The Utopia Project Part 1
Steven sat back in his chair, sweat soaking his back as he took a long drink of some fresh poured ice water. He was reminded he was really out of shape right about then. But hey, he’d commit to exercising, forget in a few hours, and never follow through, like usual. He was aiming for a job in labs and behind desks, not to be a damn construction worker.
Still, he had to give it to himself, he’d done a damn fine job. He was an amateur builder at best, but he’d taken a couple classes in architecture and while he wouldn’t be making any houses, he’d gotten enough chops to make this new project of his. Not just any project though, his Thesis!
Now, he was borrowing off of old work, not entirely an original idea for an experiment, but Fluffies being used for social experimentation was a fairly unexplored field. Mostly, this was because they were petulant childlike pains in the ass if given the chance to be, and most experiments broke down simply because fluffies were dumb. But, while fluffies were dumb, dumber than the rats used in the experiment he was taking from all those years ago, they could also talk to you. You could study a rat for years and still not know exactly what it was thinking. But a fluffy? Well, it wasn’t the best at speaking, but it could speak! And, best yet, they weren’t actually animals! Legally being biotoys, he didn’t have to worry about stupid roadblocks like regulations!
You might be wondering what his idea was, well that’s simple. He was going to do his own spin on The Behavioral Sink experiment, but instead of rats or, as later used in other iterations of the experiment, mice, he would be using fluffies. But not just replacing them with fluffies, oh no. He hypothesized that, because fluffies were stupid, easy to entertain, driven by base instincts and often fail to learn, that he’d be able to draw an even better conclusion comparing them to the masses than the original experiment. Was he comparing the masses to fluffies? Yes. Was Steven a bit of a self-important dick? Also yes.
Now, he wasn’t saying that a person is as dumb as a fluffy, but that socially, a bunch of people in a group, a very dense population setting, we’d see similar trends. And if he was wrong, he had a few backup hypothesis to fall back on, which led into other ways this would be different. But you didn’t need to know the rest of that just yet. Even he was still working out some details.
Steven did have a problem though. While he’d gotten help from the theater department, the cool guys in the back that make the stage scenery in a overshadowed woodshop, to craft his ‘fluffy utopia’ project, he didn’t get even half the funding he’d wanted. Fucking university said that ‘experiments on fluffies look bad if mishandled’, something about fluffy abusers using the system to play Saw on fluffies in fucked up videos. He’d seen some of those, admittedly. He thought they were really interesting. Steven wasn’t an abuser, in fact he had a pet fluffy himself, one that he’d taught to play some (very simple) board games. He loved the little guy, but only because he was well trained. He saw too many fluffies that became little dickbags, and had made sure his little Archimedes never got that bad.
So, where did that leave him? He’d needed to get anything that wasn’t the wood, nails and glue holding the structure together himself. After some careful calculations, he’d worked out that, if he bought the amount of toys, blankets, food, litter and various other things he planned for originally, he’d be out of funding after buying maybe 2 fluffies from fluffmart. That wouldn’t work. He wasn’t trying to make a new garden of Eden here. Didn’t have the time for them to multiply that slowly, plus inbreeding would ruin the experiment. His solution was simple, and may end up skewing results, but if his experiment worked at all, he’d be able to show his work and get more funding to try another version of it, that time with tamed fluffies. His solution? Ferals.
Steven heard his phone ring, and realized he’d left it on the other side of the room. With a heavy sigh, he got his sweaty ass out of his chair and hurried over to pick up. “This is Steven.”
“Hey, Steven. It’s Rick. I’ve finally got a big enough herd for you. Does have a smarty though, just to forewarn. Still want it?”
Finished with preparations not a moment too soon! This guy was a local catcher and exterminator of fluffies. It had cost a lot less to ask for around 20 ferals from this guy, than to buy them somewhere. A lot less questions too. He grinned widely, “No, that’ll be fine. Remember to knock them out before bringing them to this address.” He listed off the address and then the building and room number. He’d been given an old unused classroom building, one of those ones that never fit but you found on campuses all the time, usually employed while some building was renovated but often kept in use for whatever reason. While he waited for the delivery, he got to work on the finishing touches.
The last thing Lemon knew, it had been bright time, and he’d been really scared! There was this big monster man that trapped them with sketti! Only, there weren’t any sketti! The man had lied, and then laughed at Lemon’s herd when he put them all in scary boxes! Then, after several forevers being scared and bored and hungry and scared, he’d gotten really sleepy, and decided to nap, even though he was scared. Which was strange, cause he’d never been able to sleep when scared before. So, imagine his surprise when he woke up to find himself not in a scary box, but in a really really pretty place!
Lemon was a unicorn stallion with lemon yellow fur, and a white mane. At least, he thought it was white? It was really dirty, and he could never clean it up enough, so it showed more as a dull grey. He was part of a herd! A big herd! Being part of a big herd was the best. You had lots of fluffy friends, and you all kept eachother safe. And the fluff piles were really really big! You couldn’t count how many fluffies were in your herd. That was how many there were! You knew you could count a lot too. At least to 7. You knew there was a number called eleven, but you never remembered what it meant. But that wasn’t important right now. What was, was that Lemon didn’t know where they were. But he loved it!
The room around him was big. It had lots of pretty colors, there were lights, and…TOYS! Lemon forgot everything else and ran right over to a bunch of blocks. Lemon had seen fluffies with humans get to play with blocks, but he’d never been able to! He happily sat on his bum and started playing stackies. What Lemon didn’t realize was, he was the first one to wake up. Also, most of his herd was gone, but those were minor details. While he played with blockies for a long time, having the time of his life, the other fluffies with him woke up one by one, and were struck by the sight of new (they were well used) toys for them to play with! Two started playing with a ball, another played with a really fun ribbon of rainbow colors, and the one foal with them came over to watch Lemon play blockies. Lemon showed him how, and helped him play too! Lemon didn’t have any foals, but he wanted to be a daddeh, so he was always trying to practice by being a good fluffy to foals. It was only then though, when Lemon eventually let the foal take over, that he realized there was something wrong. A lot of the herd were missing!
Lemon told the babbeh, “Stay hewe. Wemon go find hewd,” and then went off to look for them! The other fluffies with him didn’t seem to notice, but Lemon had! He looked everywhere. Under the blockies, in the soft, nice blankets he found, in the litter box, in all the corners and little cubbies, but he didn’t see anything! Finally he gave up and went back to the other fluffies, but as he started to tell them the rest of the herd was missing, a scary noise happened!
A loud buzz happened as the unseen sound system had trouble connecting properly. It was so loud that every fluffy in the enclosure covered their ears with their hooves, Lemon included. Then, it stopped, and a voice started talking from the ceiling!
“Hello good fluffies. Are you confused where you are? Where your herd is?” Steven asked. He’d recorded everything as cheerily as he could for this. He wanted them to trust his voice, since he planned to be sure they never saw him.
Lemon nodded, the other fluffies nodded, “Whewe am?” Lemon asked nicely.
There was a long pause in the recording to allow questions, demands, anything, before it continued, “That’s okay, I’ll explain. This is Project Utopia, but you can just call it Fluffy Land. It’s a nice place for fluffies. There are no monsters, no humans, lots of places to sleep, lots of water, toys, blankets, and all the food you could need!”
Lemon gasped. There was food here?! He felt his tummy make hurties just thinking about food. He’d been so happy to play with blockies he forgot how hungry he was. He hadn’t had anything but grass in a lot of forevers. He hoped it wasn’t more grass.
“As for where the rest of your herd is, all twenty of you were put in four different rooms. If you want food, you all have to come to the big room. There’s a door here. Every night when it gets dark, the door will close. In the morning, the door will open. It’s morning now, so it’s time for the door to open!”
Like magic, the voice made the door open! Lemon didn’t even know there was a door there! He hurried out to be first, and was amazed to find an even bigger room! This one had a biiiiig light on the top, like the sun but smaller, and it was nice and warm. The room also had three other doors, each one had fluffies coming out that were from his herd! Lemon was so happy to see them!
It didn’t take long before all 20 fluffies, foals included, had gathered into the biggest room. They all happily talked about all their new toys and blankies and how pretty Fluffy Land was! Lemon even forgot about the food the voice promised, until the voice started talking again! They all looked at the wall the voice came from, which had a big tv in it that showed them…um…something. Lemon didn’t know. It just looked like lines.
The screen changed to a clock. It showed it was 10:00 AM. Under the clocked flashed, Food Time! And the voice explained, “Every morning, you get some food, and every night I’ll warn you the doors will close. There is also water in the little bottles to either side.” Lemon had seen those bottles in the other room too. “But food only comes from here, okay?”
A chorus of ‘otay’ came from the fluffies, though Lemon did hear Smarty fluffy say, “Gib food naow!”
And Smarty must have been really scary to the voice because suddenly, the voice said, “Food Time!” and they all heard a buzzer, a bunch of stuff falling out of the wall into a trough. Lemon was a bit cautious about free food, figuring it might be a monster trick. But then…he smelled something really really good! It awakened something primal in him, something baked into him…was that…Sketti?!
“By the way, some of the food is Spaghetti.” The voice added like an afterthought.
There was a mad dash for the trough, and one foal was stomped on in the stampede. “Owies! Bigges Owies! Why huwt Babbeh?!” the little sky blue foal cried, his back hooves broken like toothpicks. It had been the foal he’d played blocks with before, but even Lemon didn’t seem to notice. His face was pushed into the trough, eating his little heart out. There was some truth to what the voice had said, there was Sketti! But only some Sketti. Under the Sketti was kibble, but that tasted good too, just not as good as Sketti. Lemon filled up until his tummy hurt, and there was still way more kibble left! He was amazed! How as there so much food here? He went and drank some water, and even that was good! It didn’t taste yucky like the pond water they’d had the last bright time.
Bellies all full to bursting, the herd basically collapsed right next to the trough, and made a makeshift fluffy pile right there. Smarty talked about how he told them he’d get them all Sketti and good food before cold times. It was true! Smarty really was the best smarty. Lemon was so happy his herd had Smarty leading them.
They all fell asleep for a while in the big fluff pile, the foal that got hurt still crying into his mummah fluff until he too fell asleep. Lemon had never been soooo happy.
The fluffies all started getting up after a nice nap, and started going off together in groups, showing their rooms, many forgetting which rooms were theirs to start with, and all going off to play. Smarty stayed near the food wall, and kept yelling, “Gib Smawty mowe Sketti, nao!” but the wall ignored him. The two tuffies the herd had tried to kick the wall and give it owies, but that didn’t work either. Lemon just stayed and watched, wondering how long until he got to try Sketti again. He’d never had them before, but they were amazing!
When, eventually, dark times came, the clock started to flash on the tv and said Night Time! The voice finally came on again and said, “Okay fluffies, time to go to your rooms. I’m going to close the doors in ten minutes.”
Lemon didn’t know what a minute was, though he knew it meant to wait. He turned to go back to the first room, but then was confused. There were two rooms this way. Was it…the left one? Or the right one? Could he go to either room? Lemon was so dumbfounded that, he was only startled out of his hard thinking by the voice saying, “One Minute left before I close the doors!”
Oh no, only one! Lemon looked back and forth, over and over, worried, before running to the room on the left. He panted and looked back as he got in, only for the door to shut seconds after his choice. That was close! He looked around, and…he had no idea if this was his room still. The voice came on one last time and said, “Good Night fluffies.”
Lemon didn’t respond, still not sure about the voice…but…the voice did give nummies so…maybe the voice was good. Either way, Lemon would end up making his way to a cubbie, only to find two friends there! He started to walk in, then got bopped on the nose!
“Owwies! Why nose huwties?” he asked, rubbing his nose with his hooves.
“Is me and speshew fwend cubby. Find own, dummeh!” the red unicorn tuffie told him, one of the Smarty’s tuffies. He frowned, but listened, walking off to find another cubby, this one empty. Lemon went and grabbed one of the many blankets in a pile, and brought it to his cubby, settling in alone. It was nice here, but Lemon missed the fluff pile.
Within the large room, the poor injured foal had been stuck here by his back hooves not wanting to work. His mummah, unfortunately, had been trapped here too, along with her only other foal remaining from the litter, a bright orange mare, his sissy. The streets had not been kind to her babbehs. His mummah kept trying to get him to walk, saying he was too big to carry now, and now they were trapped here!
His leggies still hurt so much! Why did that meanie have to hurt him? He hadn’t even gotten to have any sketties! His mummah had, his sissy had, but not him. He was so hungry!
“Mummah…can babbeh pwease hab miwkies? Am hab wowstest tummy huwties!”
“No babbeh, mummah tell you you tuu big fow miwkies. Why you no hab sketties?”
He cried, his mummah still not listening to him. “Babbeh twy! Dummeh leggies no work! They is biggest huwties! Hu hu…” he sobbed again, just wishing his leggies would would finally! He was so hungry!
“Siwwy babbeh. You is wawky baby. Can wawk, wike sissy!”
“Nooo! Leggies no wisten to babbeh!” He insisted, with all his heart. He crawled towards her using his front hooves, his back ones broken, one even turning a weird color.
“Gasp! Babbeh! What happen to weggies?!”
“Meanie huwt babbeh!”
“What meanie?”
“…b-babbeh no no…”
And just like that, his mummah didn’t believe him. He didn’t understand it, but she’d had to convince herself that losing her babies was all their own faults. She was a good mummah, she was! “Stupid babbeh…you huwt you weggies. You wiar.”
“Nooooo! Huhu!” he sobbed into his hooves. Why didn’t his mummah believe him? Why didn’t she help him?
“C’mon gud babbeh. We go sweepies. Weave bad wiar bwoken babbeh hewe.”
“Otay mommah.” His sissy said, and it just made him cry louder.
She didn’t have a name, but she was a mummah! She had a gaudy neon pink fur and a dull yellow mane. She left behind another bad babbeh, and walked with her good babbeh. Her last babbeh. That made her sad to think about, but she just knew that meant her last babbeh had to be her bestest babbeh. Not like her broken liar babbeh she left behind. How did he even break his leggies? He must be so dummeh.
She didn’t remember which door was to her room, but she just picked on at random and decided, that was probably it. She walked up to the door, and waited. She sat, and still waited. Then she got annoyed, “Stupid dowr, open for mummah!” she demanded, and got nothing in return. Then she shouted it, but got nothing. She got up, went over to it, and knocked on it. It didn’t open! “Dummeh Dowr! OPEN!” she ordered, but the door didn’t obey. “Why dowr be mean to mummah?!” she kept shouting at the door, only to finally give up and walk away. “Sowwy babbeh, dowr is dummeh. No wowk.”
“Bu babbeh wan pway wif baww! Pwease open dowr mummah?”
“No can, babbeh. Bu mummah-”
Suddenly the lights went out. No light, no sounds, nothing. She gasped, “Dawkies! No wike!” She shouted, as her babbeh peeped in fright, and her dummeh babbeh cried louder in the distance. Then, a terrible noise started to play in the dark room. “Munstah!” she cried, turning and running full speed. “Babbeh, wun!” she told her last god babbeh, spring until she ran smack dab into a wall, knocking herself out.
Steven double checked his laptop had the settings right, then once more looked in on the feeding room with the night vision camera. It wasn’t amazing quality but it was enough to see, and oh did he get a laugh out of that. A fluffy mother that had just abandoned her foal ran scared right into a wall. Now it was just her two foals crying for their mummah in the dark room. He felt bad for them, but this was the first day of the experiment. He couldn’t ruin it by helping.
Now, the foals, and the mummah if she woke up, would warn the others what happened if they stayed in the feeding room. That it was dark, and there was monsters in there. In fact…a thought occurred to him. That poor fluffy was just gonna starve to death at this rate. And if he wanted them to believe there was a monster, he may as well leave evidence. So, he waited and once the other foal had curled into a ball to hide itself from the monster noises and the dark, he opened a little door on the side, hidden from the fluffies, walked in quietly, and grabbed him. He cried out, terrified, screaming, “No! Munstah! Bad uppies!” but Steven quickly and humanely snapped his neck to end the poor little guy’s suffering, and send a message. Then dropped the body unceremoniously, where it would be seen, in front of the food wall, then hurried out unseen.
Twenty fluffies was now nineteen, but that wouldn’t matter longterm. He shouldn’t have counted the foals in case something like this happened. Overall, the first day was a success. It would be a slow start, but he had plans for the experiment. Plans that included letting the little bastards have babies, which with nice warm conditions and plenty of food, was sure to happen. Speaking of which, he turned on the fan for the big room, cooling it down to a point the fluffies there would be shivering all night. He’d warned them to get into their rooms before the doors closed. Tomorrow, he’d start by letting them know the limits of their new home.
Hey. Longtime lurker, first time poster. I decided to take a swing at writing my own story after reading plenty of Maple’s. I have suddenly found that I wrote this whole thing today, and it may be good for working on my writer’s block on unrelated stuff. That all being said, let me know if you have any feedback, especially on tags, and yeah, thanks for reading. I got this idea suddenly of, what is someone did the Behavioral Sink experiment on fluffies, and while I’m not going to have it be exactly that, the general idea of, give the fluffies a place with plenty, but with a twist, is the basic premise.
