Before any of you say anything, consider this: If a pony learned even half of the fuckery that goes on in our world, how would they react? Twilight immediately going to get drunk is quite possibly a tame response.

Also, the Interview chapters will be in third person format. It's just easier for me this way.

I reiterate, POLITICS! You've been warned twice now. Should you proceed, you have no one to blame but yourself. I only briefly touched on politics in this chapter and I tried to be as fair as I know how. It was super tame. It was mostly a history lesson that led into a mention of politics.

I know some of you will be curious, so when Ranma mentions something she/he saw online that caused him to fear for the human race? It was a reddit thread on a subreddit run by TERFs that has since been deleted for hate speech... r/gendercritical if you must know. Otherwise I might've posted a link to it just to see other people's reactions.

Why was I poking around that particular corner of the internet? Long time readers will already know the answer! I hate myself. To my newer readers: I hate myself. This has been your Public Service Announcement.

Above and beyond anything else, I hope you enjoy the little bit of alt-history fiction I indulge in.

Twilight was more excited than she had been in a long time. In mere minutes she would begin the first steps in the practical application of many Exo- type fields. Exobiology, Exopsychology, Exosociology, and Exoarcheology just to name a few! The portal was still technically a state secret, even if most of the scientific community already knew about it. With the only reliable portal being located in Twilight’s castle, it had remained almost entirely unexplored. Twilight was going to be the cutting edge! She double checked the camera to make sure everything was ready. She couldn’t afford any screw ups!

“Hey, Twilight, we ready to go?” Ranma walked into the library, where their first interview would be held. She paused upon seeing Twilight fiddling with the camera.

“What?” Twilight noticed her pause.

“I, uh, was kinda expecting a quill and scroll. Reflecting upon that assumption makes me feel very dumb,” Ranma replied.

“Electronica music and they still used quills?! I shudder to think how much paper this other me goes through in a week. Why, the checklists alone…” Twilight couldn’t bear to continue the thought, “Anyway, we’re ready to start whenever you are.”

“Ah, before we start, I wanted to know if you know a spell to determine my age. Well, this body’s age anyway. The real Ranma is 16, but I’m older than that,” Ranma explained.

“I do know a spell that’s usually used for archeology, but it’s easily modified. It’ll only give you down to the month, but that’s the best I’ve got without seeing a professional,” Twilight said apologetically.

“Hit me with it,” Ranma invited. A few seconds later and Twilight cast the spell.

“Your body is currently twenty one years and three months old,” Twilight announced, “How old you were you before?”

“Twenty Three years and seven months,” Ranma answered.

“Congratulations, you’ve gotten back two years. Oh, before I forget, Celestia and Luna both want to meet you. Celestia will be here either tomorrow or the day after to help you get started on citizenship. I’m not entirely sure when Luna will show up. She might just show up in your dreams and skip the physical visit altogether,” Twilight warned.

“Well, I can work with that. Let’s get started with that interview, shall we?” Ranma took a seat, crossing her legs and Twilight sat directly opposite of him. A few deep breaths to make sure she was calm and levitating a tablet that held a few of the questions she wanted to ask over to herself, she was ready.

“Ready?” Twilight asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” Ranma responded and Twilight telekinetically hit the record button.

“This is Twilight Sparkle, former student of Princess Celestia and Princess of Friendship. The date is July 13^th 1005 ANM. The Time is approximately 11:20 AM. I will be conducting the first of hopefully several interviews with a human from a completely separate dimension to that connected to the mirror portal crafted by Starswirl the Bearded. She currently goes by the name of Ranma, but once had a different name and body. However, she does not remember her original name. She was transported to Equuis by a being known only as ‘The Merchant’ for unknown reasons. Ranma is currently also suffering under what she describes as a ‘curse’ that causes her to switch sexes upon exposure to sufficiently heated or cooled water. If you would demonstrate, Ranma?”

Ranma lifted a previously prepared cup of hot water and dumped it on herself, changing to her male form. He stood and demonstrated the change for the camera before pouring the cold water over himself.

“I only became aware of this so called ‘curse’ within the last day and Ranma herself has only been here for three days. Is there anything you would like to make note of, Ranma, before we continue?” Twilight asked.

“The only thing I can think of that’s important is that my species is human and our scientific name is Homo Sapiens meaning ‘wise man’. We’re also the only sapient species on Earth. If I think of anything else after the interviews I’ll try and make note of them and ask them at the end,” Ranma replied. That tallied with what Twilight knew of the other side of the mirror, "Oh! There was also no such thing as magic on Earth, at least as far as I'm aware."

“Very well, we’ll begin with society. I’ve always held the opinion that the easiest way to understand a society is to understand their family structure. So, what does a human family look like?” Twilight asked.

“You’ve unintentionally stepped onto a very loaded question to start out with…I’ll give you the traditional answer. One man and one woman meet, fall in love, get married, and have kids,” Ranma responded.

“A single male/female pair? Does this pairing last for life or only until the children reach adulthood? What does the gender ratio look like in humans?” Twilight inquired.

“The pairing is supposed to last for life, but rarely does. As for gender ratio, it’s almost perfectly 50/50,” Ranma replied and Twilight’s ears perked up.

“50/50?! The closest that we have on Equuis is a 40/60 split one way or the other! Ponies are almost 5 to 1 female to male! What about relationships outside of marriage?” Twilight questioned.

“Relationships are almost all one-on-one. Marriage is one-on-one regardless of the sexes of the couple by law,” Ranma answered and Twilight was shocked.

“They control who can marry who BY LAW?!” Twilight yelled in outrage. That was just...wrong.

“In almost every civilized country monogamy is the law. The only exceptions are countries on continents called Africa and Asia and a single island country,” Ranma confirmed.

“I know of Africa and Asia, there are continents bearing that name on the other side of the portal,” Twilight was forcing herself to be as professional as possible. The laws on the other side of the mirror weren’t so abhorrent, “Tell me about your family in particular.”

“My Mom met my Dad, they got married, they had me and my six younger siblings,” Twilight took a moment to consider if she wanted to press for a real answer. Something about this was a sore subject to Ranma, clearly. Twilight decided to proceed with caution.

“What is your parent’s relationship like?” A dark shadow flickered across Ranma’s face for an instant. Twilight would have thought she imagined it, if not for her answer.

“Why would I care about my parent’s relationship?” That was inconceivable. Almost every species with even a modicum of intelligence learned how to behave around other members of their species from their parent or parents! Ranma was too old for this to be teenage rebellion. Unless humans aged very strangely, Ranma was a fully developed adult with her secondary sexual characteristics. She certainly spoke like an adult. Was she an orphan? No, she would have mentioned if they were dead and she had referred to them in the present tense. Were they divorced? Again, Ranma would have mentioned it. The only reason Twilight could think of for Ranma’s distain towards her own parents would be…oh.

Serious child abuse by a parent was almost entirely unheard of in Equestria. It was vanishingly rare even outside of Equestrian borders. In those one in a million happenings, the rest of the herd almost instantly caught wind of it and had the offender arrested before any lasting harm could be done.

But in a system where one-on-one relationships were not only common, but enforced? If one parent became abusive, then the options of the other parent were very limited. If both parents were abusive? The thought alone was disgusting, but Ranma hadn’t shown any favor towards either parent. If one was suffering at the hand of the other, Ranma would have defended them as a matter of fact, even if she didn’t realize she was doing it.

Twilight prayed she was wrong. She had jumped the gun on more than one occasion. Even if she was right, Twilight ran the risk of digging up some long healed trauma. She couldn’t act without knowing more. Twilight resolved to keep a close eye on Ranma.

“How do humans reproduce?” Twilight asked, trying to move the interview away from dangerous waters. Ranma arched an eyebrow.

“Male puts penis into female vagina. If the woman is ovulating, she can become pregnant from the man’s sperm,” Ranma replied, “A human woman enters menopause at around 50 years of age, but a human male remains fertile for his whole life, barring special circumstances.”

“How often do human women experience menstruation? Do they not also have an estrus period?” Twilight asked.

“Menstruation occurs about once a month and they don’t have estrus. Do ponies have both?” Ranma was very surprised.

“Not exactly, menstruation is bi-monthly and only has a mild chance of pregnancy, but ponies go into heat generally the first week of April and a few mares do it again in early September. Both weeks are holidays for obvious reasons. It isn’t technically estrus, but mimics enough features of it that the layperson calls it estrus anyway. During heat, pregnancy is almost a certainty with a compatible mate,” Twilight explained, "I wouldn't recommend being male during those weeks."

“Duly noted,” Ranma responded.

“Well, now that we’ve covered family and touched on reproductive topics, let’s move on to society at large, specifically government. What method of governance did your country employ and if you know it, the governance of other countries,” Twilight requested.

“Well, The United States of America, most concisely, was a constitutional democratic republic,” Once again, that was consistent with what Twilight knew of the other side of the mirror, “But as for other countries, well, there are 195 countries so I don’t know most of them.”

“195? What year was it on your world?” That certainly didn’t match.

“2021 AD,” Ranma answered.

“How strange…that’s the year on the other side of the portal, but there are only about 73 countries,” Twilight noted.

“73?! How?!” Ranma exclaimed in surprise.

“After their World War, paranoia ran so high that another World War would happen that countries started invading and conquering each other in hopes of being able to survive that war. They eventually became known as the Unification Wars collectively and they started about a year after the close of the World War. I won’t bore you with the exact list of who conquered who right now, but The United States took over virtually all of both American continents and Egypt now rules over 75% of Africa,” Twilight lectured.

“Egypt took over most of Africa? That’s a surprise. How’d they manage that?” Ranma had always enjoyed alt-history.

“Israel joined forces with them,” Twilight answered. Ranma’s jaw dropped.

“Israel hates Egypt almost as much as they do the Palestinians!” Ranma shouted.

“And that’s how Egypt got Israel on their side. They promised to help stamp out the Palestinians. Of course, when all was said and done, Egypt turned around and conquered both, but hindsight is 20/20,” Twilight shrugged, “What happened on your world?”

“After the first World War, there was a major economic depression around the world. A man named Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany and militarized Germany. He placed the blame for the hardships Germany faced on the Jews. The first official act of World War II was Germany invading Poland in 1939. Britain and France both immediately declared war on Germany. The rest is a very dark chapter in human history. In the end, almost 85 million died and thus the deadliest conflict in human history even to this day.” Ranma answered solemnly, "That's a gross oversimplification, of course, but it's enough to get a basic idea."

“The Unification Wars totaled almost 300 million in total from all conflicts. It’s funny, they were so afraid of a Second World War, but when it did actually happen, the death toll was so much smaller,” Twilight said morosely.

“Humans suck, don’t they?” Ranma laughed humorlessly.

“You’re not as bad as ants,” Twilight pointed out. This evoked a real laugh.

“‘Not as bad as ants’ what a lofty title!” Ranma chuckled.

“Also, as you said Humans suck. In my experience, individuals are pretty OK,” Instead of cheering Ranma up, the statement seemed to cause her to wilt.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Ranma said neutrally.

“Well, let’s move on to the interpersonal aspect of society!” Twilight moved on, “How do humans socialize?”

“That’s a very hard question to answer. When I was taken, we were just on the tail end of a very deadly worldwide pandemic. Society was only just starting to come back together into a new normal. If I had been taken maybe six months later, I could probably tell you more. For more than a full year, human contact was pretty much limited to online interactions and people you already lived with. That’s how much the pandemic affected the day to day. There were standing orders for people to remain at least 6 feet apart from one another if they did have to go outside,” Ranma told her.

“That’s awful!” Twilight gasped.

“For that year, COVID-19 and Coronavirus became some of the most feared words on Earth. It was a more contagious and more deadly version of the flu. For the first six months, virtually everything that was non-critical was shut down, including schools,” Twilight hated the thought of schools being forced to close down. All that time for education lost!

“What was society like before the pandemic?” Twilight asked.

“If I’m being honest, it was on the very edge of imploding. There was such an awful Us vs. Them in every facet. Men vs. Women, Liberals vs. Conservatives, Democrats vs. Republicans, and more were rampant. No one was allowed to talk about it either, to try and be a middle ground, because you’d immediately be vilified by both sides. I’m not a sociologist; I don’t know really how to explain it any better than that,” Ranma sighed.

“I don’t understand the context between the other two, but Men vs. Women? How could society degrade to such a state? Both sexes are important in their own ways!” The more Twilight learned, the more Ranma’s world sounded like a twisted, dark funhouse mirror. Although, if people were passing laws concerning who could marry who, that was a big clue as to how society might begin to collapse.

“OK, so this is just my own understanding and again, I’m not a sociologist. In ancient times, men were the hunters, the providers. The women were tasked with staying at home and taking care of the children,” Twilight bit down on her knee jerk response to that and thought about it.

“In a world where the sexes are 50/50, I suppose it makes sense for the more physically powerful sex to take on those roles without magic to serve as an equalizer...” Twilight mused.

“Humanity evolved, but the mindset didn’t. Women were seen as subservient, lesser than men for a very long time,” Ranma continued.

“Ponies went through something similar. Stallions were to be protected at all costs, because they were much rarer than mares. Until Luna and Celestia took the throne, stallions were often considered non-entities, good only for their sperm,” Twilight commented.

“Eventually the women got fed up of being treated as second class. All across the world, women banded together in the name of equality with men. I obviously wasn’t alive back then, but reading about it is awe inspiring. Those people were heroes. Eventually they got the laws changed and women, at least legally, became equal to men,” Ranma recounted.

“It doesn’t end there, does it? Even when Luna and Celestia worked to change the laws here, it was still a long time before society reflected the laws,” Twilight noted.

“You are correct. The second wave of this movement concerned itself with treating the social injustice women still labored under. Again, they were heroes and successfully changed the world,” Ranma’s eyes lost focus and she sighed.

“Why didn’t it end there? If everyone was equal, what more was there to fight for?” Twilight asked.

“The general idea of the third wave was to tear down ‘harmful gender norms’. This is the one that started during my lifetime. The idea was good and I agree that certain gender enforced behavior is either outdated or not healthy to begin with. However, I personally think the execution was lacking. Not everyone in the movement agreed what constituted ‘harmful gender norms’. They splintered, resulting in many groups still waving the flag of the original movement, but having completely different ideas on how to fulfill their goals. Ultimately extremists appeared in every group and ‘harmful gender norms’ became ‘men are the enemy’. There are genuinely good people still in the movement, I knew one or two personally and know of several more, but I fear they’ve become little more than tools for the extremists. Some of the things I saw online made me genuinely fear for the future of humanity,” Ranma said sadly.

“That can’t have been the opinion of any kind of majority…” Twilight sounded horrified.

“In 2017 over four million people marched in the United States alone for this. Worldwide it was over five million. I wouldn’t be surprised if the number had been higher if more countries allowed peaceful protest. If it isn’t a majority, it’s one of the most vocal minorities of human history. Most of the mainstream media treats the extremists as the last word on what is good in the world. Speaking against them can result in censure, losing your job, and being harassed endlessly,” Twilight searched Ranma’s face for any sign she was joking. All she found was a stony face and tried eyes.

“OK, let’s end the interview here, I…need to not think about this,” Twilight turned off the recording and teleported to Berry Punch’s bar. For the first time, Twilight was thankful Berry ran her bar all day.