Empathy and Ignorance
“Humans aren't as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth. So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were 'reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.” -Neil deGrasse Tyson
4:00 A.M, Central Standard Time
McKinney, Texas
21st February, 2018
Private First Class Pickett, Marine Corps
“So you heard about it too?” I asked, Valdez, my battle buddy to the right of me as we jogged down the road, panting. My sweatshirt was already soaked and the sun hadn't even risen yet. I was never good at endurance running.
“Who hasn't? Everybody is demanding war. Looks like you and I might get to shoot some ponies.” My friend, Valdez, joked. He was a stereotypical hard corps jar-head. Always wanting to rush in first, think second. He was like that in every aspect of life. He’d been my best friend since middle school. We got into fights, detention, car crashes, everything together. Now here we were jogging down the side of the road, talking about ponies. Valdez was a fair skinned guy, about five and a half feet tall with short cut blonde hair.
“Do you actually want to go to war?” I asked him with the raise of my brow.
“Heck yeah! From what I've seen, ponies are four feet of weakness. It’d be a turkey shoot, and it’d be exactly what they deserve from daring to talk to us about our world problems. Who gives them the right?” Valdez picked up the pace in his testosterone induced rant.
“Oh yeah? Might I remind you of Sweet Pea?” I hurried forward to catch up to him. At my question, he tensed up and then gave a shrug.
“U-huh, what about her?” His voice went deeper as if to emulate a confident, strong, man voice.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that she whooped your bipedal ass in wrestling. Twice.” I loved seeing him squirm, it showed what an ego maniac he is.
“My legs were sore from running that day.” Valdez was now beginning to run, as if he could escape the embarrassment. If I had more cardio I would have tried to get in front of him again, but I decided that jogging beside him would be fine enough.
“Nice excuse. What about that time she beat you in a drinking contest?” It was time to move on to more personal things. Yet again, Valdez began to squirm for another excuse.
“Well, she beat you at the 100 meter dash, didn't she?” Valdez countered. His shoulders relaxed and he slowed down. He apparently thought he had a good comeback.
“Dude, she’s a pony, she smoked everyone in that. She could beat Husain Bolt in a dead sprint with a simple canter. Face it man, a four foot pony full of weakness beat you in like, everything.” I laughed, this was too funny and it was true too. Our friend Sweet Pea had beat us on several occasions. We had our wins against her too, but all in all, she was no weakling. Sadly, she’d been deported not three days ago. She was a light green earth pony with slightly darker light green hair.
“Oh whatever! All ponies just wanted to assert their dominance on us, and boss us around.” Valdez grunted in frustration. His face was red as a cherry and two times sweatier.
“She was our friend! How could you say that?” I put my hand out and stopped him in his tracks. “She was nice, and pretty, and never once did she tell us to do anything that was out of the ordinary except not to watch her replace her horseshoes.” I was a tad bit on edge from what he’d said. We both already got a lot of baggage from simply being seen with Sweet Pea, but now it seemed Valdez had just switched sides to the haters.
“Blah, blah, blah, you’re just saying that cause’ you wanted to date her.” That got me to shut up real quick.
“N-no, I ju…” I stumbled on my words, but before I could debate, Valdez sprinted off. Leaving me on the sidewalk, alone. Tired, I slowed to a walk to catch my breath. A few thoughts went through my head as the sun began to peek over the horizon like a baby in a crib. I was in fact thinking about Sweet Pea, but not in the way you would think. I thought that everyone was throwing it out of proportion. Being a marine I was always ready to fight, but I didn't want to go to war just because of some small skirmishes. With all the ponies in the world deported back to Equestria, I thought things would cool down and get better. Turns out, without the ponies here, there was no sort of diplomatic middle man, or middle-mare, to keep rumors from circling. In no time, those rumors would soon be put to rest in exchange for fact. Only a month after that day, the first human was killed by a pony, and nothing would ever be the same again.
Home Leaving and Home Coming
“Empathy is about standing in someone else's shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place.” –Daniel H. Pink
6:44 P.M Canterlot Standard Time
18th February, 2018
Canterlot, Equestria
Former Marine, Sweet Pea
I heaved a heavy heart as I stepped off the train in Canterlot station. “I can’t believe I got deported.” I mumbled to myself with my head held low. I wanted to cry, I needed to cry. All my hard work down the drain in one fell swoop. My house had been sold, even though I had paid it off completely. My job, my career as a marine was gone. They said I could still carry the title former marine but I doubt anypony from here or anyone from earth would respect it. My friends were refused the right to say goodbye to me at the airport and mail will not be sent through the portal at any time, any direction, ever. I’d heard of ponies who did bad things getting deported, but I never expected to see a guy with a clipboard outside my house. And to put a cherry on top of it all, my parents were meeting me at the train station. It's not like I didn't love my parents, but I didn't feel like hearing their complaints and worries about my experiences on earth.
“Sweet Pea!” There they were now. One yellow mare with green hair and a green stallion with purple hair. You can see where I get my good looks.
“Ma, dad.” I wasn't the most eager pony in Equestria to see my parents, but I wasn't the most solemn either. With a quick trot in their direction, I nuzzled both of them. It felt good to have something familiar again, something that I knew couldn't be taken away. But that feeling quickly dissipated at the sound of jet engines roaring above. I looked up in annoyance to see yet another A380 zooming over.
“Ug, that’s the fifth one this hour.” My mom complained, stomping her hoof on the ground with a ‘clop’ sound.
“Yeah, they've been shipping us out all this week, and probably all next week. They really don’t want us there anymore.” I felt a pang of sorrow at this. So many ponies having their lives uprooted. On such a massive scale too. During my flight, I found only six ponies who weren't being deported and were just headed home. Out of the 525 pony passengers, six were on the plane willingly. The humans wanted us out so bad, they built a surplus of ten A380’s for the sole purpose of kicking our sore flanks off earth. They’d been flying nonstop in and out of Baltimare Interdimensional Airport for several days, and since Canterlot is on top of a mountain, we get to hear every single poor soul fly over. The only "good" coming from this is that the humans decided to leave nine of their ten planes here for us, not that we could fly them.
“Come on Sweet Pea, let’s get you home.” My dad said, putting his hoof on my shoulder. I leaned into it and we all began the trek back home. It’d be nice to see my old room, but it’d be nicer to see my room. Goodbye Pickett, goodbye Valdez, goodbye earth.
“Don’t worry about those humans anyway Sweet Pea. This’ll all wash over in no time. Princess Celestia will resolve all this and you’ll be flying back to earth in no time. It’s not like a war is going to break out.” My mom said this with a sarcastic chuckle. At the time I joined in with her. The answer seemed so simple back then, like dealing with a dog and flea’s. Well, I’d never had a dog so I had no idea how difficult fleas really could be,
A little over a month from then, the first pony, Honeysuckle, kills a human with a gun when he shows up at her door to deport her. The outcry on both sides is tremendous, and the outcome of her trial now decides our fates.
Prologue
First contact with them was in 2017. A portal between us and their lands opened up April 23rd, 9:08 A.M, Central Standard Time. Through this portal came the greatest friends of the human race, as well as our greatest enemies. We, in recorded history, never had to share earth with anyone until then. We were alone to our own devices with no other minds to question us as a whole. Together we stand, divided we fall; together we follow, divided we lead. The way we had formed our countries, our governments, our nations, our world, it left people free to follow what others said. Freedom was an illusion that all fell under, and when we finally got other minds to question this, we were too ignorant to take into consideration our own slavery. Instead, we lashed out at our greatest friends. We were all so blinded, that we couldn't see the truth, that we were being led by others in plain sight. As tensions rose, it seemed that everyone hated our great friends. Words can be so easily flipped that a friendly hello was now a threat of destruction. People turned on these great friends of ours, calling for war, calling for annihilation of the only ones who could keep us company. Because of our selfish ways, like a baby not wanting to share it’s blanket, we pushed our friends to edge. With a loud bang, a cry of pain, and a river of red, our world had doomed itself to the torture of history’s smug cycle.
