The Human Culture Project

by drmythbusters

Rating: everyone
Tags: Human, Comedy
Length: 1795

When Twilight is sent to observe human culture, a very much unknown subject, how will she react to a lifestyle and culture so similar but different from her's?

A couple years back, a large number of humans migrated to Equestria through, to it shortly, MAGIC. The human race and ponies co-exsisted for a few years, both not really liking each other mainly due to a xenophobic reaction to the other race. After a bit of a mishap involving three humans: Sam, Ben, and Dylan, Twilight and her friends are being sent to the human country to work off a sentence of assault by observing and documenting human culture, something ponies have nonexistantly studied. How will the Mane Six react to a place where race, religion, sexuality, politics, and so much more influence daily life? Find out!
A/N: Thanks to this guy for the cover art: http://jorgefilms.deviantart.com/

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-02-19 04:10:01 UTC

An Introduction to Humans

The Human Culture Project

by DrMythbusters

Chapter 1: A Brief Explanation of Humans and their Arrival

From the book, ‘Humans: The Comparison and Contrast of Ponies and the Human Race’, by Unbiased Info

In the year 1005 DC (During Celestia), Nightmare Moon returned after 1000 years of banishment after trying to plunge the world in eternal night on the Summer Sun Celebration in 5 DC. When she returned, she captured Princess Celestia and put her in the Sun and plunged Equestria into eternal night.

However, her victory was short-lived, as her plan was foiled by Twilight Sparkle and her friends and she was cleansed of evil and changed back into Princess Luna. They did this by accessing the Elements of Harmony, the most powerful magic in Equestria. The Elements were based off the main elements of friendship: Honesty, Loyalty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, and Magic. Now, some ponies will debate over the last one being an Element or not and some even argue that it doesn’t exist!

Now, you may ask, ‘What ponies would say magic doesn’t exist?! Beatnick, idiot, ignorant Earth ponies?’ No. Actuallythey weren’t ponies at all! You see, using the Elements of Harmony had a tiny bit of a side effect. You see, using the Elements opened a massive rip in the time-space continuum and pulled a brand new species into Equestria.

This new race, humans, or Animalia Chordata Synapsida Mammalia Primates Hominidae Hominini Homo Sapiens, or Homo Sapiens as they call themselves scientifically, discovered a portal to our world and, unhappy with their lives on their planet, immigrated to Equestria. It is said that about 1.25 million humans immigrated to Equestria, which apparently is not as big compared to pony populations. The humans' native population was around 7 billion on their planet. They appeared in the middle of the over 5,000,000 square mile Everfree forest and settled there.  Unfortunately, the humans' portal collapsed six months later, cutting off the humans from their home planet. They are now at a population of around 2.5 million people as of the year 1007 DC, their population increasing exponentially.

Humans are unlike any creature in existence in Equestria. Their diet is omnivorous, but not full omnivore either. Unlike most omnivores like goats, pigs, or ravens, humans cannot eat anything, either through personal taste or actual inability to digest. They cannot eat things like flowers or hay, but cannot also eat the fur or feathers of an animal or the intestines or guts of an animal. The human diet varies on its culture, with some humans eating only vegetables, fruits, and no animal products of any kind, to some humans being primarily carnivorous. Most humans, however have a diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, meat, and animal products such as cheese, milk, and eggs. However, due to what humans call evolution, or the changing of animal species over time, humanity can only eat cooked meat. Contrary to popular belief, humans are not bloody thirsty monsters that kill defenseless creatures and eat ponies. It is highly considered taboo to eat ponies.

Human physiology is quite different than pony physiology. First off, humans are bipedal, making them much larger than ponies. Also, they are unlike most other bipeds, like monkeys or diamond dogs. Monkeys and diamond dogs are semi-bipedal, they can walking on all fours like ponies most of the time, and on their back legs sometimes. Humans however, are strictly bipedal, their front legs not being made to walk on all fours. Their arms are made more for holding things. The reason for that is because humans were the only sapient species on their planet and did not have magic, so they evolved themselves (over the course of millions of years) to have appendages that hold things. For reasons unknown, some humans are offended by the idea of evolution and refuse to believe it. Contrary to popular belief, humans are not giant monkeys without hair. Human scientists argue why they became bipedal from their primate ancestors. It is possible that bipedalism was favored because it freed up the hands for reaching and carrying food, because it saved energy during migration, because it enabled long distance running and hunting, or as a strategy for avoiding hyperthermia by reducing the surface exposed to direct sun.

Also, the human brain is larger than most animals, the average size being the size of the average mid-level unicorn. It is argued among human researchers that it became larger either because of an increasing emphasis on meat in the diet, or with the development of cooking, and it has been proposed that intelligence increased as a response to an increased need for solving social problems as human society became more complex. The growth of the human brain has been called encephalization. The pattern of encephalization started with Homo habilis, one of humanity’s ancestors, which had a brain slightly larger than chimpanzees, their monkey ancestors, and continued with Homo erectus, and reached a maximum in a species before regular humans called Neanderthals, their brain being larger than Homo sapiens and also were around in the early years of human, but are now extinct. The pattern of human brain growth immediately after birth differs from that of other monkeys, and allows for extended periods of social learning and language acquisition in young humans. In short, it is easier for them to learn languages and social skills. Contrary to popular belief, they are not blundering idiots that don’t know basic education or words. In fact, some humans are smarter than a high-level unicorn.

 The reason, as the few humans that had been interviewed by ponydom kindly told us in Day 6 of First Contact, that the Neanderthals went extinct was the theory of natural selection, where creatures that don’t evolve or adapt to the environment will die off, something is unheard of in ponydom because ponies take care of animals. However, on their planet they did not have ponies or any other race to do that so the animals had to take care of themselves, much like the Everfree Forest. Humans did take care of some animals, but they were not intelligent in any way and were used for multiple reasons such as food, clothing, and labor. When ponies learned of this, they were initially afraid of humanity, and still are to some degree to this day. Contrary to popular belief, humans are not a species that kill off another one just because they feel like it,  hate animals and make them fend for themselves. In fact, some species and humanity are very close knit on their planet, such as the dog, cat, bird, and common household pets among ponies.

A major difference between ponies and humans is their hands, or the human equivalent of hooves. Its similar to a dragon’s or gryphon’s claws. The main difference is that at the tips of a human’s fingers, appendages on the end of their hands, is that they are not sharpened and are rounded smooth. They do have nails on their hands, used to scratch or to pry, but have no real purpose. They are the human equivalent to telekinesis magic, using their hands to hold things, move objects, etc. However, they can only hold things in reach and cannot perform any other feats equivalent to other forms of magic by themselves.

Contrary to popular belief, all humans are not the same. They may have the same physiology, but they do not look the same with varying degrees to identify themselves. Much like ponies, they come in multiple colors, but in not much variety though. The hue of human skin and hair is determined by the presence of pigments called melanins. Human skin hues can range from dark brown to pale pink, or even nearly white or colorless in some rare cases. Human hair ranges from white to brown to red to most commonly black. Most human researchers believe that skin darkening was an adaptation that evolved as a protection against ultraviolet solar radiation from the sun, which also helps balancing folate, which is destroyed by ultraviolet radiation, and vitamin D, which requires sunlight to form. The skin pigmentation of humans is gradually distributed across the planet, and in general correlates with the level of ultraviolet radiation. Human skin also has a capacity to darken (sun tanning) in response to exposure to ultraviolet radiation. For some reason, some humans hate each other just because they have a different color.

Humanity is unlike almost any other species on the planet for a different reason: its reproductive system. Like all animals, humans have intercourse to reproduce. For humans, sexuality has important social functions: it creates physical intimacy, bonds and hierarchies among individuals, besides ensuring biological reproduction. Humans are one of only two species on their planet, the other being the bonobo, a type of monkey, that frequently have sex outside of female fertile periods and that also often engage in sexual activity for no other purpose than pleasure and enjoyment, something that is very rare among other animals but common among ponies. Their sexual desire is often accompanied by strong emotions such as love, ecstasy and jealousy, the last of which is unheard of among ponies. They are one out of the five species on this planet that are also like this, the others being ponies, dragons, gryphons, and diamond dogs. They are also similar to ponies in the sense that they commonly form bonds with their partners, unlike dragons or diamond dogs. For some reason, some humans are extremely offended by another’s sexual preference. Contrary to popular belief, humans are not sex crazy beasts that have sex with everypony and anypony.

Human culture is a very unknown topic. No pony researcher will delve into the topic and no attempt to do so has been made yet. This was caused and led by rumors and prejudice towards humans. Human and Equestrian relations are good internationally, but on a personal level situation, ponies and humans dislike each other, usually staying in their respective areas of Equestria. It will take a massive moment for ponies to want to shelve their prejudice and learn about human culture.........

The story continues to point out that ponies know next to nothing about humanity besides biological information. It also talks briefly about human psychology and humanity’s presence on the global stage. The book is also at the bottom of the bargain barrel outside the Golden-Oaks Library, for books that are so unread and/or unpopular that the library would sell it to get rid of it. Nopony has touched it or even bothered to give it a second look. Not even Twilight. BUCKING TWILIGHT! Yep, humans are not really much a topic in Equestria. Very, very, very few ponies ever bother to go the human country, whatever it was called nopony cared. It will take something to break this lack of interest in humans.