AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 239
ARES III SOL 237
[08:01] JPL: Mark, this is Venkat. We’d much prefer that the Rover 1 computer and radio be integrated into Friendship, but we concur with your decision to postpone that until Dragonfly recovers. With that in mind we’ve got a revised procedure for you to detach the Rover 1 pressure vessel intact, install one of the Hab hydrogen cells inside, and convert it into a stationary radio relay post. A lot of the wiring for that task will come from salvaging parts of the MDV that are no longer mission critical. We should be able to continue its use as a flight simulator with the components remaining inside.
While you’re studying those procedures, we’d like you and your friends to proceed with the procedure set to remove Friendship’s tail and salvage its components. You still have a lot of time, but we’d be happier if we ran ahead of schedule than behind, and in theory trimming the ship is a simple task.
[08:27] WATNEY: Unable to comply today. We have a special procedure planned at the cave that might take all day. We’ll begin work on lopping off the back of Friendship tomorrow. This is more important.
“… the train began to move, and Harry walked alongside it, watching his son’s thin face, already ablaze with excitement…”
The five of them sat around the cocoon as Mark read from the computer. They’d all taken turns reading at various points. Spitfire and Fireball had stumbled across fewer words than normal. After yesterday’s revealation of the memories of the dying Severus Snape, the decision had been unanimous: to complete the final three chapters and epilog of the Harry Potter saga in one marathon reading session.
“As Harry looked at her, he lowered his hand absentmindedly and touched the lightning scar on his forehead. ‘I know he will.’ The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.”
After taking a deep breath, he said, “The end,” and closed the text document.
“Albus and Scorpius will be best friends at school, won’t they?” Cherry Berry asked.
“I still can’t believe Ron and Hermione stayed together long enough to raise kids!” Starlight Glimmer protested. “Ron is such a… a… give me that computer, I need to look up a word.”
Mark raised his eyebrows. “Do you want the thesaurus or Mitch Henderson’s swear glossary?”
“Both!”
“Who cares about them?” Spitfire demanded. “That was all happy-ever-after stuff. Talk about the battle! How cool it was!”
“I thought the part with Harry talk to Dumbledore was dumb,” Fireball insisted. “Too neat. Too easy. But it was good when he said he was wrong. About time.”
“Hey, cut Dumbledore some slack,” Starlight insisted.
“I don’t know what that means,” Fireball protested.
“It’s the same metaphor in Pony as in English!” Starlight said, followed by a quick burst of pony talk in which the name Dumbledore rose like a buoy in choppy seas.
“Oh. Why should I?”
“Because take it from someone who knows,” Starlight said, “you can have clever plans and mean all the best, and then have all of them go straight to… to…”
“Straight to Hell?” Mark asked, curious.
“No, no,” Starlight said impatiently. “You told me Hell is where evil people go after death, right? But back home we have a real place for evil people, and anyone can go there without dying first. It’s not far from our capital. I don't know what a good English name for it is, though.”
“Er… prison?” Mark considered this, and added, “By the way, when we get to Earth you want to be careful about saying Hell is or isn’t real, depending on which human-“
“MY POINT IS,” Starlight shouted, overriding Mark’s caution, “you can have the best plans and be the smartest person and it can all fall apart.” She stared at Fireball and added, “You can’t tell me you don’t understand that.”
“Not really,” Fireball shrugged. “I’m not smartest person, and I don’t have best plans. Not my job.”
“The battle!” Spitfire insisted. “What was that with Elder Wand? It sounded like Harry did something smart- clever,” she corrected herself. “But I don’t get how it worked.”
“Don’t you remember at the end of the last book?” Cherry Berry asked. “When the Death Eaters came in, Draco was the one who Expelliarmussed Dumbledore’s wand away!”
Mark silently considered how Cherry still stumbled over words and grammar sometimes, but had no problem coining the past tense of a made-up spell name.
“He did? I thought that was Snape!”
“No, it was Draco! He could disarm Dumbledore, but he couldn’t kill! But by the rules of the Elder Wand, that counted as defeat! And then Harry disarmed Draco! So that made Harry the wand’s master, do you see?”
“I guess so, but how did Voldemort die, then?”
“Because Voldemort never defeated Harry in a duel. Harry let Voldemort zap him without a fight. That destroyed the last Horcrux in Harry’s scar and-“
“I still don’t understand that,” Fireball said. “I thought Voldemort wanted kill Harry.”
“I think he didn’t mean to make a Horcrux,” Starlight said. “But he was kind of, well, ripping parts of his soul off and hiding them everywhere. That's Shadow-king level dark magic. Also really stupid. What he had left must have been really torn up. Maybe a piece just got… well… stuck.”
“That doesn’t explain why Voldemort finally died!!” Spitfire exclaimed.
“The Elder Wand doesn’t harm its true master,” Starlight said. “So when Voldemort tried to kill Harry, the spell backlashed on him. Voldemort killed himself.”
“Ooooooh.” Spitfire nodded her understanding, then froze. “Backlash?” she asked, horror growing on her face. “Does that mean you-“
“No, no, no, NO,” Starlight protested hurriedly. “Magic doesn't work like that! Ordinary spell failure doesn’t kill. The spell itself would have to be tremendously potent or else a dark magic spell. I just get headaches.”
“You just get in the bunk for days and days!”
“Because you won’t let me get up!!”
“Girls,” Cherry Berry said quietly.
The bickering ceased.
“My favorite part was where Harry used the Resurrection Stone to say goodbye to his lost family,” the earth pony said. “That was so touching. Especially when you consider he thought he was going to his own death.”
The silence grew silenter. Everyone quite pointedly avoided looking at the cocoon.
“So, um,” Mark said, trying to move things along, “what would Dragonfly have thought... er, what do you think she thinks about this ending?”
“You know she was all in favor of Snape,” Starlight said. “She’d be sad that he died, but she’d be strutting back and forth now about how her man was the real hero and how Harry couldn’t have done it without him.”
“That’s probably right,” Cherry Berry. “She kind of grew up with Snape, if Snape was an evil queen.”
“Really?” Mark asked. “I thought Chrysalis was a big space hero like you.”
“Not at all like me,” Cherry said flatly. “And I know her too well for her be my hero.”
“Closer to Voldemort than Snape,” Spitfire added. “Not so... wossword... obsessed... with living forever, but still sort of bad.”
“So,” Starlight said, “is that all there is?”
“Well, there was a play that was like an eighth book,” Mark said. “And some prequel books and movies. But those aren’t as popular. This is pretty much the end of Harry’s story. He went on to become an Auror, raised some kids, and had a long and happy life.”
“So, no more reading?” Starlight asked.
“Well, we got sent several other series,” Mark said. “A couple of murder mystery series to go with the Agatha Christie books-“
“Pass,” Cherry Berry and Spitfire said.
“Aw,” Starlight moaned.
“- some classic science fiction by Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke… but I figured we’d stick with fantasy.”
Mark’s fingers flicked across the keyboard, and a new text document popped up. “This one was written sixty years before the Potter books,” he said. “The author was deliberately writing it to be read aloud, like a story for children. But by the end it became part of the mythology he’d been making up all his life. And this is the first chapter…”
He cleared his throat and began, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat; it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
“What’s a hobbit?” Starlight asked.
Cherry looked around at the cavern they sat in, with hay growing, afternoon sunlight relayed through the forest of crystals in the ceiling, and a comfortable breeze blowing from the life support box, and asked, “Are we hobbits?”
Mark ignored the questions and continued to read.
Cool, now they can read something that's not drivel.
First for hot opinions? Edit: I deserve these downvotes
When I saw they finished Harry Potter, I thought, "If they have time before rescue, Mark should read to them Lord of the Rings, or maybe The Hobbit".
Well played.
... You know, I don't think I've ever actually read The Hobbit, only seen the movie (the original animated one, not the new trashy one). I need to do that at some point.
*Snorts* Pony hobbits.
You know, ponies and hobbits do have a lot of similarities now that you mention it. Ponies are more adventurous though.
I think this should be "him", since it's referring to Snape.
And now I have this image in my head of Dragonfly strutting around, oozing smugness from every orifice
8933712 I was going to mention "The Art of the Dress Reprise," and for that matter "Rules of Rarity" to make the point of negative heartsongs, but you've done better work for me.
"big space heroe"? Did you mean "hero" or "heroine"?
"there as a play" should be "there was a play"
At this time, I have no more to say. (Maybe I was hoping Dragonfly would wake up in this chapter because of their reading.)
It's hard enough for me to imagine Tolkien being read properly without an English accent, but now I have to imagine it being read by Matt Damon?
nah, they aren't hobbits, they're dwarves!
Now I want to see some fan art of these guys as the group from "The Hobbit", perhaps with the guys on Hermes making up the numbers, along with Venkat, Twilight, and Chrysalis. Or maybe the
MartianMaretian gang (plus Venk, Twi, and Chryssy) as the Fellowship of the Ring.8933811 The 1970s animation is remarkably faithful to the book, aside from leaving Beorn out and being a bit heavy-handed with the anti-war message towards the end. The book was written very much in the style of read-this-aloud-to-your-kids. For half a century prior fairy tales had been rendered into sickly-sweet, perfectly safe kiddie pablum for English kids, and part of Tolkien's goal was to both create something new (hobbits) and to bring death, consequences, and actual danger back to fantasy. The writing's dated and horribly patrician, but it's still worth a read- especially since the man practically invented the whole concept of world-building. "Secondary creation," he called it.
8933830
YES! YES! YES!
And here I would have thought he might introduce them to a book that might hint toward religion(s) to prepare the ponies for what will surely be a wonderfully blaspheme-filled culture shock should they reach Earth and be interviewed.
8933832
I loved parts of the animated version, especially the songs and the scene where Bard slays Smaug. Much better than the Peter Jackson version.
Cruise control is the anti-speeding ticket until i forget to hit the brake in a school zone...speed trap.
Heh.
8933829
We crashed and now we're stranded here (stuck, stuck, stuck on Mars)
It's freezing cold, no atmosphere (no phones, no lights, no motorcars)
Refusing to admit defeat
But still a pony has to eat
It's ten million miles and more
To travel to the nearest store
Stuck in a tent, a really long way from home
We found a cave, a sanctuary made of stone
It's a big job, all on our own
We dig all through the Martian day
So we can grow our spuds and hay
We are ponies and we're farming on Mars
Farmy farmy Mars, farmy farmy Mars
We are ponies and we're farming on Mars
Farmy farmy Mars, farming on Mars
(no, I'm not going back 150 sols to plug this into the story)
8933859 In my case I was staring at the clear-cut just done as the first step towards building a can't-come-too-soon bypass for the fleaspeck speedtrap town I was less than cautious about approaching.
8933853 I wouldn't wish Narnia on my worst enemy's grandchildren. I read the whole series once. Once. And felt no need whatever for a refresher. Even in fourth grade the allegories were too blatant for me.
8933869 I was more thinking Pip and Flinx adventures, myself. Something only with background references to it, but references the ponies will either latch onto or be able to relate to (depending on them having religion or not).
Oh, I forgot, you do have ponies as having at least a quasi-religion.
Never read the Harry Potter series, doubt I ever will. Now Game of Thrones that's my jam.
So, I know I may get some hate for this, but SNAPE WAS NEVER A FUCKING HERO! Just because you love someone doesn't make you some grand master in heroics! Seriously, just look at all of the shit he does to everyone who isn't a Slytherin! He was going to kill Neville's toad! All because of a small potion that Crabbe did ten times worse on! Harry's first year, despite the fact that he explicitly knew Harry had grown up with muggles and never had the chance to learn anything about magic, he still demanded answers to something that an 11 year old boy who just got told magic was real would never know! And then he punished him for it! The biggest example was that in the books (I can't remember where, been too long since I read them) Snape went to the Potter house after Sirius had retrieved Harry and given him to Hagrid. Yes, he did cry over Lily's body, but he didn't even spare a glance at James or Harry's crib. The most damning thing from that though was that he had picked up a photo from the house of Harry, James, and Lily. He tore James and Harry from the photo and only kept Lily.
Severus Snape was never a hero. Not even close. He may have played an important role to the downfall of Voldemort, but Dumbledore played a much larger one that he gets shit on for. Now stop claiming this bullshit and move on.
8933905 Snape was possibly the most genuinely human of the major characters in the Potter series. He was very much not a nice person, and he made a lot of mistakes. At the same time he was definitely a brave man, actively working to betray Voldemort despite knowing one tiny slip meant death. I wouldn't hold him up as a hero by any means, but consider Snape from a changeling point of view. Dragonfly would have gone head over heels for him by the end of the story, and all the ponies know it- even if they think Snape was a total jerk themselves.
Another good series to consider is The Wheel of Time.
Awesome update!
8933827
Exhibit A: Benedict Cumberbatch.
Exhibit B: Gilbert Gottfried.
8933860
You are magnificent.
8933876 Ponies have a creator myth. Practically every human culture has one. CSP/Maretian fan-canon is that other religions also exist, or struggle to exist, but it's made difficult when the subjects of worship keep asking their followers to cut it out.
(BTW, not in any way CSP canon, but highly recommend: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/345780/part-time-goddess-and-the-church-of-post )
That's a reasonable comparison. Hobbits are sort of like men of small stature. And ponies are sort of like horses of small stature. And the central, defining trait of hobbits is their innate goodness and harmony with the land. That's why they were able to resist the One Ring for so long.
...They're short, hairy, and hungry. So the three ponies totally qualify by the basic descriptors.
8933935 Interesting ideas, for sure. So, the ponies will have an idea of what religious arguments are (and why such never have a winner), and how some creatures might get worked up over them. This could help relations to some extent.
8933807
Would be interesting to see their reaction to the cosmology. Ponies don't seem to have a central big bad, and MLP has a recurring theme of redemption. Once-holy figures like Gothmog and Saruman that have "permanently fallen from grace" might be difficult for them. Middle Earth has a whole host of Luna's who became permanent, full-time Nightmare Moons who were never redeemed. And while the hero archetype would be familiar, it might be very difficult to explain to them why a Maiar like Gandalf or an elven queen like Galadriel would be unable to become a ring bearer, but Frodo could. It would be like saying that Celestia or Twilight couldn't handle touching the alicorn amulet without being corrupted by it, but Cherilee could.
Much of the cosmology and archetypes would be unfamiliar.
And I imagine that whole thing about the Witch King of Angmar being unable to be slain "by man" would also be strange in a world where the heroes are traditionally female.
8933980
Sure. A lot of humans--I have no idea how many, but enough to come across my radar--have trouble following this too. See the "Fly, you fools!" theory and the "Don't tempt me, Frodo!" rebuttal.
...I don't know if they even have actual names, so I'll sum up. FYF says that Gandalf had planned to ask the Eagles to carry the Fellowship to Mt. Doom; this introduces a plot hole of "why didn't he communicate this more clearly, or at a more opportune time?" Whereas DTMF reminds us that Gandalf could not afford to carry the Ring, on the principle that it would feed off/into his greater "power" (whatever that is) and make him a terrifying villain; this matters because the Eagles are demigods, and would therefore be even worse One Ring bearers.
8933949
More importantly, they both spend a lot of time in a relatively comfortable hole in the ground.
Mark just launched into The Hobbit...
His audience includes Fireball?
I'm not sure if his response is going to be: "Smaug was AWESOME!" or "Why are DRAGONS the bad guys here?"
This isn't like the little 'animalistic' dragons in Harry Potter. Smaug is a 747 with teeth, a foul temper, and a keen sense of wordplay.
I am now imagining fireball going back to Equestria and telling his fellow dragons the tail of the Mighty Smaug.
8933998
I find the simplest way to explain it is to put it into christian terms. Most people are familiar with the garden of Eden and man's fall from grace whether or not they believe it. Hobbits never ate from the apple, so they're free of original sin. From a state of grace, the hobbits are relatively unaffected by the One Ring. Whereas angels are extremely aware that even they occasionally fall from grace. Lucifer, for example. And knowing first-hand just how extremely bad it is when it happens, archangels like Gandalf know better than to risk it. "Do not tempt me."
Though occasionally somebody concludes that Gandalf is supposed to be Jesus because of that whole ressurection scene.
Tolkien was reportedly not a fan of putting his stories into those terms, but the "applicability" is certainly there.
For that matter, through the eyes of a pony, is Bilbo a hero? He's a hired burglar. He steals the ring from Smeagol who very clearly was desperately in need of a friend to redeem him. He lies to Gandalf and the dwarves about how he escaped from the goblins. He steals from Smaug. He secretly claims the Arkenstone for himself knowing full well that it's the most important thing in the whole world to Thorin. He abandons his friends during the battle of five armies and simply hides while some of them die.
I don't think the ponies will like him very much.
And half-way through the Fellowship of the Ring, Starlight goes "Why does this feel like a history lesson about the Pillars?"
8934057
...When have angels ever eaten apples? Or pomegranates (a more likely original forbidden fruit), for that matter?
Okay, and now the obligatory question... how fast were you going, and how far over the limit was that?
Speaking of speeding tickets, though, you know who CAN'T get a speeding ticket and who Mark wouldn't mind actually going a bit faster? Hermes.
Gotta say, though... I'm really looking forward to reading the Equestrians' reactions to being sent to space in a convertible; after all, the additional combined weight of the ponies (+changeling & dragon) and extra engines is still gonna necessitate all those extra panels being removed to allow the extra thrust to balance it all out, just like in The Martian
8933949
Also, hairy legs.
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8934097
Is Ryuk an angel?
8934030
Nah, he going to point out all the mistakes that Smaug made in protecting his horde and how he would have been able to increase his horde while getting the humans and the dwarves to thank him for it.
Because Fireball is boss
Sigh.
If only they've send Cloud Kicker instead of Spitfire.
First, the tag 'sex' on this story would become justified, and second, Dragonfly would never starve.
This made me giggle more than I would like to admit.
I remember a comic expounding on how ponies were to horses as hobbits were to humans, amd so ponies would watch My Little Hobbit and be "brobbits".
Yeowch going from middle school level reading to college level flower script. Good luck trying to learn English with that.
8933827 I wonder if it's a bifurcation among readers, whether you've read the book before the movie, as to whether you're locked into hearing Watney as Damon or not. I mean, it was one of the best adaptations I've seen, but he still is... the book-Watney to me.
8934057
I never heard anything about Hobbits being free of sin or naturally good. The way I was told was that the ring he carried has more of a corrupting effect the more powerful the wearer. So Frodo being so weak it had the least effect on him.
8934118
Shinigami is directly translated as God/spirit of death. Shinto personifies nearly everything as spirits, doorways, trash, rivers, etc. The equivalent would be the Grim Reaper of death itself.
8934097
Don't be too hung up on it literally being fruit. Sometimes it is, as in your example with Persephone. Or as in the case of Eris' golden apple and Paris, leading to the Trojan war. But Forbidden Fruit is a metaphor.
To answer your question, Lucifer is the most obvious example. He fell prey to the temptation of power, sought to usurp God, and it led to his fall from heaven. But in christian and jewish traditions, many angels fell prey to temptation. Read Genesis 6, for example. They "found the daughters of man beautiful" and descended from heaven and fathered a race of giants.
Speaking more generally, the metaphor of forbidden "fruit" resulting in a fall appears in one form or another throughout human mythology. Chasing after sex with the Sirens, and then they eat you. The Tower of Babel. Icarus flying too close to the sun and falling to his death. Or Rarity, for that matter, flying too close to the sun, and "losing her wings," like a fallen angel.
Similarly, the One Ring was not fruit either. Gandalf and Galadriel both sought to avoid temptation, in order to avoid the fall. Melkor on the other hand, succumbed, as did Lucifer and as did Luna. All three were jealous of the light, sought to possess its role for themselves, and it led to their fall.
Oh come on! The Equestrians would fall over themselves for Asimov!
Of course, spoiling them with Asimov runs the risk of making all other sci-fi lame by comparison...
8933860
Is this based on an existing song? Gilligan's Island maybe? What's the tune? And where would you insert it in the story, anyway?
8934183
I saw the movie, and I still struggle to hear Matt Damon's voice when Mark talks.