AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 180
ARES III SOL 179
TRANSCRIPT – WATER TELEGRAPH EXCHANGE BETWEEN EQUESTRIAN SPACE AGENCY AND ESA AMICITAS
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, over.
AMICITAS: SG - Baltimare WTB?? I was in the airlock! Over!
ESA: Sorry, urgent message. Who is Rich Purnell? Over.
AMICITAS: Someone at Mark’s space agency. Seems to be working on Sparkle Drive applications. Some of the equations were beyond me, over.
ESA: We have mages and scientists from around the world working on those equations! If they’re right, this person solved the energy-mana conversion problem! We always thought that was impossible! Over!
AMICITAS: Repeat conversion of energy to mana is possible, over?
ESA: In theory, if the equations are correct. Practical application could take centuries, over.
AMICITAS: Was not planning on being here for centuries, over.
ESA: Sorry, Amicitas, just so excited. Please find out who Rich Purnell is ASAP, over.
AMICITAS: Fine. By the way, rethinking cave sealing spell options. Are you sure ceramics are a good idea, over?
ESA: Watertight, airtight, mineral. Strong if you make it thick enough. Best idea we have given your conditions, over.
AMICITAS: How many cups have you and Spike broken over the years, over?
ESA: Understood, but still our best idea. Over.
AMICITAS: OK, will contact Mark’s people. Please don’t splash me again. Out.
[10:35] WATNEY: Starlight Glimmer here. We’re preparing to seal the cave as you ask. We can change the dirt around the cave to another substance, but we can’t think of anything better than ceramic. Rubber would crack. Do you have a better material that we might know?
Also, please tell Rich Purnell that his equations are being examined very carefully by our best scientists. One of them could revolutionize magic on our world. Who is he? Could you tell us more about him?
[11:08] JPL: We’ll get back to you about the material. I don’t know Rich Purnell personally, but I’ll see to it that your message is passed on.
TO: NASA JSC Human Resources (hr_admin@jsc.nasa.gov)
FROM: Venkat Kapoor (kapoor@ares.nasa.gov)
SUBJECT: Need to find an employee
Who is Rich Purnell? Please send me the complete employment file ASAP.
Dr. Venkat Kapoor
Director, Project ARES
TO: Venkat Kapoor (kapoor@ares.nasa.gov)
FROM: Annie Montrose (montrose01@nasa.gov)
SUBJECT: Rich Purnell
Who the fuck is Rich Purnell? I’m having to spread a bunch of bullshit to the media about him! And can we do a delay on releasing Pathfinder chat logs in the future? I don’t appreciate being blindsided like this. If you want me to do my fucking job, don’t drop this crap on my head!
Annie
TO: Venkat Kapoor (kapoor@ares.nasa.gov)
FROM: Theodore Sanders (tsanders_admin@nasa.gov)
SUBJECT: Today’s Pathfinder chat
Who is Rich Purnell, and how did he get the direct email address for Starlight Glimmer? And why am I learning this from CNN?
I want answers, Venk. I want them right now.
Teddy
“And tonight on the Watney and Company Report, the question the scientific world is asking tonight: who is Rich Purnell, and what does he know about the mysterious scientific discipline the aliens call ‘magic’? Tonight we’ll be speaking with experts from the paranormal community and renowned mathematician Charles Paravanian…”
Trending on Twitter
#BringHimHome
#BringThemHome
Star Wars – Birth of the Republic
#WhoIsRichPurnell
Yankee Fever
#HugABug
Potato Recipes
Tai Yang Shen
Rich Purnell you wonderful bastard.
They want to know who Rich Purnell is? Tell them he's a steely-eyed missle man. They won't get the reference but that's not really the point.
Yeah, getting another world to flip their tables about your math while being a basic unknown to all but a handful of people...
#whoisrichpurnell
Rich Purnell is a steely-eyed magic man.
Dragonfly in 6th?...
That is pure bullshit... She'll be first by the end of the week (this Saturday).
I take it Star Wars Birth of the Republic is one of the ones in the Rian Johnson trilogy? And as for #HugABug, I get the feeling a lot of pet scorpions are going to get their tanks hugged fiercely.
8843614
I swear to God if that is actually going to be a working movie title...
Who is repeat who is Rich Purnell? The world wonders.
Rich Purnell, you magnificent bastard:
static2.fjcdn.com/comments/Manly+tears+over+good+feels+_836c6ec777e94eacc88e3632336365fd.png
Also: how long will it be before people on Earth try to organize a mass, directed sending of love in hopes of reaching Dragonfly across interplanetary distances? I can imagine Dragonfly looking up when Earth is at its closest approach and this wave of attenuated love, goodwill and joy from tens of millions of people comes pouring down on her from above like a beam of faint golden sunlight, settling the question once and for all whether love is superluminal.
Okay, nobody's ever actually asked that question, but still...
8843621
#WhoIsTheMagicMan
Oh poor Rich. How is he going to get any work done when everyone keeps bothering him?
Who is Rich Purnell, indeed.
Didn't we meet him in Sol 134? Was that section edited out of the story?
This is the sort of chapter i live and breathe for!
8842479
#GiveUsTenHasbro
after the #HugABug, insect pet sales have skyrocket and the japan china and all of Asia are trying to keep up with the demand for exotic insect and many parts of Africa are trying to keep up as well with South America getting in on the action.
Also YES YES YES YES do that plz i want to see the interview of him!!
Rich Purnell seems likely to have both a Fields Medal and the Equestrian equivalent in his future.
I'm still hoping that he gets an on-site apartment, personal chefs for the remodeled JPL kitchens, and an office jacuzzi after winning the reward money.
8843654
Rich Purnell is one of NASA's astrodynamicists. In the book, he comes up with the "Rich Purnell Maneuver," which allows Hermes to return to Mars for a Sol 570 flyby, which is soon enough for Mark to survive without getting a resupply from Earth after Iris 1 (which was intended to be a resupply to last him until Ares IV arrived) failed on launch. In the story, he's been talking to Starlight Glimmer about the Sparkle Drive, and apparently trying to build one himself.
Good job, Starlight. Have fun explaining this to NASA.
Also, #HugABug. Beautiful.
8843621
Given that it was Equestria who asked first, perhaps it should be "the worlds wonder"
8843677
I think we've found Zefram Cochrane's other alias.
I LOVE this, I love all of it. Who is this mysterious magic man?
#HugABug
i.imgur.com/MuJOFZu.jpg
8842885
Have you tried turning it off and then on again?
8843690
Ooh, centipedes. Nice.
8843672
I can already see the invasive species
8843677
All we really know about him here is that he works too hard, almost lives at the office, orders a lot of takeout, never takes vacation until like, just a couple weeks ago, and requested some supercomputer time to process some equations and no one knew what he was talking about.
That's about it.
8843588
I'd also like to see the aftermath of her first visit to Earth. She's going to make Eggplant look svelte.
8843695
I thought they were adorable :)
i.imgur.com/XzyFAVb.jpg
i.imgur.com/SR4KzWA.jpg
Who is Rich Purnell?
Try to understand...
He's a magic man.
8843696
hey it already happen with pet fish snakes and many more, and bugs are just one ofd the new ones, but most likely gorvment will say "ok you need to get this kind of cage and so"
but ya you know there going to do it
plus bugs are easy to hide and snake in just put it in a toy boat drone or air craft and boom done
Gotta admit, I was a little annoyed that ole Rich gets a few notes and is suddenly better at magical theory than all of Equestria combined. Buuut the rest of the chapter was too funny and I don't really care anymore. Much.
I called it last chapter so it's not like I can't say I saw this coming.
Funny that they didn't. Didn't they notice the request and response for those equations in the first place? I'll have to reread that.
8843682
8843621
Annie Montrose et al are now experiencing why you want to encrypt your communications, even when it accidentally results in epic salty mistaken emphasis at exactly the wrong historical moment.
8843728
If they're smart, they'll keep him and find or create a place where his particular brand of insane genius is useful because a person who can understand the mathematical underpinnings of actual magic is just about vital for this going forward. If they choose to fire him, not only are they going to create a Category 5 PR shitstorm, they're going to be making it much, MUCH harder on themselves. Earth desperately needs arcanotech specialists.
8843697
That's just as much, if not more characterization than the book gave him, right down to the supercomputer time for some pet project. In the book, that turned out to be plotting the Rich Purnell maneuver. Here, it's calculations relating to the Sparkle Drive.
8843737
They'll still never be able to accomplish what Starlight, Twilight, and the rest do though. 😊 Understanding it is one thing. Being able to do it is a whole differant thing.
8843714
Earwigs and scorpions. Hoo boy, do I have some history with them. I used to live in Phoenix.
8843737
You don't need to be smarter than Equestrias brightest, if you cheat.
There are no simple solutions to (for example) simulating precisely how black holes collide, and you are strongly limited by how far you can go 'by hand' not by the depth of your understanding of the problem - but by not being able to use approaches like splitting the problem into parts as there are too many parts.
In the past five devades or so, we've gone from a basic set of equations which explain black holes to being able to simulate in detail what hapens when they merge. This was not through brilliant people developing more advanced equations, but very clever application of increasing amounts of supercomputer power.
Similar things are happening in many areas of science, where existing known equations which seem impossible to apply to complex systems are leading to breakthroughs in areas thought impossible to calculate, simply because doing a hundred billion computations is now possible.
It doesn't require him to be smarter than Equestrias brightest, just that they have a system of equations around magic that lead to the interesting bits being very hard to calculate.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/189683/destinies also goes into this - applications of computers on magic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ11CyAHVdo goes into some of the problems of working through the implications of 'simple' equations - in the context of black holes. An equation you can write down on one page can take weeks of supercomputer time to work through the consequences of that equation.
8843737
He's not better than all of Equestria combined. He is very good, very obsessed, and had two things they didn't. Namely, an outsider perspective and a supercomputer. I imagine that once she gets a book on computer theory, Twilight is going to crank out Equestria's answer to Hex within a year and create the entire field of Computational Thaumaturgic Analytics.
Well at least we know now why Rich needed super computer time, to apparently derive magic with SCIENCE!!!
8843763
Hm First of all you need to verify IF he has really broken any rule. Then you have to evaluate if your embarrassment at your incompetence in managing the mail system is worth the competence of one of the most brilliant astrodynamicist, and the one guy who seems to get magic...
Firing HIM is one of the most STUPID idea you can have seriously. And his boss seems to be quite aware of that, as he seems to have put up with his quirks just fine. In the economy of the story he IS a known quantity. And if you don't want people to talk directly to the people on mars you put a damn filter on the mail server as it's one of yours.
8843733
fairly certain that the trading in exotic alien insect species is illegal just about everywhere, i watch the AntsCanada ant channel on You Tube and hes always talking about only keeping locally forming colonies as pets for that very reason.
8843737
They didn't see the exchange cause it's happened in e-mail which is private and protected by law.
8843807
Just like, I assume, the counseling emails where Dragonfly talked about being worried she'd eat everyone. Just off the top of my head. Man, imagine if THOSE got released.
8843694
Wow, that actually worked. No wait.. there is just a new chapter :/
Seriously. This is huge.
This is a bit outside what we know is Rich's field of expertise, but then we know little of that from the book.
I love how EVERYONE is blindsided on this. Poor Venkat.
8843803
Really the biggest problem is that any message sent by Mark or the ponies is being published in real time. They are freaking out because CNN grabbed the name and ran with the storybefore their own people truly realized he had managed something noteworthy.
Having worked in highly classified sectors of the gov't a couple times, I can tell you that e-mail directories are typically an open resource, so being able to contact Starlight directly likely won't get Rich in any trouble. Should he have gone through the normal channels, sure, but this would be a mild reprimand at best since he did not violate classification protocols.
8843790
He is also autistic. Not sure if autism a thing on Equus.
Just noting that the age-old practice of advancing the borders of science by trial and error is a lot easier when you have umpity-ump megaflops of supercomputer time to work your virtual abacus.
8843830
I would assume so, but I don't see what that has to do with anything. Not being neurotypical doesn't give you superpowers.
8843838
Tell that to Temple Grandin or Albert Einstein.