art by Icekatze

Changelings!

How might changelings fit into the Fallout: Equestria universe? How do I see them fitting into the Equestrian Wasteland? What role might they have played if the Canterlot Wedding had aired while Fallout: Equestria was being written? These are some of my fans most frequently asked questions.

Last year, I offered an extensive look at my headcanon for the Crystal Empire in the Fallout: Equestria universe (here and here), offering it as the wasteland's version of Big Mountain from the excellent Old World Blues. And if the Crystal Empire has a place in the world of Fo:E, then the changelings must too. (In fact, beyond Cadence, the two are connected by themes of feeding on and utilizing the love of ponies.)

I've been putting off writing a blog about changelings until after the big reveal last month in Fallout: Beyond Equestria. Now I can speak without spoilers. Also, I know that there are several stories and games that have incorporated changelings. I don't want to invalidate or conflict with someone's creation, so let me emphasize that this is only my headcanon, not canon.

Before we begin, however, there's someone else who would like a moment of your attention. I'm sure you will agree that this is relevant to our interests:

Before introducing changelings to the Equestrian Wasteland, we need to understand how changelings work. And that requires dealing with some of the issues surrounding the Canterlot Wedding invasion.

art by Ganzerul

Personally, I find most of the invasion scenario easily explained or excused: Chrysalis covertly enters Canterlot at a time when the royal wedding is in the initial planning. (Basic reconnaissance, we could assume; although there could be a number of things she may have plotted to do within the city to set it up for the invasion.) Something tips off the Princesses that there is a threat to the city. (We don't know what, exactly. Maybe Chrysalis made an early misstep? Maybe one of her children were caught in the vicinity? Maybe a unicorn with prophetic magic had a vision? There are many possibilities, and we really don't need to know which is the case.) Celestia and Luna order extra security, including Shining Armor's magical shield. Chrysalis improvises by replacing Cadence, feeding off the love of the Captain of the Guard for his betrothed to weaken the defenses that now stand in the way of the changeling invasion.

With this perspective, the clash with Celestia makes sense. That confrontation wasn't planned, but was forced when Cadence and Twilight revealed her deception. Personally, I found the outcome of that fight perfectly in keeping with the theme of the show as well. In My Little Pony, friendship is magic, and not just metaphorically. Friendship certainly isn't the only magic, nor the source of magic, and may not even be magic per se... but it is in the very least one of the most powerful conduits of magic that exist in that cartoon world. This is the conduit through which the magic of the Elements of Harmony act, and are more than equal to any threat. And I would argue that friendship is an expression of love. To dare quote the Bible: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." So if friendship is magic, then love is magic. Arguably the purest version of this magic. Nothing should be able to stand against it.

art by Kalemon

The problem comes with the invasion itself. If changelings feed on love, why a massive militaristic invasion? Why attack? Why capture ponies? The invasion seems designed to inspire terror or hatred, not love. On first observation, it would seem their entire plan runs contrary to their goals. But then, the episode show us these:

art by Tiarawhy

What comes to mind when I see those is a sort of induced hibernation, or suspended animation. And I find myself thinking of the movie The Matrix. What if, while within these pods, the ponies dream? Dreams tailored by the queen? What Chrysalis managed with Shining Armor required a loving relationship to already exist, one which she could replace one party and feed off the other. That's not an easy trick... even with the powers of a changeling queen, she didn't manage it for very long before her cover was blown. An entire race of changelings couldn't hope to find, infiltrate and maintain a race's worth of relationships within existing Equestria. And just pretending to be ponies and hoping a pony would fall in love with them is at best a gamble with unfavorable odds. But putting a population into a dream reality tailored specifically to induce feelings of love that the hive could feed off of?

That is my headcanon for Chrysalis' plan and how I make sense of the changeling invasion. And that is the idea that I have built on when I first included changelings into the world of Fallout: Equestria during my Stalliongrad campaign. Which brings us to this:

So if we can equate these two, how do we bring that into a Fallout-themed setting?

The goal would be to find something within the Fallout setting that echoes the concept of a people being held in suspended animation where they live dreams constructed by an overseeing entity who is feeding off their experiences and/or emotions for selfish gratification. Now... why does that sound familiar?

Tranquility Lane.

Changelings are perfect for setting up a situation in the Equestrian Wasteland analogous to Tranquility Lane. Variations in both the nature and the relative malevolence or benevolence of the dream world, as well as whether the situation is threatened from without or within, offer a great many stories. As mentioned in my blog Goodbye, Sunny Stalliongrad, I first introduced changelings as part of a story where the characters found themselves in what appeared to be an altered past, one where Fluttershy's C.A.R.E. had successfully diffused the war and the world was recovering in peace... a false reality created by a benevolent changeling queen who was striving to save both her children and the ponies in her hive's care.

The post-apocalyptic wasteland offers very little sustenance for beings that feed on love. Discarding the Tranquility Lane analogy, the driving impetus for changelings in the wasteland would be to find or cultivate love. This puts them in the position to be striving for a positive change in Equestria. A wasteland changeling would make quite an interesting protagonist. Alternately, a changeling could easily find themselves shackled to the will of whatever source of love they can find. An antagonist who truly loves a changeling has a leash on the creature that it cannot afford to escape.

art by Kalemon

By necessity, changelings in the wasteland would be rare and individual. A particularly loving family might adopt one or two. A wasteland brothel might may exploit a two or three desperate changelings. But changeling communities couldn't form without establishing a love source.

If we agree that friendship is a form of love, then a changeling could attach themselves to a group of companions, forming part of a story's ensemble cast. Other forms of love may also provide sustenance. The recent My Little Pony comic (Fiendship is Magic #5) showed us Chrysalis feeding on the self-love of a egotistical ruler.

Barring the Tranquility Lane device, a changeling queen would need to pursue the creation of a non-changeling community with a core culture focused on providing the necessary emotions for her children to feed on. This makes a changeling queen an ideal leader for a major new faction.

In Fallout: Beyond Equestria, I am exploring this idea with a changeling queen in zebra guise acting as the new Caesar of the zebra wastelands. This queen has been rebuilding zebra civilization on a platform of national exceptionalism, molding a population whose love of country and leadership can sustain her changelings, with all the good and ill that blind nationalism engenders.

art by Mistermech

Adding changelings to the Equestrian Wasteland opens up a whole new subsection to the wasteland's bestiary. What sort of monsters and mutations might been born from or because of changelings? In the very least, there would almost certainly be changeling ghouls. But what manner of ghouls? Where was the majority of the changeling population located when the apocalypse occurred? At the end of the Canterlot Wedding episode, they seem to have been banished to badlands outside of Equestria. In my headcanon, the changelings found themselves in the dragon territory on the edge of the zebra lands during the apocalypse. This would mean that changelings were exposed to very different sorts of magical radiation (and a much wider variety) than the ponies who became ghouls in Equestria. In "Crystal Empire Blues", the Heartless were my Fo:E version of the Lobotomites -- crystal ponies drained of every positive emotion by a megaspell that utilized the Crystal Heart. Could a wasteland-mutated changeling create similar monsters by overfeeding? Balefire is green dragon fire infused with necromancy. Is the fiery green energy that the changelings use susceptible to similar alteration? There are plenty of interesting directions to explore.

art by Slouping

Now it is your turn. How would you incorporate changelings into the Fallout: Equestria universe? What unique challenges do you see to adding changelings to a Fo:E story, and how would you solve them? Are there any side stories you would recommend that have tackled changelings in a particularly interesting and/or skillful manner?