@InvaderSplooge  
OMG, this is win.

Changelings really are just the ponified versions of Xenomorphs

@InvaderSplooge  
Lets hope Spike’s raging tendencies kick in before Thorax needs to make any sacrifices.

@Daneasaur  
Exactly!  
Let’s just hope poor little Thorax doesn’t suffer the same fate as our beloved Metroid hatchling…. ;_;

@applemau
 
I just now noticed this… why is that trooper just setting some random wicker baskets on fire instead of one of the tents?
 
I mean the others are all rushing into battle but he’s like ‘Baskets! Must destroy!’

@InvaderSplooge  
… The concept of a lone hatchling not being a villain and in fact getting sympathy from it’s foe… interesting.

Such a fitting episode to have what with the Metroid 2 Remake being released not but a few weeks ago.

@dynamicv  
That could have been part of the plan in the first place, to make SA perform the spell over and over again, but she controlled when the attack would happen and waited for him to be exhausted, even nulling his pain to keep performing it until he was out of juice, which we’ve seen that Unicorns and even alicorns can “run out of power” and need to recharge. (Twilight ran out of magic during the time travel and was helpless in the nightmare moon timeline for quite some time).

@Daneasaur  
I think the deus is explained later when it shows Alicorns can give energy to unicorns.

@Daneasaur  
I meant towards the end of the episode, when he said he couldn’t do it at all because his strength was gone. Then Cadance helped.

@dynamicv  
He could cast his shield spell, he just got a migrane from how hard he was casting it. When Cadance re-met with him, a deus ex machina kicked in where they somehow performed a changeling-repelling-shockwave that kicked them out of the canterlot.

@Daneasaur  
I remember his strength was also gone, he couldn’t cast his spell anymore (before Cadance helped).

@dynamicv  
Shining had some brainwashing but otherwise no visible alterations. But also, you’d think we’d have a fair few withered ponies after such a successful invasion, but that again was the comics, not the show.
 
Just draw a fine line between books and show and remember the rule that show overrules book when it comes to canon material.

Then the fanart became true.

@Blissey1  
Just remember: no matter how much Quibble Pants dislikes the later Daring Do books, they all still happened.

@dynamicv  
they could een somehow weaponize it in the comic for some reason. ratha stupid.
 
dit does seem chrysalis actively took energy from him, but it was only gradual over time stuff

@PonyPon  
Comics? what comics?

@Daneasaur  
Not much worse than in the show (which would be slower, gradual effect rather than feeding all at once I guess)  

The biggest offender in the IDW books is how changelings feed on love, which renders them INCAPABLE OF BEING REDEEMED.
 
What happens in the IDW when they feed on your love?
 
THIS
 

@PonyPon  
Yeah, that was confusing to me too.
 
But now, I see it more like an Adam & Eve type deal: the first changelings (including the Queen) were created fully formed, but can have children that grow from eggs.

@Stotter  
We have no proof she’s the mother of ANY of these.
 
There is also no proof of her being old in the slightest. Her earliest appearance is in Canterlot wedding. It didn’t show how long the grubs take to mature or even how long Changelings have been around unless you consult the IDW books ,which can be rendered non canon in an instant when anything from the show conflicts with them and this egg chamber already does that.
 
Changelings in the IDW books are the corpses of ponies mixed with bug carcasses mixed with some plants and messed up swamp water because Starswirl was just a walking catastrophe.

@Blissey1  
The ‘origin’ comic made some believe they were either immortal or incapable of breeding.

@Stotter  

 
I don’t think I’ve ever seen any fanon where that wasn’t the case