@orbsah  
Just like leorics madness

@Cirrus Light  
to be fair, some were driven by an idealistic dream. the ones in charge were mostly just trying to exploit that idealism. and the ones not in charge were generally not protesting for fear for their life. the ones besides that were definitely idealists.

So they simply murder anyone who MIGHT be a changeling, which is literally any pony whatsoever, instead of, I don’t know… casting a spell that takes 5 seconds to check whether or not said pony is a changeling?
 
BULLSHIT

Iiii’m just going to leave these here…

@armadiloeater  
Oooooh, okay. Sorry, for some reason I got mixed up with your sentence here:  

For some reason I mis-read “them” to refer to the Allies. Yeah, of course I know about the Axis concentration camps (specifically, ones run by the German National Socialists).
 
One thing I dislike is the skewing of history, because it leads to misunderstandings like this. Did they dehumanize those they genocided? Absolutely. But there’s some interesting questions as to a number of things.
 
The biggest point of all, though, is that it was largely a work of eugenics. It wasn’t because the Nazis were pure hate machines, no, rather, it was an attempt to build a better future; in the minds of many of the Germans behind it, it was a “the end justifies the means” sort of approach.
 
I’m not defending it at all - it was atrocious and awful, but you must understand that people don’t do things like that without any justification to themselves or driving motive. They were powerfully driven by this idealistic dream of a utopian and mighty society, free from all ills, where everyone was highly capable and intelligent. The horrors they committed were a means to that end. Whether the (attempted) end justified those means is an entirely different discussion I’m not after right now - and for the record, I think their means were unnecessarily brutal and violent, given what’s historically accepted.
 
But the point of all this is this: I could almost believe ponies being driven to do this out of terror and accusations of changelings - something akin to witch hunts. Done with the thought that killing a few non-ponies could save a greater number of ponies. That would be an “end justifies the means” sort of deal.
 
But just killing anypony for being worried about a very real and possible threat? That’s madness. There’s no real acceptable justification for that at all. At least in real tyrannies the tyrant can label the rebels “anarchists,” but here the ruling powers could hardly even do that. The only way I’d believe the guards/soldiers would follow those orders is if they were changelings as well - which isn’t actually impossible. In which case, it’s basically just; “the changelings won.” After all, you send out armies, they fight, and then they come back. If you suppress media and they’re changelings, then how would you know that the army that came back is your own?
 
What if they can tap into soldier’s minds? After all, these are “Crimson Changelings,” which could very well be superior to Chrysalis’ brood. Or they could simply interrogate the soldiers to get their basic info. Your soldier relative is acting weird after he got back? He’s a loved one, though, you’re scared of possibly throwing him under the bus with a changeling accusation - and then if it’s illegal, you condemn yourself to death as well, so you darn well shut up about him acting odd, and especially with suppressed media you never hear of others feeling the same way.
 
The question then is; where are the real armies? The hope is that perhaps the changelings can only tap into their minds or something while they’re alive, so hopefully the real Twilight and co. are still alive, but cocooned in the hive somewhere. Your mission, then, is to find and rescue them then defeat the changelings.

@Cirrus Light  
… Erm, you do know about the nazi run extermination camps, rigth? Where they killed jews, gypsies, prisoners of war and political opponents? A portion of those deaths were German citizens.
 
I mean yeah, in the US you had concentration camps for japanese-americans, which proves my point that any country is capable of dehumanizing part of their own population, but the ones that actually committed state sanctioned genocide were the Germans.
 
As for Twilight’s rule, I’m not even sure this Twilight is really Twilight. The enemy are changelings after all, and she changed just after returning from a battle with them…

@armadiloeater  
Exterminating German citizens? This is the first I’ve heard of this. I mean, I’ve heard of internment camps for Japanese-Americans, but I don’t recall there being a genocide of Germans…
 
Also, woah, yeah, starting to understand that better, now. I don’t know why that didn’t click sooner. Sheesh. Well, that suddenly makes it a lot less likely in my mind that ponies would carry those orders out, unless they, themselves, were changelings.
 
“I’m kind of worried, though - what if any of the changelings got among us?”  
“YOU! You’re under arrest! She’s to be executed immediately!”
 
Yeah, clearly looks like the changelings actually won this war O.o
 
Also, I think under Twilight’s rule we’d see technology increase massively. I’d expect a super futuristic society 700 years in :3

@Cirrus Light  
Well in WWII the Germans were at war against the allied forces. Didn’t stop them from exterminating German citizens because they were labeled as enemies, now did it? Replace allies with changelings and germans with ponies, and there you have it.
 
As for the changeling revealing mud, it was revealed after this comic started, so you can’t take it into consideration. It doesn’t exist in this version. And, more importantly, ponies are being killed because they are saying that changelings are around, not because the guards think they themselves are changelings. Poultice wouldn’t do any good.

@armadiloeater  
That is a point I’ve considered, but one must also consider the fact that the war was against changelings, which aren’t ponies. And what we saw Spike do with the orange powder - it looks like telling changelings apart from real ponies is as easy as spraying a powder on them, or, as of S5E26, putting a poultice on them. So executions without running through these little checks first are… Rather rash.
 
I can’t say it’s a solid argument, but I can say that I, personally, don’t find it very likely, given what we know of pony society.
 
I have to admit, though, I chalked this up to OoC, but I, myself, am considering a fic idea where one of the characters will seem to be OoC just due to information unavailable to the reader at the time. It’s kind of important to sort of lampshade it when you do that, IMO, though.

@Cirrus Light  
Except Equestria just went through a period of war with only Twilight as their commander. The soldiers will trust her, even maybe worship her. If you give enough intensives people will believe anything, and do anything.
 
And if you want to look at history as proof, look no further than Germany to see just how far the military will be ready to follow orders, and then tell me soldiers would never be ready to commit mass executions.

Hmm. Something that’s being overlooked, though, is the soldiers’ willingness to obey these orders.
 
Egypt had a revolution when there were protestors throwing stuff, but the military still refused to open fire on them because they were civilians. Same thing with the collapse of the Soviet Union. IMO, the command structure would’ve just collapsed when Twilight ordered mass executions. If Egyptian and Soviet soldiers wouldn’t do it, I highly doubt Equestrian ones would.

@redweasel  
>“so you don’t trust lily, but you trust the word of the doctor?”  
Yep. Because the Doctor’s recollection of these events is being mirrored by Spike (or at least that’s how I interpret the both of them recalling these events through intermingled dialog). And I trust Spike to have stuck by Twilight’s side until she really screwed up.
 
>“anyway, I didn’t say it was set in stone, just not out of left field.”  
True, this isn’t completely without precedent. The comic’s creator is clearly trying to show that not everything is going well through out the land that Twilight currently presides over. Although graduating from that to straight-up murdering people who say things she dislikes is still kinda shocking.

@Exedrus  
so you don’t trust lily, but you trust the word of the doctor?
 
anyway, I didn’t say it was set in stone, just not out of left field.

@redweasel  
>“did the evil death golems stalking the streets not tip you off?”  
But did we actually know the stakes when it came to fighting those? They took a swipe at AJ, but that could’ve just sent her sprawling. I don’t think they’ve actually injured anyone IIRC.
 
>“or how about when night lily called it empress twilight’s tyranny?”  
But why would we trust Lily over Twilight? It’s not until we get to see Spike that Lily becomes anything more than that suspicious pony who was following the main characters and knows combat spells that are fairly effective against Twi’s forces.

@AstralFrankie  
did the evil death golems stalking the streets not tip you off? or how about when night lily called it empress twilight’s tyranny?

unless she found out that there never were any crimson changelings, and the entire war was nothing but an excuse for corrupt ponies to secure power by getting their enemies framed and executed.
 
but whatever the truth is, it doesn’t make sense that she hasn’t torn down all those posters.
 
“anyone caught insinuating that changelings are among us will be put to death!” *pins another poster to the wall*  
“uh, princess…”  
“SILENCE!”

Obvious changeling is obvious.

@orbsah
 
I can’t, because I didn’t write the story.
 
Patience, child. Let’s see what folds out before us.
 
-Lumino

@LuminoZero  
She didn’t do anything evil for these hundreds of years. Then suddenly 7 years ago she began to execute everypony who suspicious of changelings. How can you explain this?

@orbsah
 
Funny thing about ‘hundreds of years’.
 
People change. You aren’t even the same as you were a few years ago, how much could Twilight have changed in that long?
 
Oh, but of course, any change is horrible and bad. Let’s not give the author any chance to justify or explain it.
 
CRUCIFY HIM!
 
-Lumino

@LuminoZero  
But it would be extremely OOC, which make it worser.

@PonyPon
 
Which would then make it an excellent twist if this is the real Twilight.
 
Hush and watch. Give him a chance.
 
-Lumino

@red_angel  
Seems almost like a dead giveaway.

She’s like a reverse McCarthy?

So, who else thinks this dictator Twilight is a changeling in disguise?