AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 124
ARES III SOL 125
[07:28] JPL: Good morning, Mark. Bruce Ng here. We’ve got an interesting project for you and your friends, particularly Commander Berry.
[07:41] WATNEY: For Cherry? All right, what’s up?
[07:55] JPL: Check your email for a detailed procedure which should connect the Hab power to the MDV. Long story short, we’re going to get you home one of two ways: either we bring a modified MAV with the Ares III-B mission (if we can build it in time), or we have you and your friends travel to Schiaparelli to use the Ares IV MAV. Either way, the MAV would be piloted remotely from Hermes, but we’d like an experienced pilot in the MAV as a backup. Commander Berry is apparently the most experienced spaceship pilot the alien world has, so we want to bring the MDV computers back online and use the MDV as a flight simulator. The system switches aren’t in the same places, but the pilot controls are exactly the same.
[08:13] WATNEY: Hey, yeah! Cherry will LOVE that! So will most of the others. Dragonfly and Fireball have pilot experience, and Spitfire has training.
[08:27] JPL: That’s what we’re thinking. We also want their input on what alterations would be required to adapt the controls to hooves.
[08:41] WATNEY: Can do. One point, though; we currently have the Hab, the rovers, the MAV fuel plant, and Friendship running on Hab power. How close are we to exceeding the limits of the power system?
[08:55] JPL: Pretty close, but Rover 2, the alien ship, and the MDV all have batteries that should moderate the load. Also, you’re not running the fuel plant all the time, and you won’t be running the MDV systems all the time. Keep an eye on the hydrogen cells and let us know if they show undercharge after 17:00 your time on any day.
[09:09] WATNEY: Wilco.
TRANSCRIPT – WATER TELEGRAPH EXCHANGE, ESA BALTIMARE and ESA SHIP AMICITAS
AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltimare, use suit SG for responses, over.
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, over.
AMICITAS: SG – cast removed today. Leg is still a little sore when I put weight on it, but I’m resuming normal duties, over.
ESA: Good to hear, over.
AMICITAS: SG – Current priorities: more mana batteries, improving seal on cave farm, making new Sparkle Drive. Need advice on spell to seal pores in cave walls, make completely airtight. Over.
ESA: What spell did you use to install airlock? Over.
AMICITAS: Adapted Occlusion’s Door What Door. But very hard to apply to surfaces caster can’t see. Almost entire cave wall covered by crystals of varying size. Over.
ESA: Why did you choose Occlusion’s spell? Over.
AMICITAS: No upkeep cost. Other spells use power from magic field which we don’t have, over.
ESA: Understood, will research. Is there a leak? Looks like a good seal from here, over.
AMICITAS: Earth worried that seal will fail, cause blowout. They want us to reduce air pressure inside cave by 25% to relieve strain on cave walls and roof, over.
ESA: Repeat reduce cave air pressure 25%? That doesn’t sound right, over.
AMICITAS: Confirmed, over.
ESA: Stand by, calling in expert, over.
AMICITAS: Standing by. Another question: any progress on helping humans use magic?
ESA: Several methods tested, all require magic components, over.
AMICITAS: Suggest experiments with bits of magic creatures (unicorn hair, phoenix feather) in wooden wands. Got idea from human fairy tale, over.
ESA: Does Earth have unicorns, phoenixes? Over.
AMICITAS: No magic creatures of any kind known. But maybe non-magic substitutes would work once the concept is proved, over.
ESA: Hello, Starlight Glimmer. This is Maud Pie. It is good to hear from you. Over.
AMICITAS: Hello, Maud. What’s up? Over.
ESA: The sun, the moon, a number of asteroids, the space station, Cloudsdale, and many other things. But that’s not important right now. Over.
AMICITAS: Was that a joke, over?
ESA: Yes. Ha. Ha. Over.
AMICITAS: Ha! You haven’t changed. Over.
ESA: Regarding your question about your cave: the increased air pressure in the sealed cave has already caused the rock strata to flex around it. Reducing pressure would make the rock flex back, causing additional faulting and a possible breach. If you didn’t know, that’s bad. Over.
AMICITAS: I figured it out, Maud, over.
ESA: TS – So no, we aren’t reducing air pressure. Anything else, over?
AMICITAS: Negative, over.
ESA: OK, will work on sealing cave, wands for humans. Will contact 12:00 your time via ship life support with detailed modifications for Sparkle Drive based on experiments here. Be ready to take notes. Out.
To: Spitfire (a5_11@ares.nasa.gov)
From: Irene Shields (ishields@ares.nasa.gov)
Subject: Grown Adults
Please don’t show this to Mark. I want to explain why he might not be giving you the respect you wish, so that you'll be a bit more understanding of his point of view.
On our world humans are among a very small number of creatures that have a protective instinct for animals not of our own species. It isn’t a universal instinct. The more similar to a human child- the cuter it is, in essence- the more we want to protect it. You ponies are actually cuter than any human child in existence, and so you automatically trigger the protective response.
Mark has this problem worse than most, because he sees you as dependent upon him. He has accepted you as guests into his home, in a sense, and he wants to be a good, responsible host.
According to his reports, he sees you as being reckless in space flight and careless of the dangers of a space environment. By human standards this is accurate. We took what we consider appalling risks to go from the first manned space launch to a moon landing in just over eight years. The astronauts involved trained for a year or more before each launch specifically for that one launch. You went from no space flight at all to a moon landing in about two years with training times measured in weeks. You see us as slow; we see you as advancing at breakneck speed.
Finally, Mark is teaching you English, or trying to. He’s not trained as an English teacher. His main experience with being taught English comes from when he was a child, so he will naturally repeat that behavior when teaching the language to others.
These are the reasons Mark has been treating you like children, at least a little. The question is, how can you change that?
I can tell you right away that angry confrontation is your worst option. Mark responds poorly to anger and confrontation. Learning to curse like a sailor (as we say on Earth) won’t make him think of you as an adult- it'll make him act childish to match. Pranks or acts of rebellion such as your photographs will likewise backfire. In fact, if they’re particularly cruel, you risk losing the respect Mark definitely has for you.
And no, I’m not going to step in and order Mark to treat you better. First, I’m on another planet. Second, I’m under doctor-patient confidentiality rules. I’m not going to tell anyone what you told me in secret, not even him.
You need to tell him yourself, seriously and calmly. Don’t order him, but instead explain that you’re upset that he treats you like a child. This will work with Mark. Mark tries to get along with practically everybody he meets, within certain limits. He was picked for Ares III precisely because he helps bring people together. Once you explain your problem, he will try to correct his behavior.
I will warn you that there is one side effect you may not like. Mark tends to tease and joke with people as part of his making friends with them. Yet none of you have mentioned even once Mark doing or saying anything that might in any way hurt your feelings, even in jest. I’m guessing Mark is deliberately restraining himself, partly due to the language barrier, partly to save your feelings. If Mark decides to treat you as grown people, he may revert to his normal personality. He wouldn’t mean to hurt you, but he might out of ignorance of your culture or background.
If you really want a dictionary of bad language, ask Annie to send you one. She can get it past Teddy and Venkat, and after her backhanded photo shoot request, she owes you one. And she’s the expert on bad language around here.
Good luck, and if you need more advice, feel free to email me anytime.
Irene Shields, Ph. D.
Project Ares Chief Psychologist
...I find myself hoping that the ponies give Earth their conclusions, so they can run simulations. Cause I have a feeling the ponies are completely wrong. Yes it will cause stress, but right now it is under constant stress. Maud is looking at an immediate difference, NASA seems to be checking long term.
In other news, EWWWWW! on that drive. I did a Houston TX to Leavenworth KS in one day, and almost did an Alburquerque NM to Houston TX in one day as well. Never again. Hope your drive goes better than mine did. And keep up the good work, love the story.
Starlight making Harry Potter style wands for humans, and Cherry getting a flight simulator are both utterly fantastic. Also, Maud is right. She just is. This is geology, and she's like, the Rich Purnell of geology.
Buffer is at 4... The only obvious route then is to post 3 more asap. Space equines for the masses!
...or keep it steady so you don't burn out, that's also a valid option.
All in all I love this series and wish it to continue for the foreseeable future. A+
8809858
I don't actually think so. Rock is incredibly good at bearing constant stress even over geologic millions of years time scales. it's when the stress changes that you see failures.
The only question mark is how the permafrost sealing the pores in the rock reacts, but if the rock fails that's kind of academic. Plus the permafrost isn't going to have much in the way of problems from pressure so much as temperature.
...Damn, and I can barely handle the drive from Eastern Nebraska to Minneapolis-St. Paul, which are basically the same city.
What did ESA mean by "looks like a good seal from here"? Did they manage a way to send more data over to Equestria at somepoint that I'm forgetting, or was it just an odd turn of phrase?
Really nice chapter, Dr Shields is really growing on me. I like how she explained why Mark can't help but be protective and maybe just a bit condescending.
Columbia, South Carolina
I live an hour south of there! How long you going to be in town?!
I had not realised how much we needed a scene of Maud and Starlight
And I liked Dr. Shields admitting that the ponies are cuter than any human baby.
I think I'd go with Maud's opinion on the cave myself - things are stable now, so don't mess around with the structure.
As for the drive, ouch. I live in Australia, so I had to look up the distance on google maps. Then I got curious and investgated something: it turns out that from where I live, no matter which roads I take, if I drive that same distance, I would not be able to leave the state. Western Australia sneers at Texas.
8809910
They left one of the air crystals Amicitas used in the cave. The ponies in Baltimare can monitor how much atmosphere goes through, and would notify someone if there was a very bad leak.
8809916
true and it will benefit when coming to making deals for new ships like "us NASA have made a kickstarter for the world to save the ponies we need money for a new ship and the us gorvment have not done much of getting the gear we need to save the cutest aliens of the whole world. so give us what ever you can and lets make it to 500 billion$!"
in one week it would have happen
8809910 Equestria can monitor the air flow through the ship life support box. Right now it's balanced, i. e. the circulating air is the same going out as coming in, more or less, hence no leak.
8809915 I'm selling at Nashicon downtown. I arrive OMG:30 Thurs night and depart about 6 PM Sunday. I can't linger, either, because I agreed to work for someone else next weekend... in SEATTLE.
That's right, folks: opposite coasts (more or less) consecutive weekends. By car.
Very little writing of any kind will happen next week, which is one reason I'm pushing like hell to build buffer now.
Annie Montrose. NASA's head of media relations. And Head of the profanity department with a doctorate earned at the George Carlin institute of swearing.
8809910
It means there isn't a large pull of air from the Equestria side, which would be there if a leak existed.
8809925, 8809932
Gotcha, thanks
8809934 She and Malcolm Tucker are penfriends, if I remember rightly.
8809932
i hope nasa ship won't end up like this guy
8809932
Neat I live only an hour from Seattle, I apologize in advance for the bad drivers and idiot cyclists you will probably run into.
ESA: OK, will work on sealing cave, wands for humans.
You just need three tail hairs...
Next chapter is just them reading a swearing dictionary written by Annie, with even Mark learning new swear words.
8809977
I want Mark to become a wizard by the end of this so bad.
Instructions unclear, defaulted to SkyVector and calculated in aeronautical units
More Dr. Shields goodness. Maud is wonderful, as expected. I doubt the magic wand idea will pan out, but we'll see.
You're going to drive a thousand miles in one day?! I did a road trip last year that totaled about 5900 miles, but the longest that I drove was about 9 hours in one day. You'll need 14.5 hours! You're a little bit crazy, so get plenty of sleep before you leave and stay safe!
8809987
Mark the Wizard Botanist, riding on his loyal steed Starlight Glimmer into battle!
I'm not dropping this ship, no matter how little sense it makes.
8809977 Or a dragon heartstring... and what luck for Mark!
Ya ever notice that out of the 3 magical substances, only one results in the death of the magical creature?
JK is racists against dragons! I HAVE FOUND THE PROOF!!! (Alondro demands riots and looting and the death of the 1%... with all their money going to him, naturally... for... uhm... safekeeping! Yeah, that works.)
8810005
You get a million dollars, but every time you see a sign indicating distance to a place, it appears to you, and only to you, in a randomly-selected unit of length in the Imperial System.
Happy driving!
8810034
Wizard riding a unicorn on a rainbow in space?
8809977
8810037 There must be ridiculous variation in the prices of wands depending on their cores. Did the books or supplementary materials ever mention laws for standardised wand pricing or subsidies?
"Sorry, Tim. Mummy and Daddy can't afford a dragon wand. Also, we don't want magical PETA on our arses."
Umm, actualy I have done that, its a pain in the rear, and your pretty much toast by the time you get where your going.
8810050
... ... ...
Everything is done in nautical miles, except altitude which is done in feet. Regardless, the whole thing with SkyVector is that it's a one-stop shop for the various charts and frequencies at different airports. Why did I take the time to make this joke? Because I hold a Student Pilot Certificate, so the reference was that I'd probably fly that distance
Ooh, wand making! There are some excellent Harry Potter fics that go into depth about that, especially The Arithmancer (which I always recommend anyway)
So, he's got access to Pegasus feathers an unicorn (or earth pony, maybe better since they're extra prehensile) tail and dragon scales...now what to use as a source of wood? They do have crystals to try amulets instead....
My bet is crystal amulets with a magical creature bit attuned to you harmonically (Friendship and willingly given: Generosity is an Element!) so that it he he's the crystal with the magic from your own life force.
Then, once that's made, you can eventually learn how to make one without unicorn bits. Tools to make tools and all that.
8809929
There wouldn't need to be any deals, or begging for money. Getting Mark and the ponies off Mars would be probably the most important thing right now to the various world governments. They'd be shaving the budget of everything else to throw money at NASA.
First contact with a non-human civilization.
Discovery of other dimensions.
Incredible alien technology (Earth to Mars in just over 24 hours? Earth to Pluto in around 4 months?! Teleportation? Interdimensional travel? Life support that requires nothing more than a small crystal for unlimited air and water?). This is stuff that we could only dream of, and would make traveling the stars almost trivial overnight. Suddenly asteroid mining would become more than just a pipe dream. As would offworld colonies.
And this is before we replace the primitive 0.25 GHz processor the Equestrians are using with a supercomputer.
8810023
Eh, I did longer last year.
Austin, TX, to Lynchberg, VA. 22 hours.
Doable in one go, but requires some knowledge and prep.
I know I can go up to 15 hours fully alert before I start to fade. Thus, I know I need to find a way to get 7 more hours.
1: Pack before sleep, start trip as soon as I'm up.
2: Take advantage of how the blue spectrum of sunlight resets the sleep cycle. Start trip at 3 in the afternoon. 15 hours later, it's dawn, resetting my sleep cycle just as I'm wearing out.
3: Be caffeine detox'd a week in advance so caffeinated beverages and/or energy drinks are more effective on the back end of the drive.
4: Make liberal use of cruise control to minimize fatigue.
5: Have something more sophisticated than music on the radio. I listened to a 12 hour marathon of DBZ abridged through my phone.
8810037
Dragon hearts are actually made of crystal in this setting
8809924
8809875
The issue is the permafrost, which is why the requested lowering the pressure in the first place. While its true that lowering the air pressure will briefly increase stress on the rock, which is why Maud is going, "No, don't do that," The current air pressure is increasing the rate of the permafrost melting. By lowering the air pressure and temperature, they decrease the rate of permafrost melting which will inevitably cause the leak then blowout. (Essentially think like a Vacuum Flask).
Maud doesn't know that she isn't dealing with pure rock. Everyone has told her its a cave farm. Unless she has been to the Crystal Empire she has possibly never even seen permafrost. She almost certainly knows about it, but its so outside what she deals with on a day to day basis she wouldn't think to ask, "Is the cave 100% rock." I am of the honest opinion (just due to who she is) that if Maud did have all the information she would know exactly what the answer was, even before NASA finishes the simulations they talked about on day 104. But she doesn't.
All she has been told is "this is supposed to reduce strain" which she knows makes no sense. Based on her history with other Ponies, she then assumes that the Humans are just wrong, instead of asking "What type of Strain is the concern," as she has long experience with ponies having no idea about rock. This is a communication issue, due to the medium they are working with (Morse Code).
Maud asking for more details would have fixed this. Or Starlight being more specific. Or Twilight asking exactly what the humans were worried about. Or Mark didn't assume that the ponies would just trust his word and not go to their own scientists.
What they need is something no scientist would think to suggest, because without magic its blatantly impossible and violates the laws of thermodynamics. They need something to make sure the walls of the cave aren't heating up. They need to stop the heat exchange, by creating a layer of infinite thermal resistance.
If thats impossible, (which is likely as something like that would require a constant supply of magic.) they need a way to deal with the Permafrost. That requires either transmutation (turning it into rock) lowering the Atmospheric pressure in the cave, or....maybe.....covering the outside of the cave in ice.
They have infinite water, right? I mean right now its used to send transmissions, but it can be used for other things. If you have ultra cold water flowing over the cave, it could be used to take the heat away from the permafrost. So lets look at the preasure diagram of water and find out the minimum temperature it can be liquid at 6mbars.
Oh dear.
So ummm, Mars atmospheric pressure is slightly below the triple point of Water on average. This...this is bad. When the permafrost 'melts' the water instantly sublimates into a gas.
8809932
So did you know this? I didn't know this and it makes the idea of the permafrost melting so much worse then I thought.
8810179
Even the lack of true FTL wouldn't be a showstopper to interstellar colonization anymore. If--big assumption here, I know--there's a way to make long-distant teleportation of large, complex objects and organic material practical, we'd have been handed all the tech we needed. Combine it with the reactionless drive, and all you'd need to do would be to manage the mana it needed. The ship itself could be in constant, realtime contact with home, with the ability to send crew, information and equipment back and forth on the fly. Make sure there's plenty of redundant gates so that if one breaks, you're still able to maintain the connection with home. Shielding for radiation or particles could be provided either via magic or good, old-fashioned human ingenuity, or some combination of both. Even if the trip took decades or centuries, it's fine--the ship itself becomes a mobile research platform that's no more troublesome to reach than a restroom at Cape Canaveral, and you can continually upgrade it en route. When it finally arrives at its destination, you can deploy additional gate equipment before moving on to the next target.
Even assuming you can only reach 10% of the effective speed of light, you could theoretically canvass every stellar system within a hundred lightyears of Earth in a relatively brief thousand years or so, if you worked at it. I'm pretty sure that there's more than enough space and resources there for pony- AND human-kind, and just maybe even a new friend or two to talk with. Double that if the Equestrians are expanding on their side at the same rate,
For some reason when I read that my brain immediately thought "What? They're kicking Starlight off the show?!?"
My brain can be a strange and bewildering place sometimes.
Spitfire got mail. Reactions next week.
As long as the drive goes well. Sleep is good, but not at 70 mph on the freeway.
Using magical organics to generate magical waveguides will probably turn out to be like the difference between King Post roof trusses, and Stapled roof trusses. At first sight look exactly the same, but really check the details, and the behaviour and theyre totally different.
Unicorn hair you say... i wonder where one would get something like that, or maybe Dragon Scale? Mayhaps Changeling Whiskers would do in a pinch? Starlight really trailminded this part, there are infact several magical creatures available for such testing but they are not on Earth.
8809932
Holy shit, Nashicon!! I haven't been in years, but it's super fun and friendly, and the staff are all genuinely nice people! Enjoy, and don't forget to go try the Giant Board Game Event!
Also, my longest drive was D.C. to New Orleans, stop for a night, then continue to Tuscon, AZ in the morning passing through Houston and the Great Texas Empty. If you're making that drive to Columbia all in one go... Oof. Stay hydrated/caffeinated, take stretch breaks, drive safe!
And if you have time, say hi to the Nashi staff for me!
That's an insane drive. I've done a car journey of 900 miles before (Czech Republic to French north coast), which was nearly more than I could cope with - and I wasn't even driving.
8810095 Unfortunately, even if I myself were a pilot, I can't put a plane down at the convention center loading dock.
8810116 "... now what to use as a source of wood?"
Mental image of Cherry Berry on her hind legs, forelegs spread, blocking access to one of her seedlings.
I know the perfect way to deal with the permafrost: Liquid nitrogen!
Nitrogen can obviously be transferred by crystal, considering its the main component of air.
And liquids can be transferred by crystal.
Just take the ships old hot water crystal and repurpose it.
There, problem solved.
Oh, and before someone thinks: ponies don't have liquid nitrogen; It is a side product of creating liquid oxygen, And they have that for their liquid fueled rockets.
8810075 Witches and wizards don't have PETA... because they're so evil that they're like commienazis or something.
Clearly we need a witch-burning to remedy the situation!
Anyway, Mars. That's a planet, I hear.
8810217 Therefore the string is... asbestos? That would make sense...
i'm honestly surprised and see it as kinda a failing in the part of dr.shields that she didn't address the.... very very VERY troubling way sunset views her teammates, i mean seriously of all the reports spitfires has the most chance to be potentially fatal, and has under tones of all out racism that make the fact she was allowed on this mission frankly highly unlikely.
Holy ironbutt batman! Thats a good trek. Ive done 750 miles in 24 hours before on a motorcycle in 100+ degree weather, its one heck of a mission...
8810667 Would you volunteer to hold a hose that sprayed liquid nitrogen and attempt to find the cracks and crevices between crystals ranging from the small to the gigantic in the ceiling of a vast cave? Bearing in mind that you would be standing mostly UNDER the backspray and drip? Because that's Darwin Awards territory.