//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Eve of Destruction // Story: Sounds from Another Universe: A Psychedelic Excursion // by Vlasislas32 //------------------------------// NOTE TO READERS: First, I'd like to thank all of you for taking the time to read my first (and rather obviously novice-written) fic. Second, I'd like you to know that I am now open to song suggestions. No promises, but I'll try to work them in when I can. Peace. **Now back to your (barely) regularly scheduled programming.** ________________________________________________________________ After having him spend another day in the hospital to ensure good recovery, Twilight decided to let the creature room in the library. It was partially out of good will, but a significant part had to do with wanting to keep him close in order to glean as much information as she possibly could. He protested at first, apparently not wanting to impose (more and more things kept pointing towards his species being a cultured one), but she won him over in the end, and he was soon lugging his vast number of possessions up to a spare room in the library. He kept saying things like "I really can't thank you enough." and "I really owe you for this.", although she had no idea why. Maybe his species wasn't as hospitable towards strangers. She was still mystified by the fact that he spoke fluent Equestrian, a mystery that was deepened by the fact that he read and wrote in a language completely different. Or maybe it was Equestrian written differently. She would have to get to that later. Besides, there was probably a spell somewhere that would allow her to read his books. There were more important matters at hand, anyway. After he was done organising himself (sometime that afternoon), she called him down to her study, quill and paper at the ready. "So what is this; the whole 'let's interrogate the ali...aaah!?" He leapt back a bit. "What?", asked Twilight, who was at a loss for what had shocked him so. "How are you doing that?" The crea... Marcus appeared to be gesturing in the direction of the presently levitating and lavender-glowing quill and paper. "Relax; it's just a simple levitation spell. What are you getting so jumpy for?" "You're kidding right? It's just some sort of illusion." Twilight furrowed her brow in confusion. "What's so hard to believe?" Then something dawned on her. "Do you mean to say that magic doesn't where you come from?" "That's exactly what I'm saying." Interesting... She'd have to make a note of that for later inquiry. But for now, there were more important questions to have answered "Trust me, this is totally normal for us. I imagine it may take some getting used to, but magic is everywhere in Equestria. We'll have to talk about that later, though. Right now, I'm more interested in your species in general. What can you tell me about yourselves?" Marcus raised his eyebrows and exhaled loudly at this. "Hm... well for starters, we call ourselves Humans, and as for our history, well, it's not exactly simple. If you want to start at the absolute beginning, it's going to take more than one sitting to take everything down." "Well, I guess a good starting point would be something about you. We can get to history later.", Twilight replied. "Okay. The planet I come from is divided into almost 200 countries. The one I come from is called the United States of America, also referred to as the United States, the USA, the US or America for short. We are one of the largest, physically speaking, and are considered one of the most powerful and influential countries in our world, although in recent years we've had some major screw-ups in our government and economy. The country..." "Hold on a second. You mentioned your government. How does it work?" "I could probably give a pretty good breakdown of things, but I think we should probably set aside some other time for that when we can talk for longer. You said earlier that have a monarchy here, right? That's a pretty simple system: a clear-set hierarchy of control with easily defined power structures. The USA is a Democratic Republic with a Moderate Capitalist economy. These two are complicated enough on their own, but they can also overlap, and that's when things get even more complex... and don't even get me started on all the bureaucracy crap we have to put up with! It would probably be better to have a talk specifically about human politics." Slightly miffed by this setback and wondering exactly what a Democratic Republic and a Moderate Capitalist were, Twilight allowed him to continue. "Anyway, the US breaks down into 50 states. Well, technically they're provinces but we call them states. The state I'm from is called New York, and I live in that state's capitol." "You mentioned that you had a bunch of different countries. Do you have any relatives from there? "I do, actually. My father's family mostly comes from Romania and Hungary, and my mother's side is from all over the United Kingdom: Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English. I might have a little French and German scattered in there, too. My family's been living in the US for a few generations now, like three or four, going back maybe 70 or 80 years. By the way, I know you and I speak the same language, but not all of us humans do. Each country tends to have it's own, with a few exceptions. English is spoken in a lot of places, but that's mostly due to the fact that England and the US liked to meddle in the matters of other countries and kind of forced the language on a lot of people." "So even though you aren't from this 'England' place, you still call it English?" "Exactly. Culture differences have caused a bit of a difference in vocabulary, but the language is still pretty much the same in the US as it is in England." "Hold on now. I probably should have begun with this, but how and when exactly did your species start? All of this diversity couldn't have cropped up overnight." "Actually, when compared to the age of our planed, Humans have hardly been around for very long. We started off a few hundred thousand years ago as monkeys. Well... actually that's not quite right. It's probably more accurate to say that we have a common ancestor with modern monkeys and apes, but we split somewhere down the line and became our own genus." "Genus?" "It has to do with the way we group types of animals. It's one level over the specific species. Over time, the primitive human genus shifted into a few different subspecies, the prominent ones being the Neanderthals and, later on the Cro-Magnon. Humans as we know them today are pretty much all descended from the latter." "How did that happen? What happened to the Nee...andertalls?" "We were just better designed. It's one of the earliest known situations of "brains over brawn". The Neanderthals were bigger and more robust, but the Cro-Magnon were more intelligent. I'm not sure if this was caused by conditioning over time or some random genetic quirk, but that's how things worked out. They learned how to better interact with the environment, so we survived better, and if we came into contact with Neanderthals and had some sort of conflict, we would be able to outwit them in battle." Her quill paused here."Battle?" "Yeah. Battle." The nonchalant manner in which he mentioned this made Twilight a bit uneasy. "So, are you a warrior race?" "Well, I wouldn't quite say that. We used to be more so early in our history, but not so much any more. War is a pretty powerful influence on our lives an technology though." "Why?" "It's a bit complicated. You all seem pretty nice here. Hell, you're probably one of the most peaceful races that the universe has ever produced but I honestly have to wonder how that could have possibly happened. I guess it has to do with a difference in our environment. You see, when humans were evolving, before we had advanced technology, we lived out in the wilderness. It was a very harsh, very dangerous place to be. There were predators lurking at every turn and the natural environment was hardly forgiving. We eventually learned that if we wanted to survive in a place like that, we would have to be self-centred. Whoever had the most food and best shelter had the greatest chance of survival. We became attracted to mates with these characteristics because it became bred into us that these individuals were the most likely to be healthy and better able to protect offspring. Many other species on my planet are like this too, but that's another topic entirely. The point is that we're wired to be greedy. This basic greed was counteracted by the fact that we realised we were more likely to survive in a group than as individuals (I think this, too is inherently greedy: if the people around you are better off, you will be too), but since not all humans stemmed from a unified group, we ended up with factions each trying to gather benefit for themselves. This caused the groups to see others as threats, and this often led to conflict. This never really went away, so when we developed to the point of having countries and governments, these conflicts just continued on a larger scale and over more sophisticated things." Twilight's quill moved across the page like mad. "But why couldn't you just work things out in a civilised fashion like diplomacy or negotiation?" "Well, in a hostile world filled with primitive sapient beings, the rule of nature isn't 'who can negotiate the best in a social construct', it's 'who can survive the best'. We simply didn't have the capacity at that point for intelligent debating. Whoever was the best at staying alive is who survived, and if staying alive meant killing off some of your fellow humans, then that's exactly what we would do." Twilight became a little unnerved at the coolness with which Marcus described the nature of humans. How could something be so vicious towards it's own people? But at the same time, she felt sympathy for them; being trapped in a world so unforgiving that it could force them to violence just to stay alive. "But you said that you aren't like that any-more, right?" "Well, I didn't exactly say that. I said we aren't as much like that. As we developed and grew more intelligent, we became more affluent, leaving us with spare time. Some used that time to contemplate the nature of war and developed peaceful ideologies in order to try and combat it. But this affluence also brought a different kind of war. Like I said, that innate greediness never really left us, so we still tend to have wars now and then, but instead of over things like food and necessary resources, they're over ideology, power, influence, and more high-tech resources." "Every now and then?", Twilight asked, incredulously. "Here in Equestria, there are only two wars that I can recall, and they happened so long ago hardly anybody remembers them. How many wars has your species had?" "Ugh. To be honest, I don't think I could put a number on it. Hundreds, probably. Some were small, and only involved a few tribes of people, and some involved entire nations all fighting each other at once... And you don't even want to get into the kind of weaponry we've developed to fight these wars. Hell, we've got weapons that can wipe out entire cities in one huge explosion; just completely vapourise everything within a few miles, and them some!" This startling revelation left Twilight in a complete state of shock, that last line in particular. This Marcus creature seemed peaceful enough. How could he come from a species so seemingly violent and bent on thrashing itself out of existence? Perhaps it was all a facade. But then why hadn't he done anything bad yet? Wouldn't he have tried to take advantage by now? (Not like that!) 'We'll just have to wait and see...' "...You tell meeee, o'er and o'er and o'er again my friend, you don't believe, that we're on the Eve of Destruction..." These softly-sung, mournful sounding lyrics brought Twilight out of her reverie, re-sparking her intrigue. "What was that?", she asked. "Remember how I said that there were some people that got tired of war? Well, there was a particularly turbulent time in our history when a lot of people had been pushed too far, and there was an international movement about 40 or 50 years ago. They're motto was basically "peace-and-love", and some really believed it. But there were some others who just used it as an excuse to do whatever they felt and to expound on things like Communism and Socialism that would probably harm peace more than help it, but I digress, back to the point: music has always been a powerful force in my species. We've got a saying: 'Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent'. And express they did: This era gave rise to a lot of musicians that shared the views of the peace movement and it came out in their music with all kinds of protests to the government. Some were laden with symbolism, some, like what I was just singing, were more direct. I can sing the rest of it if you'd like." Music as a political force? This was new. It could certainly add an entirely new dimension to her understanding of this species. "Sure. Go ahead." "Alright. I'll just have to get something from my room first." Marcus stood up and left the study, and Twilight heard some shuffling and clunking from over her head, followed by the sound of scattering papers and a emphatically enunciated "Shit!". Marcus returned shortly after with one of his guitars; the one with too many strings, not too few. He sat down and moved to begin playing. "Wait. Just one more question: why does it have so many strings? Aren't they supposed to have six and not twelve?" "Well, on Earth, we do have 6-string guitars, but I like the sound of 12-strings more. See, you don't play each individual string. The six lowest strings are tuned an octave apart, and the top six are all the same. See how close together the strings each pair are? The pairs are meant to be played in unison as if they were only one string. It gives it a brighter sound." And with that, he began to play. As the song progressed, Twilight picked up on some terminology she wasn't quite familiar with, but it hardly took away from their moving power. By the time the song had reached completion, Twilight was holding back tears. Fluttershy was right: These humans seemed to have elevated music far beyond anything the Equestrians had achieved; blending emotions together, pouring out their feelings and leaving indelible marks on the listener. Perhaps these humans were in fact the faeries and elves of myth: forgotten legends who alone knew the deepest secrets of music. ________________________________________________________________ Think of all the hate there is in Red China Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama You may leave here for 4 days in space But when you return, it’s the same old place The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace And… tell me over and over and over and over again, my friend You don’t believe We’re on the eve Of destruction -Barry McGuire, Eve of Destruction