• Published 16th Aug 2023
  • 1,344 Views, 22 Comments

Group Evaluation - JazzyWaffles



A changeling queen appears not long after the invasion of Canterlot to deliver some mail.

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Don't Shoot the Messenger

Author's Note (4/10/2024)

This snippet was written quickly and in a state of mind that I would not describe as fully healthy, and the final product just relies on too much extra information that isn't in the chapter to even remotely work. I very quickly have come to regard this story as an embarrassment that shows off my worst qualities, but since FiMFiction does not have an option to private stories, I'm left with the decision of if I should delete this story entirely. I have decided to leave the story up for the time being with this Author's Note at the beginning, in the interest of preservation and not running from my failures. If you haven't, I recommend you check out some of my other stories instead.

—Jazzy


"CHANGELING!"

As the green flash of flame erupted, the ragtag group of mares scrambled together in a defensive huddle facing the Queen. Their expressions were a mix of fear and hatred, followed by a dawning realization as they saw the size and regality of the creature before them. The purple one narrowed her eyes. "Queen Chrysalis."

The queen rolled her eyes. "No, actually. Queen Hyaline. I'm not sure if it's more offensive that you've immediately mistaken me for a Queen with a completely different build, face, hole placement, and basically everything else, or if it's more offensive that you assume that changelings are a monolith, with only one ruler and one goal." She craned her neck down to the level of the six cowering, if confused, ponies. "It seems the racism your ancestors had against each other simply redirected itself to the outside, though that's sadly not much of a surprise."

The pegasus with the rainbow mane shot forward at a frankly impressive speed, hovering in front of Hyaline's face with an angry expression. "Hey! You take that back, monster!"

Hyaline returned the stare, albeit deadpan and betraying exhaustion rather than anger in return. "And this, little ponies, is what is known as a self-demonstrating article. This will be on the test, so please take notes."

"YOU'RE a self-defenestrating particle!" Came the pony's rather lame retort.

"Rainbow Dash! Down, girl!" The orange pony spoke in a country accent, prompting the reluctant and stubborn one, apparently named Rainbow Dash, to swoop back to the group, still silently giving Hyaline the stink eye.

The purple one walked forward, apparently the de facto leader of the group. "I'm not sure if I can trust you after what Chrysalis's changelings did in Canterlot. But assuming you're not deceiving us... Why are you here? Why would a Changeling Queen appear here, to us, after all that's happened?"

With a green flash, Hyaline produced a sealed envelope. "I am, at this point somewhat regrettably, here to personally deliver this document. It is a copy of the formal declaration from the Council of Royals denouncing and excommunicating the ex-Queen Chrysalis and all changelings who choose to still follow her rule from here on out."

The envelope was set down in front of the purple unicorn, who glanced down briefly before carefully picking it up, clearly using her magic to check for potential traps. "Council...? As in, of changelings?"

"Yes." Hyaline nodded, paying her suspicious prodding no mind, and continued. "One of the required copies, by the rules of our Ancient Concord, is to be delivered to the individual, group, or family whose involvement directly revealed the Concord-breaking activities, thus leading to said excommunication. The one to reveal Chrysalis's plan was, as you are no doubt very aware, a purple unicorn of the House of Light, whose current residence is the Golden Oaks Library in Ponyville. In other words, you."

The unicorn opened the envelope and glanced over its contents, confirming what she was being told. "I... don't understand, though. Why would the messenger be a Queen?"

"An understandable question." Hyaline nodded, noting that all but the blue pony now regarded her with less fear or anger and more cautious curiosity. "The practical reason was the likelihood that a normal changeling drone would simply be attacked without a chance to explain themselves." Hyaline grinned sadly. "The real reason... was that I was curious. Chrysalis is the first to intrude upon the Equestrian Diarchy in over one thousand years. When I last laid eyes on ponies, I was a young foal, and ponies were still getting used to living near other ponies who had different features than their own."

The unicorn gasped. "You're over 1,000 years old?"

"Rather young for a Changeling Queen. Most of us are much older. To give a pony comparison, I was born a few years before Celestia's reign began. I am approaching my 1,111th hatchday." Hyaline continued. "I came with the document myself to see how ponies had changed in all that time." Hyaline glanced over at Rainbow, the blue one. "More than I thought, yet less than I'd hoped. The seeds of hatred that infest Chrysalis are within ponies, too. Diminished from their ancient glory, perhaps, but still present, and still guiding your actions."

The white unicorn spoke up next in a fake high-class voice. "That's unfair! We were just scared! We just got invaded!"

Moving her gaze to the speaker, Hyaline responded. "Perhaps. But in your fear, your collective first instinct was to assume that we were a monolith. All the same. Countless changelings, one label. Monster."

"B-but, um," the yellow one quietly mumbled, barely audible, "we just thought that since ponies have one princess... um, I guess it's two, now... but it's one government... we thought it would be the same for changelings..."

"Understandable, if unfortunate." Hyaline avoided looking directly at the pegasus, sensing her nervousness. "But that only holds up if you don't act with the same fear regardless of circumstance. For example... let's say a new race you'd never seen before comes into town. They aren't ponies, but they're clearly civilized. They walk into town and try to shop. Perhaps a Yak, a Griffon, a Zebra," Hyaline noticed a shift in emotion from the six at this point, "or some other foreign race. Would you give the benefit of the doubt, and not give into fear and hatred? Or, should I say... have you?"

Silence reigned for several seconds. The pink one stepped forward next. Her hair looked a little deflated compared to how it looked when Hyaline first showed herself. "You're right. We've made some really bad mistakes like that in the past. And it was really mean of us. But we can get better! Isn't that worth something?"

Hyaline nodded. "Perhaps. On an individual level. But on a group level, the instinct of othering tells me that ponies aren't ready yet."

The purple one raised an eyebrow. "Ready? For what?"

Hyaline smiled and shook her head. "Nevermind. It's not something that will be relevant during your lifetime." Hyaline turned to leave before pausing, looking back at the six. "But if you want to pleasantly surprise me, I'll be waiting. As I always have been." In a flash of green flame, Hyaline vanished from view.

It was sad that ponies weren't ready yet. Hyaline had had her eye on them for so long, but there was still so long left to wait at the current pace. If she were following the old standards, from when she was younger, they would have been considered ready. But thanks to the actions of Chrysalis, both publicly known and privately revealed to the Royal Court in the investigation, those standards had changed. So many investigations of so many Queens and Hives, all just to find out that the standards were ever so slightly too lenient...

If the brood of Chrysalis wasn't ready when they were inducted, then the brood of Celestia wouldn't be ready either. Not yet, anyway. But one day... one day the ponies would sit on the Council of Royals. One day they would Ascend.

Author's Note:

An explanation, if it wasn't clear enough: Hyaline was vetting them to see if ponykind was ready to "ascend" and become a hive of changelings. Hyaline picked ponies as her chosen race for ascension at a young age, seeing potential in them, and has been waiting for nearly 1,100 years for ponies to mature enough for ascension to be safe. After the revelation of Chrysalis and potentially her entire hive being wackadoo, an investigation was launched into her hive and the hives of other queens to find out what went wrong. Chrysalis's hive used to be a non-changeling species as well, but ascended before the race was "ready" on a collective moral level, thus why her hive went so wrong. The standards for ascension had to be changed as a result, meaning ponies will have to wait much, much longer before they're ready to become changelings. Whether ascension is a good thing or a horrific concept is up to the reader.

Also, hi! It's my first submission here in a long, long time. Hopefully, I can keep up this momentum of writing, but time will tell.

Comments ( 22 )

Quite an interesting & fresh idea. Very neat story!

whether the concept is good or bad ignores whether the ponies might not want it even if it's the best thing ever

D-F
D-F #3 · Aug 16th, 2023 · · 1 ·

good concept but i feel like this really needs the idea of "show rather than tell"

Interesting but this really needs more. Like the girls wondering if she had a point about the species just sending hate outward considering applebloom was the only one who tried to know zecora. Despite the lack of evidence that zecora had done anything bad they barged into her home breaking the door down. Wasted her time and energy by spilling the cure and didn't really apologizes just ended the rumors. How about fixing the door and getting new ingredients to replace what you wasted.

Also, hi! It's my first submission here in a long, long time. Hopefully, I can keep up this momentum of writing, but time will tell.

Well, if this is what you can do after a long hiatus, I'm interested to see what else you'll put out if you can get going again.

Imagine showing up in the immediate aftermath of an invasion of a previously "unknown" species but still being judgmental because they're biased.

Really, ascension. And then become a race of emotional parasite that cannot live without another sentient races.

Interesting idea. Feels a bit rough and telly but definitely has promise. Hope you keep writing n_n

:twilightsheepish: To serve ponies
:raritycry: Twilight Stop!
:twilightsmile: Wut?
:raritystarry: IT'S A COOK BOOK!
:moustache: Mmmmmmm tasty

11668682
i belive it was explained in the authors note why chrisalis hive was the way it was.

11668845
authors note explains the invasion forced conquest. Nothing about feeding habits

11668912
ah sorry i tend to puzzle things out and assume in my head things that are not explicitly stated sometimes. sorry again ill explain what my take away was my mind rationalised that because chrisalis hive race was not ready that it became the parsitic natured one we know. So my assumption was that other changlings that were ready like the ponys were not had a kind of infinate food due to peace between them and other changlings it sounded right in my head but was only built off the authors note

"I'm not sure if it's more offensive that you've immediately mistaken me for a Queen with a completely different build, face, hole placement, and basically everything else..."

In the ponies defense, some of those traits that would be obvious to other changelings may not be so obvious to ponies or other non-changeling species that aren't adapted to keep track of those traits like changelings would.

"...or if it's more offensive that you assume that changelings are a monolith, with only one ruler and one goal."

Well...it's what canon apparently decided to promote, so... :trollestia:

"It seems the racism your ancestors had against each other simply redirected itself to the outside, though that's sadly not much of a surprise."

Ironically...this comment could be interpreted as racist towards ponies by assuming that not only applies to all ponies but that was also indeed the reason for the ponies mistaking her for someone else. So look who's calling the kettle black here. :trixieshiftleft:

More seriously, regardless of the motives of their respective hives, there's probably some anti-pony biases among the changelings too, so let's not go pretending the problem is pony-only.

"I'm not sure if I can trust you after what Chrysalis's changelings did in Canterlot."

Again, in fairness to the ponies, this isn't really an unfair stance for them to want to make. They got burned by letting their guard down around changelings once before, and considering they hadn't encountered (at least in recent memory) of any other hive of changelings until now (and I assume this is either pre-Thorax, or Thorax just doesn't apply to this version of events), I honestly can't blame them for wanting to be on guard until Hyaline's finished making her case and they're certain there's no danger from her or any of her cohorts.

"The seeds of hatred that infest Chrysalis are within ponies, too. Diminished from their ancient glory, perhaps, but still present, and still guiding your actions."

Yes, but you all hiding yourselves away, making no meaningful contact with ponies or any attempts to try and encourage them to change their views, isn't exactly helping either. Basically, you saw the ponies were discriminatory early on and decided to bury your heads and assume that problem would go away on its own. Surprise, surprise, it didn't.

I get the intended message here, certainly, and I don't mean to be so down on it...but Hyaline's elitist attitude about it does kinda rubs me the wrong way when I don't doubt the changelings have some of the same problems within their own ranks. The fact she's so quick to assume the negative about the ponies from only first impressions (which she gave them no forewarning on, startling them) kinda sort of proves it too.

The white unicorn spoke up next in a fake high-class voice. "That's unfair! We were just scared! We just got invaded!"

Yes. This. This has more sway than Hyaline's giving it credit for, and she's really being unfair in just dismissing it when she was, again, the one who snuck up on them and, in effect, went "Boo! Imma changeling!" and for some reason expected the ponies wouldn't react negatively to that when Chrysalis's earlier actions had, quite understandably, left them more than a little on edge.

If she wanted a more positive reaction, she should've handled this way differently and not caught them so unawares like this.

Hyaline nodded. "Perhaps. On an individual level. But on a group level, the instinct of othering tells me that ponies aren't ready yet."

So back to burying your heads and assuming the problem will go away on its own then. Because that worked so very well before now, clearly.

Whether ascension is a good thing or a horrific concept is up to the reader.

I'm going to assume it's at least a negative more than it is a positive. Maybe it's for the better Hyaline's burying her head and assuming the problem will go away on its own then.

Anyway, like other readers, it's a good idea overall, but it needs much more fleshing out and thinking through than it's currently gotten. Right now, all we've gotten is the cliffnotes version of an idea that has potential...but still feels a little half-baked.

This reads like an excerpt from or a teaser for a larger story

but ascended before the race was "ready" on a collective moral level, thus why her hive went so wrong. The standards for ascension had to be changed as a result, meaning ponies will have to wait much, much longer before they're ready to become changelings. Whether ascension is a good thing or a horrific concept is up to the reader.

My take on this 'Ascension' is that it is like Buist enlightenment, rising to a heightened state of enlightenment.

What a fascinating concept... That changelings could be some kind of higher alien society watching and waiting for other species to grow enough to be considered great enough for this 'ascension'. It leaves the question though, how would Hyaline react seeing how much Twilight would change the world in just a few short decades? Cause she definitely pushed for some less racist views after becoming the sole princess of Equestria.

11669100
It ends up being way too pretentious, especially in Hyaline's case. For her to make her own racists bias of "Oh, you're a racist, I get it. Just because an army that looks like me attacked you, you assume I'm the bad guy...even if I am literally meeting you after said invasion, oh how droll your pony tiny minds are."

Even more so, "We give this to the person who first figured out what was happening!" - Oh, the author means the pony who was traumatized by nearly being made an outcast by her friends, family, and mentor thanks to one of Hyaline's kind? Let's not forget poor Cadance, an Alicorn entrapped, weakened, and drained by a parasite.

Worst of all is that Hyaline then plays excuse of "Oh, but we are enlightened, because I said so."

The level of character omniscience that Hyaline benefits from due to author say so makes this extremely messy and even worse is that I have to read the "Author's Notes" and accept that as being ok.

No, Author Notes should never be abused in that way.
"But my reasons are sound. The notes say so." If that can't be explained in the narrative, the story is not finished then.

The author admits that these "Ascended" made buggy Hitler, but its ok, we changed the club house rules, we are the ascended, its fine!
No, they are just another race of pretentious bugs, an egotistical ruling class that ensures they are always right because they literally rewrite the history to fit their own narrative. Even worse, having a counsel just means they create foolish decisions by commity.

Didn't see them walking amongst the ponies in over a thousand years presenting themselves as they are and offering a branch of peace, and good will.
Convenient that a war of their own foolish decisions happened so they can then rub their "high and mighty goodness" in them darn pony faces.

Author made an attempt, but this needed to sit in the oven longer, it's raw.

There's a good idea buried in here, but the execution leaves so much to be desired. The concept of ascension is something worth looking into, but the way the story presents itself with what it does makes it come off as victim blaming more than something insightful.

This takes place, what, a day or two after the changelings invaded? This was a species Equestria never heard of and the first impression they got was nothing short of pure evil. Chrysalis had kidnapped a member of royalty, brainwashed a military leader, lead an invasion with full intention of enslaving the land and its inhabitants for their own use and showed no mercy. Yet, despite all that, Equestria is somehow in the wrong?

What did this council want them to do? Bend over and let Chrysalis and her hive destroy their land instead of defending themselves? In fact, why didn't this council step in during or shortly before the invasion to halt Chrysalis and explain and offer an olive branch to Equestria about what happened? Better yet, why didn't they make sure no other hives were attempting to invade other lands and prevent them?

Hyaline doesn't do much favor to help with what she did. She comes off not only as pretentious with what she's doing, but she ends up being pretty much racist herself when she talks to the ponies. "Oh, you were attacked by our species, whom you've never heard or seen before and made no attempt to contact you, nearly had your land destroyed, and lots of ponies got hurt and could've died from this? You're not giving us a chance and being prejudice. How dare you defend yourself and be afraid shortly after my species came by and attacked you?" Again, it feels like victim blaming here and she doesn't come off as someone enlightened, but someone overly pompous and lacks understanding.

In fact, it's even worse considering how Hyaline revealed herself. Once word gets out of other Changeling hives, Equestria is going to be even more on edge after learning of this and be terrified because they fear another attack like what happened at the wedding and want to respond with force. Rather than try to be diplomatic and offer help to show there are good changelings, Hyaline played judge, jury, and executioner with Equestria and has most likely made relations or her desire for them to ascend even worse. Good job, Hyaline, you accomplished the exact opposite of what you wanted to do.

Some say this story is half baked, but it feels like it wasn't even like that. It feels like they put the food in the oven and left it in too long and it got burnt completely. A real shame because there's an idea buried here that could've turned out great, but it's done in a way that just leaves a lot to be desired.

I gotta agree with most everyone else here. This would have been a neat idea but the way you went about it just makes this new Queen look like a pretentious idiot. Of course ponies are gonna be on edge about changelings RIGHT after being invaded by one. Then trying to make them out to be racists and "bad guys" for having that reaction is just stupid, frankly. If you ever plan on going somewhere with this for a sequel or something, I'd recommend changing a lot about the situation. Cause this just doesn't work as it is right now.

After playing Mass Effect where you meet two "races" Reaper and Kett that want two ascend everyone in their own horrible way without giving them a choice I would never trust someone like her.

"It seems the racism your ancestors had against each other simply redirected itself to the outside, though that's sadly not much of a surprise."
The pegasus with the rainbow mane shot forward at a frankly impressive speed, hovering in front of Hyaline's face with an angry expression. "Hey! You take that back, monster!"

:twilightblush:: "Rainbow, you do realize you are just proving her right?"
:rainbowderp:: "Oh..."


Good story!
I enjoyed reading it.


I could probably write more, but in the end I would only repeat what 11669100 had already said.

orp

Yeah sure, perform an equivalent of a jumpscare and render judgement on an entire culture based on that single moment. That will show them who's the enlightened superior master race here.

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