Gather camp first. 77%
After everything that had happened, Twilight couldn’t imagine leaving Proximus B with every one of their turrets and other automatic weapons behind. She sent Rainbow, Apple Bloom, and Pinkie back down to get everything packed, while she set her engineers loose on the remaining damage Cozy Glow had done to the Equinox.
Or is it even the Equinox anymore? Did they damage Spike instead? But those thoughts hurt her brain, so she banished them quickly enough. Just like she banished all the stories her crew gave her of the time they’d spent in the Contingency. Over a year, apparently, living in pastural conditions that responded to their whims.
On Spike’s insistence, she sat down with Node to discuss a few pressing details. “You’re going to tell her,” Spike said over the speakers. “Or I will. She’s your captain and mine, Node.”
The robotic pony shifted uncomfortably under the pressure, an organic simulation so striking that Twilight almost didn’t believe it was happening. Finally, she looked up, and spoke in Starlight Glimmer’s voice.
More than ever before, it sounded like a real pony. “The ones you call the ‘Signalers’—they built this contingency for your species. They hoped that you would find it and be able to flee into it. We were guilty that we couldn’t… that we weren’t successful, with your species. Didn’t want to leave you to die.”
Twilight occupied herself organizing the pens on the table between them, straightening them into an orderly line. Node’s words were absurd, yet she spoke them with absolute sincerity.
Finally, Twilight looked up. “You created us, is that what you’re saying?”
Node nodded. “Your species and many others. All were attempts to solve the same question… all failures. You were the last.”
“Do you have any, uh…” she cleared her throat. “I believe you’re sincere, Node. But you’re making quite an extraordinarily claim. Where’s the evidence of this?”
“In the Monument,” she answered. “Many of our creations were stored down there. Previous iterations. All of you have a similar genetic heritage—ours. Each increasingly divergent, but the meaningful similarities are there. With time, I could adapt your computer to display stored genetic data.”
“I could,” Spike cut in from overhead. “No one is modifying me. I may not understand much about this, but I know those computers are my brain. No one goes in there but Twilight.”
Twilight waved a dismissive wing. Node clearly understood the gesture, as she might not have before, because she stopped arguing. “Assume I believe that for the time being. We don’t really have the luxury of detailed investigations and debates about history that… might predate all of civilization. We’ve got a trip that’s several months long coming up, we can table this until then.” She turned towards the distant window, where Proximus B was even now visible beneath them. “When you went into the Contingency, you regained your memories, am I understanding this right?”
Node nodded. “I was distilled down into a dewdrop and a hair’s breadth. My culture was—less concerned about what you might call ‘continuity of consciousness.’ In case that wasn’t immediately clear form the contingency itself. I had to be small enough to meet you when you arrived.”
“To do what?” Twilight turned back, watching her closely. But there was no missing the obvious signs of intelligence from Node that hadn’t been there before. She had mastered their culture with long effort, but now she remembered her own as well. Those eyes moved in strange ways, and she fidgeted constantly in her seat as a living creature might do, though her body needed no adjustment. “What was your mission?”
“I was the watchman on the wall,” she answered. “The voice of the eclipse. I would penetrate your systems and adapt myself until I was small enough for you to understand. Then I would make myself understood. Warn you.”
“Did you… speak with any of us before?” Twilight asked. “Sunset Shimmer—the other captain, I think she might’ve beat us here? I get fuzzy on the timelines honestly. But she seems to know some of this.”
Node shook her head. “I detected another vessel some time ago, but it refused my messages and did not construct the necessary hardware. I don’t know if it understood what I asked.”
“I did,” Spike said proudly. “And we did.”
“Yes,” Twilight agreed. “Is there any part of your warning you didn’t deliver?”
Node pushed back her chair. She drifted slightly across the room, but not far. Her hooves had magnets, apparently, because she held herself down well enough. She stood straight, looking Twilight square in the eye. “You are not immune to Ḩ̣͉̩̘̠͈̀ͅU̮̫̱ͬ̏͆̅N̵̩͇̙͓̝G̸̭̫͖ͭͦ͒̃Ę̦̪̥͉̪͒̈́̂ͧ̊R̐̄̔ͪ͆. If it reaches your civilization, your organic bodies will fray and wither. If it draws closer, it will tear your minds from you and into itself. Nothing living will remain in the space it leaves behind. You must convert yourselves into a more enduring form—but even then, there are… limits.”
Node pointed down at the table, at a photograph of the contingency resting there. “Whatever form you choose must be low-energy enough that it cannot be detected except but vigorous investigation. We have observed systems as they fall, and machines that are too active are targeted and dismantled as well.”
All this time, and you’re finally talking straight to me. I should’ve taken you to the contingency sooner.
“She said that was what she wants for us,” Spike explained. “Everypony who ever lived, into the contingency.”
“Not me,” she spun on the nearest speaker, glaring at it. “The Ancients wished to share their methods with you, their lastborn. You would have the least time to prepare, and it seemed… unfair.” Were those tears? They couldn’t be—Node wasn’t capable of crying. She sounded distraught, anyway.
“That doesn’t seem like something many ponies would like,” Twilight said. “And apparently it wasn’t, because this Ḩ̣͉̩̘̠͈̀ͅU̮̫̱ͬ̏͆̅N̵̩͇̙͓̝G̸̭̫͖ͭͦ͒̃Ę̦̪̥͉̪͒̈́̂ͧ̊R̐̄̔ͪ͆ already came to Equestria. We chose to flee from it instead. Possibly to this system.”
“There is no chance a species as primitive as yours could reach the Great Fleet,” Node said. “We could have, but we chose not to take the risk. You would surely die in the attempt.”
Twilight gritted her teeth together, biting back a retort. She didn’t want to respond to honesty from Node with anger, or else she might never get information so freely again. “We’ll see,” she said.
Her radio rang a few minutes later, and she headed down to the docking bay. There she found an argument already in progress.
Several crates of cargo had already been unloaded, and Rainbow perched protectively atop them like a nesting bird, shooing away Applejack with a stick. Meanwhile Sunset sat not far away, with a clipboard beside her covered in damage reports and frustration on her face.
“Alright, I’m here,” Twilight said. “Explain this, quickly.”
“Rainbow here thinks she knows better than the Equinox’s chief engineer. And that stranger captain sure ain’t helpin’.” Applejack glared at them both. “Twi, you trust me to know what’s best for the Equinox, don’t ya?”
Two more pairs of eyes settled on her. There was no right answer to that question.
“Here’s the short of it, captain,” Sunset cut in, her tone neutral. She’d been in command—she wasn’t taking this personally like the others were. “We’ve salvaged enough parts from down below to make a single major repair to the Equinox.
“And I’ve been telling them we need our bucking guns back!” Rainbow interrupted, shoving Applejack away again. “She wants to use these parts for… something stupid, I don’t even know.”
“And that’s why I’m chief engineer,” Applejack interrupted. Then she turned on Twilight. “Captain, I’ve discovered a minor but potentially… well, damn near catastrophic—flaw in the reactor. All these explosions tearing us apart, they’ve opened microfractures inside the containment cell. There’s a chance—real small chance, but it’s our buckin’ reactor—that we might not be able to start her up again. Every time we lose power and start it up again, we could fracture the whole shell. And there ain’t a way in Tartarus we make a new one out here.”
“She said it was 10%,” Rainbow said. “I’m okay with those odds. But you know what this mission taught me? There’s a 100% chance somepony is going to try to buckin’ kill me. I want weapons, captain.”
“Or—” Sunset interrupted, casually. “We could strip it all down for scrap to make future repairs—no, not to the reactor. Don’t even say it, engineer, I know. But your ship isn’t in the best shape, captain. You’re running low on feedstock for ever fabricator aboard. In my experience, it’s always the little things that go wrong. The reactor isn’t going to blow—but the plumbing might. Eventually that kills your hydroponics, and nopony eats. Or something like that, you get the idea.”
Twilight hesitated. It would be a long trip, and once she made her decision, there wouldn’t be time to change it.
1. Repair the Equinox’s Weapons.
2. Reinforce the Reactor. [or suffer a 10% chance of permanent failure on each activation. Note: As this is a fusion reactor, the Equinox will not be physically destroyed by this failure]
3. Strip it down for generic spare parts
(certainty 200 required)
To bad we can’t just go and hit up the planet we were mining for everything again and use it for more repairs.
Well. I know one thing. If you lose power in space, you're dead. Dee ee ay dee DEAD.
And considering it's not a flat 10% chance, but a ROLLING 10% each activation? Fix the reactor. You've got an Alicorn, you can feasibly live without weapons. You cannot survive space without power.
Tough choice, but I'm going with Sunset, simply because she has experience with these things.
This is a tough one. Well, for 2/3 anyway. Guns are not important right now for the Equinox. 10% doesn't sound like a lot, but it's one bad roll away from disaster. On the other hand, it sounds like a lot of little things could also fail. I'm going to go with Applejack. I don't like that permanent chance of failure. There's no such stipulation on Sunset's option.
If this story focused on realism I wouldn’t be worried about a reactor failure on startup, since you would leave it constantly running. Heating the hydrogen inside to 100 million degrees for fusion to start basically needs a power plant of its own. But this isn’t real life, so a continuous 10% chance of failure failure every time they stop somewhere to me isn’t worth the risk since we don’t know how many more times they’ll be stopping.
As for generic spare parts, well, that could be for anything. Plumbing for hydroponics, plumbing for non-hydroponic related reasons, little bits and bobs to repair medical equipment (that could come back to bite us). Anything, really.
The reactor risk is on activation so if left on no problems other than fuel consumption?
9729185
They could if they weren't in a hurry, I think? They saved the prospector.
Now there's some more background information. It's nice to see that Node is now fully sapient out in the real world.
Holy crap, repair the reactor. 10% chance of permanent failure on each startup is way too high to just keep risking.
Ten percent chance of failure at every startup means 100% chance of failure after ten startups. Don't mess with your ship's safety. Fix the reactor!
(Okay, I have a bias. I admit it.)
As much as I'd love to vote for Rarity's new experimental system I've played enough RPG to know that a 10% chance to die is tempting fate way too much. Fix Spike's chance of blowing up, try to arm later.
Sunset seems to be of the mind that we'll need those parts 'OMG Right Away!' if something breaks. Instead of shutting down that system for the moment, and breaking down what we need for parts. Repairing, and restarting the system would be simple after that. 'Specially with Spike on overwatch for any malfunctions.
The permanent 10% failure is another matter entirely. How much fuel would we waste if we just left the reactor on from now on? Is there a forced cooldown requirement, where we would need to turn the reactor off? If those aren't concerns, then I'd risk a single activation and just never turn it off.
And lastly, Rainbow is right. So far we've been assaulted by robots(weapons do damage/kill 'em) and the Manifestation of Hunger(Which is annoyed/deterred by our weapons). They are a required commodity for survival at this point.
If anything, I'd scavenge from any non-required systems we currently have running.
(Edit) Oh look, a fourth option with not much info to go on!........ Screw it, I'll at least listen to Rarity.
I haven’t cast my vote yet but this is a pretty hard decision. It’s hard to vote against stopping a flat 10% save-or-die roll for each time we reboot the system.
I really want weapons systems again though.
Node? have those little gatherer robots get supplies for repair and retrofit . . .
🎵🎶 3 big reactors 2 special hulls and a little dragon body for me 🎶
I think I'll sit this one out. I honestly can't decide...
too bad they didn't ask node about the alicorn they had trapped down there
Considering how many problems we've had so far with the Equinox, I'll vote for the reactor fix.
After all is said and done, they still have the fabrication facilities. So they can always make more parts as long as they have the resources. Rarity's project can be tried later.
And besides, this is currently Spike's body. I'm not going to vote for throwing Spike under the bus. Let's get Spike in healthy condition. I doubt all the weapons will be used in that repair anyway.
I'm looking at this from a different viewpoint.
We were told, a while back, that C was a gas giant with enough minerals and resources for a full repair. We might have had trouble getting there, but if we could get there, we were fine.
Well, now we are at the point that getting to C isn't a problem. We might run into one when we get there, but * we can get to C, and we can do a full repair once we get to C *.
That is the fundamental assumption, based on previously stated stuff in the story.
So, DM, a question for the claws we ride on (Spike's):
Can we actually do these fusion reactor repairs once we reach C if we have no other problems?
If so, the answer is simple: Guns, because we might run into combat at C.
If we don't run into combat, no problem. Spend as much time as needed at C to make full repairs of everything.
If we cannot repair the reactor there, and we have some sort of on-going stop/start need, then repair that reactor now.
9729495
If future spare parts become available, or the Equinox is able to mine and prepare raw materials, then the reactor can be repaired later. So long as it doesn't fail when they flip the switch and leave orbit.
In my opinion, given enough time chances are theyd find raw materials they could use for fabrication along the way, wouldnt be the first time they did some resource gathering on the side.
But no reactor means NO movement, EVER
Alright.
If we repair our guns now, we have a 10% chance of being stuck here.
If not, we can get to C, we can potentially defend ourselves if necessary, and can do full repairs out there.
My vote is guns.
Hay, what's this option?
Rarity? Can you tell us more about your system? How does it compare to guns?
9729362
That’s not how probability works. A 10% chance of failure means a 90% chance of success. So after 10 start ups, we have a 0.910, or 35%, chance to succeed every time. Or in other words, there is a 65% chance of failure in 10 startups.
Reactor, for sure. 10% chance means after 10 times we will lose the reactor.
I didnt totally understand Sunset. Is she wanting to strip down the ENTIRE ship and start FRESH? If so that seems totally counter to her insistence that they head straight to C; constructing a whole new ship takes time and heavy equipment. And I reeeally doubt Spike would approve.
I saw reactor. Guns are useless if youre forever stranded in space until you freeze to death. They could always avoid the whatever-it-is until they find more materials to repair with. Or run away. It’s not a surefire thing but I trust it better.
Please, everyone knows RBMK reactors don’t explode!
9729720
That's not how probabilities work. I'll refer to my other comment 9729642 so you can see the maths.
9729739
She wants to strip down their base on the ground for spare parts. The others want to use those same parts for other purposes. (Weapons or reactor.)
9729750
There is still a higher chance of failure than success, thus we still need to get that reactor fixed pronto
9729746
Hes delusional, take him to the infirmary!
9729642
I will concede the point. Never studied probability maths. Reactor maths, yes. Rocket maths, some. Probability maths? Not a chance...
9729822
The immortality rule, given enough time anything is probable. Take a 10 sided die and roll it. It's inevitable that it'll hit every side at least once given enough time. When 1 hit ends the ship that is now Spike we probably shouldn't leave that up to chance. That's what got us a dead Spike to begin with.
You didn't get the numbers right but the sentiment is pretty much spot on.
why is everyone so concerned about a reactor that's been offlined twice in the entire fic so far?
I'm with Sunset. Reactor means nothing if Spike breaks down or the medbay needs repairs, or thrusters blow out.
Reactor is fiiiine. I wouldn't worry until it's cycled twice anyways.
Whatever option that lets us put sunset in her place
9730078
This, restarting the reactor won't be a common occurrence. In fact, with a fusion reactor, it ideally shouldn't happen as part of normal operations. Weapons or extra small repairs. Sunset is right. And Dash is right. I vote weapons, the small stuff we should be able to gather raw materials from the surrounding environment.
It's weapons, generic stuff, or Rarity's unknown 4th option from the poll.
And I want to find out more about that one.
Uh... why is Spike not saying anything? They are fundamentally tasking about his innards...
Question is, how often are they restarting the bloody reactor? IMO this should not be a regular occurrence? It's not a car engine that you start to get moving and turn it off when you're done...
We finally have the full and intended proper message! 🎉
Hasn't Sunset been constantly yammering about Proximus C having tons of resources? You'd think she'd be fine with Applejack's suggestion. Why is she suddenly not so pushy to get there?
I say the reactor is fine enough for the time being. It shouldn’t be going offline on a regular basis anyway. But I say there should be a compromise between spare parts and the weapons.
While they are on their way they should overlook the inner workings of the ship and try to patch up whatever they can that is nearing a breaking point.
They should also keep at least some of the weapons in tact so that they’re not utterly defenseless.
A wise decision; the clear majority of the readers agreed.
That mental picture I have right now!
About the vote:
Huh, that is an tough one.
After many considerations I believe we should go with Sunset.
The reactor risk only applies whenever we power it down and up again; something that we hopefully can avoid altogether.
(Edit: It seems the clear majority (61%) sees it differently. Time will tell who is right.)
9729458
Great idea! Too bad this isn't an actual option...
Huh. 404, Poll not found. Oh, no wait, the link works but my tab doesn't. (Bummer. Now my lazy self has to open a new tab.) Star, looks like you published that one anonymously.
But yeah, after infinite times starting up the reactor, there'll be 100% chance of boom. So let's get that percent a bit lower.
I want to know if this "experimental defense system" can do anything to prevent reactor failures.
It could be a case of convergent evolution, but I've always heard this sentiment expressed as "pastoral".
I think "but" should be "by"; otherwise I might not understand what is being said.
9729757
Ohhhhhhhhh
But you still would've had to drag her back out. And whoever went in there to get her. Before freeing Apple Bloom and uploading Spike, that would've been nearly impossible.
Also, looks like the precursor situation is indeed the case. That's less than desirable.
In any case, I'm late to the party, but I agree with the majority. Permanently rendering the ship dead in the water on a natural 1 or 2 is an unacceptable risk. It may not come up often, but it will come up.
There's no point repairing the fusion reactor that only has 10% chance of failure, and only on startup. Startup shouldn't be happening often if ever, and worst case (losing the reactor forever), the crew can still hop into the contingency forever, which is apparently what the signallers wanted in the first place, and is a guaranteed way to escape the HUNGER forever.
I vote generic parts. We can find more materials later for the more unlikely-but-catastrophic stuff.
As for Rainbow, no guns are going to help vs the HUNGER. And Rarity, good luck protecting from it.
In my experience participating in many D&D campaigns, the option that has the least likely chance of going wrong has often been the very next thing to go horribly wrong, and often at the absolute worst moment possible.
Let's repair the reactor.
If we can make it to C, we can repair everything. So that's the next goal.
If we have combat at C, we need to be able to deal with it.
We have two choices for combat:
1. Weapons -- offense.
2. Rarity's defense system -- generous defense.
We don't know anything about the proposed defense, yet are supposed to make a decision.
... ???
They know where there is a floating scrap yard, why not go salvage it? Even if it was just for raw materials