MISSION LOG – SOL 219
I wish that had taken longer.
We harvested the alfalfa from the cave today. That is, we harvested what was still fit to harvest, which wasn’t much. We just weighed it here in the Hab. What the methane and the sinkholes and the flooding left us amounts only to ninety-two and a half kilograms. That’s only a little more than thirty sols of pony food which took us almost sixty sols to grow. Not a winning trend.
Thankfully it’s not game over, either. We still have lots of hay left from previous harvests- just not enough to get all the way to Sol 551. Once the next potato harvest comes in, we’ll almost certainly have enough total food to hit that goal. We probably have enough right now, really. But though the ponies can eat potatoes, alfalfa has more protein and is better for them all around.
Since we were in the cave anyway, we took all but a handful of the remaining alfalfa seed and planted it in the restored sinkhole areas. We also took cuttings from the plants that aren’t dead but didn’t produce enough hay to be worth harvesting. I’m soaking the cuttings ends in water here in the Hab. I could have done that in the cave, but I didn’t have anything to keep the cuttings from sliding all the way into the water and drowning. Tomorrow I’ll go back and plant ‘em in the area left after we ran out of seed. So far my cuttings have about a fifty percent success rate, which isn’t great, but it’s better than zero.
I checked a couple of the potato plants. The tubers on one were ready to harvest, but the others were still a little green, so no harvest ahead of schedule.
We tried a new experiment today, more for Dragonfly’s sake than anything else. Starlight Glimmer took all the batteries in the cave and drained them into a single one to get a full charge. She then rigged it to project a magic field, like she does whenever she makes more batteries, and left it run for half an hour. Dragonfly tried to pretend that it was no big deal, but Fireball picked the bug up and carried her right to the battery and sat down beside it. Dragonfly complained, but she didn’t struggle.
The experiment had one definite result besides easing our worries about our resident Hello Giger. For the first time I could actually watch plants responding to Cherry Berry’s presence. The potato plants didn’t do much, but their leaves looked a little larger after she checked them over. The alfalfa responded even more, with the sick plants perking up as I watched and the cuttings actually growing an inch or so as I watched.
The cherry saplings, though, were the most dramatic. I swear I saw one of them actually bend its limbs towards her.
Cherry keeps insisting that she’s not really a farmer, that it’s not her “special talent”. After what I saw today, I really want to meet a pony who does have a talent for farming. Starlight tells me she knows a pony who can make a flower go from seed to full bloom in a couple of seconds. After today, I believe her.
Think of the possibilities we’re talking about here. Earth is approaching a population of nine billion humans. Half the world is in a state of what politicians call “food insecurity” and everyone else calls “famine”. Countries are fighting wars to defend or exploit depleted fishing grounds, while refugees flee countries that are turning to desert for places where food is more plentiful. In the last decade botanical science has kicked into high gear looking for sustainable ways to feed a population which will probably top 11 billion by the time I die- assuming the zombie apocalypse doesn’t strike before then.
Think about all that, and then think what ponies could teach us. Ponies like Cherry Berry turning poor, exhausted soils back into breadbaskets. Pegasi like Spitfire, who can control weather- imagine the Sahara turned back into lakes and jungle, as it was ten thousand years ago. And unicorn magic and magical technology, with the ability to tap into unlimited free energy produced by life itself, taking the place of fossil fuels.
We humans have done our planet no favors. When Dragonfly says Mars hates us, it might not be because we’re invaders. Mars might hate us the same way we hate an embarrassing skin rash. We’re Mother Earth’s cooties, and Mars doesn’t want any of that icky girl stuff on him.
But the ponies and their friends could help us fix all that. I’m not talking about hippie-woo stuff like “returning to nature” or “going back to the land.” Nature is a sadistic, malevolent bitch with a million ways to kill you. (Though right now I’d send Nature a bag of all-natural fertilizer and a Mother’s Day card, and Mars wouldn’t even get a shitty necktie.) Ponies have something better- a managed equilibrium, that satisfies the needs of people while preserving all the environmental systems that make people possible.
And we could pay them back by… video games? Bad ancient television shows? Childrens’ books? Training in how to not run suicidally dangerous space programs?
Obviously Earth needs better negotiators than me.
Starlight is reading over my shoulder, and she points out that they’re not perfect. They have barren badlands and deserts too. (She’s also appalled at the idea of nine billion people on one planet.) Also, we don’t know at all if the magic generated by all of Earth’s life is sufficient to create an Equestrian-style economy there. More work will be needed.
But in the meantime, I can dream.
And I can also have nightmares, because one fact remains: none of all that will happen if we don’t get ourselves off this goddamn icy death rock.
a quote from a comic book comes to mind: "there are more people alive today than have ever died."
and in John Ringo's book "the last centurion", he said that people who insist on "all natural food" are really stupid, without modern Herbicides and Pesticides farms would lose HALF their crops to weeds and pests!
8907411
That's not really true. It's estimated that in total around 100 billion people have ever lived. Currently, the dead are winning at about 15:1.
Hey. Maybe, by some irony, we will end up getting pony help. Who knows what's out there.
So, when Watney mentioned pony magic batteries that feed off of life replacing fossil fuels...was I the only one who thought of the Zoltan ships from FTL: Faster Than Light?
Of course you have something Mark. You have friendship. Ponies love friendship.
They got a whole princess dedicated to it.
And love too, I guess. But it's mostly about the friendship.
This doesn't need to be an issue. The problem has already been solved, really. It's just a matter of implementing it. In the US, all of agriculture constitutes only 1.5% of jobs, and the US is a net food exporter. With 1.5% of our workfroce, which is only ~63% of the total population...so less than 1% overall, we produce and export food more than we import.
The countries that have food problems are mostly in Africa and the Middle East. Place like Burundi, where 91% of the workforce is involved in Agriculture and yet nevertheless they depend on food aid because they're plagued with civil wars and a large portion of the population doesn't even have running water. Even just upgrading to irrigation via pipes instead of people carrying around clay pots on their head would go a long way to making this whole problem go away. Seriously, that's the level of technology some of these places are dealing with.
Catch these places up to even the 18th or 19th the century and these food problems pretty much vanish, provided some despot warlord doesn't keep marching soldiers all over the place keeping them in the dark ages.
8907480
It's been a while since I looked into it, but last I checked (some 10-15 years ago) the reason for the high yields in tight geographic areas was mainly due to extensive chemical fertilizer use to prevent soil exhaustion. The majority of those fertilizers are synthesized from crude oil chemicals. Though we don't think much about it, lots of what we use to sustain our high efficiency farming comes from oil from the Middle East. It is daunting to think of the infrastructure and finances necessary to duplicate.
8907453
Firstly its worth remembering this is Mark's thoughts....and while he is only talking about half the issue, as the US Dustbowl proves, our agriculture has costs.....including using up the worlds supply of Phosphate rock at a rather rapid pace. We kinda need that for Fertilizer.
Secondly, its worth noting that while food distribution is the MAIN problem, their are reasons for that, that could be solved by ponies.
The Deserification of Africa and South America, meaning those continents need to import food.....solved by ponies aiding the soil and life.
The deforestation for wood....if you can make planations grow at twice the rate, IF NOT MORE defortesting wild forest is literally made redundant, which also prevents deforestation.
Nations where war makes importing food difficult and due to the lack of inferstructure, water is dirty.....magic to make the food grow quicker so civil war can't destroy the food source. Also Magic to clean the water.
And thats ignoring the potential peace keeping apilications of magic.
We grow more food then we need. But its INCREDIBLY difficult to send that food to places that are lacking food, both for ecconomic reasons (buisnesses want to make a profit) and for inferstructure reasons (The center of Africa is lacking roads for example.)
Even if nothing else, if it proves to be efficient for the sparkle drive to be used on Earth, charities will be able to teleport food to poor areas, making it almost impossible for warlords to stop the work of these organizations.
For example, if food randomly appears in North Korean villages, its essentially impossible for the North Koreans to trace who did it other then "Someone connected to Equestria" and unless a pony betrays Equestria for North Korea (an event so unlikely I want to laugh), its utterly impossible for North Korea to hurt Equestria.
One, incredible depressing, answer: turn to chemical foods. We already have replaced trees with technology for refreshing the oxygen in the air in some cities, and all liquid foods are becoming a thing. It is entirely possible for humanity to make up 99% of earth's biomass and keep thriving. This is, as I stated, an incredibly depressing last resort, and I hope other, more environmentally friendly solutions are made soon.
Also, Congratulations on breaking the 1,000 likes barrier! The first of the three daily stories to do so.
8907524
Also, think how easy it would be to remove people like Hitler, Bin Laden, (Insert other mass murdering leader) and so on and so forth. Teleport in, grab and remove the head of the serpent, then teleport out. Don't even have to kill the guy.
Looking ahead, I think genetic engineering is promising, but the next real "green revolution" will require doing what the ponies have done: taking complete control over the growing environment. And since we don't have magic, the way we do that is by moving it indoors, into enclosed environments. Then you can control the temperature, you can control the irrigation, you can keep the pests out, you control runoff and don't have topsoil washing away, etc. Greenhouses aren't new, but technology is finally starting to support the economics of enclosed growing. That's what's made the Netherlands a major exporter of food. (see here → https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/09/netherlands-is-world-number-two-in-agricultural-exports-by-using-greenhouses-and-new-technology.html)
8907453
Remember the story takes place in 2038 not 2018. Plenty can happen in 20 years.
8907547
Naw, that's terribly fraught with problems. For one, if Most Excellent Autocrat has the military's support, that military will retaliate. Either on the abducting country or whoever they can reach.
I mean, the ponies might go along with it, sure, but I say that because they have shown the occasional colonialist tendencies. Like installing Cadance as Crystal Empress, naming Thorax the new King of Changelings without anyling's input, or un-avalanching Yakyakistan against Prince Rutherford's express wishes.
(Oh wait. One of those didn't happen in this story's past, and I don't know about Yakyakistan. Still, the simple stories were, if I'm being lenient, not meant to be considered in this complicated way.)
Giger, if you mean the H. R. variety.
8907597
Once Changeling gets to go around, well, there are two possible outcome. The cat gets out of the bag and their capability for transformation gets widespread... Paranoia galore and any place where there is possibility of infiltration devolves in a internal mess up. Or it does NOT get known... and so Chrysalis gets an in in practical every places she wants...
8907411
I mean, he has a point but he's still John Ringo. Even a bigoted idiot clock is right now and then.
Somehow I don't think using magic to solve earth's problems is a brilliant idea. Plus Equestria has way more power at a negotiation table than humans.
8907436 Erlich was right, but in a terribly wrong way. His projection assumed all the *wrong* things, that people would destroy existing resources, that no other resources would be found to replace them, and that population would go up while ag productivity would go down. Instead, we have the opposite. (except for those darned fish)
8907629 Naa, more like click, click, click, clickclickclickclickBOOM!
8907524 (gentle bonk on the head) Read The Alchemy of Air sometime. The problem with the shortage of Nitrogen for fertilizer is more or less squished by the Haber-Bosh process. The phosphorus issue is trending the same way with increases in efficiency and different sources proving to be viable.
8907533
Microbiological products might also be a solution. Solid pieces of SCOBY can be consumed as a source of animal protein, and algae can be consumed as vegetable matter.
I always figured the badlands and deserts in Equestria were just because they didn't have the population to actually need that land. Given their demonstrated powers making it agriculturally productive should be trivial, but they don't need to. Their current agricultural land easily supports their population so why bother with expanding to the deserts and badlands?
Nuclear weapons?
Although, inferring from what she's already done, I believe with enough magic and information Starlight could make basic fission reactor or gun-type weapon in a day or two alone. Ponies seem to have completely insane labour productivity.
first off the mlp barren badlands and deserts are really of a result of no one there to do what the ponies can do every day of every year.
plus barren badlands and deserts are still full of life still just not how most people think of it, besides its fun to go play in the sand too
8907453 Exactly. We have enough food to feed everyone, and we're not even close to tapping our full farming potential. Just think of all those fields in Africa that don't have reliable pesticides or fertilizer. Even if you cut down food production in the West to less resource intensive levels, simply bringing the rest of the world up to match it will more than cover the difference, not even counting the effect automation would have on the whole process.
If we really tried to tax the earth for every human it could support, the final total would be at least 30 billion, and that's an intentional low-ball. The real number could be anywhere from 40 billion to 100+.
http://nautil.us/issue/29/scaling/will-the-earth-ever-fill-up
I have this image of Dragonfly draped over the batter while Fireball glares at her.
8907811
I consider sand useful only for making glass.
I came here for Mars and ponies, but what I got was a respectful, interesting, and informative debate on natural resources and infrastructure that filled me with hope for the future.
I am not disappointed, and the bits with Mars and Ponies were good, too.
Also, that was among the most adorable things ever.
8907719 A mid-power unicorn like Trixie can perform a transformation spell. It turned one sort of pottery into another, so molecular reshaping. It either vanished or transformed the metal parts of a salt shaker, not to mention the salt into more pottery, which is mass conversion or elemental transmutation. And it took no more power to create an animated teacup-poodle when her attention wandered.
Yeah, I could see the possibilities of a moderatly talented unicorn applied to additive manufacturing. You don't even necessarily need the right material, just mass to convert.
I always liked the concept of a thaumo-nuclear fusion reactor. A shell of mithril with multiple enchantments. At the centrepoint, it alters the relative strength of the strong nuclear and electromagnetic forces, making the first stronger and the second weaker, enabling fusion at much lower temperatures. Just inside the shell is an absorbtive shield that converts radiation and kinetic impacts to magical energy, and a telekinesis spell that pushes particles towards the centre of the sphere. Switching spells exchange atoms of duterium and tritium from a tank of heavy water outside with the free neutrons left over by the fusion process, after they've bounced off the shield, allowing it to absorb most of their momentum energy. The now slow neutrons are absorbed by the remaining hydrogen atoms in the water to produce more deuterium or tritium.
It requires an initial burst of magical energy to start, but from then it's self sustaining. The switched in atoms are held at the centre and given an initial pulse of energy to force them to fuse. The energy generated is collected by the shield and used to sustain the spells. Excess magic is tapped out to storage crystals, or converted by a lightning spell into electricity.
8907867
sand is also useful for making computer chips
This story deserves a TV Tropes page, but I don't have the time to start one right now. But if I do find the time, I'm definitely starting one.
Two values? America has half th available fresh water for growing crops in the world, and if everyone ate a healthy balanced mixed diet that used Any other form of meat than beef, we have current food production,m if properly distributed, to feed almost 10 billion people. This is without turning over one window in each house to be a green box growing lettuces etc.
We have stupid amounts of resources available, but very expert accountants etc that show that this 1% less profitable method that gives 10% more return is actually 20% worse off for the margin.
8907533
Someone actually has done that.
https://www.soylent.com/
8907864 Inconvenient Changeling?
8907640
If contact with Earth gets established, it's pretty much impossible for the full Changeling rundown not to come to light - that's going to come up within five minutes of the Pony government opening a dialog with Earth.
8907969
A wonderful food I wholeheartedly approve of- Except for the fact that in order to make it palatable, I had to dump a half-tub of Nutella into at, and I think that kind of threw its nutrient balance out of whack.
8907455
I'm going to go with "probably". I'm failing to see the connection there to be honest.
8908265
I'll admit, I do have FTL on the brain. However, I don't know if you're familiar with the game, but with the Zoltan ships, the crew are a vital source of power. If any of them die, it can really affect your ship's capabilities.
Using people for power in our universe seems like a risky idea. In a spacecraft for instance, it would mean that if a crew took casualties, or even if an EVA took them too far away, the ship would be unable to operate. While there might be plenty batteries and other systems to make a good margin for error, cutting corners would certainly make it problematic. The same thing would apply to most vehicles. However, use in a city might actually be pretty safe. You would be able to count on a reliable amount of people.
Seems more likely that magic would supplement alternative energies, to replace coal plants and the like, but not replace the engines in most vehicles.
8908189
So paranoia galore!
8908286
If you are operating without ANY margin you are just crazy. You ALWAYS account for problem and keep an healthy margin of reserve.
8908286
You may find this interesting. I don't remember where I read it, but I remember reading a theory about how that we are capable of making that FTL technology you see in Star Trek. The problem is that we don't have the materials that could stand the heat/strain. Yet.
8908309
Of course. If you're NASA or any group with proper oversight. With groups that would have proper oversight, I'm sure there'd be plenty of backups. Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was thinking about privately-owned vehicles, and the amount of cost-cutting that can go into those things.
8908309 Crazy... or desperate, or without any real alternatives.
I've spent most of my adult life operating without margins.
8908325
I heard it was some sort of power issue, but that they're figuring out how to fix that.
8908447
I thought the deal with the Acubierre drive was that it required exotic matter, a substance with negative mass. Instead of attracting mass, it would repel mass.
Problem is, such a substance is entirely theoretical, which is a major problem when it's also the lynchpin to success.
I've also heard somewhere that you might be able to get the same effect woith something called the Casimir effect. Or maybe I misheard that.
Ah, if the potatoes are green, then they need to be buried as this means they are in contact with light (the only time potatoes will turn green is if they are exposed to light), which causes them to produce chlorophyll and much higher levels of the toxic saponins which male raw tubers and the plants themselves inedible.
8908559 "A little green" in agricultural terms also means "not ripe yet," even if the crop in question isn't actually green-colored when unripe.
One problem with GMO food is the patent system, which has not caught up to genetic engineering. It has permitted the patenting of NATURALLY OCCURRING genetic sequences, thus giving a monopoly the starting legals grounds to own LIFE ITSELF. This is a dangerous precedent for quite a number of very obvious reasons, hence conservative-libertarians as myself and even some liberal-minded people are vehemently against it. Alas, lobbyists still own too many politicians in the US and in Europe.
The GMOs themselves really aren't dangerous. A tiny fraction of the population may be allergic to the introduced proteins and insecticidal products they produce, but remember those already exist in the environment. If you garden, almost assuredly you've inhaled Bacillus thuringienesis, the carrier of the toxin lethal to many insects spliced into BT corn. Since you are reading this, it clearly hasn't killed you.
We actually have much more to worry about from the enormous increase in hormone-mimetic plasticizers and decomposition products of plastics. At even a few parts per million in the water, we know full well that these chemicals can alter the development of embryos. There is also the issue with the overuse of artificial hormones. Again, city water systems with high levels of these compounds (which are almost as stable in the environment as plastics) show a dramatic increase in fish and amphibian developmental malformations downstream of the outflow and they have been proven to alter a number of mammalian brain regions. Has anyone bothered to test whether or not these compounds could initiate the pathology of genetic vulnerabilities in children who develop autism? We already know that real autism rates have skyrocketed in the Western world within the past 20 years. It's certainly an interesting correlation that the use of these plasticizers and hormones follows that curve in these regions perfectly. At the very least, this is evidence that developmental studies must be undertaken.
And for those wondering, NO, vaccines have nothing to do with autism. That one study from years ago was fraudulent and the result of deliberate selection bias on the part of the investigator. The largest meta-analysis ever done showed absolutely ZERO association between vaccines and autism spectrum disorders.
There was a slight bump in autoimmune disorders and asthma in groups in which vaccines were given too early, however. So it's best to wait until over 6 months of age, and space out the vaccinations so the immune system has time to develop. Vaccines should be avoided for all but the most dangerous and common of infectious diseases (measles, mumps, rubella. Diphtheria is very rare in the US and Europe now, but outbreaks can still occur in the unvaccinated.) for those with a direct family history (blood relatives) of autoimmunity or severe allergies, or wait until school age at which point the immune system has matured somewhat.
If you wonder which diseases to protect against, there's this thing called the Internet full of information to look up! Plenty of epidemiological studies and information on the severity of the potential illnesses and complication rates can be found with a few clicks. I personally wouldn't bother with a vaccine for chicken pox unless you want to make sure your kid becomes a super model. It's mostly an annoyance that leaves a few small round scars here and there in the majority of cases. I and my brothers all had it, we barely remember it other than it was really annoying. But, if you'd rather your kids not be itchy and feverish for a week, go for it. It may protect them from shingles later on in life too (my dad had those on his back... we would poke him as we walked by, because we're all horrible trolls.)
That will be your infodump for today.
Another problem is, thanks to the same monopoly, we end up with huge areas of crops that are essentially genetic clones. Thus, not only can insects and diseases adapt rapidly to cope with the single protective mutation or gene insert and run rampant again, but it leaves the entire population of that crop vulnerable to any new pathogens which arise. We see this even in traditional monoculture crops where over-selectiveness has led to a population of clones: cocoa and bananas.
8907902
Not 100% sustainable. Produces helium, requires deuterium or tritium to generate power, unless you had a spell to turn helium back into deuterium/tritium for less energy than was produced by fusing them- and keep in mind the very, very poor conversion from energy into magic. The odds are, this process would end as any other attempted perpetual motion/energy generator.
8908608
Wow... I’m learning a lot about the world today.
Why the hell wasn’t I taught any of this stuff in school?!
Meh, we can always switch to Soylent Green.
Huh bug charging station.