AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 513
ARES III SOL 503
“Sweet Faust, what a mess.”
Starlight Glimmer couldn’t help but agree with Cherry Berry. The previous forty kilometers, all uphill at various grades, had been bad enough, but at least they had been solid rock with only a moderate number of smaller rocks and boulders scattered here and there. But then had come the word to turn almost due south, rounding the end of the worn-down rim of an ancient, weather-flattened crater on their right, aiming towards the immense mountain to their south, and driving onto…
… onto THIS.
In unknown ancient days, the immense mountain had been part of the rim of the gigantic crater called Schiaparelli. For whatever reason, possibly to do with the smaller Edom crater to the northeast, part of the crater rim had collapsed, sending huge chunks of debris not just down the interior of the crater but also down the slope outside the crater. Billions of years of dust storms had weathered the debris and, at the same time, filled in some of the gaps between the rocks. Gravity had, very slowly, compressed the sand into rock, leaving only a thin layer on top loose enough to be kicked up by a hoof. And then, eventually, a couple of ponies leading a ten-wheeled triumph of tinkering over common sense showed up looking for a road down into the crater.
It had taken only a couple of experiments to discover that some of the seemingly middle-sized rocks extended a lot deeper below the surface. Kicking and shoving had no effect. Starlight had gone inside and, reluctantly, retrieved a mana battery. Her first attempt at lifting a rock had burned a third of the battery, unearthed a specimen almost as large as the Whinnybago itself, and triggered a slide and subsidence that eventually required the rover to detour over a kilometer to avoid it.
After that Starlight had just used cutting spells to slice and dice any rock too stubborn for Cherry to kick out of the way of the rover. Between the three of them (Cherry, Starlight and the almost-spent mana battery) they’d spent twenty kilometers literally carving out a path for the Whinnybago to crawl through.
Which left ten more kilometers, according to Mark’s friends on Hermes, before they reached the crest of the slope.
“What a bucking mess,” Cherry Berry added in English. “If the way down is as bad as the way up, I say we go back and try that other way in NASA talked about.”
“We’d lose over a week if we did,” Mark replied over the comms. “Maybe a lot more. The land directly west of Schiaparelli is terrible.”
“Worse than all this?”
“Imagine driving seventy klicks and only actually getting forty because of the maze of detours,” Mark said. “It’s pretty bad. Terra Sabaea is one of the most heavily cratered regions on the entire planet.”
“Reminds me of home,” Fireball chimed in. “All it needs is, wossword, fire mountain?”
“Volcano.”
“Yeah, that. Mountains, cliffs, rocks, all here. Bug says same thing.”
“How much longer- wait, Starlight, help me with this?”
“This” was a great rock five times as tall as the two ponies, sticking out of an otherwise clear sandy stretch between two even larger ridges of irregular rock. Starlight sighed, sent out several flashes of light, and watched as the bits of stone flopped down into a pile which Cherry kicked, one by one, well out of the Whinnybago’s path.
“Thanks. How much power is left in that battery?” Cherry asked.
Starlight checked the battery’s charge meter as she stuck it back on her back. “Maybe two more rocks like that one,” she said. “It’s almost spent.”
Cherry sighed. “Let’s just keep going,” she said. “It looks like it clears out a bit up ahead.”
The two spacesuited ponies trudged on, followed at a slow walking pace by the Whinnybago. The gap between the two stone ridges narrowed slightly, giving the tandem rover little room for maneuver at one point, before widening and then vanishing beneath the sands. Smaller rocks, not much larger than hoof-sized, still lay scattered across (or sticking out of) the sandstone here and there.
Hoping against hope, the ponies dashed ahead, leaving the Whinnybago behind. There were still a few larger rocks here and there, but nothing as large as what they’d just passed, and as they went on the rocks grew smaller and fewer- and, thank Faust, none directly in their way. The light gray sandstone under the loose dust became smoother, though never perfectly clear.
“Mark, it’s looking good ahead,” Cherry called out. “I think we can pick up the pace for a while.”
On this point Starlight was rather less in agreement with Cherry than she had been over the state of affairs a couple of kilometers back. “I’ve about had it,” she reported. “Can we please just stop for the day? We’re overtime as it is.”
“Agree.” That, of all people on the comms, was Fireball. “Don’t like what I see. Wanna stop, take closer look.”
“Huh? You know something I don’t?” Mark asked.
“Maybe. Want look to know for sure.”
“Okay. Girls, stay put. I’ll come to you, and we’ll make camp there.”
For the first time in twenty sols, all six castaways stood in their spacesuits on the Martian surface, looking around at the view. Behind them lay the jumble of sand and rocks on the northwestern slope leading up to this point. Ahead lay mostly sand, with rapidly fewer rocks as the slope appeared to level off not far away. To their left, off on the horizon, lurked the rim of the crater listed on Mark’s maps as Edom, the name itself a relic of Giovanni Schiaparelli’s maps of over a hundred fifty years before, made partly from telescopic observation and partly from wishful thinking. (For one thing, the maps utterly failed to show the gigantic crater later named after the mapmaker.)
And to their right, rising considerably higher than Edom’s rim, stood a massive shadow of rock, one of the fragments of the original rim of the Schiaparelli basin. Even with its base well below the Martian horizon, the peak stood out, calling the eye to it.
Well, calling most eyes. Fireball, unlike most of the others, had eyes for nothing but the ground. He stomped on it with his suit boots, here, there, all around them. He scraped at it with his glove, then picked up one of the smaller rocks and used it to dig past the loose surface sand. He even tried knocking on the ground, as one might knock on a door.
Eventually this show became more entertaining for the rest of the crew than the scenery. Mark spoke up first, though his thoughts ran much along Starlight’s own: “Looking for hobbits there, Fireball?”
“Not funny,” he said. “Danger. Lots of danger. Not a good place. Get worse farther we go.”
“Um, you want to explain to us?” Starlight asked. “Cherry and I have had a day of dealing with not-a-good places. What’s worse than that?”
Fireball sighed. “Need to think how to say it,” he said. “Inside. Lunch.”
Solar cells set out for recharging, suits rinsed off, and other pre-lunch chores taken care of (down to notifying Hermes of their shutting down for the day), the crew gave Dragonfly the customary midday group hug and then set about preparing their own meals. Fireball scooped a handful of quartz and citrine chips from his supply into a bowl, but he didn’t begin eating, not until everyone else had their hay, potatoes, or food pack portions.
Once Mark, being last, sat down with three potatoes and the orange chicken entrée from a food pack, Fireball began. Starlight could practically hear words being laid into place like a mason building a brick wall with deliberate care. “Dragons live in wild places,” he said. “Mostly empty places. Especially deserts and volcano places, with lots of caves. I grow up in desert. I know desert ground, desert danger.” He paused, looked at Starlight Glimmer, and asked in Equestrian, “What’s Earth talk for ‘powder pit’?”
“Um… ‘powder pit’?” Starlight hazarded. “But what is a powder pit?”
“Danger,” Fireball said. “Danger to hatchling with no wings yet. Danger to ponies too. Like this.” He spread a claw out flat. “Desert floor sandstone. Solid. But something make a big hole- water, big monster, something.” He cupped the claw. “Then sand blows in, fills hole.” He laid his other claw atop the first one. “Sand same color, look as rock. But not hold weight. Too loose. Dragon step on sand, sink in. If hole big enough, sink all the way in.” He closed the cupped claw into a fist, crushing something unseen.
“Okay,” Mark said quietly. “I can see that. How do we find them?”
“Don’t want to find,” Fireball grunted. “Keep away. In desert, stick close to plants until you get wings. Plants suck up ground water, put roots out, make powder pit collapse.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the outside world. “You see any plants out there? I didn’t.”
“So obviously there has to be another way,” Starlight said. “What other ways are there to avoid a powder pit.”
“Watch other baby dragons,” Fireball said. “If dragon falls in, say, ‘Don’t go there,’ and go around. Hard on the other dragon, but what can you do?”
“I dunno,” Dragonfly said, her buzz carrying a bit of an edge. “Maybe rescue them?”
“Not always time for dragon to wait on passing crazy changeling,” Fireball replied. “No matter how many seems like there are.”
“I meant do it yourself,” Dragonfly hissed.
Fireball shrugged. “Dragonlord could probably make happen,” he said. “But before her, fat chance. You know my people.”
“No,” Dragonfly said. “I know you.”
Starlight watched as Fireball looked away from the bug. “Yeah,” he muttered. “But I’m crazy too. Else I wouldn’t be here with you.”
“Guys, seriously,” Mark said, breaking in. “So there’s maybe a danger. What do we do about it?”
Fireball sighed. “Like I said,” he grumbled. “Watch a dragon. See if he falls in.” He looked at Cherry and said, “Tomorrow I do scout.” Turning to Dragonfly, he added, “You steer back of rover. You watch enough to know how.”
“So we’re supposed to just watch and see if you fall in?” Starlight gasped. “That’s ridiculous!”
“It’s also slow as hell,” Mark said. “Are you sure it’s that dangerous?”
“What happen if rover roll?” Fireball asked. “Heck, what happen if rover just lose a wheel? Yeah, we go slow. But we get there. Not end up like Roscoe or Cletus.”
Mark nodded, accepting the point. “We go slow, we get there,” he repeated.
“Let’s go back to you falling into a pit and dying,” Starlight insisted. “I don’t know what you think we think of you, but we don’t think dragons are expendable.”
“Huh? Expendable?” Fireball asked, puzzled.
“We’re not going to let you kill yourself just so we can be safe!” Starlight insisted.
“Oh. So what rules for joining the club, hm?” Fireball asked. He pointed to Mark. “Push me away from perchlorate fire, almost die.” He pointed to Starlight. “Save cave from breach, almost die.” He pointed to Dragonfly. “Almost burn herself out saving Mark, almost die.” He pointed to Spitfire. “Rip suit flying into Martian dust storm carrying twice her weight. Almost die.” His long muzzle curled into a smirk. “I don’t wanna be left out,” he finished.
“Well, I could do it,” Cherry Berry suggested. “I’m an earth pony. I might even be able to sense the bad ground.”
“And you might not,” Fireball said. “If you fall in… well, I’m taller than you.” He measured Cherry’s height with one claw. “I’m easier for Starlight to pull out. Also I’m stronger. Maybe pull myself out.”
“Point,” Cherry said. “But you’re not going out alone anyway. We both go. And we watch each other.”
Fireball shrugged. “Agreed,” he said. With that he began eating his crystal flakes, obviously not interested in further conversation.
9169700 You kind of miss the point; in a cynical, totally selfish economic frame, no matter what the gain, it's ALWAYS better to not pay. That, in fact, sums up American politics and economics as a whole: people seeking the benefits of civilized society while doing everything in their power to avoid paying anything for them.
Close to the end... hopefully that means a sequel with ponies on Earth (or Mark on Equestria, depending on how you end it).
9169746
A patch of quicksand over a shallow indentation beneath would work (I have read the book and watched the movie... Not a perfect benchmark but it is the only thing close enough I can think of)
The worst kind of danger is the one you can't see. #CalledIt
Probably the closest earth equivalent would be quicksand, to be honest. At least in terms of a natural, solid looking surface hiding a dangerous pitfall. Sure, it's water-based, but it's not a totally unfounded comparison.
Edit: found something called dry quicksand; not sure how you'd be able to produce it on Mars (Based on the article I found, the best bet if you're looking for one is the aftermath of the destruction of the dust storm; all that fine dust settling in a place, and making a uniform landscape.), but it doesn't rely on water, and has the added bonus of being a historical worry from NASA during the moon landings.
Article on wikipedia
9169753
I just might die if this ends the way the book did, with no "where are they now?" chapters to speak of.
9169769 The closest thing to what this is would be very fine scree. Quicksand needs a liquid to be a thing at all, and given the density of the characters here I doubt they would sink or list at all in this "loose sand" since their mass per surface area of their foot wouldn't be great enough to actually do anything. And their density certainly wouldn't be great enough to actually sink into it (nor do people sink into quicksand either, despite what popular culture would have us believe).
However! We have seen dragons swimming in lava on MLP, so clearly physics takes a back seat there. This is Mars. This is not Equestria. There are five Equestrians willing to state that.
9169746
Well, no politician or economist can even hold natural selection's beer when we're talking about selfishness, cynicism and indifference. Yet that guy designed humans (and other animals) to cooperate at least sometimes.
Dry Quicksand. Its been created in the Lab and their are rumors it exists in the wilds, but we haven't found an example of it in nature.
But it was considered a risk for the Moon landing....and given the Dust storms of Mars, its easily possible it could form there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_quicksand
Basically it needs a sand with a very small average grain size, and wind to blow it into an unstable state. Its comparable to sinking into Snow.
As for Mark knowing about it (given his Geoscience background)....well given they weren't meant to go near highly sandy areas and its existence on Earth is subject to debate, its quite possible that he hasn't made the connection.
The closest geological feature I can think of is dry quicksand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_quicksand
It may or may not exist in nature.
I hope they at least will use some rope for safety.
9169804
I also linked that at the same instant as you but it turns out their is one other thing it could be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fech_fech
Its not quite the same thing though. This is a hard crust protecting a loose sediment under it. When you break the hard crust....you fall in.
Not sure how common the materials required to make it (Limestone or Shale) are on Mars though.
9169746
Well, in this specific case it's very easy. They DO NOT get full benefits without paying. They get a 'trial' version without the premium benefits of, for example, massive initial diplomatic standing boost with ponies. Pretty much exclusive to US. As well as, for a brief period maybe, exclusive access to the communication channels and representatives should they desire it. And so on.
It's not really a choice; besides the practical benefits, US government gets to indulge in it's World Control Freak fetish and get away with it, and you can't really put a price tag on that :3
9169746
9169755
Actually I'm not. I understand that argument, I just think it's wrong. The most obvious reason is that, despite how ruthlessly competitive nature is, altruism remains one of the most successful strategies out there. Even between species and non-relatives. If it was too costly, the altruistic would never be born by now.
In this specific case, the it's very much a case of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the best. Making the 'wrong' choice to be the one to make the initial investment creates opportunity that you can take advantage of. And there are several reasons it makes sense to. First, there's the simple fact that someone has to break the stalemate or it costs everyone. This, incidentally, is why rewarding altruism is also a winning strategy: minimizing the cost lowers the threshold for others to help you. Second, you don't actually need to try for perfect play. To succeed all you have to try for is 'good enough'. Not even kidding about this. Just as in evolution, trying to be perfect at everything is just too darn expensive. So you accept the cost of being the one to make the initial investment, for the benefit you'll get out of it, and optimize elsewhere instead. Finally, even if you don't have exclusive control, you still have first access and are best prepared to take advantage of the new situation.
tldr: Trying for perfect play costs you more than missing the opportunity entirely.
9168092
In the original which was written a year after Hubbard was born so I don't think Scientology existed yet.
9169833
Uh, what is in the original what?
The day I see this compleat, I am going to do a jig and send a rick roll into the final chapter.......
I swear 3 months have past cents you informed us that your at the end..... three months a chapter a day...... much wow
I think the term fireball is lookingfor here is sinkhole. Ive had a run in wuth one and its sbout how he describes it. One second I'm walking on a dry lake bed, the next I'm fifteen feet underground, injured and bleeding with no clue what had just happened.
Would a plumbline work?
At least I think it's called a plumbline, it's where a weight is tied to a rope. Throw that ahead of themselves and drag it back to see if the ground is solid.
9169802 I loved the story that Arthur C. Clarke wrote A Fall of Moondust in 1961 about how the moon's vacuum and ionic charges left dust in a 'floating' state like really, really dense quicksilver, and tourist vessels would go out and 'cruise' the low lunar 'seas' where it collected. Until one of them hit an under'water' bubble and wound up sinking. Amazing story. Would never work on Mars since they have an atmosphere, but still.
I wunner how much battery burn a feather light spell held at a hair trigger for the whole whinnybago would have?
9169828
Heh. Yes, this.
To preach from the soapbox a bit more:
It works because of opportunity costs. Passing up an opportunity is a cost, even if you don't spend anything. Now in the unrealistic simplest case, where everyone benefits from your discovery equally? You either pay the opportunity cost of passing something up (along with everyone else) or you pay the investment cost and claim the benefit (again, along with everyone else). The choice is 'everyone loses' or 'everyone gains, I gain less'. Between loss and gain, there's only one sensible choice.
In the real world, of course, being the one who knows what's coming while everyone else is playing catch-up is an incredible advantage. And that's ignoring the contacts, reputation, and side benefits (developed research facilities, trained staff, etc) you gain in making the investment in the first place.
Add to this, it also assumes anyone else is even in position to pay the cost in the first place.
In THIS particular scenario, of course, the math is all shot to hell. This is because the benefits are literally incalculable, beyond broad estimates, simply because they are so vast and the possibilities so grand that we don't even know what the end results will be. Whatever happens, Earth is going to be fundamentally transformed and entire new industries are going to be founded. Every existing industry is going to be revolutionized. A multiversal frontier has been opened. Etc, etc, and so forth.
9169746
Well, United Kingdoms discovered that the hard way in form of an revoultion wich took alot of lifes.
Reminds me of sinkholes in the badlands. If you aren't careful about where you are walking, you may find the ground isn't as solid as you think and just vanish. And those sinkholes can be big. Large enough to swallow a car.
I'm just going to refer to the phenomenon Fireball is speaking of as subterranean quicksand from now on... and yeah, I can see how that would form, given the weather/environment on Mars. Definitely a real hazard for tandem rovers weighing several tonnes... good call, Fireball
9169787
9169802
Yeah that sounds about right. Mark not knowing what it is off the top of his head isn't a plot hole though. Mark is mainly a Botanist with a secondary field in Geology. Geology like all sciences is a vast field. No one, not even a dedicated specialist (which Mark isn't) can know all of it least of all off the top of their head. When the Hermes is radioed the actual dedicated Geologist (I forget which astronaut that is) will either know it or have a pretty good idea where to look it up in their reference textbooks.
9169830
Specific forms of altruism under specific circumstances. Reciprocal altruism, for example (Iterated prisoner's dilemma, yay). Or cooperation locked in Nash equilibrium on alleles: for example, if some guy behaves like dick he may receive monumental ass-kicking from whole tribe; taking part in such punishments is costly, so there immediately arises selection pressure against it. Now, if guys who refuse to take part in ass-kicking receive ass-kicking themselves and that behaviour is controlled by the same allele, that allele would be prevented from extinction (it's a toy example, real life is more complex).
That's kinda that "logic hard to grasp" I meant earlier: you're thinking like human, i.e. you're foreseeing outcome you like in the future and backtracing what should happen in the past to get there. But future can not influence past directly and in general there's no intelligent entity that cares about that something "costs everyone".
Allele that does something like that gives others differential advantage against it and will soon be removed from genetic pool (evolution is horrible monster and it doesn't care how alleles doing in absolute sense, just how they doing in comparison to each other).
Oh, great, sinkholes. Because of course there would be sinkholes.
I think Fireball is my favorite. Him or Dragonfly. It’s mostly because of that character arc I mentioned previously, how he has matured. Watching his growth and how much he actually cares about his crew is so heartwarming.
9169922
I was just about to post a reference to that myself until I saw that you beat me to it. And it was a very real concern at the time Clarke wrote it. The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 and the NASA’s first Surveyor wouldn’t land for another five years and find out what the Moon’s surface was really like.
But sinkholes aside, I’d be more concerned about the sort of loose, soft terrain that spelled eventual doom for Spirit after it became mired and possibly high-centered. The way the Whinnybago is overloaded, I really don’t think the castaways want to find out what it would take to free it from a similar situation—without breaking it.
9168584
Still works...
"...All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."
Nice reference.
9169986
Thinking like a human? Well I mean I am one, so...
Also, you seem to be assuming all evolution is genetic. Cultural counts too. Societies that don't pass on 'kick the ass of the assholes abusing the rules' will fail, ones which do will succeed. Again, oversimplification, but you get the point.
And there are obviously intelligent beings that care if something costs everyone: humans do this all the time. Societies that don't care about this fail. See: the current mess with climate change, but it's hardly the only example. What's more, we have an instinctive grasp of basic fairness and there are studies which show that even rats will reward altuism in eacho ther.
Saying that the future can't influence the past in this circumstance seems...silly. We're able to make decisions based on how we want the future to be. I don't really understand the point you were trying to make here.
There aren't very specific circumstances beyond 'I get out more than I put it'. And those benefits can be very indirect. At the most extreme you have bees, of course, completely giving up the opportunity to reproduce. But there are an extraordinary variety of forms of mutualism in nature to varying extents.
"other ways are there to avoid a powder pit."
"other ways are there to avoid a powder pit?"?
Yay sinkholes! Time to start tossing a boulder around or probing densities with magic!
When Starlight says “What other ways are there to avoid a powder pit,” I think you forgot a question mark.
I get the sense that you're going to end this story before we want it to end, and then we're just going to be hungry for more content and development - "What happens next?"
Also, this chapter has lots of lines and development for Fireball. I love that. I hope I get a chance to perform and record this chapter tomorrow. I always look forward to that.
In other news, I'm now completely without a voice for Spitfire for my project, speaking or singing. Can't make the "Home" song without a Spitfire. I'm looking into three possibilities (people) right now, so here's hoping one of them is able to take on the role.
Okay, I might be crazy, but isn't the obvious solution here to tie Fireball to the rover so they can pull him out if he falls in? I'm pretty sure the Winnebago would be heavy enough that fireball wouldn't pull it in after him.
9170171
That's a good idea.
9170086
Beware Anthropomorphizing Humans
Evolution doesn't care that something "will fail". The only thing it cares about is rate of copying of alleles (or memes, if you want cultural evolution) right now. If something will fail but reproduces more efficiently, then it will be supported by evolution and will fail (hello, cancer).
Evolution is not human. Government or society is not human (despite the fact that those things are made from humans --- I provided an example where N identical agents together behave very differently from single such agent). Even humans are very limited in that ability (example with bystander effect).
That's how physics work. Situations where it looks like future influences past are very unusual in this universe and arise under very specific circumstances. If you want to claim that some system would behave like human (or, you-human, more precisely --- humans are kinda diverse) then you need to provide very detailed and specific causal reasons why it would be so for that exact system.
For human --- maybe: human a priory is likely to care about similar things you care about, and human is likely to want more things he/she cares about. For some other system it's very specific. Why it's intelligent? Why it wants more stuff? Why it shares your preferences?
The secret of bees is that they're genetically identical in hive.
9169790
Personally I'm hoping that after a brief break, Kris continues the story with the relationship between Earth and Equus, opening up diplomatic channels, etc.
Maretian has been very different in "flavor" than Changeling Space Program, with some carryover but mostly different characters. A sequel to this could similarly follow with one or two characters carried over, maybe Mark and either Starlight or Spitfire are drafted as ambassadors and sent to opposite worlds even they have no desire to do anything but go home, and the story could shift from survival to political intrigue. Twilight wants everyone to be friends, bring Celestia in as the stereotypical perfect diplomat, while Chrysalis tries to manipulate the situation for personal power, finds that the humans are corrupt and self-serving enough that she get get along with them because she understands how the world works, etc. Meanwhile, Mark adjusts to pony-land and Starlight adjusts to human-land, and both worlds adjusts to the influx of entirely new technology and magic, and everybody has to deal with the inevitability of vast societal change.
It's the logical "next thing" to happen, and would make a good story.
If Kris feels like writing it, that is.
9168595
Only if he gets to earth. He might want to go home with Cherry.
If Fire ball is talking about a Dustbowl. The potential sinkholes are just a start of the dangers. i\If the wind picks up at all then place is going to be a giant sand blaster. The kind you hang your hard to clean cooking pans out side in.
I wonder how many batteries Starlight would get through if she ended up having to fire her B.Ass Cannon?
At least the way forward would be clear. As long as she didnt hit the MAV.
This chapter reminded me about the dangers of snow. We don't get a lot of it here, but a a few years ago, when there was about 15 cm of fine powdery snow, the wind blew a lot of it onto a pile, at what is basically a ramp to go across a dike.
It didn't look special, but there was basically about a meter of fine powdery snow on top of the ramp.
While my 4x4 Daihatsu Rocky had no trouble at all anywhere else, trying to get across that dike got me completely stuck.
As in having to get out from a window and walk home stuck.
I could see dust doing the same thing, especially after the intent of that last storm.
9170211
If he does, and I really hope he does, it won't be at this insane chapter-a-day pace. I wouldn't expect this marathon to be attempted again, heh.
(At the other end of the spectrum, with chapters trickling out once a year or less is almost like not writing at all however)
9169812 Well, we know it exists in this story. Remember how Mark found the crystal cave?
She could enhance her senses with a battery.
9170342
Changeling Space Program. The prequel to this story.
9169830
What i heard is, that altruism is caused by some kind of parasit or bacteria. I don't remember which one. That's why altruistic people like to touch others. That way the bacteria spreads to other people.
9169859
John Carter of Mars
Forewarned is forearmed. The trick will be making sure the scouts are weapons and not ammunition. This could be tricky. To say nothing of having to cut even further into the magic reserve to clear the way.