AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 352
ARES III SOL 347
“I’ve been thinking- and don’t make any stupid jokes about it, okay?”
Dragonfly and Mark had cleared a worktable and sketched designs for Rover Saddlebags Version 2.0 on the surface, having discovered that the dry-erase markers could also be wiped (mostly) clean from the tabletops. (Starlight Glimmer had made it clear that, for the duration, anyone who laid a hoof on either of the actual whiteboards would lose that hoof.) The new saddlebags required careful planning; they would be expected to hold as much as ten times the weight of the saddlebags Mark had used for the drive to Pathfinder, and they would have to do that job without crushing the lightweight rover pressure vessel.
“You’ve been thinking,” Mark repeated. “About this?” He gestured to the sketched, half-erased plans.
“Yeah, but this is something else.” Dragonfly leaned away from the table for emphasis. “Spitfire made a remark yesterday about not planning on writing a book while we’re here on Mars. And I was thinking: why not? Someone ought to write a book about this.”
“Not me,” Mark said firmly. “I’m already doing mission logs when I remember to do it, and when I can think of something to log. And I’ll be writing reports and studies until I die, once we all get home.”
“Huh. Well, maybe I’ll do it myself,” Dragonfly said. “Not the official report, of course. Cherry and Starlight will write that. But maybe a romance novel like my queen likes. A book about how a beautiful young human girl fell in love with the alien she was stranded with.”
“Human girl?” Mark asked. “Not knocking it or anything, but is that your personal preference?”
It took Dragonfly a moment to figure out what preference Mark was talking about. “Oh,” she said. “Um, no. Changeling, remember? Shape-shifter. With us it’s all about what puts love on the plate.”
“Well, yeah, but you told me that the queen isn’t the only one who reproduces.”
“Yes, but most changelings never even think about mating for life or having a grub. And the larvae are raised communally anyway, so it’s not like we have cozy little pony-style families.”
“So…” Dragonfly could sense confusion boiling off of Mark like a stewpot left too close to the fire. “So you’re saying, you don’t really have a preference?”
Dragonfly sighed. “Mark, to be honest I find the idea of having a preference just as weird as you find my not having a preference. It’s just that I think a book with Miss Johanssen on the cover will sell better in Pony-land than a book with you on the cover. Human females are just more visually interesting.”
“Oh really?” Mark asked, raising an eyebrow. “And how do you justify that claim?”
“How often do you see Daisy Duke without half her clothes,” Dragonfly asked, “and how often do you see either Bo or Luke Duke without half their clothes?”
“Errrr… maybe not a good example,” Mark said. “But okay, whatever. I’m sure it’ll be a good book. It’ll rank up there with your story of how Chrissy left Jack and Janet not because her aunt was ill, but because she fell in love with Enos and eloped to Hazzard County.”
“What?”
Mark shrugged. “Just a joke,” he said. “About all the weird questions you always asked about what if this or that one of Lewis’s TV shows met each other.”
“Oh.” That explained… come to think of it, it explained nothing at all! “Wait, what does that have to do with writing stories?”
“I thought that’s what you were doing all this time- writing bad TV fanfic.”
Dragonfly didn’t bother to hide her blank stare.
“Fanfic. Fan fiction. Writing stories about someone else’s stories.”
“Oooooooh,” Dragonfly said. “Well, it took you long enough to explain…” Connections continued to build in the changeling’s mind around the new concept. “Wait, you mean you can DO that??” she asked.
“Millions of humans do it every day,” Mark said. “The creators, or more likely the companies that pay the bills, they get mad if you make too much money doing it, but a lot of people do it for a hobby. And I hear a few of them have gone on to become creators in their own right.”
“Really?” Dragonfly asked. “Because I know one time my queen tried to float a version of the Hearth’s Warming legend that said there was a changeling there who fought the Go-Windies to a standstill because she wanted all that pony love for herself. And you would not believe just how mad the ponies got about that story! Why, you’d think we’d said the Creator was a changeling!”
“Er… is he?” Mark asked tentatively.
“She was an alicorn,” Dragonfly said, correcting Mark. “Just goes to show, nobody’s perfect.” She pushed her stool away from the worktable and hopped down to the dirt-covered Hab floor.
“Wait a minute,” Mark asked, “where are you going?”
“I’m going to get started writing fanfics,” Dragonfly answered. “I have the perfect story, too- about Jesse Duke and Boss Hogg meeting the woman who destroyed their friendship years ago.” Pause, grin grin #17 (Shameless and Triumphant). “Sue Ann Nivens!”
“Sue Ann Nivens? Who the- wait, you mean Mary Tyler Moore’s Sue Ann? But she lives in Minneapolis!”
“People move, don’t they?”
“Well, yeah, but- no, wait, you know what? Never mind. Not my problem,” Mark said. “But can’t it wait until after we work this out?” He tapped the tabletop meaningfully. “After all, you’re the one who’ll have to puke it all out.”
“I only wish I was just spitting it up,” Dragonfly muttered to herself in Equestrian.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch all of that?” Mark asked.
“Nothing.” Dragonfly hopped back up onto the stool. “Let’s go down the list of everything we have to carry in them again…”
MISSION LOG – SOL 347
We’ve made a breakthrough with the plans for the Rover 2 mods.
One of the problems we’ve had is that we’re trying to keep the extra weight in the trailer as low as possible. Even empty it masses about fifteen tons, on a chassis which was rated for an emergency load of ten tons. We can’t make it any lighter without giving up solar panels or living space, and the whole point of the trailer is to provide a living space large enough for all six of us. But we don’t want one ounce more than necessary back there.
Unfortunately, it turns out we have to put rather a lot back there. Once we leave the cave farm behind, the only recharge we get for the magic batteries is from our own life force, apparently- and that gets blocked by Hab canvas or anything with sufficient radiation hardening. So, at the very least, we have to carry inside the trailer, along with us, the seven batteries the Sparkle Drive needs plus a few extras for work and other purposes. If we take all nineteen of the regular batteries we currently have, that’s a bit more than a ton- and also close to two-thirds of a cubic meter of interior space, which is almost as precious as load.
And then there’s food. Cherry Berry, Spitfire and Dragonfly will be scouting ahead of the rover as we move to help clear the path and warn us of unseen obstacles, so they’ll need a lot more than the kilo or so of hay and potatoes they’re eating each day. One and a half kilos is our goal right now- closer to the calorie and nutrient load of a full astronaut ration. But that’s one and a half kilos for four people for a hundred sols- six hunded kilos total. The potatoes can travel outside the rover in the saddlebags, but the alfalfa can’t. As we’ve discovered, freeze-dried alfalfa tastes too foul to stomach.
So that’s close to two tons, minimum, that have to ride in the trailer- along, of course, with us when we’re stopped. The six of us together, with space suits, add about another half-ton or more. And we need to carry extra food for Dragonfly in case the space suits or something else needs to be repaired by careful application of bug barf. That’s more weight. And, doubtless, we’ll keep finding more things that absolutely have to travel inside, possibly including more batteries… unless we find someplace else to carry them first.
“But Mark,” you say, “what about the interior of Rover 2?” And I say: it’s already taken. My tools will ride in the interior cargo compartment. The passenger bench has been removed so we could install two of the Hab’s hydrogen fuel cells for extra battery power. The RTG will ride along to keep the rover warm (the trailer will rely on air from the life support box). What little space remains inside the pressure vessel is probably going to go to the medical supplies and other useful things from the Hab that can’t stand either vacuum or getting scattered randomly across the Martian landscape…
… plus, of course, the Sparkle Drive crystal, which isn’t all that large, but is absolutely irreplaceable once we hit the road. We can’t count on finding a second crystal cave.
So, what’s riding in the saddlebags? Whatever potatoes we take along, of course. We can pre-bake some for the trip, and once we arrive at Schiaparelli we’ll have plenty of electricity for the microwave. (Another fifteen kilos… sigh.) Extra hardware and scrap metal salvaged from the alien ship, in case we need it for modifying the MAV. We probably won’t need it, with the new launch plan, but better to have it than not. The remaining food packs, including the seven packs per person I’m reserving for the MAV flight in case we need to make a run for Earth directly. Fourteen solar panels, to be set out after each drive and gathered up at the start of the next sol.
And, most of all, the fifteen jumbo batteries and the three target crystals for their repulsor enchantments. Each jumbo battery weighs two hundred and eighty kilos, and the three target crystals weigh forty-five kilos total, for a grand total mass of quartz of about four point three metric tons. To put it in perspective, everything else combined is less than one ton.
So- over five tons of cargo. And the cargo rack and bag on the rover roof was engineered for a maximum load of half a ton.
But the good news is, we don’t have to have the roof bear the full weight of the saddlebags. Our original plan was to build carrier racks for the three pony ship engines (4.5 tons total mass) extending from the chassis under the rover’s pressure vessel. Well, we no longer need to haul that particular 4.5 tons anyplace, but we can still build the racks. We can tie the saddlebags into the racks so that they take the bulk of the load. We’ll still have straps across the roof for extra load-bearing and balance, or if something breaks, as it probably will.
We’ve got a good design for the load-reduction racks, and we’re pretty sure there’s enough scrap metal from the alien ship to make them happen. They’ll add about two hundred kilos to Rover 2’s total weight, but that’s a small price to pay for not having the pressure vessel fail while I’m in my shirtsleeves trying to navigate Mars’s first semi truck across some of the most treacherous terrain imaginable.
I just mentioned this to Dragonfly, and she just said, “Whatever you say, Bear.” Which just shows my place in the pecking order. It’s a shame none of the crew were into Clint Eastwood movies. At least then I could hope to earn my way up to Clyde.
Man Dragonfly roasted him by calling him Bear... Need a Burn Heal for that Mark?
Gald to hear about the con good luck on more sales
Every Which Way But Loose, the first Clint Eastwood movie I saw that showed he had a sense of humor (and Ma was a riot too!).
You could probably finagle in the education thing by having Mark ask them about their qualifications or whatnot. Have it be a conversation rather than a report. I'm the kind of person who likes to think about weird and completely hypothetical stuff like that, so if it ever comes up, I'd be happy to read it.
9046061
Needs Pluto.
Fan fiction hmm? Sounds familiar...🤔🤔🤔
would adding a slade do anything?
9046103
Now I feel like a true Equestrian here, that is completely unable to discern meaning. Anyone can explain those?
a much needed chapter lots of needed details.
i am really hoping that some how Cherry Berry can at lest get a small cutting from one of her Cherry trees back to earth.
think about it equestrian Cherry trees growing on earth.
have they actually mentioned this new plan with the repulsion to NASA yet?
A fan fiction based chapter is irony of the most delicious sort
9046136
A burn is when someone makes a comment and gets schooled for it. Level of burn depends on how harshly one was schooled.
Here's an example by an a famous American socialite (older female)
Young female opens door for older lady and says
"Age before beauty" to which older lady replies "Pearls before swine".
Did I miss seeing Fireball's food somewhere?
9046084
The weight needs to be as close to lion as possible, I guess.
9046082
If this site is anything to go by, I wonder if the ponies would be both amused and horrified at the amount of fanfiction generated around them on Earth at this point in time. At least the ultra-low bandwidth prevents any viewing of artistic renditions of the pony crew.
9046159
That's actually the only part that I understood because it was not a cultural reference. Rest was Kadir beneath Mo Moteh, about Bear and such.
Mark, no, what have you done. You've introduced fanfiction to Equestria! Nobody tell Rainbow Dash or Twilight. They'll start collaborating on a Daring Do one.
9046145
COMMs to Earth at this point r spotty at best so...
Mark wants to achieve the greatness of Clyde, because although he might start off as a Monkeys Uncle, once they get round to The Librarian, then its Primates all the way down?
B-but.. I want pointless filler about the pony education system!
Dragonfly writing fanfiction. I'd better see this come up again later.
What exactly does she mean by that?
Actually that's most of human literary history. Copyright laws, along with the whole idea of striving to be "original" (and frowning upon anything derivative), is a relatively recent development. Before that, everyone copied and modified and edited and expanded and spun off their own sequels of familiar tales, and it was glorious chaos—a lot like FiMFiction!
"just as weird as you not having a preference"
"just as weird as you do not having a preference"?
"story of how Chrissy let Jack and Janet not because her aunt was ill"
Let jack and Janet what?
"the extra weight in the trailer as lowe as possible"
"the extra weight in the trailer as low as possible"?
Glad the con's going well for you!
9046232
Dragonfly makes the goop by spitting up processed solid food. It's been implied in this story and CSP that Dragonfly might make changeling ROPE in a way similar to how spiders make silk.
9046179 In BJ and the Bear, "Bear" was the main character's pet chimpanzee. "Clyde" is a reference to the orangutan in two Clint Eastwood films.
9046275 It was going fine up until fifteen minutes ago, when the wild hog ran out in front of my van ten miles short of home and ensured I'll need to spend $500 in collision deductible (again). And hope and pray that the van gets fixed in time for my next show two weekends from now.
9046300
...Ah. Yeah... sorry about that. Good luck.
So what, does pansexuality disappear in the next thirty years? One would hope it would become a little more commonplace, even. Or hell, it's like Mark doesn't even consider bisexuality, if that's as far as his understanding of gender goes.
9046326 I'm not sure where Dragonfly would come up, to be honest. She's not asexual, exactly, but her interest in sex is almost totally transactional, i. e. "Is this a good way to get something to eat?" She's not pansexual or bisexual or asexual... more sort of mehsexual.
9046331
Probably on the asexual spectrum. I don't know too much about the differences to say though.
I'm just mostly just worried about the state of America, as per usual. Like, don't worry about me there, that's constant.
9046300
Too bad Johanssen didn't have any country with her disco. Or at least some 70s movies too. Otherwise Mark could have been Rubber Duck:
Convoy
9046384
I must confess I still haven't gotten around to reading all the Lord of the Rings books. Heck, I still need to finish Fellowship of the Ring. But I've heard of that part of Return of the King. I really need to get to it.
What might be interesting is if they have extra time is to use the repulsive system to launch a supply drop to the MAV. Mostly food, and extras they would want but not need. Scrap metal from friendship for sealed container and parachute + padding from dragonfly for less violent landing. This would actually be a great test flight for starlight's system. And the supply's landing location could be verified by NASA sat. Heck even if you could only get the drop half way there they could lower their food weight and/or have a supplies for mid travel pit stop.
With mars low gravity, and low air pressure I would think you can launch something a few dozen kilometres with the forces described by CSP. Also would be cool use of their abandoned launch rocket they were thinking of building near the beginning of their stay on mars.
9046339
9046331
I think AlanSmithy's comment is more to do with Dragonfly's phraseology and Mark not correcting him. It literally refers to Mark not being able to understand, "Not having a preference" as if he can't understand Bisexuals or Pansexuals. Mark doesn't object to this statement.
When thats really not the problem at heart. Mark inherently sees sex and food as two separate things, which is something Changelings cannot separate. So to a Changeling, Mark's idea of a preference is like saying, "Yeah, I would like to be unable to eat half the food."
Sure their maybe SOME picky Changelings in the future (as they have plenty of love right now) but Dragonfly being raised when she was, rejecting love because it came from the wrong thing (Say a Minotaur instead of a Pony, or a narcissist instead of someone loving others) would see you starve. Rejecting female love because male love tasted better could be considered almost insanity.
Meanwhile, while the idea of sex being use for sustenance is an ancient concept in humans (Succubus and Incubus among others) even then, we treat it in a human matter. The Orgasm is what they consume, or the human soul, and they still very often have gender preferences. The idea thinking of sex as "Food is food," when they aren't consuming anything visible and in fact expending a lot of energy is very difficult to conceptualize.
And leads to places that as omnivores, we shudder at. We can justify putting animals we plan to eat through a lot of suffering, (NOTE: Not a Vegetarian, I like my meat, I just know that animal slaughter regulations vary from nation to nation AND even in the best nations, a slaughter house isn't a nice place), and with this in mind, if we take loveivores to their natural conclusion....well bestiality isn't off the cards.
Depending on how well lust/love convert.
And the various other places making sex=food lead to are also difficult to wrap our head around. Thats the issue between Mark and Dragonfly. Its less Mark being unable to conceptualize Bisexuals or Pansexuals, but the whole notion of, "Sex = Food" is bizarre, historically horrifying to humanity and leads to possibilities we consider repugnant.
I am of the (personal) opinion that you go to too many conventions. You're always complaining about how much negative impact they have on you. Are they by any chance a significant source of income?
That's actually a really big problem here: those rating limitations are not yield-strength-stuff-related (which would be ok, since NASA most likely designed pretty considerable safety factor), but fatigue-stuff-related. Not only fatigue introduces direct tradeoff between "how much load it can carry" and "how far it can go" (and couple thousand kilometers is probably already beyond what NASA counted for), but it also a wonderful source of surprise catastrophic failures for no apparent reason
Although, after some consulting with Earth's material scientists ponies can probably come up with a procedure to undo fatigue completely based on something similar to that spell Starlight used to cement the cave. It even makes some sense for Equestria not to have this low-hanging fruit already: while they should be aware of the effect, figuring microscopic reasons behind it is a really difficult problem that humans have done only well into 20-th century.
9046455
Well that's another way to put it. It's true that I wasn't referring to Dragonfly's sexuality with my comment. Just Mark's focus on only monosexual relationships.
At this point I'm just assuming that just wasn't the kind of thing he was thinking of, and he was too interested in Dragonfly specifically to consider variation.
9046469 Primary source of income, as it happens. And this one was going well until that damn pig.
9046469
It's his primary source afaik
9046151
The Alanis Moris-sort? I mean, it doesn't strike me as particularly ironic, just a little meta.
nobody tell them that they are in a fanfic already
9046547
There is no better way to get vengeance on a pig then Bacon, lots of bacon.
Oh hi, Mark.
We need more meta-layers anyway.
9046547
What do you sell at these conventions?
uh man.. can Kris ever get a break?
Well, maybe Mark will crash into one of those space-llamas as a refrence.
What? Space llamas? It's a Suvivng Mars easter egg :D
Sorry to hear about the van... it could be worse, though. Could've totaled it by careening head-on into a wheat field. And it could've been a rental, at that... in that last instance, forget the deductible. They bill you for the whole damn car.
ask me how I know9046851
LLamatron for the win.
A picture came unbidden to mind. The Whinnybago semi pulled up to a Martian red light, Thor from SG-1 pulls up beside them in his teleport chair and mouths off. Dragonfly, driving, says "Right turn Mark.". 🙊
I hate feral hogs. They are so very dangerous and disruptive. One attacked my younger brother, injuring him even after he shot it in the head while it was charging him. Don't let your self get in front of a pissed off pig. Useless advice, I know, hogs will go where they can, woods, yard, or road.
Cue the theme song of the Whinnybago.
EDIT:
Also, Kris needs a TRUCK. He keeps having bad luck with vans.
Where can we get him a nice Freightliner? Imagine him rolling up to cons in that kind of beast.
9046944
Leave to a human to show changelings the true path to depravity