MISSION LOG – SOL 110
Forty-nine packs.
On full rations, that’s sixteen days for one person plus one left over.
On three-quarters rations for three people, that’s seven days.
That’s how close we came to extreme measures in feeding the ponies.
Those forty-nine packs are in a separate locker now, all their own, and that’s where they’re going to stay. That’s the emergency reserve for Cherry, Starlight and Spitfire. Along with them are Fireball’s six remaining food packs, which are the only food packs remaining from their ship. (Only he can eat them, because although they’re normal food mostly, they’re liberally sprinkled with chips of rocks, nice and sharp and intestine-destroying for non-dragons.)
Yes, I know they can probably stomach meat if they have to. They shouldn't have to. (Besides, I can still hear Spitfire saying "crunch crunch crunch" in my head. It's really fucking creepy to think about. I suppose I should be grateful we don't have any magic pig aliens in the crew. Earth pigs are cannibalistic given the right circumstances, and I'd never have a good night's sleep again.)
Cutting the hay crop was simplicity itself. Starlight can make her horn-laser turn right angles, because screw the laws of physics, we have a magic unicorn. It took literally the time it takes to walk forty meters to cut the hay more perfectly than any harvester ever did. In fact, the perfectly level remaining stalks look a little creepy sticking out through the fallen cuttings.
No, the time-consuming part of the harvest is hauling our produce back from the cave to the Hab. That’s no surprise- carrying a field of hay twenty-five kilos at a time, as I mentioned before, is bound to be slow. We had two tubs of a size to carry a twenty-five kilo roll of hay each, so we would load those up, cycle out the pony airlock, walk to the rover, cycle that airlock, unload the tubs into the cargo area, cycle airlock, walk up, cycle airlock, start again.
As it was, we got three-quarters of the harvest into the rover before we had to go back to the Hab and end the EVA. We’ll get the rest tomorrow after we unload the rover. Next time, knowing what we know now, we should be able to do it all in one sol.
Yesterday was potato feast; today was alfalfa feast. I even had a small plateful of the stuff, raw and fresh, or as fresh as it could be. The tubs are airtight but not temperature-proof, so it got pretty chilled on the way out to the rover. It doesn’t seem to have hurt. The ponies like this a lot better than what came out of the Hab, though they say it’s pretty bland compared to homemade.
Also they wish they could cook it. Starlight has even given me a word that twists my brain every time I try to figure it out: hayburger. They know what a hamburger is on Earth (and at least two of them would say they know who it is), so Starlight put that word together deliberately. It is a thing that they have, and I’m still wondering how.
But that’s only one of hay’s many uses, apparently. Hay fries (how? And why?). Hay bacon (blasphemy). Hay and anchovy pizza (I think they may have been pulling my leg with that one).
Anyway, I had a little salad dressing, and now I have a little less. It wasn’t that bad. I could get used to an alfalfa and potato diet.
ESA: To Dragonfly. Message begins. Quote. Hello, fellow adrenalin junkie. Finally got yourself in a mess you couldn’t fly your way out of, did you? Just remember, so long as the Pale Horse hasn’t called in all your chips, you’re still ahead of the game. If I could, I’d fly there now and return the favor from years ago. Keep working the problem, and we’ll be there as soon as we can. – Gordon the Griffon. End quote. Over.
AMICITAS: Message received, over.
ESA: Addendum: Like he said, get back to work. I want my flight engineer back – Chrysalis. Out.
INTERVIEW #4
What is your name? Spitfire.
What did you do on your ship? Junior pilot, medical.
How did you get into space flight? I led Won-der-ful Thun-der-bolts team. Bring astronauts back from fly. Train as astronaut, never go up. Spar-kle Drive crew need pegasus, I was best choice.
Who do you have waiting for you back home? Mother and father, fly team, Princess (nAAYYfollII).
What are your impressions of humans? Brave. Can do things. Need di-ci-pline.
Do you look forward to visiting Earth after your rescue? Want see fly machines, cars not on TV. But really want go home.
What will you do when you finally go home? Train. Get healthy. Then fly again.
What is your favorite disco song? “Celebration.”
If there were one little thing (not a ship) you could have from home, what would it be? I want to fly. I was born to fly. I need air to fly, magic too. Sorry not little thing.
What message do you have for the people of Earth? Thank you for having base here when we crash. You save our life. We not forget.
MISSION LOG – SOL 110 (2)
Technically it’s Sol 111, because it’s 03:18 as I type this, using the Hab’s toilet for its proper purpose for the first time in months. I had to. The gas pains were too much to sleep through. Apparently my intestines refused to even try to digest the alfalfa stems.
I know you’re laughing, future historians, NASA engineers, and whoever else reads this. You’re laughing at the mental image of me with my pants around my ankles, seated on a $1.5 million throne, computer on my lap, undergoing extreme intestinal rebellion.
But I don’t care. I am in pain and I want somebody to know, but I don’t want to wake the ponies.
Well, I woke one up anyway. Dragonfly just handed (hoofed?) me a mostly-clean recycled sanitary wipe. I shall be eternally grateful. I want to remember her in my will. Could this log count as a legal codicil?
You know, all this time, and I am still waiting to see Pinkie Pie pop out of nowhere and scare the hell out of Mark.
Maybe on Marks birthday....
And open up a whole new world of questions...
Mark: Huh? Wait. What! Is this magic?
Starlight : nah. It's just Pinkie Pie. Don't question it. We try not too.
Don't believe you. You'll be in the air the second the hatch opens. Your wings might ache and your trajectory might veer all over the place, but you'll power through it and keep going until you collapse into a cloud for the night. And the next day you'll do the same. Quite possibly with Soarin covertly watching from a distance to make sure you don't fall.
Out of interest, has anyone at the cons you've been working (aside from AdmiralTigerclaw) recognised you as the guy writing the amazing pony story occupying the feature box every day?
Damn... poor Spitfire. I guess there's another reason pegasi aren't inherently the best choice for astronauts. Spitfire seems to be handling it as well as possible, but can you imagine Rainbow Dash stuck somewhere that she couldn't even stretch her wings? A short mission would be ok, but I think longer missions might have the heaviest mental toll on pegasi.
8789439
Note to self. Don't let Twilight get stranded on hostile planet. The inability to perform any complex spells (And lack of books) for a long period of time, will make Lesson Zero look minor.
orig00.deviantart.net/ddc3/f/2012/092/e/7/crazy_twilight_sparkle_vector_by_herrmyrddin-d4usu75.png
Not that Mark would know, but ponies can eat rocks, or at least some can. Igneous Rock Pie takes a bite of one in Hearthbreakers. Then again, that is the Pie family we're talking about...
We're all really hoping it won't have to.
I honestly went through every other Equestrian princess before reading the author's note. Partially because we already had a human approximation for Celestia before, but mostly because "nAAYYfollII" sounds like Nightfall, so my first thought was Luna closely followed by Twilight.
8789459
Which begs the question. Does our language sound like ape talk to them? The way their language sounds like horse talk to us.
8789439
I think being stuck in a room that by now smells worse than a pigsty for months on end is a likely contributor to the group's stir-craziness
I could see them making some form of "hayburger" now that they've got a supply of potato and alfalfa- at least, the non-bun part. They could use the microwave to boil water and mash the potatoes to use as a binder for alfalfa hay, maybe at a 1:2 mass ratio. Clean off a piece of sheet metal and Starlight could zap it until it's hot enough to grill on. For Mark, he could make some version of potato pancake or hash brown on the grill even if the lack of grease or oil will be an issue- it'd be a break in the routine from baked/mashed all the time.
Mark's got over 600 meat-entree packs left, right? He might even be able to use one of them a day as primarily a flavoring thing to split between him and the ponies, so that they get some cheese binding in their hayburger (maybe a tiny bit of fish or meat too), and he gets a half-serving of meat to liven up his potato lunch and dinner.
I've put way too much thought in this. Probably because I've recently halved my carb intake due to health reasons, and I'm dreaming of French fries, latkes, and peanut butter sandwiches.
8789426 There's flying, and then there's Wonderbolts flying.
And I had one of the commenters from this story stop by on Friday, yes.
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AAAnd as Pinkie disappears, leaving behind the Gary Stu approved dimensional tracker??? facetious <grin>
8789504
Twilight : Pinkie! You mean you could have done that at any time!
Pinkie: Not at anytime. Only when it is funny.
Roger Rabbit reference for the win.
How about on the very day they are rescued, Pinkie appears out of nowhere to celebrate. Cue facehoof, when they realize they could have been saved months sooner.
Pinkie: What?
i can't help but for mark to be like that guy and also i know the feeling man trying something new to your body is a bad idea at 1st but down the line your body will get used to it and take it in no problem.... but the 2weeks or more.... will be something like this
I hope to god someone at the nasa side of things had the sense to take advantage of ndragonfly and fireball being accounted for to send atleast a pound of assorted vegetable / bean / season garnish plant seeds like links related
https://www.amazon.com/Vegetable-32-Open-Seed-Vault/dp/B00LE4RGOE/ref=zg_bs_3564020011_1/147-4530107-2918422?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5Y8CR7RB6KPZCQ5R9740
https://www.amazon.com/NON-GMO-Heirloom-Culinary-Medicial-Easy/dp/B01FRLWDAG/ref=pd_bxgy_86_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01FRLWDAG&pd_rd_r=HHE4DK30P3GTXHQ2W0YG&pd_rd_w=fnoDN&pd_rd_wg=cmdNQ&psc=1&refRID=HHE4DK30P3GTXHQ2W0YG
https://www.amazon.com/Sprout-House-Assorted-Organic-Sprouting/dp/B005LRBGEQ/ref=zg_bs_3564020011_11/147-4530107-2918422?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5Y8CR7RB6KPZCQ5R9740
https://www.amazon.com/Heirloom-Variety-Grannys-Vegetable-Cucumber/dp/B072HGNFWV/ref=zg_bs_3564020011_20/147-4530107-2918422?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5Y8CR7RB6KPZCQ5R9740
Even just the first links contents would be a godsend
8789515
Oh gods I lost it completely
I shall bill you for the recovery of my sides. You better hope that the CSP is still around, it's not going to be cheap
8789552
Perfect gift for Dragonfly would be NASA sending her a flash drive of her fans cheering her on... That would last her awhile
8789515
Ideally yes, and alfalfa tastes WONDERFUL on chessburgers because that is what I do, but bear in mind this is Equestrian alfalfa... Once his body starts absorbing it, who knows what will happen (besides you Kris!)
Princess (horse noise) is best princess!
8789571 8789557
and when when mark come back home on mars the doc say "you need a new asshole mark that would be 500k$ plus tax"
8789583
BWAHAHA
8789557
gald to make your day my jokes or 50 50
As far as Celestia's name....I think the closest any modern name would come is simply 'Celeste'.
8789502
hey i have to ask you this the mlp move there a good part where you can time skip
like they are worry have they have no info for the past few days because of that whole evil guy that want to take over the world
8789571
I know the author chalked it up to being a bean but I completely forgot that. He’s eating alien veggies. Now I don’t see it doing anything odd to him but I can see that causing some digestive issues by itself. After all most of the creatures that have eaten it have had magic.
8789632
Yeah, but Mark doesn't ACTIVELY have it. Keep in mind Dragonfly's own words: "where there is life there is magic", Equestrian magic + inate human magic field =???
well, theres always the Stump pot option... (if u dont know what that is, its a dutch dish thats essentially mashed tatters mixed with two or three veggies and sausage. and theres at least seven different ways of spelling the name if not more.)
8789502
I really hope she can get back to top physical condition after this. Are the Equestrians suits shielded from radiation? Because I thought they said they didn't even have any real understanding of radiation, and if they have been taking unshielded EVAs this whole time Martian gravity and it's effects on their bodies may be a distant second where health effects are concerned.
8789647
Mark becomes ....
Fireball: "Chan-nels on the TeeeeeVeeeee change! He's still in his chaaaairrr!!!!!"
Spitfire: What are you going on about now?
Fireball: NOTHING!
8789683
You win, I admit defeat
Well at least with 3 not ALL of them will explode... Right?
Visit strange new lands, meet intresting new people, and spew up all over them because the food is totally different and your gut believes its being poisoned, even as the new food destroys the eco system and lays its own version down instead.
Lettuce seeds are very small, sprout in a few days, are eatabl as garnish after a week, and can be racked in layers at little as 12 inches apart vertically including soil depth and growth height.
They also have a high suplur content that can lead to intresting experiments in gas exchange such as poisoning the catalytic converters.
8789584
gald to make your day my jokes or 50 50
8789677
Well once they are back they have MAGIC, guess they will cure anything...
So their hayburgers are basically like our burgers but the meat is replaced by fries!? Ugh, blasphemy. For that matter, HOW DOES hay bacon even work!? Their hay works a lot like potatoes!
Yeah, hay bacon has always been a pretty weird idea.
My favorite theory that I've ever read for it is that it's actually a type of tree. You can peel the bark off (like something between cinnamon and those palm trees with the layered bark) and fry it. The hay part is due to similarity in color after frying and kinda-sorta similarity in taste. in one story, Sunset was given a small potted version to take back to the human world for personal use, much t the confusion of her earth friends.
8789463
I've seen it described as "growl-growly-grunt" in fics where the language barrier isn't yet breached. I'd have to agree. It's not like simplistic ape grunts and hoots however as there's tonal structure, inflection, and a host of other patterns. If you had to compare it that way to an animal, I'd go with bird song or whale song (pitch adjusted naturally). And yes, men do grunt when they're too lazy to talk properly.
And since we're talking about how humans sound to ponies, I've always had it in my head that changelings can and do sound like crickets-- usually when they're happy enough to "purr" or possibly the ones that "snore" in their sleep to varying degrees.
I mean, the word celestial is a thing in the English language. Heck, the sun is a celestial body (that should tell you a thing or two about the definition). Seeing as they were able to deduce how Luna's name translated, and the closest actual word in the English language is 'lunar' (one letter off, just like with celestial and Celestia)... I'm just wondering how much longer it's gonna take NASA and the ponies to make that connection
8789965
So they have bacon trees? I suppose they need to watch out for hambushes, then.
... I'll see myself out.
There's definitely one case of Applejack going for a ham sandwich in "A Bird in the Hoof." Those pigs likely aren't just for hunting truffles...
In any case, the interviews and messages from home are both excellently done. As for Mark... well, hopefully he can find some part of the alfalfa that his digestive system will agree to process.
8789701
If they do, it'll be for different reasons. And possibly not all on the launchpad.
8789632
Interesting. What would be the long term effects of consuming a diet high in thaumically-active foodstuffs on a creature lacking in natural magic? Assuming that Martianverse life doesn't already have a passive low-level thaumic field that has somehow simply avoided detection, of course, as most of us have been assuming.
Edit: Mark's digestive troubles could be coming from a mild case of Montezuma's Revenge. They're using night soil, remember? Might be that some Equestrian microbes are mildly debilitating and resistant to heat composting. He might have to adjust until his gut Flora makes nice with the new neighbors.
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Well she did pack them a cake in case of birthday emergencies.
It's a pun.
"Celestial" means:
* (adjective) "Relating to the sky and/or heavens"
* (noun) "Divine being"
The difficulty comes from the fact that historically, human conceptualization didn't include a firm grasp of the difference between sky and "space" in the sense of that big empty black void between stars. Sky and space weren't differentiated because humans didn't know such at thing as "space" existed. This is seen, for example, in biblical verses that mention "the heavens." Sometimes they're talking about inside the atmosphere, and sometimes they aren't, and sometime it's kind of fuzzy what they even meant. Humans simply didn't understand the difference back then.
"Princess Heaven" is actually a very reasonable translation. "Celestial" comes from latin:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/celestial#Etymology_1
Adjective
_"1. Heavenly, divine, in either a religious or figurative sense."_
_"2. Relating to the sky or space. "_
Noun
_"1. An inhabitant of heaven"_
Look at the convention of adding the "-ial" suffix to a word. It generally modifies a noun to create an adjective that means "one who is, or of, or pertaining to" the noun. For example, "crucial" means "so important as to be essential" but it is a modification of the root "crux" meaning "most important/base/root" of a thing.
In the case of Celestia, the English word we're familiar with is Celest-ial. So "remove" the -ial" suffix from a word meaning "heavenly" and you get a noun that means heaven.
"Princess Heaven" is an entirely reasonable translation for Princess Celestia. That's exactly what that word would mean.
And as an aside, it's entirely consistent with a lot of other circumstantial evidence supplied during the season 1 Faust era before whats-his-name took over as producer and started changing things. Think back on all those times that ponies used Celestia's name in place of the word god
Remember Raritys line saying As Celestia is my witness she'd never go sisterless again? That's a reference to the Gone with the Wind, As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again.
And that's a biblical reference. The idea of god as a "witness" happens a bunch of times in the bible:
http://biblehub.com/romans/1-9.htm
"God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you"
http://biblehub.com/2_corinthians/1-23.htm
"I call God as my witness--and I stake my life on it"
http://biblehub.com/1_thessalonians/2-5.htm
"God is our witness"
The idea is that as God is an omniscient and omnipresent entity, everything you do is always being witnessed. Rarity is clearly implying that Celestia is god, and incidentally that "omniscient and omnipresent" Celestia is supported by season 1 episode 2 when Celestia talks to Applejack even though she's not present. There are a bunch of times that ponies substitute the name Celestia is place of an English expreesion where the word would be god. Another one, here's Rainbow Dash saying in the name of Celestia.
Yep, here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_name_of_God
Here's another one where Fluttershy invokes Celestia's name in the place of god, another one where Applejack does it, etc.
Celestia and Luna are very obviously a traditional solar/lunar deity pair. Luna is especially obvious, because she's literally named after the Roman goddess of the moon. Look at this URL title alone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_(goddess)
_"In ancient Roman religion and myth, Luna is the divine embodiment of the Moon. She is often presented as the female complement of the Sun (Sol) conceived of as a god._"
So you have moon goddess Luna, who is the divine embodiment of the moon. Remember how Luna wasn't the mare on the moon, but rather the mare in in the moon? Remember how when she was banished "to" the moon, the moon itself physically and visibly assumed her visage? She wasn't simply hanging out as a pony on the surface. She literally is, as the wikipedia article states, the "divine embodiment of the moon."
So as a traditional solar/lunar divinity pair, Luna's counterpart Celestia is the divine embodiment of the sun. And what is the proper name of the sun? "Sol."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
"The Latin name for the Sun,Sol"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_(mythology)
"Sol was the solar deity"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sól_(sun)
"Sól is the Sun personified"
Celestia...or Sol-estia, is the goddess of the sun to match Luna, goddess of the moon. The whole thing is a clever play on words. The symbolism and etymology are all extremely clear. As primary deity, she is the Queen of Heaven, named "Celestia" as the noun-root of Celestial with Sol-estia hidden in the name for the double pun.
Or "Princess" Heaven, because of the Disney precedent that Queens are evil and Princesses are good.
So yes: "Princess Heaven" is exactly how Princess Celestia's name would best be translated.
AppleBloom: Oh no, Crusaders. Look at all those poor ponies without their cutie marks. You know what this calls for, right?
CMC: Cutie Mark Crusaders Interdimensional Travelers! Yeaaaaaa!
We're doomed.
8790393
... Pretty sure this is the longest comment I've ever seen on FimFiction. I applaud you.
Also, your point is valid and well explained. very well explained.
8790242 And then "Animal Farm" gets ponified... and things get WEIRD.
8790393
That's all well and good, but Princess Heaven would almost certainly be nixed by Mark, assuming he had any wits about him at all. That name would trigger *all* the religious types.
As a good "spiritual" (pardon the pun) substituent you could go for "Lady Sky" or something like that. Maybe even Lady Aether, if you want to be fancy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)
8790511 LordBucket is a legend, and has form.
I always thoight Queen Heaven and Queen Moon were reasonable translations.
Admittedly nothing can top "Avatar Pink Happy Happy Fun Joy Joy" or something like that.
Also Cantered Slopes Cliff Side City of the Rising Sun.
The most poetic varient of my name's meaning ends up as Ravenheart. Look up the meaning of your name, and make a pony name with it. Kinda amusing.
----
Something else I realized during this research was that Superman's name, Kal-El, is almost certainly a reference to Angel names, almost all of which end with -EL.