UR’s STEM majors declared war on the humanities Friday afternoon by laying siege to Drama House.
Shortly after 2 p.m., an improvised cannon created by the Society of Physics Students fired a pumpkin salvo directly at the Fraternity Quad residence. When that was blocked by a fortified tree prop strategically placed by the International Theatre Program, mercenaries from RIT proceeded to use catapults and trebuchets in an attempt to tear down the walls of what they described as a “monument to an inhumanely easy course load.”
The incident had originally been disguised as the annual Pumpkin Launch, but the intent of the event changed drastically after the organizers were overthrown in a coup earlier that day.
“Every semester, we have to struggle through lab reports, 500-page textbooks, and WebWork,” said junior and neuroscience major Cam Estrey, deputy leader of the movement. “Meanwhile, humanities majors are just coasting by. It’s time to take them down once and for all.”
The assault didn’t last long. Ninjas from the Art and Art History Department successfully camouflaged themselves and snuck behind enemy lines to sabotage the siege engines with sculpting equipment.
As the artillery brigade retreated, foot troops from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department advanced with improvised tasers on seemingly harmless humanities students crouching in the center of the Wilson Quad. Fed hacked battle plans, later found to be fake, by computer science majors, the engineers formed a circle three-people deep and started closing in.
But as the front line came within the functional distance of their tasers, a loud boom was heard from the steps of LeChase, where the West African Drum Ensemble had gathered. The initially unarmed humanities students started doing capoeira to the beat, quickly defeating the engineering students, as well as the environmental science students attempting to locate the best spots for defensive traps and trenches.
“Namaste,” sophomore Dan Cer said mid-tree pose among the raging frenzy on the quad around him. “You can’t fight well if you’re on edge the whole time. When you work as a team and go step-by-step, you achieve success.”
STEM forces began to retreat after students in the English Department, hoping to prove that the pen is truly mightier than the sword, started stabbing engineers while mocking them for not realizing the true irony of the situation. This, after several dozen creative writing students collapsed after writing war novels rivaling the length of George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series.
“Knowing the human body, there shouldn’t be any lasting effects of these wounds,” senior biology major Sai Entyst said.
As Entyst spoke, paramedics carted away a freshman crying about how he’d explain his new Rush Rhees tattoo to his parents.
In a last-resort attempt to prevent casualties, optics seniors Ray Lenz and Light Benderly unveiled an early prototype of their senior project, which blinded the humanities forces just long enough that the STEM forces could retreat back to their base, which physics students allege is in a hidden dimension inside of a spatial rift.
The Campus Times has not been able to validate these claims.
Humanities students rallied behind foreign language students — who had communicated the real battle plans in a cacophony of world languages — after the battle.
“We definitely couldn’t have done this without our multilingual friends,” junior Foren Lang — who is pursuing a dual Chinese and Italian major — said, pointing out that several of the troops involved in the operation were science or engineering students who defected from STEM. “Their bravery has shown that a well-rounded education is truly superior and beneficial to us all. But honestly, we were probably fine as long as we didn’t speak in equations.”
No fatalities or life-threatening injuries have been reported, according to the Department of Public Safety, but several students involved were MERTed after going insane while frantically trying to do their thirty hours of research, studying, and homework for Monday.
