[ SECRET POST #1954 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1954 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 040 secrets from Secret Submission Post #279.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[castorochiaro.livejournal.com]

I'd really love to see what you come up with, based on your interpretation of the "power of love" thing. I like it!

[(Anonymous)]

Really? Okie dokie lokie.

So, the whole "feed on love" thing is a translation error. The Changeling Nation (empire? queendom?) that borders Equestria has a somewhat symbiotic (much more parasitic, but shh, don’t tell them) relationship with the ponies who live in the border towns. The changelings actually feed on blood (that's what those fangs are for), but except for Chrysalis, they lack the intelligence/vocal structure/inclination to learn/speak Equestrian, and so rely on her, through a sort of hive mind, to communicate for them (notice how her fangs are so much smaller than theirs). The translation error comes when Chrysalis heard somepony talking about "love" one day, and that the characteristics were that "you can't live without it," "it keeps you warm inside," and "it comes from the heart," which, oh, sure, she knows what that is! (Oops.)

Anyway, the Changeling (I want to call it an empire but that's not right) Commonwealth (sure) is a nation of Lotus Eaters. Or rather, they are the Lotuses themselves. They have the ability to pick a story and make others believe it, ignoring the reasons that it doesn't make sense; the hive exudes that traits as a passive thing, leaving whoever's around them open to suggestion (the more time spent, the more likely it is to work), and the queen can use it actively, changing "reality" to suit her needs. The more of a stretch it is, the more she has to work at it. The point is, it isn't hard to set up something where the townsponies in the nearby town buddy up with a changeling between two or three of them and give blood every few days (the changelings don't need much, just a mouthful or two. The happier, healthier, and more well-adjusted the pony is, the more potent its blood is, and the less the changelings need to survive). This seems to be working well, because (here's where the symbiosis comes in) when a changeling that's part of the hive (rather than the queen) feeds on a pony's blood, the pony ends up happier and more willing to be amiable and kindhearted towards other ponies (this has a lot to do with the Lotus Eater effect from before, which is also tied to the shapechanging ability, but the townsponies didn't need to know that...). If the queen does it, it's just mind control after a few repeats, plain and simple, but the hive/subjects have a much less powerful version of it that basically makes the townsponies more pleasant to be around.

So they have that going for a while, but soon the changelings get to be too many for one town to handle. They are meant to be a whole nation, after all, and their numbers are slowly and steadily going up, what with the stable food source and all. The town can't deal, so they get another town, the one next to them, in on it, and that goes on for a while. In the meantime, the queen (Chrysalis) is feeding off of secondhand blood (from some sort of non-living container), so that she doesn't contaminate the ponies whose favor they're trying to keep. She's not stupid, and if she has to do something drastic, she wants a few secret weapons.

Eventually, though, the nation gets too unwieldy for just two towns, so they send for another one. Lather, rinse, repeat.

[(Anonymous)]

Some disaster strikes. There's a plague, an earthquake, I don't care. What's important is that the changelings' primary source of food is gone, and not likely to come back, and they can't support themselves on woodland creatures anymore, probably for the same reason the ponies are gone. Chrysalis, out of options and desperate for her subjects to survive, goes to petition Celestia, taking the guise of a humble earth pony.

Both Celestia and Luna sense that these things have a Made By Discord stamp on the bottom of their hooves, and flatly refuse to help Chrysalis, especially when they learn that what she wants is to drink their subjects' blood. Chrysalis figures this is going nowhere fast and retreats, already starting to scheme.

She and the hive need pony blood, because that's how Discord made them, and the knowledge of the hive's limitations has been passed down from Queen to Queen through the generations. She also knows that now Celestia and Luna will be on guard, and will probably put some sort of protection at least around the city, if not the country, and that even if they don't, if the changelings feed off one of the border towns without permission, (or maybe even with), they are in for a world of trouble. She finds the caves below Canterlot and holes up there to plot, notifying her hive through magic/a rudimentary telepathy.

Just before Shining Armor is selected and the shield goes up, three or four changelings fly in with supplies and stay with Chrysalis in the caves. Chrysalis is about to realize the potential of her Lotus abilities.

One of the problems with the Lotus thing is that it's really hard to maintain, especially with preposterous or long-lived illusions. What's needed, and what Chrysalis had her soldiers fly in with, is a replicating cocoon that can either hold a real pony or an artificially constructed one (that kind that Celestia was held in). If it holds a real pony, it puts them in a state of hibernation so that the Queen can shift into the captured pony's form and not worry about them showing up; if it holds and artificial pony, it provides a template of sorts. The other thing it does, though, and the thing Chrysalis wanted it for, is that if it holds an artificial pony, the pony's memories are of the reality that the Queen wants everypony else to believe in, and provides a failsafe should the Queen momentarily falter. It also reinforces that reality and pretty much amplifies and strengthens the Queen's power. While the Queen is shifted into that pony (or any other form, really, as long as it's replicated in the cocoon), all of that is in effect, and it's renewed every time the Queen (in that form) is in the presence of the people/ponies she's fooling.

[(Anonymous)]

Of course, the pony Chrysalis synthesizes is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, and there are a few reasons behind the points that every seems to hate about her. One, the name: Chrysalis doesn't know much about pony names. She figures this is close enough to pass inspection, and doesn't spend any more time thinking about it. Two, the whole "alicorn is Celestia's niece" thing: Chrysalis, for all her nonstandard character design, can use both magic and flight, by virtue of being a changeling (Discord thought it was funny). Since she's effectively going into deep cover, it makes sense that she'd want to leave both options open. Two, she realized how rare alicorns are and figured that she'd have to be fairly related to Celestia. But if she were a daughter, the Lotus effect wouldn't be strong enough to overcome at least 1000 years of not having a daughter. Therefore, a niece, since that can be handwaved a lot more easily. Three, the Power of Love: alicorns, and relatives of Celestia, seems to have theme talents going on, and while Cadence could be more powerful, the power of Love seems like a safe and out-of-the-way thing to give her, so that a) nopony will think of a dangerous line of inquiry on why, say, this supposed princess of the morning star or whatever never showed up before, and b) in case Cadence did break out, which is possible (if something dramatic enough happens, or somepony gets close enough to start second-guessing the lie they've been fed).

This is all about 2 months before the finale, when Chrysalis starts the process to synthesize and replicate basically an entire backstory and form. The shield is up, and Chrysalis can't feed off the ponies in the town unless she wants to die by Princess Attack. So she cannibalizes the changelings that brought her the supplies (they knew, and went anyway). That's why all the changlings have holes in them: they're trying to conserve body mass in the places they need it the most, so they can survive a little longer.

About a month later, the form is done, and the story Chrysalis feeds everypony is the one we get in canon. The truth is, Shining Armor is just some poor stallion. I mean, he's still Captain of the Guard, but he's not Twilight's brother. He was the one who foalsat her when she was little (which Chrysalis took and adapted when she heard about it from the one of her four trapped subjects that she sent to do research), and they've fallen out of touch. But she needed a reason to have access to him, and desperate and half-starved, frantic about what might happen to her subjects/hive, the canon story is what Chrysalis came up with.

She spends a month having a "whirlwind romance" with Shining Armor, feeding on him occasionally to sustain herself and gain control of the protective spell. When the invitations are sent out, the reason Twilight accepts the story Chrysalis has spun is because of the magnifying/amplifying power of the cocoon, which, with the link provided by the invitation, extended to Ponyville. All that was needed was a nudge from Twilight in song form to get the rest of them believing it too.

[(Anonymous)]

The finale happens, blah de blah, look at everything in a new light. As the wedding (and the changeling vanguard force) gets closer, Chrysalis starts controlling Shining more directly, and when Twilight sees Chrysalis use her magic on Shining's head, she was exerting her influence over him, both with the Lotus effect and through the mind control. However, when Twilight finds Cadence, she's broken out of the cocoon. There's no one down there to keep an eye on her, and Twilight's suspicion of Chrysalis created enough of a backlash against the illusion that Cadence woke up, under the impression that Chrysalis had trapped her down there, etc. The reason Chrysalis revealed her plan so quickly at the wedding was that she was actually trying to salvage anything at all from this mess; since Cadence had broken out, she'd lost the edge she had over everypony, and she didn't want it to be a complete waste. She could defeat Celestia because a) Celestia wasn't giving it her all (she was in a room full of normal ponies and didn't want to blind, burn or otherwise harm them at all) and Chrysalis was (she was fighting for the lives of her and her people and had no such compunctions), b) consuming Shining Armor's blood had made her stronger than she'd previously thought, since it was the first time she'd had blood directly from a pony in years. But mostly a).

Cadence, meanwhile, believes all the stuff she does in canon, and goes through a Pinocchio subplot in which she uses her powers of love (remember, that talent that Chrysalis thought would be useless?) and her belief in Shining Armor, a guy she only thinks she's met before, to conquer Chrysalis (who, remember, never had any sort of connection to love, it was just something that slipped through the translation filter). There was enough of the cocoon left to perpetuate the illusion that Cadence was holding on to, and while it only would have lasted a week at most (because of how fresh it was), the Power of Love blast that rid the city of changelings also permanently fixed that perception in everyone's minds, so as far as they care/know, it's real.

*New headcanon for this that I just thought of: the changelings are Discord's playthings. Remember how Pinkie Pie was so delighted with the changeling soldier's abilites? The majority of them were wiped out what he was defeated, but a few escaped to the edge of Equestria and spent the next thousand years carving out a place for themselves and eating animals or lost travelers, and they became the Things That Would Get You in the Woods at night. Scary stories. With Discord's return, they came out of hiding and were again crippled majorly by his defeat. This time, though, the ponies nearby don't fear them beyond simple nonrecognition, so they're able to approach cautiously, explain an edited and sugarcoated version of what's wrong, and get the help they need.

(Sorry for the comment spam, I had no idea how to judge how many characters LJ would let me have.)

[(Anonymous)]

While I don't agree with everything, I think your headcanon will make for a really interesting fic. I hope the writing goes well so you'll be able to post it!

[(Anonymous)]

Well, it still needs a lot of refining. :) And it likely won't show up for a while, since I have a lot on my plate. But I'm really loking forward to it, and thanks for the encouragement!