Mark Watney is stranded- the only human on Mars. But he's not alone- five astronauts from a magical kingdom are shipwrecked with him.
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 447
ARES III SOL 439
[09:50] JPL: Mark, just letting you know that there’s been no significant change in that dust storm in Arabia Terra. It’s moving westward at about four kilometers per hour with no real signs of strengthening. If this continues a small detour of about one hundred kilometers should be enough for you to avoid the dangerous parts of the storm.
[10:44] JPL: Mark, is everything okay down there? Pathfinder shows as fully active, but we don’t see your response.
[11:31] JPL: Ares III Hab, this is JPL, communications check, please respond, over.
[11:53] WATNEY: Sorry. We’ve been busy this morning. Mainly, we just realized that what’s left of the pony ship doesn’t have a decontamination shower. The ponies used wipes for hygiene, now all expended. So this morning we had a line for the shower followed by discussions about rigging up a bathtub, since this is our last chance to be even sort of clean for the next hundred-plus sols.
[12:04] HERMES: One hundred sols? NASA, are there any procedures for manufacturing gas masks from materials on the ship? Come Sol 551 we’re going to need some…
[12:15] WATNEY: Ha ha, guys. By the way, my response cost me my place in line for Second Shower. And you would not believe how long Dragonfly spends in there if left alone. I think she flosses the holes in her legs.
There probably won't be a hot tub this time. Replacing and recycling the water between users would be a bit much for the water reclaimer, and dumping water brought into the Hab from pony life support would be hot, sweaty, I-need-another-bath work.
Sorry for the brief gag, but I got home at 11:40 PM, and I'm about to go sack out.
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Ewww. I hate to think what kind of gunk would accumulate in there
love the story so far keep it up
You say that like you’re joking...
9123293
Exactly.
Poor Dragonfly. She's probably so starved that she's always cold.
Assuming, of course, that changeling metabolism operates similarly to mammals. I'm fairly certain that they're not ectothermic or Thorax would not have been able to survive in the Crystal Empire without going into torpor and/or dying.
Hoo boy. I usually start to stink after about two days. Can't imagine that times fifty, plus sweaty horse.
9123293 Given they aren't exactly covered by anything, probably not much at all. There's not a lot of bacteria to deal with there, though if they've been sharing space with Mark, and their sweat is somewhat made of the same stuff human sweat is, it could get a bit smelly.
9123313
The cuddlebug, ponies, and dragon must have a plethora of their own external and internal bacterial flora, so Mark could end up smelling a lot like them too.
The study of the differences and similarities between bacteria and viruses (virii?) of terrestrial and equestrian origin would probably be enough to launch a whole new branch of microbiology. Sure there are exobiologists now, but as far as I am aware it's all hypothetical at this point.
9123331 Or maybe their bugs are just a lot like ours. Seems to be the case for flora, why not smaller flora and fauna?
Also, virii is not a word. Some people tried to make it one, but it is definitely
viruses
.It's a nice little bit of filler to fill the time before they take off. It's the sort of moments that really make this story. :)
Okay, at this point I'll be surprised if the Amicitas came with something to steer with at this point. I know there are reasons for it but it still feels like part of the design was to speed things up if anything went wrong.
Do pegasi take sand-baths?
I know it's extremely unlikely to happen due to the logistics involved, not to mention the perchlorates, but I am deeply amused by the idea of Spitfire sand-bathing in the airlock out of sheer desperation.
Spit baths for the forseeable future?
It's a good point though, they're not taking the reclaimer, right? What are they doing for waste management?
I ain't mad; 'twas a good gag.
Here's hoping the Equus natives can survive 100 days of stink ape.
Simple have a shower connected to the big life support crystal. Then drain into one of the spare Human suits. Vent suit into the Mars atmosphere. Take that Mars!,
9123460
Probably a bucket and a trip out the airlock.
Skylab had a sleeping bag coccoon shower, Shuttle used wipes? Turns out its a combination of water, soap, and agitation that does teh cleaning, so these eco machines that use little water? They clean chemically. Say bye bye to skin and Hellooooo Allergies.
I use less water having a bath than a shower, ebcause Im slow. 3 minutes of water gets me up to an hour warm soak. Most people forget about displacement levels.
9123272 Artificial gravity on the ship. NOT OUT IN SPACE.
You're defending the sort of awful visuals we got from the terrible "Wing Commander" movie, where a damaged fighter was pushed out of a hanger on the ship and FELL off the edge.
It's just plain lazy writing.
9123442
Forget the blast wave. In space, the shrapnel from an explosion has nothing to slow it down. So the lethal area for blast fragmentation turns the entire battle space into a shooting gallery.
But anyway, there is still a problem with that scene in TLJ.
It's not that the bombs fall down.
It's that ONLY the bombs fall down. The consistency of the setting is brought into question. And for what? So someone could reenact some B-17s?
It doesn't even make sense in an 'in fluff historical' sense. Where did the resistance get these relics, and even then, who in the last hundred years of Star Wars galaxy history thought it would be a good idea to build and deploy a bomber force that's a sitting duck to even civilian grade fighters, and absolute cannon fodder to any ship with a pittance of a defensive turbolaser battery?
Know what would have worked better?
Y-wings.
Yeah, they're 90 + years old by this point, but they're probably newer than whatever point in time where those bombers were effective in a space battle.
And you know what would be better than Y-Wings?
B-Wings.
But apparently those vanished into the aether when the republic down-armed themselves and the Raddus didn't even have a squadron, even if the rest of the fleet had some B-wings or better before they got Starkillered.
No wait, I know where the B-wings are. They're scrap that got turned into one-legged sand speeders. Why? I have no idea, but those speeders are B-Wing Chassis that look like they came out of the Boneyards after having half their spaceframe stripped for parts.
The whole thing would have worked better if they blended the B-17ish parts with say, destroyer torpedo runs instead of trying to stick pure air combat as the theme to a space battle. Break the battle up into a more fluid fight with all the First Order's destroyers on scene. Give some tension as a pitched battle in which the Resistance trades blows with the fleet while covering their escape, THEN bring the Dreadnought in as a reinforcement for the First Order, forcing the Resistance to reorganize their dwindling battle line to hit the new, and very big threat. Such a thing would even make Poe's insubordination make more sense. The pitched battle before the Dread could have been a near thing, but the dread forces everyone to go brown trousers and have Leia order everyone out. At which point Poe breaks ranks to make his suicide run with the remaining Heavy Bombers-Slash-Torpedo Destroyers because he's the most badass pilot since Wedge Antilles and could almost take the thing himself.
What we got instead was a scene of Hux throwing a tantrum because Poe called him names, and the most uninspired bit of 'don't give a shit about a character' we've seen in the franchise to date.
I mean, were we SUPPOSED to care about Rose's sister when she dies five minutes after being introduced? Maybe if you wanted us to feel more for that, you should have spent more than a few minutes establishing the character before throwing them into an ACTION OPENER WHERE THEY DIE!
TLJ was a directing farce, really. The reaction to the bombers is just the nerd part of us reacting to the whole mess.
(EDIT 2: Okay, my edit didn't vanish, it ended up in the middle of the post, fixed now.)
EDIT: (And you know, if anyone had issues with that opening battle stretching on by turning it into an all out firefight? I know where you could make that time back. Just cut that stupid casino sub plot that went literally full circle nowhere. It didn't progress anything, didn't establish any relationships, and put us down right where we were without so much as an 'oh by the way, now something else on the side is going down even though our plan got shot to shit'. Then we could have our awesome, and probably have better character development.)
I'm not sure if you have a solution for Dragonfly's magic problem when she gets to Earth, but in case you don't, please send her to a preschool. It's perfect.
9123683 Oh! And let's not forget that ships in hyperspace now apparently CAN interact with objects in normal space! Meaning EVERY SINGLE SHIP with a hyperdrive becomes a tactical weapon! There was no need to fly all those little fighters around the first Death Star, just slam the biggest Rebel ship right into its primary weapon!
... though that does bring back up my old question of why they didn't concentrate standard weapons fire on the rather obvious main weapon dish and destroy it. It's a really vulnerable part of the Death Star. Eh, what the hell does Hollywood know about battle tactics.
But the Empire too should have been crashing ships into planets they hated. Just put a hyperdrive engine onto an asteroid and slam it into the planet! BOOM! No need to construct anything complicated at all!
With hyperdrives now having such a potent destructive application, what point is there in creating any other weapon of mass destruction?
Yeah, TLJ pretty much ruined everything.
At least we've finally gotten rid of Rian Johnson, and Kathleen Kennedy shall likely be gone after September.
9123529 Close. Amicitas has a small pony zero-G toilet designed to vent into space- or, as it happens, onto the Martian surface.
9123784
Hyperdrives are expensive man.
9123881
Still cheaper than moon-sized battlestations.
But the real problem is the potential to start a Lenseman Arms Race.
There was a crossover Fanfic that had Leia inadvertently unearthed a BOLO unit on Hoth, and its tactics were extreme, but effective. By the time they were about to go to Endor, it was suggesting using hyperdrives to propel asteroids as weapons. Leia realized with horror what kind of genie would be unleashed from that bottle and the death it would bring across the galaxy. So she made the decision to commence the Endor operation without the BOLO in tow.
Sometimes, the masses are spared worst horrors of war because even the warring factions don't want to play that dirty.
Obviously, in Star Wars, some people are so disconnected from their humanity by force of Plot, that mass murder is okay because reasons. And blowing up entire star systems worth of citizens is an acceptable tactic so long as you kill the Rebel Scum.
9123912
What fic was that?
9123784
Weaponised hyperdrives aside, Starkiller base itself has some pretty amusing fridge logic. Unlike the previous Death Stars that needed to move close to their targets, it apparently fires its laser all the way from one star system to another. So unless that laser beam was some fancy new faster-than-light tech, it's not going to hit anything that far within a reasonable timeframe.
"Sir, they've fired upon us!"
"Relax, it'll take approximately seventy to eighty years to reach us. Let the next administration deal with it."
9123957 I just stared slack-jawed at that. It was utterly preposterous.
I can't believe I'm saying this... the newest movies make the prequels look... well, not 'good', but not as horrible.
9123784
reminds me of a book, "The Shiva option": they didn't have Hyperdrive in that book, they used naturally-occurring "Warp Points" to travel between star systems. this made it VERY hard to attack an enemy system, since the enemy would have lots of space stations surrounding the Points. the invention of "SBMhawks", small robotic ships that could fly through a point and fire missiles, changed things a LOT.
in one chapter, they rigged some asteroids with remote-controlled weapons and "Orion" drives, and crashed them into an enemy planet! it took nearly a month to set up, and wouldn't have worked if the enemy had figured it out sooner.
9124110 Really, even sublight ships become devastating weapons when the velocities get high enough. Just think about the impact energy of a mile-wide asteroid moving about 100000mph. Now, speed that up to 1 billion. It'd be like a soft lead bullet hitting a watermelon.
It's why I think no alien civilization would ever try to rely on any conventional means of interstellar travel. The dangers become quickly insurmountable as speeds increase. And that's saying nothing about the radiation bombarding the ship as it plows through the interstellar medium.
9123784
Worst part is, the books actually spell out exactly why they can't do that. There was one where the Empire was trying to develop bombs that could be dropped while in hyperspace to revert to realtime, and basically they couldn't because it takes a hyperdrive engine to enter AND exit.
They did use the method to execute someone though, by locking him in an escape pod and launching it into hyperspace. Basically trapping him there forever.
Unlimited water and no shower. I can't be the only one to see the irony In that.
9123957
It WAS a special magical hyperspace beam.
Guess, they'll have to wear EVA suits inside
9124126
yes, lots of people think that it would be impossible for a violent civilization to have space travel, because they would probably wipe themselves out.
of course some people are REALLY stupid, like the politician in the previous book who babbled "if they have space travel they MUST be civilized, and any civilized people MUST want peace"...and this was at the beginning of what came to be known at "ISW4"-the FOURTH Interstellar War!
and the NEXT thing that came out of her mouth was "EVERYONE knows that violence never settled ANYTHING-"
yeah, right.
9124126
Don't forget that the exhaust plume of any sufficiently efficient reaction drive is a weapon in its own right, a.k.a, the Kzinti Lesson. Not to mention communication lasers with an effective range measured in parsecs.
9124806
Probably not, if these ships are in some form of orbit, these bombs should follow about the same orbit as the bomber did when it released them.
9124659
"Beam them up, Huxey!"
Oh wait, wrong franchise.
9123670
So you're saying the bombs should have suddenly lost all "down"ward momentum they gained from the ship's AG and hovered motionless in space the instant they cleared the bay?
Welp, things gonna get stinky.
And Cuddlebug needs to be squeaky clean.
Reading the comments, maybe I should finally see TLJ... Though, weren't there already bombers in Star Wars? At least the extended universe. I distinctly remember having to dodge Tie Bombers in Jedi Knight.
Hygiene issues aside, I can’t wait to see the meeting between the crew and the Equestrians. It’s gonna be a good time.
9127051
Tie bombers, Y-wings, and (I think) B-wings are all canon with the Disney canon.
9190757 TIE Bombers originally appeared in Empire Strikes Back. Y-Wings were in the original movie (Gold Squadron). B-wings were in the battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi.
9123957
It does actually. It’s not firing a laser but some kind of hyper matter material thing.
Not even fimfiction is safe from TLJ.
oh, i just remembered a gag in a different story, where a changeling's parents were showing her baby pictures to someone...
one showed her in a bathtub using her leg-holes to BLOW SOAP BUBBLES!
Damn... This will be a tight and dirty adventure. But nothing like the shit rolling to get fertile soil.
Nice chapter
10048824
in curious if possible can i see that?
10668776
This may not be it, but it's close. Link.
respond
Regrettably I CAN imagine the smell.
During my time serving in the Army I manned security for the walls, and that included Gate Guard. At least one of those times I was there we had a Bradley roll up to the gate park to the side of the gate (thereby providing "enhanced" security) and roll down it's back hatch... while the wind direction had the gate downwind of it...
They were on patrol duty outside the base, and came back only to await new patrol orders... Patrol duty for vehicles, and any mechanized troops along for the ride, could last multiple weeks just moving between positions off base. Never having access to hygiene facilities except wipes supplied to some of the positions for bathing... All this we came to know in detail later. Right then only one thing that was clear the day we had the Bradley upwind of us was the SMELL...
Those poor mechanized soldiers? Not at that moment! Poor us!!!
I quote myself on that day, (GAG) "Oh GOD. They've been dragged through the Bog of Eternal Stench. Help."
I can imagine the smell. God help me, I think I know the smell.
Rip decon shower