MISSION LOG – SOL 224
Tater feast today. And by “tater feast” I mean “pretending we don’t all want to summon Dread Cthulhu and give ourselves up to total madness rather than take another bite.”
Between the cave and the Hab, we got over 4,000 more potatoes. If I were the only one eating them, what’s left would be enough to get me beyond sol 950 or so- in other words, to the worst-case scenario Ares 3B rescue date, which of course isn’t going to happen now. And seven hundred sols of spuds for one person is one hundred and seventy-five sols for four.
We’re very, very nearly good on food for the remainder of our stay on Mars. And we definitely have enough potatoes.
Despite that, and despite all the work it means, we’re going to keep harvesting spuds until we leave. Just because the potatoes we’ve already grown will keep practically forever in the deep freeze which is Mars, it doesn’t mean fresh isn’t better. (By better I mean “marginally less disgusting”.) And we’ve been keeping track of the old and new crops, making sure we eat the old first. So we’re going to harvest potatoes as they ripen, keeping the plants alive to make more, and we’re going to pitch the older ones on a potato-for-potato basis.
Yes- we’re almost to the point that we are actively planning to THROW FOOD AWAY.
Also, we’re going to reduce production of potatoes. We’ve moved the plants that were in the pop-tents to the cave farm. Eventually we’ll move the soil there, too. That will let us repurpose those tents for other things. If a potato plant dies off in the cave (say we have a sinkhole again), we’ll replant using alfalfa clippings rather than potato eyes. We need more hay, not more spuds, but we still want lots of living plants to help charge Starlight’s magic batteries.
Speaking of, tomorrow Cherry Berry, Dragonfly and Starlight are going to go to the cave to fill up two batteries and bring them back to the Hab, while Fireball and I assemble the engine testing rig. Spitfire’s going to be with us, too, but she says she doubts she can turn a wrench. Quoting: “Not much try fixing things. More I do the breaking of them.”
And assuming Fireball and I have the cradle assembled by the end of tomorrow (which we should- we have the hardware, the MDV landing struts, and enough pony-ship scrap metal to do it all), on Sol 226 we remove the ship engines, put one in the cradle, wire it up and see what happens. With that out of the way, we can begin work on the Whinnybago.
Speaking of work… we have leftovers to dispose of. Eating has long ceased to be a joy. We’ve even got beyond the point where it’s a penance. Eating our daily requirement of hay and/or potatoes now requires three heroic acts a day. We no longer eat meals; we throw ourselves upon unexploded food.
The detonations, if you take my meaning, begin sixteen hours or so later. Let the record show I wasn’t the first one to comment about methane leaks in the Hab. Blame Fireball.
After first reading this chapter, my initial thought was that this monotonous diet would negatively impact their gut flora, possibly raising the risk of developing irritable bowels or some other gut ailment later on. Turns out, I was dead wrong. Apparently, eating a potato-rich diet, or even eating exclusively potatoes for a while, can significantly increase the biodiversity of your gut flora—more diverse gut flora means a healthier gut. So, I guess that's one good thing coming out of this mess?
Wouldn't grinding the potatoes up and mixing them with the soil be a good way of recycling the organic matter back into the soil to alleviate concerns about soil depletion? And its decay would provide a carbon dioxide source as well to keep the cave marginally self sustaining. Oh or they could use it as fertilizer for the cherry trees to accelerate their development enough to get to the cherry harvest before they have to leave.
Though I do wonder at the lack of better meal ideas. People have suggested many in the comments, and there was mention that in universe there were some websites about suggesting recipes Watney could produce with the cooking materials he had on hand.
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Yeah, it's not often discussed but the Potatoe was arguibly the first Superfood discovered by the west, which is why it quickly became a stable of the poor in colonial Europe. Living off a diet of 90% potatoe is surprisingly good for you.
Which is why the potatoe blight was so bad when it hit.
"Yes- we’re almost to the point that we are actively planning to THROW FOOD AWAY."
One word: Vodka.
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If it's one chapter a day, and each chapter is one Sol/in-story day, and we know exactly when the Hermes will return to Mars, and exactly how many days it will take them to get back to Earth, then we can predict how much longer this story will go for if Kris keeps the pattern up.
"I'm Farticus!" ~ Mark Whitney
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Assuming he doesn't skip days because nothing interesting happens. Kris has done so before.
And I finally had a couple good suggestions for the excess, but mulching and Vodka were already suggested.
Batteries! They could make potato batteries, experiment with blowing up the lab again! I mean, finding another way to make magic. >_>
Good luck in Baton Rouge, Kris!
a lot of potatoes.... there's only one way to make this a good thing.... VODKA!!!!!
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Yea, he has in fact skipped days very recently. VERY recently.
Have a look at the chapter-names. Just a sol here and there, but I expect there will be bigger gaps soon.
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Omg yes please. They have time, potatoes spare metal...and they desperately need a toast for either when they leave or if something...terrible happens.
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Pioneering Martian Distilling. You are so, so right.
You know...it occurs to me that since they will be "wasting" magic weekly to feed Dragonfly anyway, it may be time for Starlight to experiment some more in food transmutation. Yes, I know, having the unicorn solve everything, but come on! At least her failures could be entertaining.
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The problem with making Vodka is that fermentation requires yeast. They probably don't have the requisite species available on Mars. Too much bioscreening everywhere on what would make the trip. I'm doubtful their gut flora could substitute in this case.
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I would like to see some reference to the recipe contest.
I tried looking up some recipes. Best I could come up with is microwave potato chips, Irish potato farls, and mashed potato flatbread. But the last two require flour and I am not sure if you can substitute it with potato flour. I might try to make these tomorrow or in the next few days. I will post if they turn out any good or if they are terrible.
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I mean, it's not their fault that there was only one general magic user stranded with them. While all the crew minus (probably) Watney use magic in some form, Starlight is the only one that can use it in a way that doesn't make their abilities useless save for fairly niche circumstances. Frankly, it's an incrediby inportant asset, to the point where you'd think there would be at least two unicorns on ESA missions for redundancy purposes, just in case.
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They can take the petrochemical approach in converting cellulose/starches/sugars into alcohol maybe?
I just kind of realized how, in this particular multiverse, it's actually probably easier to set up a boatload of interuniversal colonies on alternate versions of your home planet, rather than trying to colonize the galaxy. Something about that tickles my funny bone.
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as every nerd saying gose
When I was a little more than a toddler and barely able to remember it happened, thanks to Texan adult spit-takes and guffaws, I mis-heard Louisiana and repeated it "Lousy-piano". No. I guess it's not relevant, but I like the anecdotage.
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Dried and powdered alfalfa leaves might make a gluten free "flour"?
891419 I can’t think of a way to get any either...unless there’s some food stuff that has it as a part of its production...sour dough biscuits?
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Dragonfly is the other multi purpose one.
She only needs external energy sources to use most of her magical abilities, which they were drowning in back home basically.
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if that's something that interests you, try the long earth by Terry Pratchett. first two books in particular are worth the read, though the series starts to go to strange places after that.
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It certainly would be more practical to have several unicorns along, aye. But this crew wasn't really assembled with practicality in mind - it was Twilight's publicity stunt and a message about unity/friendship or something like that, as the maiden voyage of the Sparkle Drive, hence you have one pony from each tribe (including a shoehorned-in Spitfire for no other reason than the need of a Pegasus for the message), a changeling and even a dragon.
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A Stepper could go Up, and Down, then they proposed a Left and Right.
So most people would think of a game controller and have a two axis behaviour. But, thinking Quantum Mechanically, the first axis is radial direction along a vector, and the second axis is rotation around consecutive dimentional vectors. Giveing you access to an infinite dimentional space. So first Axis is Aleph 0, Integers. Second Axis gives Aleph 1, Reals, and Third axis gives Aleph Infinity. Or Grahams number etc if you want a lower countable bound.
If the potato food is giving methane pass through, like the Cave, do they have to watch out for the Hab lifesupport unit having a conflict between concentration of gas in the air, and processing rate possible for removal?
Given the suits are visible from orbit, are there any quality passes left for them to observe the exhaust plume length from above to get a second measurement, fast pre computation for thrust? Something about Thrust in pounds at Earth surface is Ten times the Square of the exhaust flare length in feet? Whatever teh conversion factor is for Mars and if things remain visible through dust off?
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Well unicorns might be an asset for those missions but you have to consider that unicorns with their talent and/or ambitions based around magic itself are a rather rare occurrence. They simply got really lucky that they have Starlight with them, but the average 'specialized' unicorn probably wouldn't be much more useful than an Earth Pony or Pegasus with their special talent.
"Hercules had to perform twelve heroic labors. I envy him."
—Mark Watney
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Including Mars.
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Until you meet something else that does same. And yes, Terry Pratchett.
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or changeling glue? I mean, one made by changeling.
8914224 H. Beam Piper's "Paratime" stories, concluding with his novel Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, does a fair job of exploring some of the perils with that approach.
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Something something politics racial diversity positive image. The unicorn medic would be a straight upgrade over Spitfire, in all the ways imaginable. But - politics. She herself admits it early on, she had no reason to be there whatsoever. She's part of Amicitas project only because she represents pegasus part of Equestrian union.
Hell, even for Concordia Twilight's first idea was to do the same, before Chrysalis dragged her back to the harsh reality (again, she's quite useful for that)
8914803 The thing is, Twilight's not wrong to treat such things as important. Look at ponies like Neighsayer for an example of how important gestures of unity and harmony are. It takes so very, very few people to set groups at each other's throats...
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That is precisely how the Combine of the Half Life video games operate.
Potatoes for everyone, everyday, forever!
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Look up The Long Earth on Amazon or audible.
Oh boy. Fun times in the hab
So I just randomly decided to re-read this, and I just realized, and I don't know if anyone else mentioned it... but, wouldn't the air from Equestria carry magic with it? Just a random thought that popped up right now in my head.
10088277 it doesn't carry light or gravity with it (aside from what's inherently in the molecules). Otherwise the ponies would be able to stand on the side of the ship's life support box.
Short but very fine. Farting the most on Mars for a world record?
Mother of Luna, it sounds like my ex-wife is cooking for them!
The only one eating the same and be fine with it would be Cherry Berry with Cherrys.
I suddenly have the movie 300 in my eyes ,but all the Persia soldiers are Potatoes 👍