Bigger things that they had plenty of help with to the point where we barely even saw their struggles adopting to the modern world. They still presumably had plenty of free time to think of the umbra, especially when their still right underneeth them and their most infamous member proved that he can change.

But there lies the problem, they had Thorax to show them. You can argue that the umbrum had Sombra or Radient, but the former acted much like them once they finally met face to face and never bothered to try what Thorax did while the latter didn’t know that they needed those kinds of lessons until it was too late.

But the ponies were sealed away in a way that kept them in stasis as they never felt the passage of time. At that point it’s more like time travel then an actual prison unlike what the umbrum got.

I never said that I don’t blame the umbrum for that, but again, why should those that did not take part in or encourage the usage of Sombra’s spell suffer those consequences?

And again, that was more of a temporal displacement then imprisonment. And again, its not neccesarely the entire race at once, but only one or two members.

I did not ignore the umbrum’s actions. I think its fair to ask them to seek a more merciful option to those that may be innocent in the endeavour. Is it unfair to ask for charity for a groupt of poor people living in a country that has a corrupt leadership that did bad things in the past?

Even those that may not have been born or have the chance to vote for a peaceful option?

From the ponies point of view they have modern day Equestrian leaders, plenty of defences and powerful beings like Discord and Celestia at there side. Plus, they have the knowladge and history of the changelings and are currently living in a time where races from all over the world are becoming friendlier and living alongside the ponies, even those that have previously been more hostile to them and most of that was due to some pony intervention of sorts (friendship missions, frienship school, etc.). With all that knowladge, is it so hard to suggest that they try to befriend at least a tiny portion of the last remaining hostile race that is known to be sentient?

And going back to the umbra’s point of view its entirely possibly that eventually they may even forget why they were locked up in the first place and would feel rightfully justified in wanting revenge.

Not trying to be more merciful to them is essentially making a ticking time bomb, because who knows what incident can happen over a long period of time?

it wasn’t on them

bigger things to worry about

Yes, but at least they had Thorax to show them. Until then, many of them seemed quite happy to follow Chrysalis.

The same can be said for the ponies that were sealed away for over a thousand years thanks to said monsters. But hey, we don’t see the Umbra considering the consequences of their actions now do we? So what right does anyone have to blame the Ponies?

Yes, because they had to spend a thousand years locked away because of them. They are under no obligation to give them the benefit of the doubt or a merciful way to coexist with them when said monsters not only can do all this to it considerate, but basically forced them to suffer even worse.

It’s nowhere close to fair to ignore the monsters torturing an entire empire and yet suddenly demand that they seek a merciful option when dealing with them when the shoe was on the other foot. That’s not fair in the slightest.

the so-called innocent civilians should have tried a more peaceful option from the get-go instead of trying to murder everyone. That’s on them and then alone.

The biggest problem with your complaint is that you’re only focusing on things from the Umbra point of view and not the ponies that had to suffer because of them. Them potentially having innocent civilians in their ranks doesn’t hold much weight when the so-called innocent civilians happily participated in nearly wiping out an entire Empire. Regardless of whether or not their leader was the one who instigated It all.

They had no way of knowing that they couldn’t. I mean, logically speaking they had to come from somewhere.

True, but once they removed their threat they could have at least considered options to remove the need to keep them all imprisoned forever. Instead they seemed to almost completely forget about them.

This would be fine if the comic at least showed the ponies thinking of the consequences of doing this to every member of a race or at least consider a different option. As it stands, it makes it look like they had no problem punishing potentially innocent people.

And they willingly went with the better ways after Thorax showed them.

I never said that were guilty for defending themselves, only that nothing else was considered but permanent imprisonment. And again, an entire population shouldn’t have to be blamed for the actions of their leaders/ancestors.

Because they had the entire population of that enemy plus their descendents locked up right underneath them. Would it be too much of a stretch to at least think a little bit about releasing just one of them after the fact?

They have what may be innocent civillians trapped beneeth them. It could at least get a mention or something.

They had no way of knowing that the Umbra wood reproduce while in prison.

Self-preservation takes priority over the enemy potentially having one or two good eggs.

Sometimes there isn’t middle ground where everyone wins. Better a solution that leads to the villainous side suffering rather than one that leaves in entire race of peaceful ponies dying off, we all know that the Umbra ruling Equestria will result in total ruination. So giving them the benefit of the doubt that they’d spare anyone is out of the question.

And they willingly went with the better ways after Thorax showed them.

And the Umbra should have thought of the consequences of trying to kill an entire race a ponies by destroying the heart and dooming them to freeze to death. You can’t fault the ponies and claim they’re guilty when the Umbra are even worse in comparison.

To be fair that doesn’t leave much evidence considering that this is right before their true forms were revealed and they tried to kill Hope and the Princess, so as far we know they were just putting on a front to pretend that they were young and innocent.

Why should they think about the consequences for the enemy when the enemy doesn’t care?

Sorry, but that’s not fair in the slightest when the enemy didn’t have any meat here to make peace in the first place. The ponies are not obligated to think of consequences for the enemies suffering when said enemy will kill everyone no matter what.

Of course not! They have every right to defend themselves. I’m just saying that they shouldn’t have imprisoned literally all of them if possible or that at least some thought should have been put into doing that to essentially an entire race.

A single throwaway line would have sufficed. The problem is that this solution essentiall punished some that may not have deserved it.

Yes, but did Sombra do anything to try and teach them once he freed them? With Hope, again, they did not trust or even like ponies and even the changelings impersonated ponies without learning anything from them.

Speaking of changelings, did any of them change before Thorax showed them a better way? Many of them seamed happy to follow Chrysalis’s ways.

Yes, but I can expect at least a few of them to start thinking of the consequences of having entire families of sentient people imprisoned underneath them.

The umbrum that Hope visited before they were revealed looked awfully smaller then the parent and looked visibly frightened for a bit.

I never blamed the ponies for defending themselves. I only blamed them for not considering any alternative or at least thinking about the consequences of potentially punishing those that did not deserve it.

So you’re saying we should have just let the creatures invade their land and kill them?

they already had their chance to bring their experience to the best of their kind, through Sombra and Radiant Hope. And they botched that opportunity.

By that logic, you can’t expect the ponies to suddenly ok with freeing them just because there might be a few kids down there.

Once again, you’re assuming that the ponies purposely punished future Generations despite the fact that the Umbra are the ones that try to kill them. You can’t expect them to just suddenly decide to let a few of them go on the off chance that there might be kids there.

Case in point, you don’t even KNOW if they had more children.

Then that’s the fault of the ones in power. Not the ponies. So stop trying to shift the blame so that only they are at fault just because the crystal heart has a banishment switch on anything that threatens the lives of The empire.

Again, species, not an individual. They should have at least considered the ramifications of imprisoning them all, future generations included.

Yet, Sombra did change in the end. What if those younger members could also change and in turn, bring their experience to the rest of their kind potentially earning the Empire some new allies?

As I said, they forced themselves to hide their true forms from Hope and brought her in from the start to manipulate her and Sombra was sent to the pony world with a specific mission. It’s not exactly the same as one of their own escaping their home to learn from ponies only to come back and physically showing a better way to eat and coexist.

She didn’t even see their true form for all that time. Every single interaction from the very beginning was fake. How could they consider her one of them?

You can’t expect literally all of them to vote unanimously on it.

And the younger generation isn’t? What did they do to deserve to be locked up? If I had an ancestor or a parent who did bad things should I have to suffer for them even if I did not partake or in them or even live when they happened?

And if we assume that those that are in power are immortal then the younger ones can never have a chance to send a child on a mission like that nor can they leave like Thorax could.

Why should they? The Umbra made it clear they wanted to kill everyone who wasn’t a pony. The ponies are not obligated to give them the benefit of the doubt when the safety of their own kind is at risk. Especially when, once again, none of them wanted to change.

And what if it turned out that they just wanted to follow their ancestors ways as well? Last time the Queen of the Empire gave mercy to them Sombra basically killed her.

They did have a Thorax, in the form of Sombra and Radiant Hope.

“Barely a part of her their culture”? She was with them for over a thousand years in their home Dimension. If she wasn’t considered one of them by the end then they really didn’t value her as an ally and they don’t deserve the chance for Redemption by that point.

Case in point? The fact that they never once tried to make a peaceful resolution. Especially when they had the means to do so.

You can bring up the ones that were too young all you want, but even then the fault falls on the older generation for not bothering to think ahead, they themselves are responsible for the younger generation being just as bad as they are.

Simple, if they could do what they did to Sombra but actually task the young one with negotiating for more peaceful relationship, then that would be different. But as it stands, they’re incapable of redemption otherwise.

I never condemed them for defending themselves. I condemed them and their rulers for not attempting anything else or sparkng at least a few of them.

I never said that the race was innocent, only that their youngest members are and even some of the older ones could potentially change.

What chance did they have when they got free? Everyone was already their enemy. You can’t have a Thorax when the Thorax doesn’t even have the chance to leave his home or the immediete area outside of his home.

Again, Radient was barely a part of their shown culture and Sombra was going along with their plan until the very end.

Sombra, one of the most evil characters managed to eventually change with the right influence. What evidence do they have that not a single other member of their species could be taught similarely? What evidence did ponies have that changelings couldn’t change for the better until Thorax proved them wrong? Why does one assume that literally every single member of their race need to be punished including those that may be too young to take part in any of the crimes the adults committed?

I could mention a certain someone who didn’t put in the effort but got the chance anyways, but thats beyond the scope of this conversation. I’m not sure how your expecting say, a child of theirs growing up in that place to even be physically able to put in that effort.

The key word is eventually, and even then it’s a major stretch to assume that these three would even want to change given their attitude.

How is condemning ponies who didn’t take part in or weren’t at fault for that justified on the Umbra’s part?

And that just highlight their evilness even more. If they truly valued her as an ally, they would have trusted her.

That’s their own damn fault, not the pony’s. As I pointed out before, they had plenty of different ways to try a peaceful negotiations but didn’t.

You basically are condemning the Crystal Ponies for using the Heart in-self defense since you’re accusing of being “so happy to do it”.

then turn around and pretend that said race was completely innocent in their actions just because of their ruler

What attempt to make peace were made by them? Absolutly none.

You don’t get to play the sympathy card for them just because “they didn’t have their own Thorax too vouch for them”. Especially when they did have a variation of him in the form of both Radiant Hope and Sombra himself. You don’t get to have it both ways and claim the ponies are the immoral ones when the Umbra threw aside any opportunities for peace. It just doesn’t work that way.

What reasons have the Umbra actually given the Crystal Empire to believe that they could be changed when they’re only motivation is to kill everyone there? What single solitary shred of evidence aside from Sombra himself would give them ANY reason to actually want to free them?

Sorry, but they basically burned down the bridge that leads the Road to Redemption. If they want it back they’re going to have to put in the effort, the ponies are NOT obligated to give them that chance.

True, but then again we have other examples of people unwilling to change for a while before eventually doing so.

How is condemning even those of that species who didn’t take part in or weren’t at fault for that justifiabley?

They weren’t even showing their true bodies to her for all the time she was with them. It’s almost the equivalent of a changeling impersonating a pony to steal love or achieve a goall.

But if they still considered themselves at war with the ponies or like in this comic grew to mistrust them. It’s still possible that they were in a situation like the changelings were where they had a ruler too stuck in the old ways to consider an alternative.

It’s still entirely possible that among them could exist a Thorax equivalent who can teach the others to coexist. Are we to condemn an entire population of people for the actions of their government? I wouldn’t fault the ponies for using the Chrystal Heart against them as a means of self-defence, but the fact that they were so happy to do it to all of them even with a modern mindset strikes me as odd.

The ponies aren’t immoral for defending themselves, but I find it immoral to assume that every member of their entire sentient species, including the ones born inside their prison are inherently irredeemably evil and deserve to be there.

But Sombra in the comics did eventually turn up better despite his people keeping a metaphorical leash on him. Would it be such a horrible thought for the ponies to at least start thinking that some the other umbra could be changed? That maybe not every single one of them needed to be banished and some could still be taught better? If it was a matter of raising their kids wrong then they could be in a similar situation as the changelings?

Chrysalis certainly doesn’t mind claiming she was born evil if the comic was anything to go by.

And while showing the path they took to become evil is all fine and dandy, that doesn’t really eliminate the fact that they chose not to change their ways even when offered a chance at redemption.

It’s just VERY of hard to swallow when you remember this is the same Changeling Queen who almost killed her son AND threatened to rip Spike’s wings off.

Not really, we see many Changelings in the Epilogue. It’s not like the females couldn’t give birth on their own.

Plus, she refers to them as a “Hive”, so that’s got to account for something…

In the comic, it’s blatantly shown that there are a few records of Chrysalis’ conquests, even a page depicting Celestia blasting her.

How is self-preservation from an entire species that wants to kill and ravage the land not justifiable enough?

Hope

The biggest problem is the fact that at the end of the day they didn’t WANT to change even if the opportunity presented itself. Case in point, never once did they think of using Sombra as an emissary or a proxy for them to negotiate more peaceful existence with the ponies. If they were capable of turning one of their own into an actual Pony to live in the Empire then this should have been Plan A instead of just shattering the heart and freezing everyone in the Empire to death.

I think the problem is that this comic seems to be trying to portray Chrysalis as “not that bad” despite her more recent actions.

If these flashbacks had an underlying tone of “self-serving memories”, then it’d be different. Currently, it just feels like they’re trying to shift all of the blame onto unrelated parties to make them them the easy bad guys.

So you don’t get the claim that the ponies are being “immoral” for sealing them away out of self-preservation. If they really wanted peace, they would have tried that instead of attempting to kill everyone. So that point is moot.

The Umbra were the ones who were more than willing to raise their kids with the sole purpose for revenge, revenge against the race that they themselves tried to kill and got sealed away for trying to do so. Heck, the ponies were willing to take Sombra in and the Princess herself knew that he was an Umbra but tried to raise him differently if only to give him a better life.

Perhaps, but it isn’t trying to depict the trio shown in the series. It’s depicting what lead up to them becoming that evil. We can’t just assume that they were that bad immedietly upon birth, after all.

Either way, it doesn’t mean that she’s beyond saving or doesn’t have a good reason to end up the way she did, although I may be going by the show’s standards in this regard.

That could just be some kind of custom for her. Logically speaking if she was really the mother of all changelings, then their race will die out because the only one who bred all of them is now a statue.

Still, the fact that they were so happy about it even in the modern day and the fact that they almost erased the knowladge of them to the point where barely anyone knows of their existance kind of morally dubious.

Again, this is an entire sentient species were talking about, not just one guy or a small group. Maybe if the comic had a scene where some sort of diplomacy was attempted or if it actually addressed this it may have been more justifiable,

But it only took one changeling to change most of them and even that required that single changeling to be accepted by the ponies. The problem is that with the Umbrum’s banishment is that it stopped any chance of them changing because they don’t have the opportunity to get someone like Thorax, who could learn to coexist.

As for Chryssie, yea her actions are in no ways justified, but the comic never stated that it was in the first place.

But its worth noting that Sombra didn’t even grow up with the Umbra and didn’t have the chance to try and convince the Umbra that they could exist without eating ponies.

If anything, the fact that he exists proves that they aren’t neccesarely inherintly evil and some of them could potentially change, hence putting literally their entire species, including ones that may be born later into their prison to be immoral.

And thats another thing, what if a new Umbra pony is born? What did he/she do to deserve getting locked up? How would it be able to learn any better if it grows up with its entire species in that prison and only comes out for a day or so for what its told is another attempt at revenge? Of course it won’t learn.

While that is a strong possibility, one of the main problems with the comic is that they seem to be trying too hard to make the villain Trio less evil than shown in the series itself.

Given the fact that Chrysalis was so against making peace with the ponies that she’d sooner kill Thorax, one of her own children, than admit there was a possibility, it’s kind of hard to see her as less evil if she’d hold a grudge over an incident from what appears to be several thousand years ago.

We see the changelings hatching from small eggs in Thorax’s flashback, and she’s is the only one there overseeing their hatching. So yeah, more than likely all those changelings are her kids.

They kind of did, maybe not the children (if there were any), but considering the fact that that’s all they cared about doing. Even if they were blind to the knowledge of there being a better way, the fact of the matter is the ponies had every right to value their own preservation over an invading force that only cared about killing them to survive

That’s the thing right there, they needed to change the coexist, the problem with Chrysalis and the rest of the Umbra is that they didn’t want to coexist or change. Regardless of whatever happens in this comic, Chrysalis’ actions in attempting to keep the changelings the way they were or force them back into the old ways are in no way justified, especially when it’s established that the new way is more beneficial and healthy.

Sombra is actually an example of the Umbra being able to change their ways Dakota’s with ponies. The problem is the rest of them didn’t want that, they simply wanted to conquer, ravaged, and kill anything that was in there way. Hence why they deserve to be sealed away again.

The possibility of bad experiences can always exist, especially if we assume that this happened a long time ago.

Complacency can be dangerous, after all and one can assume that as the years go by you start caring less and less for newer ways. Considering how a lot of older people in real life seem to be afraid of newer technology and ways of thinking it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to assume a being who’s lived for thousends of years would fall into that trap.

Also, is Thorax really her child? Didn’t they show changelings having families of their own?

But logically speaking, the Chrystal Heart is a threat to them so of course they want it destroyed. And changelings probably just assumed that they needed to take all the love from a pony to eat since they didn’t know about love sharing or didn’t think that ponies would just donate love (however that would work). It is wrong, but it doesn’t mean that literally the entire species needed to be locked away.

This isn’t the case of the actions of one person, after all and it is entirely possible that perhaps their next generation can eventually learn to coexist. If the changelings could do it then so could the Umbrum.

The problem is we don’t have any evidence to show that the ponies were at fault to begin with either. And given the Chrysalis is known to be delusional to the point where she thinks only her way is the right way, this could be a self-serving memory with context removed. So it isn’t fair to Simply assume cell, and even less so just simply pin all the blame of their actions on Pony kind.

The comic actually does showcase this, Crystal doesn’t exactly hide the fact that she’s legitimately evil. Plus there’s the fact that even if some of the ponies above are responsible, for Chrysalis to carry a grudge then goes on for a thousand years to the point where she completely refuses to try any other methods aside from killing ponies doesn’t exactly put her in the right either. If anything it makes her worse, especially when she straight-up tried to kill Thorax, one of her own children, for attempting to make peace with the ponies.

It’s never established that the Umbra need the ponies to survive, in fact they’re perfectly okay with killing them since they were dedicated to destroying the crystal heart that would have led to all ponies except for them freezing to death in the Crystal Empire. The changelings on the other hand aren’t that much better. It’s shown that they keep ponies cocoon and continue to drain them of their love until they nothing but husks. So it’s obvious that they don’t care about keeping them alive indefinitely.