Breaking News · 7:49pm Jun 2nd, 2020
Sweetie Belle Has Just Kicked a Ball
We interrupt whatever it was you were just doing to bring you a special report. Sweetie Belle, a known resident of Equestria, has just kicked a ball.
Perhaps we should be clear: It’s really you who has just interrupted whatever you were just doing to become informed of this unprecedented event. In which case, we must tell you two things. First, thank you for tuning in. Really, it means a lot. Second, please manage your expectations.
We are the first people ever to make contact with the magical, horsepeopled realm known as Equestria. This is quite a feat, yes, but save your congratulations. Currently, from our vantage point on the cutting edge of technology, we are able to read approximate data on the frequency and proximity of objects coming into contact with Sweetie Belle’s surface area. This may not seem like a lot, but consider the fact that, without us, you would receive no data from Equestria. And that’s sad.
So if at any point you start to become disappointed in just how little we know about Equestria, or how little we know about this one individual kick of this one individual ball by this one individual pony, we want to remind you that we are on the cutting edge of this technology, and to say that we are "not very good at what we do" is not only redundant, but a little hurtful.
All this is to say: If you are curious about the circumstances surrounding Sweetie Belle kicking this ball, then you are in good company. Let’s go over what we know.
First: We have a lot of questions. We have more questions than we have answers, but that’s science for you.
How hard did she kick it? Was it stationary before the kick? Was it rolling on the ground, or sailing towards her in mid-air? Who kicked it to her, if anypony? Which hoof did she use? It beats us. All we can say is that there was a ball, and a pony named Sweetie Belle, and for one brief moment, they met. Anything past this is speculation.
Well, that’s not true. We know what Sweetie Belle looks like, or we at least have some theories. We know she is white, mostly, or maybe only a small fraction of her is white, but anyways, we are reasonably sure that she is four-legged, plump, and equipped with a brain that is capable of motor control. A user on Twitter implied that her mane might be curly. Likely, the tweet added, these curls bounce. But we are not in the business of making dangerous assumptions based on someone else’s research.
At this point it may be tempting to point at the picture associated with this event and say, well, there you go. That’s what she looks like, right there in the picture. Not to mention, she has a smile on her face, and if the caption is to believed, she’s having a great time. Surely her mood is another data point. She did not kick this ball out of frustration, or sadness, or disgust, or any other possible emotion that one might employ when kicking a ball.
We have some bad news. That picture is a drawing, not a photograph. And it was chosen by us, earlier today, at random.
That isn’t completely true. The decision to choose a picture of Sweetie Belle smiling was deliberate. A team of eleven staff, including myself, selected that picture simply because she looked cute in it. Your next question is easily predicted: Why is there text stating, and you quote, “I’m having a great time”? This was a fabrication on our part. Eames, who works in our science department, and who claims to know Photoshop, added it himself.
This was another calculated risk, one that was mostly fueled by our desire for Sweetie Belle to be happy. We made this decision knowing full well that it may render our report irresponsible, groundless, and unscientific, but we’ve just come clean about it, so… nuh-uh.
But fine. Consider: She kicked the ball out of disgust. She was frustrated. A spat with her friends, or a poor grade on a test—any number of events could lead her to approach this poor unsuspecting ball, wind up through her full range of motion, and kick it in a fit of inconsolable rage. Perhaps it was nighttime. And raining. Raining so hard that you can’t even tell if she’s crying on account of all the rain in the way.
Not a fun hypothesis, is it? You see now, why we went with the smiling picture? There is very little we know about Sweetie Belle, but this rendition of her image—artist’s interpretation though it may be—and associated caption of a great time being had, is a rather good starting point for this study, and until we disprove it, we’re going to leave it up there.
Speaking of unknowns: the ball. We haven’t a clue what it looks like. Or what it feels like. In fact, ask us about any of the five senses, and we will be forced to shrug our shoulders.
We have assumed a classic red ball, as a placeholder. The type of ball that is soft, full of air, with a bumpy texture. The kind of ball that makes a *PUM* sound when it strikes things, such as a hoof. You know the one. But it could easily be a baseball. Or a soccer ball. Or it could be a monument of the globe, standing in a square somewhere deep inside Manehattan, that Sweetie Belle has just quietly reached up and touched with a stray hoof whilst mesmerized by her own reflection in the brass. It could be a golf ball, too. But let’s not abandon reason.
We considered atoms, as well. A particle of air, be it oxygen, nitrogen or one of the others, may reasonably be assumed to take the shape of a tiny ball. But to this we can comfortably say: No. An absurd number of particles are striking Sweetie Belle at any moment in time, and if we drafted a report every time Sweetie Belle was struck by a wayward atom, we would never get anything done.
A ball has struck Sweetie Belle’s hoof. This is what we know.
We would certainly like to know more. For example, who else is present? Another pony? If so, are they associated with this kick, or standing somewhere off to the side living their own lives? Do they watch her kick this ball in as rapt an attention as we now have? We can’t be sure.
Trust me, I asked around. It was one of my first questions when the news came in, and I spoke to Eames about it right away. I asked, is there any way a second pony might be present at this kick? He said he couldn’t say. I asked, do we know if she was alone? He said it wasn’t clear. Eames is our most trustworthy scientist. I’ve never trusted him. If Eames were a broken clock, he would move his hands twice a day to avoid ever telling the truth. Remember what I said about him knowing Photoshop? I suspect he only knows GIMP.
What else don’t we know? Countless things. How old was Sweetie Belle at the time of the kick, for example? Most of our research points to her being of a “school” age, although we don’t know at what age a pony goes to school in Equestria, so even there we’re fumbling in the dark. All we can say with complete certainty is that she is somewhere between the age of zero seconds and however old she will be when she dies. Maybe she’s about to die. She could be an old mare at this stage. Perhaps, in a life full of balls kicked, this will be her last.
Perhaps the moment she kicked that ball was the moment her organs simultaneously failed. What was once a vibrant young filly with her whole life seemingly ahead of her is now a heap on the ground, her whole life decidedly behind her. It could be that in the very act of measuring this one instance of contact between pony and ball, we shut down her organs. Probably not, but maybe. And if this is the case, we want to be the first to say: Our bad.
Speaking of risks, we daresay Sweetie Belle was taking a sizeable one, kicking that ball in the manner she did (whatever manner that was). She could have tripped. Then what would she do? What if she kicked it into somepony’s face? That would be embarrassing, and Sweetie Belle—we assume based on our own experience on the subject—doesn’t like to be embarrassed. And don’t even get us started on the possibility of her tripping on the ball, and as a result of this trip sending the ball rocketing into another pony’s face. What a nightmare. There are some colleagues who deem this to be “Classic Sweetie Belle”, but I’m not convinced.
My guess is that the atoms in her foreleg, and the atoms in that ball, aligned in precisely the right combination to launch the ball at the speed of light and send it hurtling away in a fraction of a blink of an eye, leaving behind a trail of fire, plasma, and broken dreams. The force of all that compressed air must have winked out all the stars at once, destroyed every pony she ever met, every pony she has yet to meet, and every pony whom she would never meet in her life, but is now destroyed all the same. You may find this unlikely, and you would be right. But consider this frightening fact: We haven’t received any data since Sweetie Belle’s kick. Equestria is giving us radio silence, or at least Sweetie Belle is. What we wouldn’t give for more data!
Hold on, we’re receiving more data. Give me one second.
…Oh, my.
You’re not going to believe this. Are you ready? Okay, here goes.
Sweetie Belle has just kicked the ball a second time. I’m not joking.
Okay, wait, we should not be too hasty. Nothing lies more than raw, unstudied data. Except maybe Eames.
But these two events do lead us to some exciting news: Sweetie Belle’s organs did not fail during the first kick. I repeat, Sweetie Belle’s initial kick of the ball did not, in fact, kill her. Otherwise, there would never have been a second kick. Technically this kick might have been her last, but come on. Two kicks in a row? Let’s be reasonable. She is alive and, well, kicking.
We will endeavor to study this second kick in conjunction with the previous kick, and get back to you as soon as we can.
This is such great news. A second kick! I don’t know about you, but we really needed a win.
We have made a lot of progress in this past day of study. We have stormed the castle of ideas, slain all the bad ideas where they stood, and taken hostage only those hypotheses which seem plausible.
I should be clear: We haven’t got much. We really aren’t very good at this yet. But that tends to happen when your technology is so cutting edge it threatens to split the very fabric of space and time in twain.
Here is what we have. First, the probability of there being at least one additional pony around Sweetie Belle at this time has just skyrocketed. Think about it: She might be playing pass-the-ball, which is a sport that we made up, but you probably know the rules to anyway. You pass the ball. Eventually, it is passed back to you, and you either stop so that it doesn’t roll past you, or kick it to somepony else. Either way, that was two kicks just now. Our data holds, assuming this is what happened.
Eames posited the idea of a dribble. We were confused, at first, but he drew up a quick slideshow to explain it to us. Sweetie Belle, he says, in mid-run, is chasing the ball down a field. She taps the ball once with one hoof, then again with either the same hoof, or a different one, and will likely kick it a third time within the coming seconds. This hypothesis is silly, just by inspection. And no good ideas were ever explained by way of a slideshow. But it technically covers the two kicks, so it is presented here for the sake of fairness, if not merit.
A dribble, I realize just this second, could imply a sort of team sport. Perhaps even something like hoofball.
My God, we haven’t even considered hoofball. Have we considered hoofball? I will speak to Eames. I’ll be right back.
Alright, I spoke to Eames about whether or not any of us considered hoofball. He said yes, we have. I said no, we haven't, and if we did then I would remember. So he pointed to his screen, and said, yes, it’s right there in my notes, hoofball, but I couldn’t see, because he had turned off his monitor.
I suspect we didn’t consider hoofball. What is wrong with us?
A team of fourteen thousand employees, and not a single soul came up with hoofball. I’ll bet this was Eames’s fault. Really, the guy coming up with the idea of a dribble should be coming up with hoofball. He probably withheld that information from us. Typical.
But hold on, you might say. A day has passed, didn’t you say? If that’s how long it takes to study a single kick of the ball, then surely the same time has passed for Sweetie Belle between this second kick and kick prime. She must have kicked the ball, went about her day, then come back the next and struck the ball once more. Strange ritual, but data doesn’t lie, yes? Well, I’m sorry to say this, but your assumption is based on your pre-conceived notion of time, and it is therefore moot.
De-couple yourself from how you know time. If you want to study Equestria in the way we do, then you have no other choice.
Notice we didn’t estimate the time of day of either of Sweetie Belle’s kicks. On our side of existence, the time of day is based on the spin and orbit of the Earth. In Equestria, we don't really know how it works; however, based on the balance of probabilities, magic is likely involved, and all bets are therefore well and truly off. It could be 3 A.M. at the time of the kick, and the sun could be shining. And besides, there are any number of ways to interpret the relative speed of time between our two worlds. Four of our days could have passed in the three seconds between the two kicks, for one.
Add to this, you’re only reading my account of the events. Did you know, for example, that, between this paragraph and the last, I defeated Eames in a game of table tennis which lasted for an hour? I’d wager you didn’t. Who's to say time in Equestria doesn't work the same way? Only moving as we observe it, and at a different speed from ours? And besides, I lied to you about defeating Eames in table tennis. Eames defeated me. But he likely cheated, so in a way, saying I won is the truth.
Hang on. I’ve just been told that a third data point is coming in. If you’ve been paying attention, this means that Sweetie Belle is still alive. This is great news and, might I add, just as I predicted.
I should probably go check on her. I will be back in an hour, however long that is for you.
Are you sitting down? Good. You are going to need a moment when I tell you about the third point of data that has just come in.
First, the obvious: The ball has just come into contact with Sweetie Belle a third time. We were beginning to wonder if this was the only kind of data we will ever get from Equestria, and fear what this meant for our funding, only to realize that something different has happened this time. This time, it wasn’t a kick at all. If our calculations are correct, and we're operating on the assumption that they are correct, within a reasonable margin for error, then the ball has just struck her on the nose.
Not any of her hooves. Not her rump, not her horn, and not her eyeball. Her nose.
We are in disbelief. There was an office pool on where the ball would contact her next, with most bets leaning towards some manner of a third kick. Well, the house wins today, because nobody had ever considered the nose.
Well, alright, we had considered her nose, just in different contexts. We know it has two nostrils, it’s just above her mouth, and it is really quite small. Many liken it to a button. But how it may interact with a ball? This is new territory we’re entering.
As you may suspect, the first thing we did was celebrate.
Consider a control room monitoring a satellite, or a space shuttle, or a rocket launch, shown from a camera situated at the top corner of the room. An uncountable number of eyes—but most likely an even number of them—are glued to a wide screen on a wall. Everybody not in the room pretends to know the significance of what is going on. Suddenly, chaos. Cheers erupt. Papers are thrown into the air. Embraces aplenty. Alcohol is sprayed from bottles of champagne in irresponsible directions.
Exciting, yes? Well, this does not hold a candle to what happened at our offices, simultaneously, across the country. The fools in this satellite control room have just put on a funeral compared to us. Music played instantly, disco balls descended. Gleeful punches were thrown at gleeful faces which, despite the airborne teeth, remained gleeful. There may have been strippers, in some offices, but there just as easily may not have been strippers anywhere.
For you see, our excitement was born of the fact that these three events—a kick, a second kick, and a touch on the nose—point to one and only one hypothesis, a hypothesis which we all came to at the same moment. Except Eames, who said he had a different idea, but there you go.
Our hypothesis is this: Sweetie Belle is juggling.
She flicked the ball up on one hoof, then tapped it higher with the other, then caught it on her nose and balanced it there. How do we know she caught it? I’m glad you asked. Based on our brand new model of relative time between our world and Equestria, she held the ball there for anywhere between four seconds and thirteen years. She caught it, by God. And then she smiled.
How do we know she’s smiling? You could call this an assumption, but come now. Place yourself in her horseshoes. Go outside, kick a ball into the air, kick it once more such that it rises to nose height, and then catch it precisely there. Balance it for as long as you can, but no less than four seconds. You do not have to go the full thirteen years.
Tell me you’re not smiling. It probably took you a thousand tries, right? You’re not an athlete, look at you.
This concludes our report on Sweetie Belle’s kicking of the red ball, keeping in mind that the color of the ball as 'red' is being used as a placeholder, for we really don't know. For now, radio silence has returned, but that’s just as well. This has all been so exhausting.
It is hard to say goodbye, but we know this is not the end. We are scientists, after all, and our brains never stop working. We crave more data, and our hunger takes the form of questions. Did Sweetie Belle say ‘boop’ when the ball landed on her nose? We can only hope. And why was Sweetie Belle juggling? Was it for a juggling competition? If so, what was the criteria? Most touches without dropping the ball? Most impressive feat? Cutest button nose? Sweetie Belle surely won, no matter the category. She positively swept it. Tens from all the judges. And the crowd, if there was one, most certainly went wild.
Either way, any and all remaining questions we present to the reader, to fashion answers in their own time. We recommend that you assume whatever story works best for your individual purposes, and then carry on with your day, because that's really all we did, and we can’t be expected to do all the work. Besides, we have plans. Plans that I’m told may or may not involve a strip club. And even if there is no strip club involved, I cannot wait to get out of this office.
Now if you'll excuse me, I’m going to turn off all the monitors.
oh my
Me too, bud, me too.
This is 100% accurate and I am definitely not just saying that because it fits within my preconceived beliefs. I am very impartial and not at all biased here, and anyone saying otherwise is a coward and a liar.
Thank you for bringing us this exhilarating and fascinating news. What a time to be alive!
Even though it’s true, it still hurts.
i.imgur.com/TN0p0Vq.png
This was absolutely delightful.
This... this is a scandal of unparalleled proportions!