LOG ENTRY – SOL 10
It’s a shame the History Channel changed its name to RealTV. I have the perfect concept for a show: the Psychic Aliens Show. (Because as we all know, psychic aliens are responsible for everything, from the Egyptian pyramids to the Indian pyramids to the Mayan pyramids to Stonehenge to the Nazca Lines to why the Bulls have sucked rocks ever since Michael Jordan’s final retirement.)
And the best part is: we could film it all right here in the Hab!
Sorry, but I’m still just overwhelmed by the stuff I told you about in yesterday’s entry. At least one of the aliens has telekinesis and some form of telepathy that translates their language. But I’ve gotta say, the translator is a long way from Star Trek. For one thing, here’s a transcript of my chat this morning with Magica, which lasted about ninety seconds before she fell over again:
MAGICA: Healthy sunrise. Where we?
WATNEY: This is the Hab, mission Ares Three, in Acidalia Planitia, on Mars.
MAGICA: (shakes head adorably, probably got a long string of absolute gibberish) Identity yours?
WATNEY: My name is Mark Watney. Call me Mark. What’s your name?
MAGICA: (gives me a funny look) You identified on behalf of planet? (Note: I’d forgotten, but I looked it up as a kid, and sure enough, “Mark” comes from the Latin Marcus, ‘dedicated to Mars’. Nobody knows what Watney means.)
WATNEY: (shakes head) What are your names?
MAGICA: (points to self) Starwhite Mirage. (points to Cherry) Very Cherry. (points to Fireball) Slobberflame. (points to Puff Brannigan) Ball of Fire. (points to Buggy) Flying Dragon.
WATNEY: (sighs, because nothing can ever be easy, can it?) I’m going back out to try one more time to find the comms dish and see what I can do with the antenna farm.
MAGICA: Okay. Help we. (falls over, translation ends)
And in exchange for that incredible insight into alien language, psychology, and mental prowess, Fireball (the fuzzy one) gave me the ugliest looks for the whole damn day. This time she went out with me and Puff (or Fireball, or whatever- Macho Lizard) for the final search for the missing dish, I think to make sure I stayed the fuck away from Magica.
But seriously, let’s talk about names for a minute. Starwhite Mirage? Very Cherry? Those make as much sense as Mark Watney, I get that. The psychic translator probably just had an advanced-aliens brain fart. (If sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, what does that make a sufficiently advanced brain fart?) But Slobberflame? Who would name their daughter anything like that? And Ball of Fire- or Fireball? Yes, it’s a good name for a dragon, I admit that, but it’s inconvenient that his name just happens to be what I’m calling the flame-pony. And Flying Dragon? Why is that a name for a bug, when there’s an actual dragon right here?
Yes, I know, I’m ranting about silly things. The sad thing is, it’s the most productive thing I’ve done today.
It’s time to face facts: the dish is gone, and the communications array, all of it, is trashed beyond repair. I could wire the remaining pieces together, but there’s no point. There’s not enough bits of the array to pick up a signal from Earth all put together. The thing had a lot of pieces and took up a lot of ground for good reason.
And I could make a replacement dish from scrap around the Hab, but that’s not the big problem. When the dish sheared off it took the motor with it- the motor that points the thing at Earth and keeps it pointed there while Earth and Mars move and rotate. Even if I could replace that, and I can’t, the aiming software for the antenna wouldn’t know what to do with it.
I’ll have to ask my new friends if they have help on the way, but otherwise I’m on my own, which means it’s time to think long-term survival.
Thankfully the Hab itself is perfectly intact after the storm, as is everything inside it. I have air, water, food and shelter for a good long time. I can even share all the veggie meals with my new herbivorous friends and still have over two hundred sols of food without rationing.
The problem: it’s four years until Ares IV shows up. The math is a little complicated, but it works out like this: four years is a fuckton more than two hundred sols. Metric or imperial fuckton, it doesn’t matter, because I’ll be over a thousand sols dead either way.
Of course, if NASA doesn’t know I’m still alive, Ares IV won’t be prepared to rescue me. And Ares IV sure as hell won’t be ready to rescue five aliens, assuming Big Momma Alien hasn’t already come to take them home.
So I have two major priorities: restore communications with Earth, and find some way to keep eating until Ares IV arrives. Once I solve those, I can solve the third problem: getting to Schiaparelli Crater, where the Ares IV MAV is. It’s about 3200 kilometers away, and the current maximum range of my rovers is 35 kilometers.
Your homework for tonight, class, is to do the math and tell me how well that works. Be sure to show your proofs step by step.
In the meantime I’m going to start rationing food- actually I already began yesterday. Our meal packs are calibrated to provide plenty of energy for highly active astronauts in a hostile environment. That means they have a lot more calories than a bare survival level, and a lot more protein than you’d normally need on Earth. That’s good, because although I have all the vitamins I’ll ever need thanks to the medical stores, I am really going to need protein and calories for the long haul to keep from starving or wasting away in Mars’s subtly lethal 0.4 g.
If I restrict my physical activity to only the absolutely essential effort- only the stuff that keeps me alive- I can cut my rations to three-quarters without suffering any serious ill effects. In particular I need to put some protein aside for rainy days. If I were alone that would extend my food supplies to about Sol 400.
I need to figure out a simple way to explain this to my guests in less than a minute. I don’t think it’ll take too much explaining. They have a lot less food than I do, even if Buggy still refuses to eat more than a bread scrap or two off my plate. (And I think she was only humoring me doing that. She’s obviously trying to act adorable for my benefit. The scary thing is, it’s working.)
But rationing the food packs isn’t going to be enough. I’m working on a plan for that, and those alfalfa sprouts I put in the experimental soil are just the start of it. Half a cubic meter of loose Earth topsoil is not going to feed six people for four years no matter what you plant in it. I’m going to need more.
And I have an idea for how to get more… though I think my guests really aren’t going to like it.
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY SIX
Ponies, changeling and dragon looked at the large plastic sample tub, at the recycled and already rather grody sponge wipe sitting on a smaller closed tub next to it, and at the picture the alien- Martian Redbarrel? What a bizarre name- had drawn on the whiteboard.
The picture was very graphic, very disgusting, and very obvious in its meaning.
Still, despite that, and despite the language barrier, Cherry Berry spoke for her entire crew when she asked the question.
“You want us to whaaaaat?”
Damn I love how you always think about small things and that shows in how good your story is and that tangible realism.
Adorable bug lives on adorablness :D
If I had money, you would be getting it.
Unfortunately, like a changeling, you must subsist upon my adoration instead.
Translation magic notwithstanding, I'm expecting them to start hammering at each others' languages soon. Probably starting with numbers.
Pfft, Slobberflame.
Short chapter, but funny, and I'm thinking the next one will be pretty interesting.
You're a farmer, Cherry. Fertilizer is fertilizer.
In any case, the modified decoding spell clearly isn't a sustainable solution. Martian Redbarrel and the horse people (one of my favorite 70s experimental groups) are in for some crash course linguistics. This should be quite interesting indeed.
This just keeps getting better!
You've managed to capture the style of The Martian extraordinarily well so far. Mark's sense of humor is spot on, and the way you described the accident in the beginning in a way that was just like how The Martian did while also involving magical ponies was fantastic. I'm loving this so far and will definitely be reading Changling Space Program in the future.
I always, always love language barrier stories. Its just so much fun seeing bad translations. Especially MLP given that literal translation of any name looks like a pony name.
Interesting on the calories thing.
If he spends any time asking about why buggy/flying dragon doesnt eat, i expect something like "eats feelings/radiation/magic" depending on mechanics, translation sophistication, and how magic gets translated. "Magic/psionics/force"
Looking forward to more.
8651422 It's fun in the short term, but it can grate fairly quickly. On the other hand, I've read too many unconvincing "they learned the new language enough to speak ideomatically in a few weeks" stories to go that route. So we'll see how it develops, but communications will be halting for a good long time.
That pile of earth sil was sent along to make an Earth Closet. These days sold as a Composting Toilet. That was designed in appearence as what we would consider to be a low flush toilet facility, but needed no water. which is a big plus on a limited resource mission. the trick is keeping liquids and solids seperated. And the liquids make excelent liquid fertiliser, because earth crops have had a couple million years to evolve along with the humans fertilising them, never mind the couple millenia breeding projects.
Ah, the dynamic directional thing. Bad enough trying to compensate just for planetary rotation, polar mount and one motor, you then need a second set for tweaking orbital m otion of local palnet, then target.. Which is why computers are used. Pity its so difficult to keep the easy to use ones working. wlthough theres been some intresting reports on smartphone chips surviving LEO conditions, because theyre too small to thermally difference crack?
Herbivores have completely differnt waste than omni/carnivores. Can lead to all sorts of problems, but, can also solve problems. Herbivore waste is too high in carbon. Carnivore is too high in Nitrogen.? Mix the two and you get a near perfect blend for maximum decomposition, and heat generation. Maybe too much. Get a waste heap too large and its capable of not just killing off any life forms within, but when it ignites, killing off everything around it as well.
All that fertiliser. fortunately no carbonised trees or sulphur vents, or someone might be tempted to make signal flares?
8651473 Just to be clear, in both the book and the movie the Earth soil was packed along specifically to be used in a series of experiments to test the suitability and adaptability of Martian soil for Earth-style agriculture. There was never the least consideration of using it as part of a latrine until Watney needed to make a whole lot of Mars dirt into Earth-like dirt as soon as possible.
...meh...?
I read the prequel, but I haven't read The Martian, or watched the movie; so my only reference is the MLP stuff and I have to say that this is really weird. The whole story feels like it was written by multiple authors all of whom are doing different things.
Some parts are obviously designed to be an adaptation of The Martian, but other parts feel like the story was written by one author, given to a different author and then written in a "well what do you think happened?"-manner.
So... Mark's gonna use poop as a fertilizer here? I'm honestly hoping this place has gravity.
8651514 Close. I'm writing everything, but I'm switching from viewpoint to viewpoint. And each character's viewpoint is necessarily limited. I could probably do a better job on it, but that's what I'm doing.
8651516 They are on a planet, not in free-fall. There is gravity, although only about two-fifths what we have on Earth.
8649355
I remember the hydrazine incident. One of the most thrilling moments of the whole book. And yes, I did recall the fact that the lander can separate out the Oxygen from the CO2.
...now I want to read The Martian again.
8651524
I assumed that what you were doing, but the writing style is very... awkward? You obviously tried to change your style of writing depending on the point of view but it comes across more like some trying to mimic your writing style and failing... badly?
8651462
VERY good synopsis at the end of the importance of nourishment for hard working individuals. It's just like Napoleon said, "An army travels on its stomach."
Break out the taters!
The dragon apparently needs gemstones on a regular basis and can digest metal without ill affect. How would his poo differ from that of tge human and ponies'?
If he really CAN digest rock, and can be convinced to, that might actually be beneficial. It might be able to make minerals present in the stone accessible by plants and remove toxic metals and chemicals like perchlorates.
Goddammit
I'm freaking dying
Yeah, that one's sticking. He's Macho Lizard from now on.
Heh, indeed
Wait, there are imperial fucktons too?
Well, no, Big Momma Alien just juggles the sun around. The expert in anything else space-related would be Slightly Less Big Auntie Alien
Hah. Subtly lethal.
Well, good. That takes care of her rations
Uh, there shouldn't be a pony concept anywhere near "Martian"
Though he might suspect from the earlier conversation, Mark would be quite amused to know he's been renamed to "Martian"
Whoo... yes, okay, that's quite a difference.
I always did assume he must've looked pretty thin at the end of all that
Andy Weir had a lot of scientists among his readers while he was writing, and got a lot of feedback from a lot of science angles... but I doubt any of them were actually NASA nutrition experts.
8651601 That quote of Napoleon's is particularly ironic, considering that he habitually left his logistics to "sort itself out." His family were notorious for embezzling funds intended for the soldiers (and everyplace else in the budget too, come to that). It nearly bit him in the ass in his earliest campaigns in northern Italy, but the chickens really came home to roost in Russia. It wasn't just the cold that killed nineteen men out of twenty in the Grande Armee; it was starvation after an entire campaign of the Russians destroying every food supply possible, right down to setting Moscow's central granary on fire after the French had taken the city.
Oh, by the way...
From "Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary", page 268:
i.imgur.com/MazHEOD.png
8651750 Starlight does have a concept of "Martian," i. e. "person of Mars." She has it because that word came through the gabble clearly. The ponies now know the name of the world they're on and, with a bit more spell refinement, the name of their host.
Unfortunately, there's still the "knocks the caster on her vaguely violet rump after less than two minutes" to work on, and in a very low magic environment that's going to be a toughie.
8651750
Imperial fucktons? Oh yes, they exist. Though there's quite the squabble between the adherents to either though. Stay out of that war. Really.
Another good chapter, though I did pull up 4 and set it alongside 5 - there's quite the difference between them, not merely the vocabulary but what each was trying to get across. Interesting... wonder just how much tweaking might have goofed that spell up...
Comments about nutrition brought up a review I can't recall where I saw it that tried to call bullshit on Watney's appearance after the timeskip. But what they ignored was that up to just prior to that skip he was still holding mostly usable intake. It was just as that skip began that he had to cut back so severely, hence the far more drastic change when it cuts back to him several months later.
And the reactions to learning how he's going to make soil... pretty much mirror mine when I saw that at the theater. I just about hurled in my popcorn at the thought of what he was doing, though I did immediately catch on to why he had to do it - it was the only way to get usable soil going.
Looking forward to chap 6!
Poor Spitfire!
This is just the pick-me-up I needed after a long exam day. Keep up the good work!
8651811 Right.
Another problem with the original book is that, early on, Weir makes a point about Watney needing to especially ration out the protein to make it last because the more active he is, the more protein he'll need. And then two-thirds of the way through the book he forgets that and has Watney not even start eating potatoes until his food packs are all but exhausted. Apparently Watney going for most of 150 sols eating nothing but potatoes, potatoes, potatoes, potatoes, cold mushy defrosted skin-still-on horrible potatoes, was more fun than, well, doing the thing Watney himself would have done- eat the taters FIRST and save the sealed, non-perishable, highly portable meal packs for LATER.
The ponies will disabuse him of that notion, if and when the time comes.
8651679
Now there's an exercise for the class: alien dragon gastrointestinal biochemistry.
Silicates how?!
8651765
I will point out that the book itself states that the origin is unclear, and early examples are lacking, meaning the path from the word to the name is harder to trace and less accurate.
While it does link to Wata's Island and Riparian Land, the first is located in Papua New Guinea and thus is likely younger most Watney's and Riparian Land....well given the nature of Equestria that may not even be a concept that exists.
Redbarrel is probably better then "Name for the type of unique environment that sometimes flourishes along the edge of a River." IF Equestria understands the concept of Biomes (Which is hard to say....we didn't have it till 1935, yet Magic makes their scientific development....odd) it becomes "Named for the Biome that occurs on the river edge."
Still not great, and not easy to exactly shorten into a name.
You're either knowledgeable about ale or a Monty Python fan.
8651679
Assuming he can't eat the mineral Felspar (Which given it makes up 60% of the earths crust and isn't transparent, or particularly shiny or anything would be stretching the definition of Gem to its very limits) the next 5 most common minerals on Earth are:
Quartz: Gem
Olivine: Gem
Muscovite: Gem
Biotite: A type of Mica, which while it CAN be made into Jewelery, rarely is. Given it breaks into thin, easily breakable sheets, if Dragon's do eat it, its probably not great. It is semi-transparent and has a crystalline structure, even if its full of cleavage and thus can break easily, so fits the shows definition of a Gem.
Calcite: Limestone and Marble. Stretching the definition of a Gem again, far more then Biotite did. Marble is beautiful and considered an amazing stone, used many times over the centuries for art, and we admire Stalagmites and Stalactites as well as other cave formations...but we have yet to see a Gem in MLP that blocks light completely so it likely doesn't count.
Of these rocks, Quartz (due to its Oxygen content) and Calcite (Carbon and Oxygen) are the most useful. Specifically, given the nature of Mars' Iron rich soils, Citrine and Amythist will be more common as they are both Quartz formed with Iron in the crystal. UNFORTUNATELY Nitrogen rich minerals are rare on Earth....but we aren't on Earth, are we.
(The following is speculations, unless I like a source.)
Of the top 5 minerals I mentioned on earth, I first though Olivine would be next to non-existent on Mars. It weathers incredibly fast on earth due to it forming in the mantle, and is only so common in Earth's crust due to continued geological activity. However it turns out that instability in the crystal structure when the pressure is removed is not enough to Weather it away. The destruction of Olivine requires Water and thus due to the lack of Water on Mars, as well as its long history of Volcanism, it turns out its even more common then then Quartz. The crust also contains a significant amount of Pyroxene, which is also a Gemstone.
Thanks Curiosity for this info.
Of course, finding eatable sized gemstones will be difficult. Olivine dust implies that their were Olivine Crystals SOMEWHERE, but finding them, if they haven't eroded away may be difficult. And this still doesn't fix the main issue. Nitrogen, which is VERY rare on Mars.
However, according to our knowledge of the Protoplanetary disk that formed our Solar System, Mars SHOULD have more Nitrogen. It formed in roughly the same region as Earth and Venus and both planets have heaps of Nitrogen. (While Nitrogen makes up only 3% of Venus' Atmosphere, the world has 105 more mass in its Atmosphere, and so actually has more Nitrogen N2 then Earth.) Given its not in the Atmosphere, we have two options.
1) It escaped into space....possible, especially due to the lack of a Magnetic Field.... but maybe...
2) It has crystallized in the deserts of Mars. This actually happens on earth although it requires very dry conditions for it to happen. Both Ammonium Salts and Nitrate crystals likely exist on Mars, and would almost certainly qualify as a Gem. Nitrogen rich Mica is also possible due to the lack of water.
An Extract for a Paper on the Subject.
NASA has also already found Nitrates, although that does not confirm how common they are.
However, whether Salt Crystals count as a Gemstone is entirely up to our Author. Such crystals rarely are considered such on Earth, but that is in part due to the amount of Water in our atmosphere dissolving them, breaking down the bonds and making them very quick to erode.
I also suspect they would taste absolutely foul. Humanity naturally avoids both Ammonia and Nitrates due to their strong smell.
8651462
I am tagging you Kris to comment on how awesome this story is, and because I suspect, based on how accurate you are trying to be, you will have to (or already have done so) do this research yourself. I am actually curious where you plan to get Fireball's Gems from. The nearest Volcanic Provence is Arabia Terra and from my UNDERSTANDING (admittedly haven't been able to find the exact 10km radius online so based it off the ability to reach the Sojourner Rover.) should be reachable from Ares 3. He certainly latter crosses it to reach Ares 4's Landing site. However thats also the oldest land on Mars, so surely most of the Gems their, unless well protected by a strong Geode, would have eroded away long ago.
Maybe the Gullies? They are a young feature on Mars, so may have exposed Gems that would otherwise be hidden.
((No need to spoil me, in fact please don't. Just having fun speculating your plans.))
Starwhite Mirage even sounds quite good, and Very Cherry works just as well as Cherry Berry. I liked how confusing Ball of Fire and Flying Dragon were while still accurate.
Poor Slobberflame
8651598
its just you, you don't react well to unreliable narrators.
You prefer a seamless narrative, and dislike the dissonance created when the narrative and presentation are purposefully discongrous, such as in a bait and switch story, or unreliable narrator story.
8651266
It was mentioned in a previous story that Cherry Berry is specifically not a farmer. Her talent is enjoying cherries.
8652424
An unreliable narrator in a hard sci-fi story would make the hard sci-fi aspect pretty goddamn worthless.
And I'm fine with unreliable narrators. im not sure where you got that idea.
8652603 True, though very little with ponies will stick to true hard sci-fi.
Anyway, "unreliable narrator" isn't the trope here. An unreliable narrator speaks directly to the viewer. Mark Watney's logs flirt with this, but not to the extent of, to use the Trope Namer on TVTropes, Lemony Snicket.
What I'm attempting is limited perspective (as opposed to universal perspective, where you can see everybody's thoughts at one time and any descriptions are taken as being the one truth). Every time I change perspectives, I'm trying to get inside one character's head and ONLY one character's head and see through their eyes. Thus we have Dragonfly and her lingering pony contempt, Starlight and her focus on understanding Watney, and (in the chapter I wrote yesterday and which will probably post tomorrow) Cherry Berry's rapidly growing case of imposter syndrome.
But nothing works for everybody. I'm gratified for the long feature this story has had and all the upvotes it's got, but those (as I type this) seven downvotes are valid opinions too. If it's not working for you, that's not a problem with you; either you just don't like my writing style, or I failed to do what I was trying to do in your particular case. Either way, you're cool.
8651970
I honestly don't see why riparian land wouldn't exist in Equestria; manage whatever you want, but naturally, there will still be specific plants of more water-requiring kinds growing around river banks. It's a simple matter of biodiversity.
And, y'know, "River Edge" doesn't seem too odd as far pony names go
8652700 Drachos was treating "riparian land" as a proper noun, i. e. "Riparianland," I think.
Which, come to think of it, makes me wonder what Gary Gygax would have come up with if he tried to make a monster-manual entry for the dread riparian.
I persume the translation spell in case of nouns works like this. It takes word, links it to a picture in the brain, takes the picture, links it to similar picture in the head of the second person and then it links the picture to the word. I think dragonfly is one of the names that should have been translated correctly. Fireball could have been translated like Sun because fireball looks like sun. Cherry would be translated correctly, but there would problem with berry. There is too much beries and the translation would depend on what berry Starlight likes the most. I think Spitfire could be translated correctly. Spit is spit and fire is fire. The hardest name to tranlate would be Starlight Glimmer. Both pictures would be quite unclear.
to quote the legendary Captain Monkey D. Luffy: Do you guys poop?
Yay, poop jokes!
If they need more magic... I could offer them some... *he motions to a crystal chamber within which float several semi-arcs of gold, partly molten* Heh heh heh... I found them, I did... the faint whispers from listening to the palantir of Gondor I followed to Mount Vitosha, long ago known as Orodruin, in Bulgaria, where the Sea of Nurnen grew after the Ice Age into the Black Sea. There, deep in a crevice... the pieces of the PRECIOUS!!
Changlings would be amazing pets. You know, aside front the fact that their, well, sentient.
Slavery debate aside, can you imagine a dog that didn’t eat, instead relied on keeping your affection to nourish itself? A pet that literally exists to keep you happy? That would be incredible.
This chapter is fine.
Didn't even notice that it had been shorter than the others.
I've always found your Author's Notes interesting to read. Well done.
I've just been re-reading some of the early chapters. "Slobberflame" still made me actually lol. Between this and "White Hen," Spitfire is really getting the short end of the stick when it comes to nicknames. I still think she needs to find out about both of these.
8662503
relevant: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/349066/i-am-a-pet-changeling
I'm not a nutritionist, but I do have a question that's been bugging me for a while.
Now that they've gotten their first alfalfa and potato harvests, is the quality of the *ahem* compost going to decrease in relation to how much of their crops they eat? In other words, after their bodies extract what they can from an all-alfalfa and all-potato diet, what nutrients would be left within their waste to promote the growth of future crops?
8798642
Two words... Crop rotation
8760510
it could have been worse, it could have been "flaming vomit".
(i like to think that's Spitfire's nickname, the one she whispered to RD in "newbie dash")
Nice names.
He needs their poooooooooooop!