Sacrifice Applejack’s project. 47%
Twilight didn’t want to tell any of her friends they had to stop working. Each one of the crew had some critical mission to accomplish, or at least they thought they did. But ultimately there was only one pony on the crew she trusted to protect the ship from gravity and wind.
“I get ‘ya, captain,” Applejack said, raising her welding mask with the back of a hoof. There was a strange metal claw-apparatus on her foreleg now, one that folded flat when she walked but extended into interlocking mechanical grippers. Twilight had never seen anything like it in her life, though the design reminded her of those little drone things that had attacked the camp while she was in orbit. Only this one was clearly something Applejack had made.
“I can do it. If Spike says we can, anyway. There’s, uh… maybe a mite of compromise to be made in a situation like that. What we’ve done to reinforce is one thing, but… we need more metal, it can’t come from nowhere.”
1. Scrap the Prospector. We’re all in on the Equinox now that Spike is inside it.
2. Scrap the storage bays. Huge empty space, lots of steel to work with. If we have to haul cargo again, we can tow it or something.
3. Find an asteroid near Proximus C and mine. That distress call didn’t seem that urgent, right? A few months of metal refining and we don’t have to give up anything. [Applejack keeps her full repair project after all, at the cost of two months.]
Once her decision was made, she sent Applejack on her way. The Farmpony had seemed subtly changed since her time in the Contingency, but Twilight hadn’t confronted her about it. Twilight would probably be just as disoriented herself if she got sucked up into a ball or something.
Travel resumed, with each of her ponies returning to their work. Each had their own mission to complete, and their own goal to achieve. Twilight remained especially attentive to Sunset Shimmer, who had refused to sacrifice her magic on the altar of better chances of survival, no matter how broken her body seemed.
Does Sunset Survive? Yes.
It was a very near thing. More than once Sunset was rushed into the medical bay, for Fluttershy and Node to work with a combination of Equestrian medical science and Node’s bizarre suggestions. They cleared clogged arteries, cut necrotic tissue, replaced damaged organs. As the trip went on, Sunset grew stronger. Her body finally started healing into the mechanical leg-grafts, sealing around them as she’d meant to.
Finally, she could walk around again under full gravity without strain, and Twilight started seeing her at work on other parts of the ship. Mostly that meant she was with Apple Bloom.
Project completion status before arrival:
Node/Spike's Project = INCOMPLETE
Rarity's Project= COMPLETE
Rainbow's Project = INCOMPLETE
Apple Bloom's Project = COMPLETE
Twilight finally intruded on them as they neared their destination, stooping low as she entered the isolated workshop. The air was heavy with the smells of plastic and metal from a fabrication machine. A pattern crystal was slotted into place even as she spoke, and metal extruded through the air into the shape of beams and joints. Twilight didn’t have to wonder what it might be, because there were several of them skittering along the floors, the walls.
She squealed, raising a shield around herself as one stopped right in front of her.
A spiderlike metal creature, not as tall as her knees, with tiny tools on the end of each leg, and a pivoting sensor module on top. Mostly plastic, with little bits of metal.
“Oh, captain!” Apple Bloom emerged from beside a large gray box, which hummed quietly even now. “I was going to call you tomorrow, but you’re here now. I thought you might want to see this.”
Twilight waited another moment, but the little robot didn’t attack. Finally she lowered her shield, glancing around the room. There were just over a dozen of them in the relatively small space, most of which were gathered around the large box. Even as she watched, one curled up and climbed up inside, vanishing from sight. “So what am I seeing, exactly?”
“We stole them from the signalers,” Sunset Shimmer said, standing just by the doorway. “They call them Anytaskers, but our design isn’t nearly as smart.”
“Fixit spiders,” Apple Bloom supplied. “Beautiful, ain’t they? They can weld, seal, cut, bend… in or out of atmosphere. And with Spike in control of the Equinox, I figure he might want some tools for keeping things running that don’t rely on ponies much. Automation for the little stuff, leaving us for the big stuff.”
“It’s innovative,” Spike’s voice said, from the nearby wall. “Good. Not every member of the crew was so successful. Node and I are encountering… setbacks. But I’m thrilled to have this option for remote control, even if I’d prefer to just have a body.”
“It’s remarkable,” Twilight said. “I assume they aren’t vulnerable to going crazy on us with Spike in control? Won’t attack us like the flying ones did on Proximus B?”
“No,” Apple Bloom said. “It’s our circuit, not theirs. Without this control box here, they just sit quietly. No danger to anypony.”
“Good.”
Equinox gains: Drones (Repair: 3)
Twilight found similar frustration from Rainbow Dash as she walked through the weapons room. While Rainbow had clearly been close to getting one of their torpedo bays working again, she just didn’t quite have the engineering acumen to get there in time. Twilight wasn’t about to ask somepony else to stop their own important work because Rainbow thought that was the right idea. They’d be unarmed, again.
But at least they wouldn’t be defenseless. Rarity had built an impressive apparatus, just one floor down from the reactor. The shield crystal, several thaumic capacitor banks, and a large Signaler-design processor bank. Even with nothing going on, the central crystal glowed and spun, twisting at random as the ship decelerated towards their destination.
“And the best part is, no intervention is required. That’s rather the point, since it activates for such short times. No reactor at the scale of the Equinox could generate enough power to effectively protect the ship. But most of that capacity is wasted when there are not threats. Engage a shield exactly when it’s needed, and now we’re talking about something we can achieve. We have achieved.
Twilight took another look at her spell diagram, nodding in approval. “It’s incredible work. When we bring this back to Equ—right.”
“We’ll get back,” Rarity muttered, touching her lightly on the shoulder. “We’ve made it this far thanks to you, captain. Don’t give up now.”
(Certainty 200 required)
This one is hard. An extra two months would likely get us everything we missed though.
I know it feels like we need to hurry because the distress signal is new to us, but they’ve been stuck In there this entire adventure so far. We burned a lot more time than this for lesser resources. Logically, an extra two months doesn’t seem like much of a loss for all the gains. Narratively, well... that could be a different story. It seems like in all fiction, as soon as you know about something it becomes super important, regardless of how long it’s been in the background.
There will probably be a roll for some tragedy to strike the new ship since we know about it now, but having all the things fixed would be a great place to start this last leg of the story.
Wait, the poll's at the start? It's tripping me out.
I say we stop to mine. Whatever the Hunger is, it's slow, and if the Equestria ship has survived this long, 2 more months won't kill it.
Scavenge the Prospector. If we need to move something off the distressed vehicle, better in a sealed bay than vaccum towed. And it's likely this ship has some kind of excursion vehicle we could use to replace it in a pinch.
received -> refused
I'm voting for mining. It's a little risky, but getting ourselves killed helps no one.
Logically, waiting 2 months should not change anything.
However, this is a story and the narrative demands that things are not that simple. I bet my ass that if the ship stops to mine for 2 months something will go horribly wrong.
I vote stop to mine. The Prospector may be useful and if the other ship is in bad state, the cargo bays may be needed.
Two months probably will not change things much.
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And if we Scrap the cargo hold, we will need to find a place to stow all the surviving ponies’ cryo pods. 😜 whatever we choose will have a potential immediate failure. This is a rough one, but still leaning mining.
...wasn't the decision not to sacrifice her magic?
As for this chapter....I'm not sure. I don't think scrapping the Prospector is a good idea. It's a nice ship that allows them to go to a planet's surface, and also evacuate the Equinox when something goes wrong. The question is what's worth more, Applejack's project, or two months' worth of time and the cargo bay?
Gonna say...stop to mine. Applejack gets her full repair project and the Equinox is in a better place. They might even have a better shot of rescuing that vessel.
Mining also allows an extra two months to finish these projects.
If we're going to dive into a high-risk operation, it does not make any rational sense to jump into it half-ass without full prep.
Cargo space will likely be needed to rescue whatever there is inside proximus 3, and who knows, maybe the extra time will be enough for Rainbow to get weapons working with the"free" crew members helping out both her, node and Applejack.
No hidden option?
No zalgo?
... This one seems close.
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That was a typo. Was supposed to be “refused to sacrifice her magic”. I think it’s corrected now.
Scrap the prospector. We can build another one later if needed.
mine fot 2 months. we need to be st relatively full strength, and with the repair bots helping, I'm sure they'll be more successful.
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What if the prospector is needed for transport to the ship thats planet side we are coming up on?
What if the cargo is needed to store life pods from the ship we're coming up on?
What if the ship we're coming up on needs immediate help?
That's the vote we're getting. I can't remember but I think there was another shuttle ship that could go planet side. If there is I don't remember if it was big enough to move anything significant like a life pod or not.
9776029
The reason for strengthening the Equinox is to get to the vessel in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant. The prospector amounts to a tin can in a garbage compacter in such a scenario. The winds alone would make flight impossible for such a lightweight craft. Then you have the atmospheric pressure, which would crush the prospector like the forementioned tin can. In short, the Equinox is the only craft capable of docking with our target. This means the prospector is, at least in this situation, useless at best.
Magic may help it to survive the pressure for a VERY short time, but winds in excess of 100 m/s in some spots will end up like trying to fly a kite during a category 5 hurricane.
Stop to mine. Two months more will let us prepare for this rescue op and let it have a higher chance of success.
I'm not sure scrapping the Prospector's internal storage is a good idea, and scrapping it altogether is a no-go. We may need it in the future.
I'm kind of liking 3. They've waited for so long already, we probably have time for it.
Mildly disappointing results from the independent projects, but there's no reason any of that work has to be trashed when it can be completed at a later date. Especially if we spend two months mining if that option wins.
And what we did get was pretty great. Those three repair drones could easily be the start of Spike having quite a bit more autonomy (big question, can he make more with those three?), and Rarity's shield solution is fantastic. Great result on Sunset, too.
Option 3. Chances are they got the time for it. Not only will it not give up anything it will give node and rainbow more time to do their projects in addition to AJ potentially finishing hers
I can't belive everyone voting for 3.
Welp, at this rate, everypony's definitely going to be dead by the time they get there. Or possibly not, but that distress signal sounded pretty darn urgent to me, and we've already burned a lot of time doing other stuff.
Granted, they could've died months ago, but the structure is still there. I suppose we'll find out in time. This is what I get for not reading the day of the update.
Two extra months? Well it there's any survivors we may very well need those cargo bays, but delaying further seems not as wise and the flexibility represented by the Prospector shouldn't be forgotten either.... Always the hard choices...
Sacrafice the two months for the metal. We're gonna need all the help we can get (and this will guaruntee that Rainbow, Spike and Node will finish their projects).
I’m gonna go with “it’s an emergency” and “probably we need to take on cargo”, and scrap the prospector.
Everyone on this thread:
🎶Mining away🎶
Finally got around to reading this. I'm surprised we only kinda lost one crew member with all the s*** that went down. Good job everyone!
I say they scrap the prospector. They can always make another, and an emergency is an emergency.