Keep going! ;)
You updated! :D
6094630
America can't into diacritics.
Well wasn't that a twist in the end.
One thing - there are commas on places that shouldn't be, like for example:
The comma there just doesn't feel right. There are a few other places too, so I'd recommend just doing a quick cleanup, or if you have someone who could do that for you, do so. It definitely helps to have at least one other set of eyes present to catch anything you might have missed
6093164 As someone who's served in multiple branches of the US military (two so far), I can tell you that the emphasis is to follow the orders in the immediate and question later, especially for short term orders like how to go about breaching a house. This is particularly important for infantry because a moment of hesitation trying to decide whether or not you really need to shoot someone when you've been ordered to shoot could mean getting yourself and/or many others killed. Thinking about what was done comes afterwards, and if something ends up wrong because of that it is the higher ranking personnel that made the orders that have to answer for it, even if it's the guys that went in that have to live with the higher-ups' screw up. Keep in mind, this is only for short duration orders in a highly dangerous environment. If there is reasonable time to try to make the call, following orders is no longer a viable excuse. That said, if an order came down for a unit to go secure a town, they would go do so. They'd try to avoid hurting anyone if they could avoid it, but they would secure the town. If there was a fight and casualties, you'd have most every soldier in the unit wanting to know why they needed the town so bad.
Off that tangent, this chapter was very satisfying. It was wonderful to see that you'd updated, and you most definitely did not disappoint. Twilight is having some introspection and questioning herself, but she still has to have those answers. Zichti and Twilight are neither of them really in the right in this situation. Twilight is rationalizing letting her biases get the better of her, and Zichti is forcing her hoof with his stubborn pride. At least she's finally found something to hopefully break the ice and start a dialogue. I do have to agree with some of the others that there is a lot going on in this chapter, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It leaves us with a lot to think on that may be going on beyond the interrogation. Looking forward to what the next chapter brings, particularly since Spike just pointed out to Twilight that diving into Zichti's mind has made her able to understand the changelings' tongue.
6092871
And yet it's close enough to an English word with clear meaning relating to disguise that readers will see it as a typo and, if the author says it's meant to be that way, they'll see the author as a fool. (Basic rule of writing: You must work with the readers expectations because your goal is to convey an experience without a means of copying raw memory into someone else's head... and you can't argue with it because every other skilled author has already set the standard.)
6094630
Yeah. It's a French loanword.
1. In French, the cedilla (cédille in French terms) on the ç indicates a soft S pronunciation, much like the german ß (which is transliterated to 7-bit ASCII as "ss"). ("Fassaud", not "Fakade")
2. In French, the accute accent on é indicates that it's pronounced "ay" as in "day" and "yay".
If Twi continues like this in third chapter, I'm hoping for her being severely punished. If third chapter still has her happy mindraping, abusing and barking orders at changeling, welp, I'm out, not my cup of tea.
Writing is good, but sadly can't say same for plot.
capitalize I.
are*
First... how does one thing tie with the other and second...
Do you even know what the plan was? No you don't... you have a semblance of a plan that you think was their target. Third, why would it be insane? Infltration techniques are always high-risk high-reward. If it wasn't executed well that's another issue, but the "plan" in general, if we assume it was to break the defenses from within, was pretty solid. Sure it wasn't something spectacular but that doesn't mean it was insane. In fact with how trustworthy the ponies are I'd say it was kinda brilliant.
Okay first of all that's BS. Even today there are pacts that if you do something wrong, even if it's an order you are responsible for it, and no the commander doesn't get the blame for your stupidity, but he does get punished.
Second if changelings needed love wouldn't it make sense that they imprison the guards? Striking an ambush would ensure more ponies alive, more power, more food. So no Twilight... you are BLATANTLY WRONG here. I hate it when author bias makes characters OOC.
So... say one of my political leaders claims he/she is doing this for me... and the rest of my brethren... does that mean I am with her? Considering how little you know about the changelings, how you don't know if there are multiple Queens, multiple fanctions... does that really warrant you using the "Assume hostility"? I don't know... but I am figuring Twilight is jumping into conclusions. Yes it is not without reason, but she is jumping way too much from one thing to the other.
So she is coaxing him forth? I see... and why would Chrysalis not encourage philosophical interaction? Why does she need to encourage that? Don't schools and universities promote that? ((scrath the way they have been corrupted by corporations these days but their creation basically has this purpose)) And do you really know her? Do you know what she does in her free time? If she isn't all about war? Just saying... Twilight should be doing less assumptions, but I guess arrogance of knowledge can get to people.
A fallacy which you insinuated Twilight. A fallacy I didn't expect you to make, and you're supposed to be the studious one. Instead of knowledgeable you are simply an arrogant know-it-all.
6094972 Sure when you're serving the military things like that will happen. You will be called to do things, but it doesn't hurt thinking about it yourself. If you don't however you end up becoming the "Lawful Evil" soldier... you end up becoming something like General Nazgrim in WoW who was too loyal to Garrosh Hellscream the Warchief of the "Orcish/true" Horde to see how far he had gone, and how far he had gone by destroying the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, and trying to harness the power of Necrophotic entities like the Old Gods, all the while betraying his allies one by one.
There were other events I could quote on the WoW universe where Kork'ron ((something like that)) the elite of Hellscream did the right thing and left his "Horde" when Hellscream tried to do the unspeakable and threaten children, but the thing is that Twilight assumes she knows the plan ((as I said above)) and assumes it was crazy. Same goes for thousands of bronies who go against the infltration plan calling it "stupid". As I said above I agree the execution wasn't good, but it was a solid plan.
6092894
6093091 Yes but that goes assuming the guards in this case follow American standards, are stupid, don't have an education, and can't think for themselves. And I SOOOOOO hate it when Equestria is parallelized with America. Equestria is NOT America, and sometime soon we need to stop humanizing the ponies so much. They are PONIES and NOT HUMANS. This is EQUESTRIA and NOT AMERICA.
6095129
Damn it! I got them mixed up on my little Unicode cheat‐sheet. Thanks for the heads up. Fixed.
6095256
In response to what you say about Equestria isn't America, the creators of the show are Americans so people naturally draw parallels here.
6095321 And the creator of Middle Earth lived the second World War and it is said that he modeled things after it, but in the end that was untrue.
And that has absolutely nothing to do with this. Yes I do try for example to give a Greek Vibe to my changelings because I am Greek but whether or not to give identity like that to the Equestrians or changelings is another issue.
6095345
Or at least that's what he said. It may not have been an outright allegory, but claiming that his war experiences didn't inform a lot of the setting and do much to influence the general background of the story would just be silly. It's too obviously there, even if Tolkien didn't do it intentionally.
Equestria is Medieval Euroamericanada, like the settings of most fantasy-flavoured shows and works of fiction these days are. No point in denying it, really, not when it's so glaringly visible as soon as you compare it to fictional works from a different cultural sphere.
6095382 If you want to take it that way then the majority of the shows are American. But then again we have shows like Game of Thrones that aren't exactly put in a cultural background. We can all see the cultural influences of the authors sure but does that necessarily make them so?
I'd like to say that the way Equestria works reminds me of something between steampunk/medieval europe. I don't really know... the technology level is around the 80s for sure, but that doesn't make it America.
In fact it's not the authors that make Equestria look like America, but rather the bronies themselves. We assume that Equestria is the kind of topdog that rules the world, but that's not the case, since we haven't seen them interact with other nations at least on a political level. And we probably never will see...
So in the end it's not that it's true that Equestria is America... it's that people CHOOSE to see Equestria as America. Which is what I HATE.
6095740
It's obviously not literally America, but in cultural terms? In terms of how the characters live? It pretty much is, and that's intentionally so, because it's a show made for children from a Western cultural background and the creators want for them to be able to recognize themselves in both the characters and their living circumstances.
And Game of Thrones is so blatantly yet another Medieval Fantasy Europe knockoff that it's just silly to claim anything else. The setting is a lot of things, but "original" isn't one of them.
Spike! Don't interrupt me when I'm yelling at a Changeling! I'm trying to do science here!
Love the story. Keep up the good work!!!!!!!! Waiting for patiently for more.
Hoping Twilight gets bludgeoned with a clue-bat, next chapter.
Not saying this isn't well written, or that Twilight isn't in character, but I really don't want to read another chapter of her throwing a tantrum, and abusing her power, because something didn't confirm her biases.
6095129 And what if that's the point to be close but not exact like how changelings are close but not exactly like ponies. Like a imperfect disguise.
6096259
Then it must be done in a way which cannot be easily mistaken for an authorial mistake because that breaks the world's illusion of reality and reminds the reader that this is all in the eye of an author.
(eg. It's difficult to get away with moving the diacritics unless you make it clear and obvious that it can't possibly be a mistake. The first rule of thumb for that is "Don't do it with a foreign loanword like façade or naïve that has diacritics in its original spelling but not in its anglicized spelling. Even if the reader determines it to not be a typo, the distinction takes enough active thought and focus that hitting it is the reading equivalent of hitting a pothole while driving. It breaks the immersion of the narrative.)
There's nothing wrong with concocting "familiar yet alien" words using composed glyphs not present in English, like æ, œ, ñ, ï, å, é, and so on as long as that's kept in mind. (eg. Starting with a word or name that never had diacritics in the first place works fine... as does constructing something from whole-cloth using knowledge of how diacritics modify the pronunciation.)
6095769
What the hell are you talking about? No I really don't understand you. Do you mean to equate western mode of living with American? Is that it?
Sure but we don't say X is German-like Y is Viking-Like or anything else. Originality aside what I see here is equating lifestyle with American lifestyle or generally considering by default which is both true and false at the same time. I don't know about you but dukes, kings, queens, and mayors remind me more of England rather than America. Especially the architecture of Canterlot suggests so. The "American" per say side exists in western-like Appaloosa ((I'm spelling it wrong aren't I?)) and Manehatten, maybe Las Pegasus but I don't know, in all honesty we see all those name-puns and we automatically go assuming stuff.
In the end Mlp is a mishmash of many things Greek, European, American, Norse, and I think it's wrong to say one overshadows the other, or it may simply be your personal gripe about this.
But as I said my main problem is people litterally taking America for being equivalent with Equestria top dog and shit. I mean geez we were discussing the behavior of guards on AMERICAN standards for goodness's sake! I know that many of us are American but cmon! Think outside the box!
6096344
I'm actually German, but when you spend enough time looking at places, it becomes pretty apparent that the differences only look so huge in contrast because of how much is really the same. The Western cultural sphere shares way more in terms of lifestyle and cultural standards than it doesn't; that's why we commonly treat it as one more-or-less homogenous thing to begin with.
Point is, in terms of how the characters live and deal with each other, you could transplant the setting into anywhere from Scandinavia to Spain to North America and have it fit in. Don't get your panties all into a nationalist bunch just because I said "America" a few times too often.
6096360 If so do you mean to purposedly mock me? Have fun. We are done here.
The spell she is using is acting as a translator spell. But we also know Changelings can talk as Chrysalis is perfect evidence of this.