QC-112 didn’t know much other than her name, her world was a dark miasma of green fluid, she was inside some kind of hard translucent shell, she saw shapes move beyond but knew not what they were.
She had existed for a very long time, at least it seemed long to her, there was little way to keep track of time. One day she awoke within this shell and since then she simply lay floating in her cylinder of liquid, held by tendrils that snaked from her back up to the ceiling of her little world, disappearing behind some dark material.
One day, she was curious and turned to see if she could inspect the tendrils snaking into the back of her head and torso, she managed to pull one free… It hurt, a lot, and she felt herself go weak and limp, darkness creeping up from the sides of her vision. She managed to catch a glimpse of the black tube, leaking a pink fluid that dissolved in her green sea from its broken end…Then she fell into blackness, the last thing she remembered was a strange whining sound, she had heard it before and had learned to ignore it, but there were other sounds mixed in before the blackness smothered her hearing, the sound of something moving, a clanking sound, and a soft hiss.
She wondered why she existed, and why she was floating in this little sea. Since she pulled the tube from her head, she was more careful and spent most of her time simply curled up thinking. Sometimes she would hear that whining sound again, and whenever she heard it, she also heard that clanking sound, and she would see something moving quickly past her little green world. She wondered what they were, probably the things that put the tube back into her head… She wondered if there were others like her, she knew her name, it was a series of letters and numbers, and she knew that if she was 112, then there must be others… But, she couldn’t see or hear much beyond the hard walls of her world.
One day, though… She felt a sudden rush, she could feel something flowing into her body, filling her with vigor. She could suddenly see clearer than she could before, and she could move her limbs without struggling. With the sudden clarity, she could actually see outside of her little green world! She still couldn’t see much but it was more than she had seen before! She could see the vague shapes of many other green cylinders, much like the little world she was in, all with a floating shape inside that looked much like herself, they lined the walls of a very long corridor, long enough that she couldn’t see the end. She could also see the tubes going into each and every cylinder, she could see a series of spheres with transparent holes in them mounted above her, they were filled with liquids, green, pink, blue, and white.
A shape was approaching, multiple shapes actually… As they grew closer, she could see that they were tall and lanky figures, they were seemingly made from some soft material, and they looked vaguely like larger versions of herself. Their heads were some black carapace with four small dots which glowed a blue-green, and a mouth that was some circular aperture full of little shapes that were moving around. Their baggy bodies were strangely colored, not just one black mass like her own.
The figure approached her world and reached out a limb to interact with some block of material covered in glowing shapes. Suddenly, she felt a painful stab in the back of her head, for a moment she was worried that a tube had been pulled from her, and she was going to blackout again… But then, she felt a sudden rush of insight. Above her, a strange noise that she had never heard before but could somehow understand completely, “Intel upload completed,” It rang out.
There was a pause, then a series of clicking sounds, accompanied by more pain as she felt tubes being pulled away from her flesh, the pain faded quickly in the soothing coolness of her fluid tank, above her that voice spoke again, “Interlocked released, hydrocarbon fluid inflow released, concentrated thaumic energy fluid inflow released, waste outflow released, nitrogen inflow released, ammonia outflow released, radiological decontamination complete, the subject is ready for extraction.”
She suddenly felt heavy and empty, she tried to open her muzzle but her eyes went wide when her lungs were filled with dense fluid, she tried to gasp for breath, but there was only fluid… Then, there came that hissing noise. The tank was emptied of amniotic fluid and filled with pure nitrogen. She coughed up the fluid filling her lungs before taking a wonderful breath that brought with it further clarity. She was slumped awkwardly against the back of the tank, it wasn’t large enough for her to stand on all fours.
She fell forward as the glass slid away, she found herself landing on her hooves, it was warm outside, but still colder than the fluid inside her tank… The moving shape… No, wait, it wasn’t just a shape, it was one of her, a Changeling, just wearing some kind of suit and mask. The Changeling held out a hoof and helped her move out of her tank and find purchase on the slick metal floor.
“First,” Said the other Changeling, “What is your purpose, number one-twelve?”
“My purpose?” The answer flowed into her mind with startling speed, as if it were instinctual, but it was very much not her own thoughts, some other, greater, mind was sending it into her, “I am a sub-queen, a relay node for the greater Overmind, I am the twelfth of the second production batch, produced with the intent of colonizing more worlds within the local galactic supercluster to act as energy and resource harvesting centers for the Overmind, to this end I have been uploaded with a series of thaumatological processes for environmental adaptation.”
There was a slight pause, then the other replied, “Correct, it appears there are no errors in the intel uploading process, nor your connection to the Overmind. Accompany me, I will take you to your designated colonization module, your worker and combat drones, along with general and specialist equipment are already being loaded for you. Number one-twelve.”
She followed without replying, she didn’t need to, the overmind had already commanded it. Now that she was connected it was like a buzzing in her skull, quadrillions if not quintillions of voices all chattering like a swarm of insects around some overpowering central presence. It didn’t speak the same way the other voices did, there were too many things it had to command for such frivolity, its orders were relayed as knots of pure information in the sea of voices. Its orders flowed from the overmind, being propagated through the alpha-class sub-queens, to the beta-class sub-queens and the gamma-class sub-queens, off to the drones, workers, warriors, biomorphs, and harvesters. More numerous even than the galaxy-spanning swarms of changelings were the septillions or octillions of bio-computers, changeling minds stripped of emotion and free will, turned into data processors to aid the overmind in the immense task of individually commanding everything, from changelings to the uncountable number of machines in its domain.
Connected to the Overmind, she had access to its endless recorded knowledge, it was as if she knew everything there was to know about the universe, everything from the method by which thaumic energy changes the quantum foam, to the construction schematics of the forward-operating-base in which she was inside at this moment. Even with the near-infinite knowledge of the overmind QC could still sense that were gaps in that knowledge, things even the overmind did not know.
QC was distracted by the wonderful and terrible presence of the overmind to really realize where she was trotting. When she turned her attention back to the physical world, she was still following the beta-class who had drawn her from her tank. Now they were inside a server room, millions of changelings, stripped of all but their vital organs, were laying motionless inside life-support tanks, stacked in rows that extended both upward, and through a transparent metal floor, downward seemingly forever. Their exposed brains wired into numerous thaumatological conduits, which snaked out from the tanks and joined cable bundles that ran along the walls and connected to various thaumic transceivers that made the air glow a pale green from all the constant flow of thaumic communications.
Soon enough they were out of the server room and marching along a catwalk overlooking a combat biomorph assembly bay. Changelings, stripped of all but vital organs just like the bio-computers, however still clearly conscious and sapient, were being implanted into the hulking forms of tripods, the winged shapes of hoverships, and the long centipedal forms of tunnelers. The biomorphs themselves were fusions of metal and vat-grown biomatter, part artificial organism, and part machine. Beneath cold black armor plating glowed green synth-muscle and bulging veins full of pink thaumic energy that ran the life-support systems, fed the changeling at its brain, powered the weapons, and permitted the part-android part-lifeform to move of its own accord.
As she watched, another biomorph, one that ran along rails and was made for hauling rather than combat, entered the bay, gripping the rail it ran upon with millions of tiny insectile legs. Aboard it was carried a variety of weapons to be fitted to the biomorphs being assembled. Radiological beam emitters, thaumakinetic launchers and manipulator arrays, thaumic vaporizer cannons, californium fission warheads, thaumic fission inductors, and many others.
She left through the door on the other side of the bay as the swarms of workers below began hauling the weapons off the biomorph-train and dragged them to their respective combat biomorphs.
Several long corridors passed, groaning, pulsing, throbbing, and hissing noises came from the walls, the building itself was a giant biomorph, behind the dark metal panels were artificial flesh and chitin. Soon enough, she came to the brain of this massive biomorph. She trotted the circular catwalk that overlooked the core processing hub of this facility, this entire sector’s link to the Overmind itself, uncountable light-years away. A titanic metal sphere was below them, studded with thaumic transceivers. At the sphere’s base, it connected to a semi-metallic, semi-organic, pillar that ran down for hundreds of kilometers, there was a platform where hundreds of alpha-class sub-queens were physically connected to the sphere, they too were inside life-support tanks, however, they were fully intact and capable of leaving the tank if necessary, with several other alpha-classes in reserve should they need replacement. They were sorting and routing the signals from the Overmind to their respective beta-classes, one of whom was still leading QC to her shuttle.
Soon they were inside the shuttle bay. A dozen silos where large angular space-capable biomorphs were held, they resembled colossal changeling horns, with thaumakinetic thrusters to force them through the void at near-luminal speeds, and various weapon attachments to protect their valuable cargo from threats while en route. For all the Overmind’s wisdom, it had not yet figured out how to engage a teleportation spell to a destination it did not have a direct anchor to, and thus, as slow as it was, the near-luminal engines would have to do.
QC boarded her designated colonization shuttle, already loaded with workers, harvesters, and numerous biomorphs for combat, logistics, and construction. “Gamma-Class Sub-Queen Designation QC-112, biothaumics link established, launch procedure clear to continue.” The voice, a synthetic tone that rang in both her ears and her brain, delivered by the ship’s onboard biocomputer connected to the Overmind. There wasn’t much need for it, QC thought to herself, the Overmind could have simply sent the message directly into her mind without needing to go through the biocomputer, but then again, the Overmind was already stretched rather thin and was constantly trying to figure out ways to keep control over its multi-galaxy spanning hive. As useless as it was, there was merit to giving the ships semi-autonomy through biocomputers.
“Place yourself within your designated life-support vessel,” The computer spoke again, and QC obeyed, finding the tank near the ship’s stern, surrounded by the numerous other tanks holding drones, warriors, and workers. She felt the tank fill with amniotic fluid, remembering the last time, she held her breath, noting that this was the last breath of pure nitrogen she would have for a very, very long time. She felt the stabbing pain as the nitrogen transfusion cable started pumping air directly into her veins, and then came the nutrients cable, then the magical energy cable, giving a certain clarity to her mind as pure magical energy flowed into her. The ammonia and biological waste outflow cables were last, and she felt a pressure inside of her evaporate as what waste she had unknowingly produced in her time outside of a tank was siphoned out to be recycled.
“Mission intel package received, uploading to designated Gamma-Class mind now.”
Inside QC’s mind, she suddenly felt information appear with great clarity as if she suddenly had a brilliant thought. The planet she was bound for was one with a very high concentration of thaumic energy, perfect for an energy-harvesting colony. There were signs of biological life, thus her ship was armed with a biosphere cleansing device, a series of thaumatological and radiological devices which would purge any biological life from the planet, and as an added bonus, purge the atmosphere of all non-nitrogen gasses to ensure a perfect environment for changeling life. Still, there were cases where life on planets would survive the device, and some planets had other forms of life, silicon-based, or purely thaumic life. Promising colonies were lost in the past due to this error, so warriors and combat biomorphs were required for all colonization missions.
Her mission was to establish a rudimentary base and teleportation anchor, from there alpha-class queens will be sent to replace her and continue development of the colony, afterward she will be recycled into a biocomputer. A small part of her did not like that last part, but it wasn’t as if she was being terminated, and service to the Overmind, regardless of what form it took, was what she was made for.
“Thaumakinetic engines primed, thaumakinetic catapult armed, launch in five units, four units, three units, two units, one unit…”
There was a sudden lurch forward, from the outside the ship sped up from being at rest to flying through the thin nitrogen atmosphere of the moon at numerous times the speed of sound. The thaumic dampeners prevented every changeling aboard from being instantly killed by the g-forces, but that didn’t mean it was comfortable. “Atmosphere breached, stellar energy siphons activated.” Outside, the sides of the ship unfurled to reveal huge sail-like devices, careful arrays of enchanted gemstones to convert photons to thaumic energy at 99.999% efficiency. QC felt the ship’s acceleration begin to slow slightly, “Zero-point-zero-five C achieved, engines at eighty percent throttle.”
Connected to the ship’s biocomputer, QC could see their projected course, already their apoapsis was light-years beyond the small system she was leaving, and soon regular orbits with apoapsis and periapsis would mean nothing as they entered deep space. “Zero-point-two C achieved, engines at seventy percent throttle.”
Soon, they were leaving the solar system, they had passed the next planet right as the computer continued its litany of information, “Zero-point-five C achieved, engines at forty percent throttle… Zero-point-seven C achieved, engines at twenty percent throttle… Zero-point-nine C achieved, engines shutting off, course adjustment thrusters activated… Course adjustment complete, target destination one-thousand-two-hundred-twenty-three lightyears distant. Initiating stasis for all subjects.”
As the computer finished, QC felt her eyes grow heavy, her body go limp, and just like when she had accidentally pulled the thaumic energy cable from her head, she passed out, some part of her was still conscious, still connected to the Overmind, but time passed strangely, soon days had turned to years, and years to centuries, yet it all passed as slow as if she were conscious.
“Impact detected, weapon systems offline. Warning, connection to Overmind lost, reconnection failed, reconnection failed, reconnection failed-” The computer was shouting, QC woke up, pulled from sleep by the sudden alien feeling of being separated from the Overmind after so long floating in the bliss of so many minds connected.
“W-What!” She tried to shout, but she was still inside the life-support tank, she began to choke on amniotic fluid, but it was siphoned from her lungs as soon as it entered… How did that work? She was sure she knew the answer a second ago, but now… Something was wrong, she felt her mind all jumbled, a chaotic mass of information was splintering into shards of knowledge that were rapidly fading… She kicked at the walls of her tank… She remembered, or she thought she remembered, there was an emergency release inside of the tank, but, but where!”
She was still connected to the ship, or she thought she was, why was the ship talking to her? She could see something, she was rapidly approaching a blue-green-white sphere, inside a black place dotted with lights that were… No, she couldn’t remember their names.
“Biosphere cleansing device launched,” The voice said over its warnings that made little sense to QC, or, wait… Was QC even her name? There was a pause, then the voice continued, “Lost connection to biosphere cleansing device, target biosphere shows no changes, destruction of device suspected, requesting advice, overmind connection failed, adjusting course to enter low-orbit and await assistance. Warning, course-adjustment thrusters non-responsive, warning, primary thaumakinetic thrusters non-responsive, warning, planetary impact imminent.”
She didn’t understand a word of that, but it didn’t sound good. She kicked at the tank, causing it to crack, and leak goo onto the dark floor beyond. “Warning, entering planetary atmosphere, ablation detected, thaumic cooling system failed, hull integrity failing-” There was a sudden burst of crackling noise, and the voice was cut off as she felt something above her shear apart. She tried to shout something, but that only filled her insides with goo, and whatever had sucked it out before wasn’t working anymore. Desperately she kicked again at the glass, but the crack only grew slightly, she was prepared to kick again… When it suddenly felt like the entire world kicked her. There was a tremendous thump beneath, followed by violent shaking, and a split second later everything went black as there was a sudden rush. The last thing she remembered was the little transparent pod she was inside shattering, and getting tossed to the wall.
When she woke up, she coughed out the last of the goo that got inside her, she felt something poking at her wing, and carefully she turned to see… A thing, a black and bluish-green creature holding out a limb at her, “You are alive?” The creature asked.
“I- I think… What… What are you?”
“I… I do not know,” It replied, “I remember… Something, something about a changeling queen, are you the queen?” It asked carefully.
She turned to look around the room, she was inside some twisted wreck of metal filled with broken crystal pods that were half-filled with steaming green sludge, the floor beneath her was painfully hot now that she had regained her senses, there were several other creatures looking at her, confused and scared. “I don’t know, perhaps… I think so, yes… I remember, being called queen by… Something.”
“Queen, so, you are our queen, what’s a queen?” The creature asked.
“I, I think I’m supposed to tell you what to do, not sure…”
“We will do what you want, Queen, if that is the case.”
“I see…” She paused, “Where are we?”
“I do not know, we just woke up, we found ourselves inside these transparent things, many had choked on the liquids inside, others were crushed or stabbed or burned or ripped apart. There are not many of us remaining.”
“I think I was inside something like that too… Can’t… Can’t really remember.”
“What are we supposed to do Queen?” Asked one of the creatures… Some distant part of her mind latched on to the creatures and came up with a name… Changeling, yes, the changelings.
“We need to get out of this place, help me in finding a passage out of this.”
“Did you feel that too, Sister?” The dark alicorn asked, staring up at the night sky from her tower, overlooking the Everfree Forest.
“Yes I did, what was that?” The white alicorn replied. The sun had just set, and while the two were commanding the moon and sun to move, something had interrupted them, something moving awfully fast, coming from the void right toward Equestria.
“I didn’t know, but just to be safe I hit it with a few of the rocks that were floating up there, I hit it head-on, and it broke into several pieces later. It also tried to launch something, I could sense terrible magic inside that, so I sent it off toward your sun, where it won’t bother us.”
“Yes… I felt that. Something tried to change my sun, but it burned before it could do more than blink… That’s the whole reason why I’m up here now… Be careful, we don’t know what that thing would have done, what if it somehow destroyed my sun?”
“It wasn’t as if I had any better ideas, I wouldn’t want to send that thing crashing into my moon, and if we tossed it out into the void it could have returned when we were not aware of it.”
“You still should have consulted me first,” Celestia said, slightly angry, then she sighed and continued, “What happened to the rest of it?”
“Crashed, somewhere far to the south. I doubt it survived.”
“We should still be careful, send some of your night guards to scout it out.”
“I won’t waste my ponies' time scouting a blasted crater. You send your guards if you’re so concerned about it.”
“Luna, my guards have better things to do, such as ensuring that the Griffons do not raid our shores, or that the last of the errant Pegasi city-states are loyal to Equestria.”
Luna growled, and then trotted off in a huff.
Author's Note
A little one-off fic to explore some crazy ideas about the origin of Changelings. Inspired mostly by the Half Life 2 Beta, if people want a sequel to this I'll get around to it, eventually.
