Social experiments

Sassenach Wed 30 May 2012 12:22:57 No.2247888 | /mlp/
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>Live on the moors alone, in the wilds of the UK
>No family, precious few friends close by. Got rich from patents years ago, just enjoying the solitude now.
>Huge thunderstorm one night, bury head under pillow and try to sleep
>Next morning, head outside to see what damage has been done
>House seems pretty much intact, a few slates dislodged but that's all. Fences blown over around the garden and yard. Not too bad.
>Down the hill towards the lake, a trail of wreckage. The lake has a little wooded island, and a swathe has been cut through the trees as if something has crash-landed
>You should spend the morning fixing up what needs to be done to keep the house watertight if there's another storm tonight, but you figure you should probably see what's happened.
>Head down to the jetty at the edge of the lake and untie the little rowing boat. Heading out into the lake against the wind is hard work, but you brace yourself and pull hard at the oars to cover the few hundred meters or so between you and the shore of the tiny island.
>Eventually the keel of the boat touches bottom, and you hop out, tying the painter to a sturdy pine near the waters edge. Wander along the sandy shore-line to the edge of the destruction

>Pieces of machinery, burnt trees and stumps...and eventually, a wing. Then another, and then the cylindrical body of a small aircraft. Twin-engined, but other than that too mangled to tell the type
>No portholes though, and what's left of the tailfin looks like a brand logo rather than a commercial airline's insignia
>Fires all seem to have gone out, so you head in closer, to make sure there's no-one left on board. No mobile phone signal out here, so you'll have to head back to the house to call the police or the paramedics...and they're all well over 3 hours drive away
>Cockpit seems empty, no bloodstains or anything of the like. No parachutes either. Maybe everyone bailed out, or whatever it is they do
>Cabin isn't really a cabin - no seats, a few smashed crates, all with similar-looking logos to the tailfin. A strange, entirely unpleasant smell lingering in here, too. Not av-gas or anything mechanical.

>Much more organic. In fact, a horrible combination of pig manure and silage springs to mind.
>Scramble outside and do a quick scout around the area, just to double check no-one's dangling unconscious in their parachute shrouds. Nothing. As you sit on a rock and ponder who to call about this, a babble of voices breaks out somewhere not too far away.
>"Fwuffy hungwy"
>"Weggie ouchies, why weggie no work?"
>"Meanie aiwpwane huwt fwuffies"
>You creep through the trees towards the sounds, keeping as quiet as possible. Eventually you reach a clearing, and peer between two huge pines.
>Fluffy ponies, fluffy ponies everywhere
>You've heard of these little fuckers, but they were banned from being imported into the UK on health and safety grounds - and DEFRA being a bit uneasy about disease transmission too
>Guess that explains the smashed crates then. Must have been in transit from somewhere and came down in the storm.
>On closer inspection, some of the fluffies are in pretty poor shape. Broken wings, limps, cuts and bruises abound. Rough landing for the poor creatures.
>Still, they've managed to find their way from the crash to here, that must bode well, surely?

>Stay and watch for a half hour or so
>Most of their behaviour seems quite random. Eat, shit, "pway", sleep...there's no apparent social order to the group. Occasionally one of them babbles about "smawty fwend", whatever that is
>Probably about 30 or 40 of the little things in total. You wonder how long they'll survive out here. There's plenty of grass, and the island's probably a good half-mile or so in area.
>You have an idea. Rowing back to the house, you telephone the local police (local, hah. They're miles away in town), tell them that you think a plane might have crashed last night.
>They're sceptical - no-one else has reported anything, no maydays, no SAR requested, nothing. We're not even on any major flight-paths. As far as they're concerned it was probably just the storm - "sir, have you been drinking?"
>Guess living on the moor as a social outcast has its downsides. Crazy old anon.
>Still, having a herd of fluffy ponies around might provide you with something to do with yourself...
>You fix up the roof and the broken fences, in a pensive mood. Some more observation tonight might be in order.

>Several hours pass, and eventually the house is fixed up again. The wind's still strong, but the grey clouds haven't yet burst
>You decide to see how the herd are getting on, and row back across to the island. Warm clothes, binoculars, notebook, thermos.
>Creep back to your observation point in the twilight and commence observation.
>Fluffies are a little less energetic now. Lots of cries of “Tired”, “Hungwy”, “Need make poopies, whewe witter box?” A few of them just lie on the grass and shiver
>It's a cold night. They'd do well to be looking for some shelter, but still no sense of organisation or purpose
>Still, no sense in intervention. They have to learn for themselves...
>A few of the little creatures are nuzzling at a green unicorn who is lying prone, very definitely not moving. Eyes glazed...you train the binoculars on it. Definitely dead.
>”Pwease smawty fwend, wake up, gif huggies, hewp fwuffies!”
>”Fwuffies hungwy, find nummies for fwuffies”
“Fwuffies get boo-boos, huggies make feew better”
>Unsurprisingly, green doesn't move. This doesn't seem to deter the fluffies around it, who keep nuzzling and hugging at it
>They don't seem to be doing anything terribly interesting tonight, so you head back home for some reading up on fluffies. Forewarned is forearmed, after all

>An interesting evening of internet research has ensued
>These things just don't seem built for any kind of survival at all. They're just fluffy shit-machines bio-engineered to be cute, with a total disregard for self-preservation. They seem to have the power or speech without necessarily having memory or IQ points to spare.
>Still...they've survived a plane crash. You wonder how they'll survive without any human intervention, and whether their survival instincts can be awakened or if they'll just sit there and die of cold and hunger
>There are a few stories from the States of feral fluffy herds...and even fewer stories of said herds surviving
>”Smarty friends” seem to be the leaders of any feral group – and often instrumental in the demise of the herd.
>You wonder how a herd will survive with no smarty friend – does another just step up?
>Go to sleep, finally intrigued by a topic for the first time in years. Tomorrow will be an interesting day...

>Awaken bright and early the next morning, a spring in your step
>The clouds have gone, it's a beautiful morning, and you row over the the little island with a new sense of purpose
>Back to the spot between the pines, you see that most of the herd retreated under the rhododendron bushes at one end of the clearing
>Those that didn't were either already dead, or haven't survived the night – probably too wounded from the crash to survive anyway.
>Still, only seven fatalaties so far, including green smarty friend. That still leaves well over 30 cold, hungry fluffies to watch
>Most of them continue the same old routine, but a few are noticeably different, stepping out of the bushes with what borders on confidence
>”Wook fwends, gwassies good to eat! No more hungwy” states one impressively-statured (for a fluffy) brown earth pony, nibbling away at the grass
>One by one the rest of the herd emerge and tentatively start to feed. Some of them are distinctly unimpressed
>”Gwassies no nice nummies! Wan' sketties!” demands a white unicorn, stamping his little hooves
>Spaghetti? Wtf?
>”No sketties here, eat gwassies fwend” suggests brown
“You no smawty fwend,, fwuffy want sketties” demands white, puffing his cheeks out and pawing the ground with anger
>Brown puffs out his cheeks too and moves closer to white. Looks like there are some leadership challenges after all, then...

>The two stallions circle one another, cheeks puffed out, pawing the ground, a few small sparks occasionally shooting out of white's horn, but most of it seems for show
>You can't really believe such fluffy creatures could actually manage to hurt one another, but eventually brown strikes, lashing out with a foreleg and catching white on the jaw
>White squeaks with indignation, and turns around, bucking brown on the flank
>They end up face to face, pushing one another around and around with neither really gaining any advantage over the other, all accompanied by squeaks and cries of “meany”
>When the end comes, it is quick. Brown manages to get his back hooves under white, and bucks him clean into the air, flying around a foot in distance
>He lands winded and immediately “bows” down with his front leggies – a submissive gesture, brown has clearly won this fight
>”You win, no huwt fwuffie more” squeaks white, eyes wide with fear. “Fwuffie will go, find sketties away from meanie fwuffie”
>”All fwuffies who want gwassie nummies stay! Fwuffies who want go with gweedy fwuffie, want sketties, go” says brown, puffing his cheeks out and looking as menacing as possible
>12 other fluffies – mostly unicorns – seem to be behind white, and shuffle behind him muttering “wan sketties”, “gwassies no nice”, “new smawty fwend find sketties for fwuffies?”
>The rest stay behind brown as the disgraced white “smarty friend” and his herd scuttle off into the undergrowth
>So now we have two herds. Interesting. You leave brown and his followers nibbling away at the grass and quietly follow white's little band...

>Several weeks pass
>You spend most days observing either one of the other of the herds, heading back and typing up your notes in the evenings
>Brown's herd have stayed in the clearing towards the south west side of the island, claiming it as their own
>They venture out of the clearing to find food and, when the weather takes a turn for the worse, to find shelter amongst a rock formation towards the middle of the island
>Brown, their smarty friend, seems just about capable of keeping them fed, watered and sheltered
Some of the mares in the herd have even become pregnant, swelling and requiring the rest of the herd to guard and roll them
>White's herd are much more nomadic, wandering the edges of the island and sleeping in a different place each night
>They scavenge enough food to survive but are much more goal-orientated in their speech, constantly reminding one another of “sketties” to be had in the future
>You wonder if this is a display of more or less intelligence than their counterparts, given that they are mostly unicorns
>Encounters between the two herds tend to be kept to a minimum. For the most part, fluffies that encounter one another will give huggies, unless a smarty friend is present
>Even then, most of the aggression is just cheek puffing and childish insults
>They're clearly not built for conflict

>You've established a few hides on the island, suspended above the ground, the better to watch without disturbing the fluffies
>One morning, watching Brown's herd roll the pregnant dams down to the water to drink, your attention is caught by a flash of movement out on the lake
>Training your binoculars, you spot an osprey with a salmon in its talons. You've never seen one around here before – they're not common birds anywhere
>You're brought back to the fluffies by a frantic squeaking. One of the pregnant damn has been rolled too far onto the little beach
>Her swollen abdomen is the perfect shape to roll her down towards the water, despite her attendant's best efforts to stop her
>With a damp splash she enters about 4 inches of cold lake-water. Her fluff immediately soaks up water like a sponge
>Within seconds she is drenched and freezing cold. Heavy fluff makes it even harder to move, and she screams out for help
>”Hewp! Bad wawa, fwuffy cowld! Hewp fwuffy, hewp baybehs!”
>One fluffy, a yellow pegasus, dashes into the water to help the dam. She too quickly becomes waterlogged, but manages to make her way behind the dam to push
>Her efforts are ineffective against all that wet fluff, and before any of the other fluffies can react she slips and falls
>She splutters and flails around in the shallows, only serving to push herself further out into the deeper waters of the lake
>As her fluff takes on more and more water she sinks lower and lower, until only her little fluffy face is above the surface. Her hooves blur as she thrashes to keep even this above the waterline

>It seems inevitable that this fluffy's fate is to drown, but even as you ponder this, the ripples around the thrashing fluffy take on a considerably more organised appearance
>The yellow pegasus has just enough time for a horrible squeal of – what? Pain? Realisation? - before the pike drags her under.
>They grow big and fat in this lake, the depth and the darkness of the water concealing them until they take their prey
>You've seen them take ducklings, but fluffy pony is an entirely new addition to their diet
>You wonder how they'll take to it, given the fluff to flesh ratio of these creatures isn't terribly nutritious-looking (or easy to digest, for that matter)
>With a horrible gurgle, yellow reappears, leggies and wings thrashing, coughing and spluttering
>”Noooo, bad fishie huwt fwuffy weggies! Wet fwuffy go!” she screams, the water around her starting to cloud with red
>The other fluffies watch with terror from the bank, as the pike returns for a second run. The dark water closing over her again. This time she does not re-emerge.
>This still leaves the waterlogged dam in the water, her pupils pin-pricks with fear. She shits herself and thrashes around having seen yellow's fate
>She doesn't realise that she's safe – the pike are too big to come into water quite this shallow
>But her panic has sent her into labour
>”Fwuffies! Big poopies coming! Hewp fwuffie out of wawa so can make big poopies!” She shouts, and wiggles her little leggies ineffectively
>Suddenly the realisation hits her. “No am poopies! Am get baybehs! Fwuffies hewlp, no let meanie fishies eat baybehs!”
>With this, the herd seems galvanised into action. Three other fluffies wade into the shallows and, with their combined efforts, manage to roll the dam back up onto the sandy bank
>The foals, it would seem, are safe. For now.