AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 106
ARES III SOL 107
“Mark?” Cherry Berry asked. “What means ‘license’?”
“What does ‘license’ mean?” Mark corrected her automatically.
Cherry rolled her eyes. “What does ‘license’ mean?”
“Where do you see it?”
“Here. In email.” Cherry turned the computer screen so Mark could read it. The text read:
Bandai International congratulates you on surviving on a hostile planet. We just thought you’d like to know that there are millions, even billions of people on Earth rooting for you who can’t wait for you to land safe on Earth where we can welcome you properly.
Of course, a great many people, especially children, can’t wait for your rescue. They want to have you in their lives now, and some unscrupulous people are already taking advantage of them by producing unauthorized dolls and other toys using the likenesses of yourself and your crew. These are generally of poor quality and reflect poorly on you- an injustice we at Bandai wish to correct.
If you agree to license your likenesses to Bandai for use in producing official toys for the children of Earth, we can guarantee that the resulting product will be high quality and faithful to the original (i. e. yourselves). Furthermore, Bandai as a license holder would have legal standing to act on your behalf to punish the greedy people who are making the poor-quality knock-off toys we mentioned.
Attached find a draft contract for you to consult. In the absence of your normal legal counsel, we have approached NASA’s legal department to act on your behalf in this matter. Please contact them if you have any questions on the terms and conditions, which we consider very generous.
Mark read it again, frowned, and said, “License is permission to do a thing. In this case, a company wants to buy your name and face.”
“What??” Cherry Berry’s forehooves flew to her face. “You said you have no magic! I still using those!”
“No, no,” Mark reassured her. “Not like that. They’re asking you to give them permission to make toys of you and your crew. Nobody else would be allowed to make those toys.”
“Oh,” Cherry Berry said, and added in Equestrian, “I wonder how Flim and Flam got into this universe.”
“Sorry?” Mark asked. “I understood ‘how’ and ‘got into this.’”
“Nothing,” Cherry Berry sighed, using the same tone she’d heard Mark use about a thousand times when asked to explain something he didn’t want to. “I need ask home.” She left the computer on the work table, dropping down from the stool she’d been seated on and trotting through the bare, moist soil they’d been preparing for replanting. Starlight Glimmer’s spacesuit had been left on a sample case for ease of communications with Equus. “Dragonfly!” she called out. “Important message home. I want your hoof!”
“Aw, bossmare,” Dragonfly giggled, “I never knew you were interested.”
“Ha ha. Get splashing,” Cherry said as she switched on Starlight’s suit life support.
AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltimare, use suit SG for replies, over.
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, over.
AMICITAS: Company from Mark’s world wants to use crew’s names and images to make toys, etc. Please advise. Over.
ESA: Since when did Flim and Flam make it over there, over?
AMICITAS: I know, right? But this is serious. You said cooperate with Mark’s people, keep them happy, over.
ESA: Stand by, will ask Chrysalis, over.
AMICITAS: Standing by, over.
ESA: Open bidding. Ask Mark’s space agency to manage the bids. – C. Also give preference to educational toy makers. – TS Over.
AMICITAS: Thanks for advice, will pass on word. Out.
ESA: Stand by, Amicitas, over.
AMICITAS: Standing by, what? Over.
ESA: Since Mark gets messages from home, we think it would be good to send crew messages from here. One per day. Over.
AMICITAS: Understood. When? Over.
ESA: First one now if you like. We have 10,000 and more letters here for all of you. We keep best ones in life support room. Prepare for message for Spitfire, over.
AMICITAS: Ready to receive, over.
ESA: Quote. The Wonderbolts team isn’t the same without you. We fly missing-mare at every show and will fly it until we rescue you. You may have left the team, but you never stopped being a Wonderbolt. We’re coming for you as soon as we can, and when you get back your old job is right where you left it. But don’t ask for your old records, because I kinda broke a few. Stay awesome! – Rainbow Dash and the Wonderbolts. End quote. Over.
AMICITAS: Message received. Thank you. Looking forward to tomorrow’s. Out.
Fireball set Starlight Glimmer in the copilot’s seat with a thump. The unicorn grit her teeth to repress a grunt of pain. The bone-knit wasn’t totally ineffective, but it wasn’t the miracle medicine it would have been back in Equestria, either. Her broken forelimb was knitting up, but it was a long way from healed.
“I still think this is stupid,” he grumbled, sitting in the pilot’s seat and reaching over to turn on the backup radio. “Stupid questions. Doesn’t get us any closer to home.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” Starlight replied. “And who knows? Friendship can do amazing things. So let’s be friends with Earth, hm?”
Fireball grunted, punched one more button, and spoke. “Hermes, this Friendship on 108.6 maygahurt,” he said. “Hermes, Friendship, comm check.”
“It’s megahertz,” Starlight said. “And repeat it so they get it if they weren’t listening the first time,”
“It’s their stupid idea,” Fireball insisted. “Their idea and their time. They ought to be listening.”
“Repeat it anyway,” Starlight insisted. “Please.”
Fireball rumbled in his throat, but he repeated it, this time pronouncing megahertz correctly.
Five and a half minutes later, both Fireball and Starlight heard in their headsets, “Friendship, this is Hermes, reading you two by five. Ready for scheduled transmission, over.”
Starlight made herself a little more comfortable. This would take a lot longer than the humans were expecting. “Hermes, Friendship, reading you five by five. Broadcast begins…”
Johannsen fought the urge to curl in on herself. She trusted her fellow Ares III crewmembers, even if they were all crowding her station listening to this incredible combination of babble and horse sounds.
“Did Mark say this was Welsh?” Martinez asked. “Because it sounds more like horse-Russian to me.”
“No, it is Welsh,” Vogel insisted. “Or possibly Flemish. It is not guttural enough to be Russian.”
“He was wrong about ‘l’ being every other consonant, though,” Beck added, “ ‘L’ is only every fifth consonant. ‘Ch’ is the one that comes every other one.”
“You’re recording this, right, Johannsen?” Lewis asked. “And not any of us?”
“Affirmative,” Johannsen said.
The babble stopped for a moment. Then, in English, the same voice continued, “Greetings, Earth. This is Starlight Glimmer. Some of you have asked the crew of our ship to answer a few questions so you can know us better. To help with this, I have sent this message first in our own language; now I send it again in yours.
“Since our languages are very similar in grammar, we hope this will help you understand our other communications in the future, and that someday we will be able to talk one to another clearly, with full understanding, as friends do.”
“Oh,” Beck muttered, “that explains it. Good idea.”
“Sehr gut,” Vogel agreed.
The interview began, with Starlight reading both questions and answers, leaving a long pause between the two as requested by NASA.
INTERVIEW #1
What is your name? “Starlight Glimmer.”
What did you do on your ship? “I helped create the Sparkle Drive. I was aboard to observe it and to collect science data from a trip to a nearby planet.”
How did you get into space flight? “My teacher Twilight Sparkle wrote a report explaining that our world orbited the Sun and that the princesses moved the world to keep it from freezing one side to the Sun at all times. Almost everyone thought the world was flat before then. Rocket travel was a fantasy. When everyone decided to make a space flight program, Twilight Sparkle made one for our country, and I helped.”
Who do you have waiting for you back home? “I have a lot of friends, including my best friend Tricky and my childhood friend Sunburst. And of course Twilight and Spike and Small Pink Pie and… well, many others.”
What are your impressions of humans? “Humans are very much like ponies. I think we will be very good friends once we can communicate freely with one another.”
Do you look forward to visiting Earth after your rescue? “I would love to see Earth! Your technology is amazing! I can’t wait to see all the wonders you have to show us!”
What will you do when you finally go home? “I will do what I’ve always tried to do, sometimes not as well as others. I will work to make friends and to make the world a better place for everyone.”
What is your favorite disco song? “Dancing Queen.”
If there were one little thing (not a ship) you could have from home, what would it be? “About a thousand sheets of paper. We don’t have any and it drives me nuts!”
What message do you have for the people of Earth? “Everyone can be friends if everyone works at it. Where I come from friendship is the most powerful force in the world. By working together and thinking of one another, we can accomplish anything.”
“That was sweet,” Johannsen said softly.
“A little saccharine if you ask me,” Martinez said. “And that ‘favorite disco’ question? Commander, was that you?”
“I plead the fifth,” Lewis said, not doing well at suppressing a smile.
Over the speakers, the tinny voice said, “This concludes our transmission. Thank you, Hermes. Thank you, Earth. Until tomorrow, Friendship out.”
I'm sure NASA will have fun chewing on that sentence.
Clearly Chrysalis has her mind on the bigger picture (as usually) and working together she and Twilight offer up good advice. I'm sure the toys will turn out awesome.
And so begins the marketing. Capitalism, ho!
My mind-stomach is overburdened.
Assuming you are going for german, "Sehr gut" would be the correct spelling. [a silent letter is always tricky if translating by sound]
Just something that jumped out at me.
Omg Twilight cloned herself...
8784684
I want a life sized Dragonfly plushie
Hope we get the rest of the interviews. Starlight's was adorable. And Fireball grumbling through his in broken English and muttered Equestrian swear words would be great.
You know, i feel that Mark should be taking some Equish language lessons for a change instead of only having the ponies (+ changling + dragon) learning english. Unfair if only ponies are learing a new language.
I know that since the ponies are comminicating with Earth, they need to know english... and since Mark is NOT talking with the ESA he does not need it. Still....... as a cultutal exhcange or for the future in case they make it? Or to simple stave off boredom.
Obvious question: Does Hasbro win the bidding war for the pony toy monopoly?
Should be “Sehr gut” for proper Deutsch.
8784701
I think they will but I hope they don't
8784699
He tried that first remember? He physically can't pronounce a lot of it properly. He kept accidentally making obscene propositions and the Equestrians begged him to stop trying. Plus he HAS apparently been picking some up anyway.
8783367 "See, this is Richard Dean Anderson. Before I was born he played a character called Angus MacGyver. He's my spirit animal. And this is Richard Dean Anderson twenty years later, when I was a little kid. Here he was playing Jack O'Neill. He's Commander Lewis's spirit animal."
8783678 The Kickstarter for the Dr. Demento documentary film had a set of all 17 Basement Tapes CDs as a mega-bennie. I couldn't resist. (And I remind everyone, I do a show of that stripe, with only a handful of listeners at present, on DementiaRadio.org every Wednesday night!)
8784278 Kevin Flynn had a digitizer for CLU to hijack. Where is Starlight going to get one?
8784616 The highest priority in this case is reducing astronaut time in space. The Ares missions are about a year long. Even with centrifugal gravity, this has serious permanent health effects. With this in mind, both deceleration burns and aerobraking plus building Hermes robustly enough to withstand aerobraking will be used. Get them to Mars faster, then get them home faster.
8784680
Although that raises a very critical space detail about the Equestrian Solar System, that shows that the planet is tidally locked with its host star, and without Celly and Lulu every species would be royally fucked and it would be barren
Well comrade Starlight WOULD be Russian wouldn't she?
8784684
Bandai does good work.
8784693
Think of the donation NASA got from Bandai to forward that email.
Thank you! This was the laugh I needed today.
8784699 He is learning Equestrian, as shown in this chapter. Humans just lack the parts needed to speak it. Like Han and Chewie.
8784682 In another interview, I forget where, Lehrer said something to the effect that he gave up writing songs when he could no longer laugh about what was going on.
8784691 8784701 In first draft I had it "Ser guht."
8784693 NASA, even after the funding bonanza of the 2020s which made Ares possible, has a firm eye on bottom lines. Budgets are limited, and they're expecting to possibly need to house and feed five alien visitors indefinitely, so this becomes diplomacy.
8784699
He's learned some words but can't properly form the sounds needed for correct pronunciation.
The was fun, filler sure but fun. As soon as I saw Bandai I was laughing aloud in the break room.
Nibba I was so anxious when you didn't upload at midnight like alway I though you had died or something don't scare me like that.
8784693
Don't be ridiculous.
A Ferengi would have argued that, since they aren't from Earth and therefore have no one representing them on Earth, it is is to the benevolent Bandai International to step up and file a copyright to produce the toys, and if anyone raised a fuss, bring up the same argument that this is the best way to protect the use of their likenesses from unscrupulous parties until such time the relevant laws can be translated.
Really, they'd be doing them a huge favor, and they would likely be inclined to show their appreciation for Bandai's proactiveness later on, likely by only asking for 3% in royalties.
8784693
It makes some sense. The alternative would have been eventually Equestrians arriving on Earth to find widespread and poor quality merchandise in their likeness, including products that some of the Amicitas crew may strongly object to.
It wouldn't be possible to completely stop any bootleg products, but it would reduce it and should result in the general public recognising a trusted source for good quality products.
Yeah, it is quite corporatist and the comparison to the Ferengi is justified, but the Federation recognises intellectual property rights too (it just doesn't have a profit motivation).
And of course the Equestrians have the right to say that the rights to their likenesses will remain their own; they're not being forced to sell.
8784724
IIRC prior to Celestia and Luna running things unicorns were able to accomplish the same thing.
Alternative answer: when Discord went bugnuts eons ago he broke the planet's spin and left it tidally locked. Celestia and Luna then took up the task themselves, and "unicorns once did it too" got into legend somehow, maybe even as a legit thing that when Celestia and Luna were too tied up dealing with Discord a whole bunch of unicorns managed to spin the planet for a day or two... before having to pull back in the alicorns because all the unicorns could barely open their own eyeballs.
And there it is. Interestingly, the way she phrased that allows NASA to interpret it as some sort of planetary engineering project. If I were NASA and I saw that, I probably wouldn't think "our magic goddess moves stars around." Rather, I would more likely interpret it as "one of our monarchs managed a project to reposition a planet at a different distance from our star."
Although I'm unsure what Starlight intended to communicate here. She's clearly saying that the planet was in orbit around their star, and not the other way around. In Changeling Space Program, Luna overtly moved the moon in real time in response to a changeling ship. Given that, it seems strange that Celestia wouldn't be moving their star in this verse. And thinking that the world was flat doesn't make much sense here. Whether it was unicorns moving their star or Celestia moving their star, or whether they were moving stars or planets...if they understand that one object is moving around the other in a space that contains them both, I'm unsure how any of them would have come up with the idea of a flat planet.
8784758 ...by only asking for 3% in royalties.
In cash. From the ponies. Once per quarter...
8784772
Same way humans in the old days thought the Earth was flat...
I just thought of something that Equestria NEEDS to ask NASA some time soon. It was shown that after the 5d shift, the planets weren't in the same 3d spot as their parralel worlds. They are going to want to know the radius of earth's orbit so that their probe attempts don't get booted to a different universe. And that doesn't even consider all the space debris they will have to avoid.
8784724
Actually, it's not true tidal locking. For some odd reason, possibly due to Discord's actions before his first defeat, Equis cannot conserve its own rotational angular momentum, so its spin slows much more quickly than mere lunar tides could account for. Thus, Celestia has to give the planet's rotation a boost every day. If it was just tidal locking, then a one-time boost would last for eons—the Earth will not become tidally locked to the Moon, much less the Sun, within the Sun's remaining lifetime of 5 billion years.
8784765 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEkZI8vGDxo
As far as I remember Ponyville school have a globe. Another one you can see in SGU. Hell, orrery in Canterlot also have round planet models. And stained glass in Canterlot throne room IIRC depict pony planet as, well, planet. Also there a book about "stars, moons, planets, the universe".
"Almost everyone thought the world was flat" don't make any sense unless they collectively try very hard to ignore globes, orrery and everything else.
8784781
Might I suggest that it is magic slowing the planet's rotation. If we say the angular momentum is being transferred to the universal magic field, then I think the numbers could plausibly work out.
8784776
Humans weren't moving their star in circles around their planet. Flat earth makes sense if your worldview is that up and down are fixed constants. That if you go down, all there is is ground no matter how far you go. Or possibly turtles, because "down" is a fundamental direction. How do you have that kind of conceptualization when you're using your magic to direct celestial objects in orbits around each other?
8784781
Maybe there's something like what's happening with our own system, except on a much faster scale. Currently, our moon has a great amount of angular velocity, and because of this it's getting further and further apart. This also has the effect of making our days longer, so eventually the moon will be completely unaffected by the Earth, and Earth would have slowed considerably in orientation. There's also the effect that as of now, longer days, means more carbon-dioxide in the air, as it means plants are getting less active on one side of the earth, thus raising the amount of gas in the air. I suggest that what the princesses actually do, is try and perpendicularly apply force to the moon so it spins closer to their own system, and Celestia just renews the atmosphere every once in a while so that the daylight can pass through unobstructed. However, this has the added effect of making the moon go into a more oval orbital shape, so they would have to be applying constant force towards their home planet all day long, and that's simply not possible, not even for beings as powerful as them. However, my argument can be put null and void, if it's proven that what Equestria is actually sitting on is just a Discworld.
Flat Equus worked as a joke opening in Changeling Space Program.
Here it's a bit...it doesn't fit.
Plus, the difference between moving a planet via magic and moving a star really isn't that important for a narrative like this. Celestia is horrifyingly powerful either way. There's little practical difference. Especially since being able to move a star doesn't mean you have many options for moving it that don't kill huge numbers of people.
This may be filler, but I love this sort of filler. I would read chapters upon chapters of simple interviews, e-mails and other interplanetary (/interdimensional) back-and-forths.
I know filler is bad, but luckily I'm a terrible fiction writer so I can enjoy it like plot.
It might make more sense to Martinez if the humans knew that Harmony forms the basis for Equestrian magic, and that ponykind was nearly wiped out by godawful supernatural monsters that foment, and then feed on, hatred, and which would have plunged their world into a deadly ice age. They saved themselves and God alone knows how many other sapient creatures from an extinction-level event brought on by things that literally eat murder and then built an ongoing defense into their very civilization itself. That might cause them to regard "friendship" as being a tad more important than their human counterparts do, because it fucking is that important.
8784772
Which is...actually somewhat plausible. If they can actually alter the rotation of their own planet and associated celestial bodies, it's equally possible that they could move them both into a different orbit if they wished to. The need simply hasn't ever came up, as far as we know. Assuming that fusion physics work in CSPEQ!universe as they do in the "real" world of The Martian and their sun is roughly equivalent to our own in mass, age and output, then their sun is slowly brightening as time passes. And, also equally plausibly, ponykind, or some other magically-adept species, might at some point need to alter their planet's orbit in their far distant future to keep it comfortable for life. Or perhaps they'll just tinker around with the sun itself, using some sort of really advanced techno-magic whatsits.
We actually seem to have an example of a Kardashev 1 or 2 species (or species-complex) that never developed space travel capability because the idea simply never occurred to them until now, when someone on their world realized they they could do it, and then someone else found an interesting reason to do so. I wonder if anyone on Earth is going to realize that, and what their reaction is going to be. At least THIS Outside Context problem is friendlier and better-behaved than most.
"Even by filler standards this is filler."
Oh, I disagree!
8784735
Buy that <...> merch
Buy that <...> merch
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8784684
Chryssi knows a little good PR never hurt nobody.
Bughorses are gonna be as big as Mickey Mouse on TM!Earth. And I would give my left nut (the right's already spoken for) to see what would happen if Chryssi ever visited and brought an entourage with her. I have this mental image of a horde of 'lings descending on an amusement park, or Disneyland, or Six Flags or whatever and going completely nuts as they try everything. They're giving bughorse rides to kids and basically being such daffy goofballs that they charm the pants off of literally everyone, at least until they accidentally break everything in the park and they have to reluctantly leave their buffet of adoration. Then Chryssi goes into a slow burn when she gets presented with the bill:
"They...broke Disneyworld?"
8785009
Nothing wrong with good filler. Is NICE!
Yeah, selling the License for the likeness might be a bad idea. No that the commercial side of things is coming up it might be best for the ponies to set up their own company and leases the license instead for determined amount of time to most suitable company and go with that.
Pony Inc. (Name pending) who holds all the trademarks, patents and all other Pony innovations hosting their own team of Lawyers would be the thing to do here. I am quite sure this could be gotten up and running in very quick fashion, and expert lawyers would be more than ready to work for it pro-Bono in the beginning until it starts to generate profit due to prestige of it. Owner could be the Equestrian Monarchy, and to me it would be only natural that they might even ask a fellow Monarch, the Queen of England to act as a supervisor of the company so it adheres to all laws and morals which befits of the Monarchy on Earth. (Also there are some other Monarchies in Europa, some which still hold true political power, who i think would be all too eager to polish their own prestige by helping out Monarchs from other dimension.)
This to me would be the best long-term solution, as it neatly even side-steps all questions about Alien rights, since it is a company which is merely owned by the Pony Monarchs. (And Chrysalis) Rights of all would be ensured, Ponies would get good economic allies and aid on Earth and opening stages of Politics would be made in quite solid manner.
"Small Pink Pie" Gave me a giggle. Mostly because I had to stop and think about it and my mind landed on Little Finger Pie.
8784680
If Equus is a tidally locked planet, then the princesses perform telekinetic rotation of a planetary reference frame according to the polar axis tensor...
They are rotating the time-space containing the planet, not the planet itself, so there is no perceivable acceleration!
In the cartoon, there were a few cases when Equus ceased to rotate because princesses were indisposed.
@pottedllama
Yes, this is Kardashev 2 level feat...
Pony Inc, on Earth, should be run by Watson lawyers so theres little human wages required and they get far better returns for their investment. The Queen, UK, is a peculiar entity in that of the multiple Billions of UK sterling raised by Crown resources each year, the UK goverment gets 100%, then gives The Queen, UK a payment in return called The Civil List, consisting of so many Millions.
Wonder how many Draconic swear words will be running round educational establishment recreation areas by next week?
Make the companies big for non exclusive, non comprehensive limited renewable contracts for license to offer designs for consideration and approval towards the application process for production sale and distribution of agreed on items at locations, pricing and costings to be determined. Once Celestia has had a look over the paperwork, and had her Grey Clerks use the Temporal Scry to give Prediction Trees.
Our current best temporal back projection of state information might only be 10 nanoseconds, but there is at least one commercially available microprocessor that has a gurenteed deterministic 8 nanosecond response time, and so should be able to be placed in superposition. Once they bounce it off the moon, that gves the human operater a full second to change their mind.
Soft bots are coming along nicely. Far more child freindly. And medically assitance capable, and compactible for delivery, just add compressed air and water.
Still need to find all my old 90s notes on autotemporal fallback comminucations data coding that I was trying to find information on back then. At least one things a lot easier these days, cheap broadband modems use massively parralel channel transmission which Ive been trying to find sum to zero solutions for. Probably missed it being used because all the terms have changed over the decades.
Then again, NASA only implemented ZModem fairly recently? Keep transmitting no matter how badly the data is recieved, and the return channel tells which data to retransmit, which is rescheduled for the next buffer slot, with modifications for weighting and priority, such as system control goes first, then images are MSB, FFT LF componants first?
So, horse-Russian is "иго-го", while horse-English is "neigh"?