The changelings have been defeated, and the day is saved. Forced to limp home with her damaged brood, Chrysalis reflects on the events that transpired, and what consequences it may have for the future of her kind.
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- Member Since 20th Jan, 2013
- offline last seen Sep 12th, 2021
ferret
Investigative wordsmith leaving no idea unexplored and no shoe unsniffed.
ferret
Joined 20th Jan, 2013 ·
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I have no clue what is happening in this story.
Too many question raised and no answers.
Um. If Cadence is still trapped, this should be a massive divergence from canon. If cadence is still trapped, how did they get repulsed with the supercharged shield/why is there still a shield at all?
You...uh...need to do a lot more explaining for this to make sense, and possibly add an alternate universe tag if the divergence is severe enough.
8050432 They got repulsed with the supercharged shield, because Shining Armor and his wife defeated Chrysalis with the power of love.
I think it's relatively self explanatory.
8050395
...or not.
8050476
How did the changelings capture Cadenza, then?
And earlier in the story you have this:
So...the shield is still up. This clearly hasn't been a "kidnap the princess long after everypony has relaxed their guard" event.
You ALSO make it seem like she's just been defeated and is lying her ass off to the guards, so that definitely precludes the possibility of this being long after the wedding, or a wedding where things went differently.
THIS DOES NOT ADD UP.
So, uh, yeah, you have some 'splainin to do.
If I got it right, Chrysalis is not a Queen, just a General, or Princess. The Queen of the Hive is far more experienced, and she is now faking Cadance in Canterlot now. So it's like a double trick - when Chrysalis was revealed, nobody suspected that "kidnapped Cadance" is actually a changeling too.
8050578 that possibility occurred to me, but it is contradicted by this line:
See, if the changelings went through all that trouble to install fake!cadence all along, then things did, indeed, work just as planned.
However, unless things went very differently then in canon, when "cadence" (fake or otherwise) set off the love bomb, the changelings had already won. Things had gone as planned, and there would be no need for a fake cadence to pull some bullshit like that. If fake cadence was a backup plan in event of losing, they wouldn't need to use it.
So...yeah. Author has some 'splainin to do.
Edit: i mean, it could be that they had to use fake!cadence as the backup plan because of chrysalis's acting fuckup (sunshine sunshine, ladybugs awake), but...even that raises some serious questions.
8050578 then Chrysalis's statement she is the only one strong enough to impersonate an alicorn is wrong. And there is no sensible idea what the the real plan could be
8050634 8050631
From these two fragments I see that there is the Queen, who's a step up from ordinal changelings. And among other changelings(her brethen) only Chrysalis is powerful enough to mantain alicorn disguise, and so to play the role of Queen for ponies.
- this shows that despite the situation seeming to be defeat, changelings have reached the main goal - that is, I think, swapping Cadence for Queen.
So as I think the plan was to fool everypony until the wedding, then get discovered, then be "defeated" and run away.
- that's what went wrong, and due to that a lot of changelings were injured by pink forcefield. So, it is actually a win, but with big losses that weren't in the plan, and the Queen is playing Cadance's role in Canterlot, so the Hive is uneasy.
8050578
Nice!
8050631
The plan didn't include going mad with power and thinking you could take Canterlot on a full frontal assault.
The general had already won, but she was not the most powerful changeling in the room. It begs the question what did changelings stand to gain from conquering Equestria? A lengthy campaign of attrition, if the Chrysalis Resisitance timeline is to be believed. Didn't it ever seem strange to you that the grand ultimate plan of a race of shapeshifters was directly attacking everypony, undisguised, in public?
Chrysalis planned to be discovered from the start. Why else would she banish Twilight to the crystal mines, the moment Twilight seemed like she had given up and accepted Chrysalis as the real Cadance?
And now they have zero unicorns who know.
8050634
Well, I could have said she was the only one of the generals strong enough to impersonate an alicorn.
8050675 well you need to. the problem with this plan is they leave a queen stuck in the mines for weeks for a unicorn that may never notice anything. Seriously, if this queen can replace Cadance indefinitely so no one notices anything is off about her, how about she just take her place and skip everything else
8050682
Very, very wrong. Who said Queen has to sit in the mines all the time? No, she only needs to be there when Twilight arrives.
Also, I guess Chrysalis was deliberately stepping off to alert Twilight - like when she didn't recognize her.
And why do they need to be revealed - I guess, to stop hiding and become recognized as a real country eventually. Maybe they even had "dethronement of evil queen Chrysalis" planned for later.
8050687 the Queen has to be waiting there because they don't know exactly when Twilight is going to get there. For example, what if Twilight had left Canterlot in a huff? Or sat in her room and sulked
8050578
That's also my interpretation.
There is the question of why the queen didn't just replace Cadance openly herself immediately. That could be, though, because they weren't sure if even the queen could get the act sufficiently right, and if they had only a single layer to fail, things would be all over if it did. By having Chrysalis do this, their first layer is more likely to fail, but they have a second and stronger second layer.
8050631
We already knew that everything didn't go according to plan, though: Chrysalis seems to have panicked a bit when she was revealed, sending in more troops than she should have and getting them injured.
8050634
Could have been meaning "The only non-queen changeling".
8050674
Right. Primary mission objective achieved, but not as smoothly as it could have been.
8050675
"
"Nice!
Ah, good. :)
"Didn't it ever seem strange to you that the grand ultimate plan of a race of shapeshifters was directly attacking everypony, undisguised, in public?"
Yes.
Never formulated this good an explanation, though; thanks. :)
8050682
And if it actually turned out that way, sure.
"Huh. I'm acting this badly, and the ponies are still buying it? Guess they're dumber than we thought. Better send a runner to tell the queen."
If they go with a plan that expects they're discovery and aren't discovered, they still have a lot of room to maneuver and could end up in an even better position. If they go with a plan that expects they won't be discovered and are, that's a major setback and quite possibly a full defeat.
8050687
"Maybe they even had "dethronement of evil queen Chrysalis" planned for later."
...
Huh.
And having Cadance hidden away somewhere and the queen up in the Crystal Empire, along with their other love-gathering methods, could potentially provide them with enough love that they could "stop harvesting from ponies". And it's not as if turning pretty colors would be difficult for a bunch of shapeshifters.
And there are even some similarities.
No one sees the real queen, or knows that the real queen exists.
The "queen's" plans are intended to be discovered and fail.
Even if the first layer (King Thorax and his Rainbow Deerbugs) falls apart somehow, the second layer (Queen Cadance, who may well have moved the actual hive under the Empire by now) is fine.
The plan ends with the ponies thinking they won, when instead it's a strong but appropriately covert changeling victory.
Pity about that big magic-suppressing throne, though.
they were apparently starving, while hiding in plain site, disguising them as average ponies to harvest love, so maybe a public attack wasn't such a bad idea
Then again, considering Chrysalis was revealed maybe the public attack was considered necessary to protect her.
*sigh* it's certainly possible that what happened makes sense. However, no matter how I look at it, the divergence is significant enough to require quite a bit more in story elaboration on the divergences before I can bring myself to give this an upvote; I'll keep an eye on it for now, though, since mechanically it's pretty decent and the concept holds potential.
8051221
I was tempted to include a scene about the steamy honeymoon but I think I'd rather leave that up to people's imaginations.
8050890
For a bunch of poor, weak, starving little ladybugs, they sure were good at kicking everypony's ass. I just think they didn't want to conquer Canterlot, even if they were capable of doing so.
That's pretty clever. Could you imagine if this had been the big season six reveal? That Cadance was a changeling ever since season two? I suppose that even the implications of that would a bit too dark.
As far as the fic goes, there are a few cracks that it would've been nice to see filled in. Why didn't the magic blast expel the real queen from Canterlot? Why involve the changeling army at all if the plan was for Chrysalis to be unmasked at the wedding anyway? Why send Chrysalis for the first phase of the plan instead of a changeling more suited to subterfuge?
Still, solid story. Stuff like this is the best consequence of MLP's horribly fragmented and often nonsensical canon.
8051715
"Why didn't the magic blast expel the real queen from Canterlot?"
Well, she played a major role in generating it, after all; she was probably able to build her own safety in from the start.
"Why involve the changeling army at all if the plan was for Chrysalis to be unmasked at the wedding anyway?"
My guess would be as backup. No one actually saw the army until they attack, so they appear to have had some way to hide themselves; presumably, they'd have just kept hiding if they hadn't been called.
"Why send Chrysalis for the first phase of the plan instead of a changeling more suited to subterfuge?"
I mentioned this in my own comment. 8050862
8051715
If the show writers didn't want dark, they shouldn't have had an evil, black bug monster defeat Princess Celestia and imprison her in a chrysalis made of glowing green slime. I thought this was a relatively sunny and optimistic interpretation, compared to the show deciding that Chryssy was betraying and exploiting her own children to keep them from realizing their true potential. Pretty much everything that ever came from ACW is... morbidly disturbing.
She was the one casting it, earning the trust of the ponies, a loving husband, and quelling a certain general's little insurrection all in one blow.
Presumably because Chrysalis thought they had defeated the ponies, and the queen's original plan didn't need to be obeyed. It was an attempted military coup, disguised (natch) as an invasion.
Because none of them were powerful enough to assume the role of Princess Cadance. Otherwise changelings would've taken over the world a long time ago. This gambit stretched their resources pretty thin.
Anyway any inconsistency can be rationalized away. I'm just glad you enjoyed the story.
8051749
Oh and here's another idea, perhaps once they'd "defeated" the great "queen" Chrysalis, the ponies would let down their guard, allowing all those changelings to just quietly move in.
8062764
Which, the first "defeat" or the second "defeat" I floated in a referenced comment based on something Xzrea said?
For the first one, at the wedding, that would depend on the relative levels of alertness before and after the whole thing. It seems likely that the alertness after would be higher, but we don't know. Well, I don't know, oh author. :) We don't see anti-changeling posters all over the place at the start of Season 1 or anything like that, but it's possible that ponies like Bon Bon were just really good at hunting them quietly. Though it's also possible that the warning that led to the shield and whatnot wasn't desired (though it seems likely that it was), in which case the alert level might have been going from low to high over the wedding anyway, with the plan making it go less high. It does seem more likely, however, that the average changeling would have an at least slightly harder time after the wedding, with that being offset by the massive improvement in the queen's position. Still, that increased difficulty might have helped contribute to...
For the second one, "allow"? I wouldn't be too surprised if they're invited. Hey, they need to learn about friendship, right, and there's this nice old vacant castle, recently repaired but no tenants, right near the friendshippiest place in Equestria...
8062756
"and quelling a certain general's little insurrection all in one blow."
Ooh. Oooooh. I hadn't thought of that, but... yeah, that could look a lot more sinister than "I panicked" from the outside, couldn't it? I expect it was sorted out, but there may have been some rather tense letters at the start of it. And possibly the queen wondering, for a while, whether Chrysalis really panicked or whether she's only saying that because she lost.
"Presumably because Chrysalis thought they had defeated the ponies, and the queen's original plan didn't need to be obeyed. It was an attempted military coup, disguised (natch) as an invasion."
...Aaaalllternatively, that wondering could be entirely accurate! :D
Wow, missed that completely.
8062933
Hmm, perhaps "panicked" is a little too disingenuous considering this is Chrysalis's inner narrative...
Well, it was never said whether Chrysalis's reveal was unprecedented or not. Ponies could have been already familiar with changeling incursions, and it just never came up in the show (*cough*ACW was a retcon*cough*)
The first defeat. This story contradicts with the finale that had Chrysalis's second defeat.
What a lovely, but absolutely ridiculous sentiment.
8062976
"Hmm, perhaps "panicked" is a little too disingenuous considering this is Chrysalis's inner narrative..."
Hm, yes, I think I may have misremembered a quote there. Bit tired at the moment, sorry.
"Well, it was never said whether Chrysalis's reveal was unprecedented or not. Ponies could have been already familiar with changeling incursions, and it just never came up in the show"
Aye, true... though it is odd that Cadance (or "Cadance") knew and no one else did. Still, that's one of the things I don't know.
"(*cough*ACW was a retcon*cough*)"
Why, how can you say such a thing about the episode introducing Twilight's dear brother and alicorn foalsitter who'd never been mentioned or hinted at at all before?
"The first defeat."
Ah, thanks.
"This story contradicts with the finale that had Chrysalis's second defeat."
Well... does it, though? As I said in that comment a bit below, something like that, at least, might work. Still, could also easily not happen.
"What a lovely, but absolutely ridiculous sentiment."
Hey, if the ponies can be usefully manipulated with it, does it matter if it's ridiculous?