The transition was pretty much instantaneous— one second he was walking down the street; the next moment he was walking across a whitewashed, windowless room. He stopped, confused. He could have sworn he was heading to his house, ready to watch the first episode of season two, of MLP FiM, of course.
He heard a polite cough, and pivoted to face what— for lack of a better term— he would refer to as the ‘front’ of the room.
To his surprise, a pony sat in front of the room. An honest-to-goodness, cutie-marked, red and yellow my little pony.
“You’re—!” He paused. “Actually, wait. I have no idea who you are. What the—” he stumbled over his words a little, “—heck is going on here?”
“Your confusion is perfectly understandable,” the pony said, steepling her hooves over a small, mahogany desk. “My name is Red Threat, and we brought you here so you can answer some questions for us— I report to Celestia, whose student Twilight Sparkle recently discovered how to connect our two dimensions, and we’re evaluating whether it’s a good idea to reveal ourselves to your world. You get to be your planet’s first representative to Equestria.”
“Questions? Like what?”
“To begin with, your name and age. We can build from there.”
The human was somewhat surprised at her straightforwardness, but neverless complied. “I’m George, George Voss. I’m sixteen.” He paused, and the silence stretched out awkwardly for a while as Red wrote down what George had said, painstakingly drawing her pen across the top page of a sheaf of paper with her mouth.
Looking up, the red and yellow pony asked “You said ‘George’ twice. Was that for clarification, or do you have three names?”
“Verbal tic.”
The awkward silence resumed. Briefly, George wondered what she could be writing about— he had barely said twenty words the entire time he was here.
His musing was interrupted by the pony putting her quill down and leaning back, hooves once again steepled. ”Could you give us some information about your species and history?”
George felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Of course, he wanted the ponies to contact earth—their magic could doubtlessly do so much for humanity, like cure disease, stop natural disasters, allow Celestia to rule over humanity as an immortal goddess… But at the same time, humanity’s barbarity would likely horrify the ponies, leaving them disgusted at humanity’s depravity.
Of course, George knew he couldn’t lie to the ponies. They didn’t deserve to lose their innocence by interacting with humanity.
So he told the truth.
George listed humanity’s every atrocity, making sure to emphasize how evil his species was. Sure, there were decent people— him, for example— but overwhelmingly, humans were dicks. He even made sure to list a few personal anecdotes concerning the kids at school who bullied him for liking My Little Pony. “See? humans know about ponies, and most people hate them!”
During this time, Red Threat carefully notated what he said. He thought he caught an exasperated look on her face several times, although that was surely a result of her irritation at how humanity could be so stupid, and not him taking too long.
Finally, George finished reciting every human atrocity, from puppy farms to the Holocaust. Red gave him a definitely-not-bored look and said: “we thank you for your input. Your words will be considered by committee as we make our decision. As recompense, here’s twenty bits for your time.”
He hoped that the sack was full of actual gold coins—and not the faux gold coins that always turned out to be iron pyrite after he bought them.
“Well—” George never finished his sentence, as he was then zapped back to his street.
Her voice sounded kind of robotic at the end there. I wonder... Nah. She was probably just traumatized.
George was sad that Equestria wouldn’t be contacting humanity, but it was probably for the best. Plus, he got a bag full of bits. That would definitely be worth something on ebay.
The red pony pushed a door that had been set into the wall of the questioning room, the lock mechanism unlocking automatically as it sensed her magic.
Outside, the janitor Dust Mop paused his mopping. and looked up. Seeing the expression on her face, he make a quip, trying to alleviate her bad mood. "Hey, Strawberry. Didja get another cynic?"
"Yes. He didn't even react when I called myself Red Threat! With my coloration, he should have at least said something! By Celestia's magic hair dye, some of these humans can be so oblivious!" Red Threat, or rather, Strawberry Pineapple, said as she dourly exited the questioning room.
“You’re probably just choosing the wrong humans, then.”
Strawberry sighed. “That’s the problem right there— we don’t have enough information to make a better selection spell, and the selection spell we have now hasn’t been very useful for choosing humans who can give us more information.”
The selection spell randomly chose a human who had watched the somewhat idealized recordings of Princess Twilight Sparkle's younger days leaked out to a certain Lauren Faust. This was done in the hope that already knowing about Equestria would allow the human to know what her knowledge base was, and therefore relate their information in a manner that she could understand, instead of either assuming nothing and painstakingly explaining each piece of minutiae or constantly making references she wouldn't understand. Then, it pulled the human across with a temporary connection which was much easier to create and maintain than a full portal, with the drawback that the energy requirement was still high enough that the portal couldn't be kept open by an ordinary unicorn for more than fifteen minutes or so.
Because of this, or in some cases, in spite of this, most of the subjects didn't work out. Normally that was because the selection method tended to choose either little girls too young to either understand what was going on and actually be useful, or young men who immediately freaked out when they saw a pony.
But the cynics, like #73, really annoyed her. Subject number 12, being among the first to not break down and actually give her information had been useful, but by the time #73 came around, the repetition had begun to grate on her nerves.
The worst part was that they each seemed to be vaguely aware that their species actually did have redeeming features, but chose to gloss over them in favor of trying to convince her that humanity didn't deserve friendship.
She knew that her subjects would necessarily be biased ahead of time, but she had never expected them to have such an inferiority complex.
After first coming into contact with a human, Twilight had even informed her team that future subjects would probably look down their noses— however short— at the ponies if it were explained to them that humanity possessed far more advanced technology than anyone on Equus. When giving Lauren Faust— their first contact— Twilight's friendship letters and personal recollections, trains had been substituted for the more traditional stagecoaches and light carriages in almost every situation.
"Hey-oh." Strawberry started as the janitor waved his front left hoof in front of her face. He chuckled. "You were zoning out there for a second."
"Sorry, Mops. I'm just trying to figure these humans out." Dust Mop nodded sagely. "Do they somehow think they're unworthy for friendship because some of them screwed up?"
"If they were perfect, they wouldn't need friends. Same goes for us."
Strawberry smiled. "My thoughts exactly."
