Written by Twilight Sparkle
Author's Note
This story was begun quite some time ago. I only recently rediscovered it, and have decided that it deserves finishing as an essay that a possibly-AU Twilight might conceivably have written, shortly before the discovery of Thorax in the Crystal Empire.
Written by Twilight Sparkle
There are many tales told of Changelings these days. Whether you hate them, love them, or feel indifferent about the subject, they are discussed in places as diverse as the streets of Ponyville, the Princess' Palace at Canterlot, the Crystal Empire, and taverns across the continent. Stories are whispered, mumbled, bellowed, and thought about in the course of day, dusk, and night.
But this was not the case even a few years ago. Before the Changeling invasion of Canterlot, only truly dedicated scholars and historians had even heard of them, and most dismissed them as fantasy and myth - with good reason. Almost every anecdote of Changelings paints a picture that contradicts the next, making it nearly impossible to sort out the truths from the lies.
In light of the rumors flying about the Crystal Empire of a Changeling infiltrator and renewed plotting by Queen Chrysalis, I have decided to write this treatise, which contains accountings of my experiences with Changelings, and what I know of their history, society, and culture, and corrections of misconceptions that widely exist in Equestria. If I knew more, I could write a book; as it is, this essay will have to suffice for now.
The history of their race begins with a warped seed. Untouched by the forest because of the aurora of dark magic that hung about it, it eventually came to rest in a swamp that was underneath a graveyard. There it took root and grew, a gnarled, black trunk with hanging leafy growth. However, they were not truly leaves, for the ends had an organ closely resembling a Venus Flytrap that would eat the locally available prey: flies. Its roots also did not do solely what roots typically exist for, as they acted more like slow-moving tentacles. At least one unicorn skull and a thighbone, fallen out of the cavern ceiling from the ancient graveyard above, were ensnared and taken into the watery bog.
How long it lived is not precisely known. But nothing more is known until, one hundred and forty-six years before the banishment of Nightmare Moon, in the year 567 AU (After Unification), Star Swirl came into the cavern, intending to set up his portable laboratory to conduct more of his favorite activities - testing both potions and Magical theories.
He recorded his actions, which unknown to him at the time, would release a new race into God's Creation, in one of his private diaries, which, with Celestia's gracious consent, I have quoted here:
Moonday, April 6, 567 AU
Tried to set up in a cavern today. Got bitten by a Ponyfly on the neck; the spot still hurts. Discovered a gnarled black tree, which was radiating an impressive amount of tainted magic residual. Acted as if it were partially animal, snagging bones with roots and dragging them into the water. I nailed a sign on the tree telling everyone to keep away, "by order of S.S.t.B.". I'm heading back to Canterlot in order to get Celestia and Luna. Alicorn magic will suffice to seal the cavern and that tree within it. I already tried to seal it, but the surrounding ground is highly magic resistant. It'll do the two both some good. They rarely get to truly use their power these days, and Celestia's been itching to have some free time with Luna. Luna's been drawing into herself these past few decades. A mission with Celestia will probably help her.
Unfortunately, that single nail was a critical mistake. Soon after Star Swirl's departure in his characteristic fashion of teleports alternating with periods of trotting, the tree split open, magically tearing a hole in its trunk. Out of that hole came the first Changelings.
The Changeling race then looked different than it does now. Their wings, derived by the tree from the DNA of Ponyflies, were smooth, without the jagged edges that we are familiar with. They also had no holes in their limbs or torsos and smooth horns instead of the erratic shape that most are familiar with. All of that first generation were born inside the tree, but only one had been directly born from the tree: Chrysalis, the first and current Queen of the Changlings. The rest were born from her, and because of her indirect descent from the Unicorns, the Changlings are indeed one of the races of ponykind, despite claims to the contrary. I, for one, am firmly of the opinion that every sentient being has an immortal soul, though I know some disagree with this idea. But I digress.
I first heard this tale from Chrysalis herself, shortly before she and the Swarm broke out of their house arrest in a surprise prison break that involved a Changeling masquerading as Chrysalis and a Daring Do book. (No, it wasn't Rainbow Dash's fault, and that's all I have to say about it.)
I have done extensive research, and the tales of strange imposters that traumatized those who saw them for what they truly were begin shortly after 570 AU, in a peninsula far to the west. They moved slowly eastward, and the Changelings seem to have spread just ahead of the stories, leaving confused, conflated tales that are nearly impossible to disentangle. It appears that the Changlings tried every role under the sun, from villains to heros to anti-heros to victims to ordinary beings.
Also noted are tales that mention at least one, or possibly several, Changling 'Princesses', as distinct from the Queen Changling. The best guess that I can make is that they were royal daughters, born of Chrysalis. Sexually promiscuous, Chrysalis has never had a consort, instead having a retinue of lovers that serve or die at her pleasure. Only the royals are female; the rest are masculine. As far as I'm aware, no one even knows what a royal Male or non-royal Female Changling would look like.
The scattered tales seem to point at Chrysalis having a falling-out with her daughter, or daughters, and the daughter(s) taking a portion of the swarm with them back west, through the valley into the peninsula, at some point prior to 585 AU. Shortly thereafter, the tales cease to proliferate, and the Changlings disappear from view, the memory of them slowly fading, until they were nearly forgotten.
Then they reappear, at the most chaotic time in Equestria's history since the Reign of Discord was ended by the Two Sisters, the year that nearly finished Equestria: 723 AU.
The year began with troubling news out of the North, from a crystal unicorn whose close friend had seized power in the city-state that was pretentiously called "the Crystal Empire": the umbrum Sombra. A series of magnitude 12 quakes encouraged the sisters to hasten the assembly of the Army, and they marched in a howling February snowstorm upon the Empire.
What happened then is much debated, and needs an entire essay to itself to be treated properly. However, it seems clear that Sombra managed to split the sisters apart, engaging Luna alone. Celestia arrived and also engaged, and after a difficult struggle, the tyrant was sealed away by the Elements of Harmony in an icy chasm.
Unfortunately, Sombra had foreseen this, and a failsafe spell designed to go off if any harmonic energy touched his person activated, taking the Crystal Empire and its inhabitants with it into the future. By making the spell target only those of the crystal pony race, Sombra ensured that no mages capable of unraveling his spell would be taken with it.
However, his far more damaging stroke was to solidify the seeds of doubt in Luna's mind that had been nurturing for decades. What he said to her as they fought has remained a secret between the two to this day, as Luna refuses to give details of the battle.
It was during this time that Chrysalis, who had had an infiltrator emplaced as Luna's secretary the year before, sensed an opportunity and began to subtly attack Luna's reputation, plotting to strike when the Princesses were distracted. Unaware of the depth of Luna's drifting apart from Celestia, the Queen anticipated no more than a brief window of opportunity in which to strike.
By September, Luna had endured months of whispering from court nobles that she was primarily to blame for the Equestrian failure, despite keeping the whispers to herself was nonetheless infuriated with Celestia's lack of action on the matter, and had begun to darkly believe that her sister no longer cared for her. The breaking point came on the day of the fall equinox, when the Baron Rosefield brazenly stated in Luna's presence that if Celestia had gone it alone, the Crystal Empire would still be around.
Luna lost it and attacked the Baron in the presence of the court, and despite Celestia's protests, beat him to a pulp before fleeing into the forest. Despite Celestia's desperate searches, she did not find Luna, and Luna did not return before evening, where, in a moment of rage and weakness, she accepted demonic aid and became Nightmare Moon.
After Nightmare Moon's banishment, Equestria was in turmoil at the loss of their Princess of the Night. Many accused Celestia of incompetence, lack of wisdom and foresight, and of dangerous negligence. A wave of secession ensued, ending the prosperous Expansionary Era and beginning the Saturnalia Era that would last for the next three hundred and twenty nine years. The Sarosians all but vanished into the depths of wild, darkened forests and caverns, their allegiance given primarily to the Moon Princess that was gone. The few who remained were distrusted and eventually disappeared into the general gene pool. The Sarosians would not reemerge until after Luna's redemption, their numbers few due to dwelling in inhospitable living conditions.
As Celestia dealt with her grief and the governmental collapse, the Changelings reappeared, sacking the independent Pegasi city-state of Timbucktu in November, a monarchical trading hub that was beginning to be eclipsed by Equestria to the north in the 720s. Distant relatives of the Crystal Ponies that had vanished, the Timbucktuians had started to seriously consider revoking their alliance with Equestria following the disastrous Crystal Empire campaign, and had withdrawn after the banishment of Nightmare Moon.
The Changeling's first attempt at warfare succeeded in surprising the Timbucktuians, but they had issues dealing with the Pegasi's physical tactics, as Changelings have less weather magic than Pegasi, and have not developed Unicorn-level spellcasting with the exceptions of illusionary and mental influence magic. The tide turned after Chrysalis impersonated a high-ranking General and ordered a retreat. After locking herself in with the King's Court, Chrysalis turned herself loose on those inside, feeding off of them.
Changelings do not feed on love, contrary to popular belief. Love is far more than an emotion, it is a decision, in its highest form, it is to sacrifice for another person's well-being. While the Changelings have since developed mental manipulation to a high degree in order to gain benefits from this state of mind, the technique that they used then was simple and devastating, and a logical though unethical response to their underdeveloped glands that restrict their natural hormonal output.
Overstimulating the production of dopamine and other chemicals in the brain via fine-point telekinesis, the Changelings then burned out the receptors before then extracting and consuming the hormones triggered by the body in response to the ensuing brain damage. Victims of this almost never recover, suffering from lifelong brain damage that causes very poor decision making, a lack of emotional response, and a deep depression that often leads to suicide. Though cannibalism of pony flesh is not a changeling norm despite their carnivorous tendencies, there are reports of it being engaged in on those already afflicted by the mental technique outlined above during the sack of Timbucktu. This may have been a response to the fact that Timbucktu floated over a desert where large prey animals are scarce, but the few eyewitnesses that escaped agreed that the Changelings appeared to be caught up in a battle-triggered bloodthirsty frenzy.
King Orion of Timbucktu was one of the MIAs after the battle. A legend arose that he soared into the night sky, cursing Celestia's lack of aid and begging Nightmare Moon for help, upon which she turned him into a constellation. His actual fate, assuming that he managed to escape the battle, probably was a lifetime of despair as the people he'd ruled were practically annihilated off the face of the world.
Celestia was distracted by assaults through the dream realm from Nightmare Moon, who had seized dominion over the Nyx, self-appointed lunar guardians of the dream realm, and was determined to get off the Moon by hook or by crook. The lack of an effective response against the vanished Changelings solidified the newly-independent city-states' distrust of Celestia, but at the same time the tales of Changeling brutality and their terrifying infiltration capabilities scared them and made them distrust each other, as well.
As Equestria slowly recovered from near-collapse over the next few decades, art blossomed even as the city-states played deadly rounds of politics and built up their military strength. The lack of unity meant the heyday of criminal lawlessness, with robbers flourishing on the dangerous roads; this means that changeling activities are difficult to sort out from common crimes. Celestia and Starswirl became more distant from each other, and in any case were trying to hold the country together. Canterlot, the new capital of Equestria, was completed in 749 AU, but the following year, as the Sirens and Starswirl faced off in the city and invented numerous new types of music and instruments, the city-states went to war with one another, and the Changelings soon took advantage of the situation.
Estimates of how many Changelings were actually serving at any one time in the various armies and governments of the city-states as the wars went on vary widely, due to their massive success in almost entirely concealing themselves from foe and friend alike. Estimates range from 1,000 to over a hundred thousand changelings in the field in 755 AU to over one million in 794, but the best estimates give about 18,000 Changelings serving in various armies, and about 3,000 in governmental positions, in 756 AU, and approximately 34,000 in the field in 795, with around 5,500 in governments. Considering that the armies in the field numbered around 110,000 altogether in 755 and 330,000 in 794 AU, and about 25,600 governmental positions existed outside of Equestria by the 790s, the estimates given above are not unreasonable.
Then the Changelings began to suffer heavily, as casualty rates began to soar on the battlefield, and genocidal policies began to be enacted by the combatants. By the time a truce was enforced by Celestia threatening to stop the Sun from shining on the combatant's lands in 817 AU, the total of all the armies had fallen to approximately 70,000.
An uneasy peace held for the next four decades, but when Equestria was distracted by the outbreak of the First Pony-Griffon War in 861, the pressure was off, and as Ponies and Griffons slogged through the mud and thunder, the old tensions flared anew and the wars resumed, Changelings taking advantage again, but this time as various bands of mercenaries. Indeed, circumstantial evidence points to the infamous Mordlock's Marauders, a rugged band of pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies noted for their exceptional talents at terrifying their opponents, actually being Changelings led by Chrysalis under various guises.
Despite the end of PGW-I in 867 AU, the battered Equestrian military was in no shape to enforce peace, and Celestia's threats about the Sun and Moon were ignored this time around. Reluctant to cause mass starvation, Celestia failed to carry out her threats, and was in any case distracted by the outbreak of PGW-II in 886.
By the 880s, the combatants had settled into an endless series of raids, with occasional flare-ups into more serious action, more due to exhaustion than to lack of resolve. The true crisis did not come until 916 AU, when the Third Pony-Griffon War broke out over a treaty dispute, and the Griffons invaded not only Equestria, but also the city-states.
Mordlock's Marauders were hired by the city-state of Trot in March in order to hold off the Gryphonian Third Army, which was a mighty force numbering over 77,000 soldiers. The griffons' plan was to march through the city-states in a massive arc, coming up to attack Equestria from the south as the First and Second Armies came from the north and east to hammer Equestria's borders more directly.
After desperate resistance by the neighboring city-states, which were all razed to the ground, the Third Army, still numbering over 50,000, marched across the desert towards Trot in June. Aside from a paltry city guard numbering exactly 1,147, the only force in the area were the Marauders, who numbered about 10,000 pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies.
The Marauders waged a hit-and-run war, infiltrating past sentries at night, setting wagons and supplies alight, then disappearing into the darkness. Assassinations were carried out, traumatized survivors spoke of monsters, and orders were misunderstood, misconveyed, and countermanded. Over 30,000 griffons perished between June 21st and July 21st alone. However, the Marauders were taking casualties, and only about 8,500 were left when the hastily assembled Gryphonian Fourth Army arrived on August 16th, bringing the Griffon's numbers back up to 80,000.
The following months turned into a nightmare, as Marauder and Griffon fought each other, moving through desert, farmland, forest, and cloud banks, mercilessly hunting one another, with no quarter given or taken. By the time that the Equestrian Second Army, battle-hardened and redeployed after the annihilation of the Gryphonian Second Army in late September, arrived on November 17th to confront the southern Griffon prong, only about 26,000 griffons remained.
But the Marauders had paid a heavy price; fewer than a thousand of them remained. But it is interesting to note that without the Marauders, the Equestrian Second Army likely would have been nigh-destroyed between the Gryphonian armies in late July, and the course of world history would be dramatically different. Ironically enough, Chrysalis and her Changelings saved Equestria by holding up the Griffons for four months.
After Equestrian victory and the destruction of Gryphonia as a functioning state in 919 AU, peace returned for more than a century. Trot was the only city-state left out of dozens, and Mordlock's Marauders had been disbanded, as the populations struggled to slowly rebound. By 1020, the Equestrian Military had been long-recovered from the beating it had taken in PGW-III, and Trot was being ruled by a narcissistic Emperor.
Then Chrysalis reappeared, first trying to seduce the Emperor, then after being frustrated by his seeing through her disguise, departed and then returned in January of 1021, where she used the 'Trotian Horse' ploy to get inside the city gates.
Celestia was summoned rapidly for aid, and she arrived long before her army did, flying at immense speed, a streak of flame marking her passage. She arrived just after Chrysalis had drained the Emperor, and pretty much lost it.
The accounts speak of her rampaging, a gigantic ball of plasma surrounding her, with spikes and tendrils stabbing again and again and again, impaling the Changelings and Chrysalis repeatedly. The damage functioned on a microscopic level as well, searing away portions of Chrysalis's very genetic code throughout her whole body simultaneously. Chrysalis eventually managed to repair some of it, but the Changelings would never be intact again - even at birth, their horns would be warped, holes would be in the legs, and the wings would be shredded.
The battle was hushed up, and the Changelings were imprisoned within a volcano for centuries, where Chrysalis swore revenge upon Celestia, her imprisoner. Exactly how long Changelings can survive without feeding is not known, but Chrysalis lived for centuries without a meal, broiling heat surrounding her from lava pools.
Eventually, they were freed unintentionally by a dragon, and they made themselves scarce, not reappearing until my brother's wedding at Canterlot, where they enjoyed initial success but then were repulsed.
Chrysalis suffered from bad intelligence, as it is standard Guard procedure to wipe all records of family members of serving guards in order to prevent reprisals by angered enemies, plus the fact that Cadance liked to stay out of the limelight. She also enjoyed being in a high place of power after centuries of obscurity too much for her own good, and these facts are likely the only reason that I saw through her disguise at all.
After her defeat, Chrysalis was ejected far to the south, where a drama most Equestrians still do not know about, despite the publishing of my novella Changing Tides: Encounter in the Southlands, took shape. As the story has been told elsewhere, I will confine myself to the essentials.
She rebuilt her power base, then kidnapped most of Ponyville in the typical green-glowing Changeling goo. After me and my friends freed them, we discovered that Chrysalis had taken three fillies, two of them siblings of my friends, south to her new base of power, in order to force me to come to her.
After splitting me and my friends up into groups and setting us at each other via impersonations, we only reunited and reforged our friendship shortly before we arrived at her stronghold. After imprisoning my friends and tempting me with offers of power that I refused, we fought a magical duel as the strongest magic event in 3,000 years occurred. After I freed my friends and the fillies, the Changelings were imprisoned in the castle, there to remain until they executed a jailbreak shortly after Tirek's defeat.
Where does Chrysalis wander now? I believe that she's somewhere in the Southlands, scheming her return for revenge, as I doubt that she has forgiven Celestia, my brother and his wife, and me and my friends for the defeats that we have given her. We've been training the guards and ourselves in anti-illusion and verification techniques, while learning combat skills, but sometimes I wonder if it'll be enough to protect us once she comes again.
As to where her infiltrators are, despite rumors of a spy lurking about in the Crystal Empire, I must honestly say that I don't know. They may be anywhere or nowhere, and until something more definitive comes up, that's all that can be said.
To my friends and subjects, I remain respectfully yours,
Princess Twilight Sparkle
Written in Ponyville Castle on March 10th, 1729 AU
Published by Canterlot Printing Presses
