This story is a sequel to Honey Pie II: The Wrath of Chrysalis
Sweetcake has come far in life. From a defeated drone, stranded alone in Canterlot, he's become the queen of a large and powerful changeling hive. And he's doing a surprisingly good job at it. He even has time left over from his royal duties to help Pinkie Pie with her parties. Unfortunately for Sweetcake, Pinkie, and the entire hive, his hive is not the only hive out there, and the others don't approve of allying with ponies. Caught between betraying his friends and the welfare of his subjects, any choice may spell disaster.
Cover art by AnticularPony. Cover text design by Jordanis.
Chapters (7)
A new Honeypie fic? u wot m8?
You haven't been massively active so I'm not sure how well this'll go but I'm digging it. It's going to Read L8r for now, I've got sleeping to do.
7773854
Well that's the understatement of the year!
But I have well over half of this written, and I plan to post chapters at regular intervals while I'm writing the rest, so hopefully it'll all come out without further mishaps or breaks.
Sweet! I really enjoyed the first two! Looking forward to reading this one!
7773859
Noice! I'll be looking forward to another great story!
R E V O L U T I O N
okay back to the second one.
Good to see you back, SPark.
7773865 7773866 I hope you guys enjoy it.
7773874 See above. Hopefully you like it.
7774185 Thanks!
can it be?
an old love coming back?
:READING. MEOW!!!
I think here should be" her here".
7774251 Fixed, thanks!
7774218
It is indeed!
Uhhh you had now three months, months in there. Just thought you should know.
Next Honey Pie? YAY!
A Revolutionary Honey Pie?
img14.deviantart.net/c6f3/i/2011/048/e/6/aw_yeah_by_csimadmax-d39so9z.jpg
7774335
You missed a full stop.
I thought this was romance too? If I remember the other 2 right.
Oh my, an early Hearth's Warming present! Thank you! I normally never read unfinished fics (been burned a few too many times) but this one is going to be an exception.
You would think that Celestia and Luna would have some passive mental defenses in case of something like this.
I hope you don't just have them overpowered like that, they have lived for thousands of years and should have a huge variety of spells.
7774422 Not sure what you're talking about, sorry?
7774857 Fixed, thanks!
7774902 Well, I don't count it as a romance because by this point the relationship between Pinkie and Sweetcake is pretty well developed, so the story doesn't advance it a lot further.
7775093 7774644 Thank you, I hope you enjoy it!
7775171 Well, do remember that just because this other queen says something doesn't necessarily make it true!
7775271
There's your mistake, I was on mobile so couldn't really couldn't say much :V
7775448 Ah! Fixed, thank you.
O my gosh!! I had no idea there was a sequel, let alone a threequil. =D
Downloading!!!!!!!!
Uh, the other hives do realize that she's allied with the ponies, right? That means they probably have a defensive pact at minimum, which means they will have more bodies and more raw magic on their side. Then again...the royal guard are a bit incompetent and lost to the changeling army while a group of 5 (fluttershy didn't really do anything) were able to waltz through a lot of changelings. So it's hard to tell the average strength that either side could offer.
Also, wouldn't the hives attacking her give her even more reason to depend on the ponies and reveal all secrets in order to deal with the opposing hives? The other hives just seem kind of politically stupid, either that or they don't understand that when the prey outnumbers you, they can cause a lot more problems as your united enemy.
Gotta say, I was super disappointed when the second one wasn't called "Wild Honey Pie", and now it seems that the opportunity to ever have that exist is vanishing further and further into the distance. Just imagine, the chapters could be titled, "'Honey Pie!, Chapter 1', 'Honey Pie!, Chapter 2', 'Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo,'" and so on. Or, y'know, probably something else. Either way, missed opportunity. Maybe if you ever put up a collection of side stories, which I think you should consider even if it winds up making no sense, just for my Beatles related amusement.
Anyway, other than that, good story/chapter or whatever. The Revolution thing is alright, even if it's not quite what it could have been. Although, if you get to nine chapters, or parts or something...
looking forward to reading this and i hope its as good as the last 2 but im going to wait a wile before i read
yay
it's out 
I will have to re-read the first and second ones but I can't wait to read this one
Starting out very good. For some reason I keep thinking of the "high scout" being in one of those watchtowers like you see on Yavin in Star Wars ep IV, only in the Badlands, but definitely wearing the same silly helmet.
7776122 I blame the law of stupid for that, the Allied Changelings merely seek to feed off from the Ponies rather than attempt to learn anything beyond the surface of their culture, surefire signs of a species that is content, arrogant, and smug enough to not do anything new beyond their station. The only one to break away from this (ironically) was Chrysalis as she owned the arguably largest Hive in a single area that covered the region of the Capital to the Badlands just south, in a bid to openly terrorize the Ponies into submitting to their control rather than risk infiltrators to siphon Love that they need to survive.
7777281
Which is confusing in itself as love is better than fear or other negative emotions along with the fact that you suffer a decreasing population problem if you just cocooned people. That's why those stories never made any sense to me, as you're essentially removing people permanently from the food chain and preventing prey from repopulating. I could understand maybe Celestia and Luna as they live forever but I doubt they alone could feed a full sized hive.
While I liked and Favorited the 1st two stories it was so long ago I can't remember what happened. I'm going to have to go back and read them again before I can read this.
Nice to see a sequel.
I'm curious now. I'll need to go back to reread later, but if Pinky can join in, couldn't other ponies ally with them over time? I mean, in the hivemind/mindspeak sense. It would make feeding easier, and the whole 'defense against literally every other changeling hive' would benefit there.
Damn son! Thing's bout to get real up in this biznas!
Every month and a half?????!!!!! D:
Oh shiiiiii-
I have a question about Wildcard. Is he simply referred to as male because that's what his favored disguise used to be, or is it a matter of shapeshifter shenanigans? Cause if he's naturally biologically male, then the supermodels in the queen's room aren't the only nine males in the hive.
7776122
Not to say that the other hives are making the right choice here, but I think you're underestimating the strength of their position.
The big strength of the changeling hives has always been stealth and deception, and that's something the other hives still have on their side. Even if we assume that drones can pick out other drones on sight because of the clashing hiveminds, Sweetcakes' lack of infiltrators means that, while she can establish a reasonably effective defensive network with her drones, she has little way to turn the tables and challenge the other hives offensively in that arena.
And even capturing drones from other hives is effectively pointless, since at best their queen will hijack the drone's mind and prevent them from giving away any information, and at worst simply kill the drone or use it to spread false information.
And even in face to face combat it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that Chrysalis's drones were so weak during the invasion sue to starvation. It's very possible that the ones from the other hives would be evenly matched (at the very least) with any pony or other changeling they might find themselves in battle against.
Not to mention the fact that there's the one big disadvantage all defenders face in situations like this: Sweetcake has so much more she wants to protect, which means she also has so much more she stands to lose, and so many more things that can be used as leverage against her.
Sweetcake definitely has a lot of advantages of her own to bring to the fight, but they're not enough to give her (or her allies) an overwhelmingly decisive victory.
7779893
Yes but the ponies already have a spell to destroy disguises, that means they bring them to high alert and start using it. Sweetcake does have infiltrators as he never killed them when they were infiltrating Canterlot or ponyville previously.
As for gathering information from enemy drones. How much would they be willing to talk like Sweetcake once you use Shining's shield to disconnect them from their previous hive mind like in the first 2 stories of the series? Sure, they'll hold a lot back but they won't be sending information back to their queens.
Also, going back to my pony point previously: random checkpoints with guard backup. You start doing that constantly and capturing, then disconnecting them from their hives and those hives will have 2 choices: open conflict or negotiation. Open conflict is bad for the obvious reasons of hurting the food supply and actually causing the ponies to rally around the good hive who wants to work with them, allowing Celestia and Luna to put in greater security and sacrifice freedoms in order to ensure security like curfews and martial law in certain places. Further, if they go the open conflict route, they have to worry about any allied nations Celestia has that she trusts enough to bring troops on her soil and the ponies giving out the changeling detection spell freely to other nations that might have changelings in them.
7780121
She does have infiltrators still, true, but not enough. She flat out admits that she doesn't have nearly enough to maintain a hive, and I can guarantee you that the others will, meaning that any one hive that's opposing her will likely have significantly more skill and manpower available to them to wage a covert war. And even if that changeling at the end of the chapter doesn't speak for all of the other hives like she claimed, even two or three would be more than enough to overwhelm Sweetcake's infiltrators.
The idea of doing random checkpoints and the like is a good one, but even that would inevitably have gaps that a skilled infiltrator could exploit to accomplish their mission. Some might not make it through, but it would likely only take one or two to cause significant damage. The loss of a few infiltrators is nothing when even one succeeding can cripple a significant portion of Equestria's government, military, or economic infrastructure long enough to take Sweetcake's hive apart. They don't actually have to beat Equestria, they just have to keep them occupied for a bit.
The shield would be able to cut any captured drones off from their hive if the guards are fast enough with it, but even then it would still rely on the infiltrators deciding to betray their queens and divulge information, and their queens would still know everything they learned right up until the moment that they're cut off. It's possible that the rest of the queens are just as insane and self-absorbed as Chrysalis was, but that seems like a poor thing to bank on. It seems far more likely that the other queens will be able to inspire a much greater degree of loyalty in their drones, especially trained infiltrators. And since cutting them off from their hive mind is the closest thing the ponies will do to torture, the only thing the captured drones have to fear is sitting in a cell until their queen wins and lets them out.
But again, the point of this is simply to say that neither side has an overwhelming advantage in this. The other hives may have a weaker position in a lot of ways, but there are also a lot of ways in which they're much stronger than Sweetcake's hive and alliance. They have a position strong enough that if Sweetcake and the Equestrians don't treat them as a serious danger they stand a very real chance of either losing outright or coming out with a pyrrhic victory.
7780196
This is going to sound horrible but a few days without a hive and how fast would they be willing to join the enemy just to be IN a hive rather than suffer that torture alone? That could be a good way to convert them. Especially if you throw in a few guards who treat them well and feed them while they're in their buggy form, thus adding proof that Sweetcake isn't a liar.
As for causing damage, yes the infiltrators could in all areas except for the castle. A military installation like that could easily use Shining's shield or equivalent as a way to force people through a checkpoint. Throw in daily call signs for the military and a requirement to arrest any unescorted civilians and the likelihood of being able to infiltrate there hits almost 0.
7779893 Changelings have some slightly odd ideas (by our standards anyway) about gender, given that the hive is over 99% female. Wildcard is referred to as male because in terms of pony gender roles that's how he thinks of himself, most infiltrators choose a favored pony gender and identify by it, while most other changelings don't think of themselves as being gendered at all.
7777499 the only way a situation like this would work is if the Changelings in question fed off of Hatred and Fear: than the invasion would be justifiable in the show.
7780301
Seems legit. I've seen more than one story before that has infiltrators identify more as whatever their preferred form was, so I just wanted to make sure that's what was going on here. Things get weird when shapeshifting comes into it, since gender doesn't really mean much of anything when you can be whatever you want at any given moment.
7780214
Those are definitely possibilities for how things could go, but until we have more information from SPark we're, unfortunately, limited to picking holes in hypothetical defenses. I think the only thing we can say for certain at his point is that since we were able to go back and forth like this, both sides have a decent chance of accomplishing their goals if the other side makes a mistake.
7780811
True, but I would put a slight favor towards the ponies simply because of the potential long term starvation strategy. If you create enough paranoia and have enough unicorns using that detection spell, one that Lyra, a unicorn that is not indicated to be special in magical ability, could use, then you can potentially slowly remove the other hives' infiltrators until you reach a point where they don't have enough to feed the hive and if you don't have trained infiltrators, they are much more likely to be caught. Further, they can't just replace all the unicorns as magic requires love energy and thus they would be draining their own food reserves to pretend to be unicorns if they replaced them all. Potentially using more food than they generate to hide themselves.
Sure, they can cause damage, but that damage hurts themselves as the more damage they do, the greater the security or the greater loss of life or the greater the loss of trust and willingness to give off positive emotions to strangers or loved ones and thus less food.
..... I was SO excited to see more of this series... and then I saw that updates will be every other MONTH. And now I am sad...
For the first chapter I feel 3 things will hqppen in the future:
-Changeling queens will smuggle a bomb into the hive. I have a feeling, okay?
-The mane-obsessed little one will become the coordinator of the 'ligs that do the queen's manework. The only one that is with the queen evry grooming and gives basic directions to make the most of the work.
-I'm intrested to how would males fit in. I could see most become dandy husbands of the underqueens but I can't help and see some of them going deeper into arystocratic mindset, like becoming artists of the hive, not just be dix on legs...
Eh, just throw Discord at them.
Unless they all have a plot-convenient throne made of a stone that blocks all magic except changeling magic, until it blows up... which makes the stone not work anymore? I guess?
Oh joy. The brood wars are about to begin. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
Great work
Nice, calm and serene... ending hint of drama opening the next chapter.
Definitely want to see where it leads (also if you decide to make a print out of it once the whole saga ends, I would definitely buy it.
7780811
Or you can actually stop picking holes in defenses and just ride with the story
Now this is not ment as rebuke in any way but as Firebrabd says "I am taking it too seriously."
What I want to say is that good author knows where he/she is aiming the story.
Sadly I had seen authors who took coments and discontent readers so seriously that they eiter stopped writing in disgust or changed the story in atempt to please the crowd.
I believe and know that SPark is good author and wont twist the story just to fulfill expectations
7832000
I think you misread something in my comment. The defenses that were being picked apart were the ones belonging to the person I was debating with, not those belonging to the author. I even flat out said that until SPark gives us more information we can only grasp at straws.
But to address the topic you brought up in your post, I vehemently disagree with your belief that things in a story should simply be taken at face value and never questioned. Not only does that mean you miss out on some rather clever bits of foreshadowing and depth that many authors put in their stories, reader speculations can help a great deal with ideas and locating plot holes that the author might have missed or not thought of otherwise.
As long as such speculations and critiques aren't delivered belligerently, they're the lifeblood of a well written story. The fact that readers *can* and want to speculate about the future of the story simply shows that it's written well enough to inspire an emotional investment on the part of the reader.
If you really want nothing but empty praise in the comments of your stories, I suppose that's your choice, but I think most writers on this site would disagree.
7832183
Ok seems we misunderstand each other
This was not aimed against you or discussion in general, hence I said that it is not rebuke.
I love to discuss about things... I just seen more than my share of issues that sprang from too deep discussion. Things that ended dividing readers into two or more groups and in the end picked story apart from inside.
When I see too people repeatedly taking turns in proving their point, it just making me worried, no matter if it is pplite discussion.
Man do I love this series! I went back and read the other two that I enjoyed so much and then found this! Oh happy day! So good! Can't wait for the next chapter ^^