AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 101
ARES III SOL 102
[08:03] WATNEY: Good morning. Quick report on yesterday’s EVA. Southern and western weather stations are fully operational. Northern weather station has lost its anemometer mast and one solar panel, so I’ve set it to daily data dumps instead of constant transmission. Eastern weather station got smashed by debris. Several parts are missing and the CPU is wrecked. Not repairable. The farm is coming along nicely, on pace for a harvest between Sol 109 and Sol 112. I took out some trash to the green flag, but I doubt Martian raccoons will come along to steal it, so it’ll be there if I need it again.
Dragonfly has pronounced the repairs to the pony spacesuits complete, so all the ponies except Starlight are go for EVAs again. This is good, because I need Dragonfly and Fireball to help with the pony radio tests. You do have a procedure ready for that, right guys?
[08:15] JPL: Good morning, Mark. Venkat Kapoor here. We have the procedure, but there’s something a little more urgent we want you to work on today. Since your friends have space suits that provide unlimited Earth-quality air and circulation, and since you have the water reclaimer tank plus a spacesuit full of surplus water, we want you to power down the atmospheric regulator, the oxygenator, and the water reclaimer and do a complete diagnostic and inspection on all of them. We’ve got some bonus procedures in an email to check against specific issues we think might crop up in an extended mission with as many people in the Hab as you have.
While you’re doing that, I’m going to take this chat private and speak to Starlight Glimmer. She sent us some truly fascinating material, and I’m hoping to get some details straightened out. The diagnostics and other procedures will take you most of the transmission window, so you should probably get on those now.
Oh, and one final thing: Dr. Douglass of Astromaterials Research has some proposed adjustments for your cave farm. I’ve sent them to you in an email. Discuss them with your guests and let us know if you decide to go forward with any of them. This has nothing to do with your botany work, by the way. Our botanists here are still arguing about how many things about your farm are impossible. I signed up for nine in the betting pool.
[08:31] WATNEY: You’re still depositing my pay in the bank, right? Take some out and put me down for zero, because if a thing exists, it can’t be impossible. I’ll go get Starlight on a computer.
[08:43] JPL: Sorry, Mark, but Mitch Henderson beat you to it.
[08:55] WATNEY: Well, shit. Here’s Starlight.
[08:58] WATNEY: Good morning! I am Starlight Glimmer, scientist and wizard for our ship. Please, why does your language have a word for “user of magic” when you say you don’t have magic?
[09:11] JPL: Hello, Starlight. In ancient times anything we couldn’t explain was magic. People who could do things others couldn’t were often called wizards… if they were lucky. The unlucky ones tended not to live long.
I’ve been reading your reports. I only skimmed your history and your technical specs before forwarding them to our engineers. But I’ve been focusing on your treatise on magic. Could you answer some questions about it?
[09:26] WATNEY: I’ll try. Be careful: I’m still learning your vocabulary. Also, most of the theorems and equations in the essay apply to our world, which has a universal magic field.
[09:39] JPL: That’s fascinating by itself, Starlight. Our models of physics recognize either four or five primary physical forces, depending on whether “dark energy” exists. None of them are universally uniform. All of them originate from matter in some fashion. A universal force sounds to us like “aether,” a discredited theory that held that some intangible substance permeated the universe in order for light waves and other forces to travel through it. An energy field that is the same at all points in the universe breaks our physical laws.
[09:44] WATNEY: The four physical laws you mention are gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear force, and… ?
[09:56] JPL: We divide the nuclear force into strong (holds atoms together) and weak (breaks them apart).
[10:10] WATNEY: I see. We regard strong and weak as poles, just like positive and negative in electricity. Very little work has been done with atom physics in our world apart from magic. We haven’t needed to.
[10:23] JPL: When you get back home, tell your scientists about our theory. I’ll have a colleague of mine send you a simple write-up of the theory. We have experimental data that backs it up solidly.
Speaking of experiment, you claim that all life produces its own magic field. Could you explain that a bit more? We’ve never detected it on Earth.
[10:38] WATNEY: Sure. In our universe the strength of the ambient magical field can never dip below what we call the magical constant. But the presence of life forms strengthens the ambient field through production of new energy. We aren't sure how life produces magic, but it does. These fields are only detectable to non-unicorns by changes in the visible light spectrum within the fields. If the field is really strong, it glows as if a spell is being cast.
[10:42] JPL: That’s interesting. So a spectrograph will show the difference between a zone with magic and a zone without?
[10:55] WATNEY: Pardon me, but the dictionary isn’t helpful. What is a spectrograph?
[11:08] JPL: A spectrograph is a test we do. We put a prism in a beam of light from something, usually a flame. It makes a rainbow. If the rainbow is big enough, it shows little gaps in the spectrum that indicate the presence or absence of certain elements.
[11:23] WATNEY: Oh! That’s a curious test. We don’t use it. Pegasus ponies make rainbows for weather purposes all the time. I think the strength of our magic field makes light operate a lot differently than what you’re used to. I don’t think your “spectrograph” would work for magic.
[11:36] JPL: That’s unfortunate. What do you use to detect magic fields?
[11:51] WATNEY: We have a device. I can’t tell you its name- ***meter or something. The first part of it is our word for the thing that carries magical force from one atom to another. The one we currently have doesn’t work well because it’s set for our home universe, so anything less than the magic constant barely shows.
I hope you don’t mind if I eat lunch while typing? Spitfire is helping.
[12:04] JPL: That’s fine, Starlight. Can you tell us how to make magic-meters of our own, so we can test and see if Earth has magic?
[12:19] WATNEY: Um, that’s pages 21 through 24 of my essay, with pictures. The steps are really simple.
[12:32] JPL: I think the problem is, you’re assuming knowledge we don’t have. For example… what is an array? What does it do?
[12:48] WATNEY: I’m using your word “array” to refer to an organized magical graph that sets out the instructions for a spell. When the array receives a magic charge, it performs the spell.
[13:01] JPL: Okay. Do we engrave the array into the crystal? You use the word “enchant”.
[13:15] WATNEY: It depends. Powerful unicorns can write arrays with chalk, charcoal, etc. for one-time use. Earth ponies sometimes use gold, copper, or glass to create arrays that unicorns can charge many times. But for arrays that run themselves you need to enchant the object that holds the array. It’s a spell that makes the array a part of the whole.
[13:28] JPL: I’m getting a sinking feeling that I know the answer to this next question, Starlight, but I have to ask it. Assume I’m an earth pony who can’t cast spells. How do I charge a drawn array? How do I enchant anything?
[13:42] WATNEY: Um… you don’t. Only unicorns can do that. I know some alchemists who create medicines with magical effect, but I doubt their methods would work in a low-magic environment.
[13:55] JPL: That’s too bad, Starlight. We can’t even test to see if we have magic unless we have some way of using magic. Do you see our problem?
[14:08] WATNEY: Yes. I’ll ask my teacher at home about it. Maybe we can figure something out.
[14:23] JPL: We’d appreciate that. In the meantime, I have a couple of other questions. Do you understand the concept of entropy? In a closed system everything tends towards maximum disorder.
[14:37] WATNEY: Yes! In the absence of magic a closed system will tend towards disorder. But not chaos. I know Chaos personally, and he hates entropy. He says it’s boring. There are lively debates at home about whether or not our world is a closed system.
[14:51] JPL: Remind me another time to ask you about Chaos. Skipping for now. Doesn’t magic violate entropy?
[15:09] WATNEY: We don’t know for sure. The majority opinion is not, because active use of magic requires an act of will plus magic as an outside energy source. We have a theory that magic exists at a sort of higher energy state than normal matter and energy, so when it’s brought down to our level a little goes a long way. Also, we aren’t certain of the way life generates magic, so for all we know energy might be lost converting food or body activity into magic.
[15:24] JPL: Okay. Last question for today. I noticed that one of your devices in your ship converts magic into electricity. How do you reverse the process?
[15:38] WATNEY: You don’t. All attempts to turn electricity or motion into magic without using more magic have failed. We think it’s because magic exists on a higher energy level, and the cost of making enough electricity to push up to that level is too high. Believe me, if I knew how to do that we’d be halfway to your planet already.
[15:52] JPL: I believe you. I was just hoping we could help in some way, but if we can it doesn’t look like we’re going to use magic for it.
[16:07] WATNEY: I’m sorry. I will ask Twilight Sparkle about it. She knows more about everything than I do. She went to the best school in our land and was the personal student of Princess Sky-and-Everything-In-It. I taught myself.
[16:21] JPL: Based on your reports, you’re very good at teaching yourself. Thank you for your help, Starlight. Please ask Mark to email his reports when he’s done. Venkat out.
[16:34] WATNEY: You’re welcome! I wish it was better. Starlight Glimmer out.
Yeah, I was wondering if this was going to be the case. It makes a lot of sense, though, in that it explains why humans could never observe magic.
There's probably a way to work around it (build the tools to build the tools to build the tools...), but I'm guessing that by the time they figure it out it'd be a moot point.
Exactly how much electricity are we talking about here anyway? Would it be possible to, say, commandeer a nuclear submarine for the purpose?
If the farm cave is now an unstable lava tube, then the Equestrian city base wont be getting built into the Magma chamber beyond?
All that extra heat from the Hab and cave farm are going to be altering local weather conditions, such as when things are otherwise calm, the rising plume over teh cave will start a very weak thunderstorm type effect which can attract passing weather cells?
The higher energy magic dropping to current space is still at this time above the levels at which the LHC can detect, even if they are looking for occasional random spews of decaying nano black holes.?
Since wizard is technically the term for a male magic user doesnt that technically make any average unicorn mare a witch?
8773170
Zecora would be angry
8773179
Oh i forgot to broaden... "Any magic using mare?" As to not exclude zebras alicorns pinkie pies or secret jedi or female sorcerers of any race but what zecora was doing is technically alchemy as it involves various substances rather than incantations or energy fields
8773170
I tend to prefer the term "sorceress" for a female mage. It has fewer negative connotations, especially in Western culture. I do prefer "wizard" for male mages, just because it sounds a bit cooler than "sorcerer". For gender-neutral magicians, "mage" works fine.
Well, that was a very fascinating and enlightening chat. Now to see if Twilight knows any ways for non-unicorns to enchant arrays. I'm sure there's a book for that somewhere. If not, she can ask Celestia. There has to be something.
Also, I can't wait to see the conversation about Chaos. Venkat et al. are going to have a collective aneurysm.
He may dismiss this casually, but I guarantee that in this scenario a lot of people would soon be delving deep into a review of the magical history, mythology and traditions of our Earth. It's actually a subject I've begun to explore in one of my own fics (but haven't gotten as far with it yet as I'd like to).
8773170
I always thought that witch and warlock were the feminine and masculine terms for spell casters which we today tend to associate mainly with druidic or wiccan religion. Wizard comes from the same root as wise and wizened, so it would seem to imply somebody old-and-wise (in the ways of magic, among possibly other things), but it doesn't necessarily supply a gender. Well, that's my interpretation anyhow…
The most neutral or generic terms would probably be mage or magician. (And now I lament Trixie's noted absence from these stories.)
Did they just downplay the importance of the cave farm issue? Are they gonna overlook it and there be disaster?
8773253
8773253 NASA's official line is total transparency. They're already cutting the live chat feeds a lot. But emails are private and, at least for now, secret.
8773253
Oh, I'm pretty sure that that email with "proposed adjustments" probably contains something like "DO THIS ASAP OR YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE HORRIBLY!" (though probably stated more calmly, yes), but they don't want to put that out in public; that portion of the chat was released to the world, remember.
edit: Ah, and the author slipped in just before me with that.
First thing that came to my mind with that explanation of Magic is 'False Vacuum'.
Which, while existentially terrifying for us, would be absolutely mortifying as a concept to pony-kind. Because by the descriptions, their universe WOULD be a false vacuum.
Im still waiting for the reveal that Celestia and Luna control the moon and sun. All the Astrophysicists will have a collective heart attack.
8773391
Whats a false vacuum?
8773304 "DO THIS OR YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE HORRIBLY!" "What, again?" "We did that last week."
8773408
Heh. :)
Yes, unfortunately for them, their life on Mars is kind of a long series of those...
8773402
Imagine that all of the world you've ever seen is a perfectly flat plain. You might come to imagine that that is the lowest point, and something can be higher than that plain but not lower. Then you find a hole in it, and realize things can be lower.
That's essentially what a false vacuum is; we think of the vacuum as the presence of nothing, or more specifically, the presence of as little as physics permits. But we can't actually be sure that there can't be less unless we can perceive something with less in it; hence a false vacuum is something that appears to be the presence of nothing but really isn't. It's more than purely theoretical since, just as finding there's something lower than the ground means the ground could collapse downward, it's theoretically possible for a false vacuum to collapse (resulting in the destruction or at least alteration of the observable universe). Hence if the Equestrian magical field is a false vacuum, that would imply their magical field could be drained and collapse.
OTOH, since it's inventing new physics anyways, it's entirely possible that magic just doesn't follow the conservation of energy.
Yeah I'm surprised that they assigned him to disassemble and run diagnostics on the hab hardware when they should be having him out at the cave farm switching everything over. Likewise Starlight shouldn't be sitting around answering questions all day but should instead be figuring out how to seal up the cave most efficiently.
In my headcanon, I've always assumed that you could generate magic from other energy sources. Of course you need magic to start the process, but once you have it started, it powers itself like a siphon.
If ponies haven't researched particle physics in depth, the only weak interaction effect that they could notice is beta-decay. And it may not look weird enough for them to realise that something very different from the rest of nuclear effects is happening.
Starlight should have realised very quickly that if that was true they would be instantly dead on arrival.
8773402 Imagine that the universe, and all the laws of physics that you know, are in a fragile state of equilibrium, like a soap bubble on the wind. If something hits the bubble, it will pop- and if some strong enough shock hits the universe, it will fall to a more stable energy state. All the laws of physics we know will be erased- and us along with it...
... and the truly scary thing is, we'd never see it coming.
One moment everything... and the next, absolute nothing.
That's what "false vacuum" is... the idea that a system like a universe- our universe- can exist in a state that isn't the lowest possible energy state until something causes it to drop to that lowest (or at least lower) energy state.
The only comforting thought we have is, the universe has been around a pretty long time, so if it was going to spontaneously collapse, it probably would have done it long before we came along.
Knock wood.
8773444
The really scary part about a false vacuum is what happens when it decays. Since energy is released in the decay to a lower energy state, it starts a chain reaction. Which in this case roughly equates to a sphere of white-hot death expanding at light speed through the observable universe. If it happens, we won't know until we're dead, vaporized in an instant.
My personal theory is that they got the idea from volcanic mud-flows.
Another example of something just working in blacksmithing they knew that a metal was ready to quench when a loadstone wouldn't stick anymore. To the iorm loses it's molecular bonds a bit and it's magnetic properties. Quench it in oil the iorn sucks up carbon and locks it into a crystal lattice type structure. This makes the steel hard but brittle. So they'd heat it back up and break a few bonds and increase the durability. Also add A bit of sand or beeswax would pull impurities out of the alloy. I maintain that's the difference between engineerins and skilled trades. Engineers know why something is doing what it is doing but doesn't know how to fix it. Skilled trades knows how to fix it but not necessarily why it works.
8773399
As explained in Changeling Space Program, of which this is technically a sequel, Celestia actually maintains Equis's rotation, and Luna maintains the Moon's angular momentum. In this setting, neither is actually capable of flinging celestial bodies around like Twilight did in the S4 finale. Luna did move the Moon by some tens of thousands of miles to prevent a robotic lunar flyby, but that's the extent of the Sisters' capabilities in this interpretation of the ponies' world.
8773471
the speed of light constant may be fundamentally the same, but the universal magical field may be altering its relative velocity, much like photons traveling through wavy glass.
8773488
Seems half the things I learn about our universe are ways it could annihilate us at any given moment. I must laugh at this because the only other option is spending every waking moment screaming.
8773218
8773408
Hypothetically, Discord could infuse "chaos magic" into the water being teleported to Mars as a magical equivalent of "heavy water" to help recharge their mana batteries faster? Heavy water is water that contains a high amount of the hydrogen isotope deuterium, and the ESA's current matter-teleportation system can only handle water and oxygen.
I wonder what Discord thinks of spaceflight and a low-magic planet.
Could be amusing if Discord is the one who tells Twilight how to charge arrays without needing a unicorn, as doing what's supposed to be impossible is part of his shtick.
Discord: "Wait, you WANT me to spread chaos?"
Twilight: "They need all the mana they can get, and chaos magic is better than no magic at all."
Discord: "Finally! A whole planet for me to infect!"
Twilight:
8773504
You mean about "everyone is dead" thing?
You can not noticeably (without super-precise measurements) change how electromagnetic interaction works without disrupting every complex system around (living organisms included).
8773245
IIRC, some of the old Dungeons & Dragons offshoots had a class called "magic-user". I'm sure you can figure out what their gimmick was.
Yeah, that attachment better lay out everything.
Looking forward to seeing what they come up with. From my perspective, they might have discovered the issue quickly enough to get ahead of it, provided the narrative gods aren't too cruel. It seems like there are a few steps they could take.
1) Limit their area of exposure.
Having the entire tube as a potential breach surface is just too much risk, and impossible to guard against. Compartmentalize. Take some more ship panels and find a choke point as close to the farm as possible to seal it off from the rest of the tube, ideally with an additional compartment as a buffer.
Put in a makeshift airlock in the barrier to access the portion of the geode past the farm. Any crystal mining should only be done on the far side. Also, I'd excavate to the floor and only harvest crystals from there.
2) Armor up
The area within the farm should be reinforced as much as possible. Forbid crystal mining here - cover it with changeling goo and/or magic as appropriate.
3) Monitor
Salvage some weather stations and put one outside the compartment, and one in the farm to monitor air pressure and temperature. Assuming there are leaks, the tube should very gradually decompress, hopefully slowly enough to not collapse, but if it does, the farm should be safe.
Within the farm, Spitfire will probably want reprise her role as a leak detector. The leaks might be too small to notice, but then again, they might not be. Also, it might be outside of Cherry's skill set, but it's probably worth checking to see if earth ponies have any sort of stability sense. I'll bet Maude could do a structural analysis in no time flat.
Non-sequitur. With regards to the life support crystals, rocket fuel can't be sent because of hydrocarbons, yes? What about pure hydrogen? I suppose it might cause embrittlement issues in the long term, but it might be an emergency option.
8773179
Yes, but I imagine most give "witch" a negative connotation as a result of the witch hunts of colonial America.
"Son of a witch," however, is hilarious.
8773481
Funny story for me: I had not heard the phrase "knock on wood" until I moved to where I live now, at which point I began to hear it on a monthly basis, at least. I had no clue what anyone meant when they said it. Given that I'm a bit of a shut-in and don't talk to many people outside work, I never bothered to ask someone what it meant until recently.
When I heard the explanation, my first thought was, "Oh! So it's like karmically grounding yourself. Gotcha."
When you knock on wood, you reduce the absolute value of your karma to zero. You return it to its lowest state of energy.
8773601
Actually, I was thinking of the ponies teleporting hydrogen peroxide. H2O2. It has none of those pesky carbon bonds.
And, with sufficient supply, makes a good rocket fuel.
Also, Hydrazine (N2H4) has already been mentioned in the story, It also is used as rocket fuel and does not have carbon bonds to get damaged.
8773632
Dang, now I have to stop doing that if I want more positive karma. Or would that be negative karma? Now I kinda want to see a mock essay on how karma strives to balance itself out to zero.
8773601
There's also the possibility of doing what SpaceX is planning to do for refuelling of the BFR on Mars, and make Methane from water (which will be much easier here since the ponies have a steady supply of it) and the CO2 in the atmosphere.
I guess it's a good thing SpaceX never really took off in this universe as much as they did in our one, otherwise we wouldn't have this story, since it'd all been solved already.
i can't help but to see them in like a starcraft joke right there..... cuteist mod for the game ever
It's a thaumometer, isn't it? Please let it be called a thaumometer.
8773151
I didn't even realize it was a typo until I refreshed the page and see it's fixed.
8773601
Twilight actually tried an alcohol based test fuel with the magic transport system...Pinkie called the result a very pretty explosion. they also tried to transport a cupcake the same way...Pinkie said that explosion wasnt nearly as pretty. assuming that the cupcake was made using normal ingredients and not petroleum, heavy hydrocarbons r not the problem in transporting fuel, but any kind of carbon bond or even just complex atomic bonds, will not end well using the water and air life support system as a transport medium. Starlight already stated in an earlier comms to Earth that Twi had been working on that problem for years without a breakthrough.
8773499
Just going with that, they will STILL have a collective heart attack.
8773218
Thinking about it, absolute entropy IS a kind of harmony. But the discussion on universal forces makes me wonder if Mark's (our) universe is primarily chaos magic based.
My personal views support the notion that magic in our universe is love based... Which will make QC a happy bug indeed.
8773767
I was just reading the MLP comics and one of the stories called Chaos Theory actually supports my idea that the Elements of Harmony are actually neither good or evil. And only affect chaos based beings.
What happened is they tried to use them on an evil Discord who had turned himself into a being based on Harmony and order, but still evil and trYing to take overy Equestria . The result was that the elements backfired on the element users and f**ked them up.
Meaning that Harmony is OK with evil beings, as long as they use Harmony and order.
And doesn't care for Chaos, even if it's good.
Basically, the Elements would have been useless against Starlight.
So, in other words, there is nothing inherently wrong with Chaos Magic. Just in how it is used.
8773759
No carbon, if all you're sending is pure H2. If H2O is okay, H2 ought to be fine, too. Or like 8773666 says; neither hydrazine nor hydrogen peroxide contain carbon.
8773827
well, its up to the author anyway, though finding loopholes is always fun...
whats the news media will be like at this ponit..... and also wondering how the changeling will use human dating sites like "hi am (random name) and i would love to turn into anyone of your dreams and make love to you and eat it"
and that dose not add the many other race that may come
You're just teasing us now, aren't ye? Building up the suspense for what the human public think about the ponies appearances. Bravo to you, pal. It'll make the reveal all the sweeter.