AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 98
ARES III SOL 99
TRANSCRIPT – WATER TELEGRAPH EXCHANGE, ESA BALTIMARE and ESA SHIP AMICITAS
AMICITAS (DF): Amicitas calling Baltimare, please reply by main ship life support, over.
BALTIMARE: Baltimare reads you, Amicitas. Why the main water? Are you in the cave? Over.
AMICITAS: Affirmative. Needed someplace where a lot of water wouldn’t hurt. Mark’s people have asked to talk to you live about three and a half hours from now. Over.
BALTIMARE: Understood. That will be mid-morning here. We’ll be ready. Over.
AMICITAS: This is important. We will have to translate for both sides. It takes light just under eleven minutes to get from us to their homeworld and vice-versa. And it takes a long time to decode Mares code. And we will only have about four hours before we lose contact with their world for the day. We won’t get more than maybe eight signal exchanges, so it’s really important that you keep it short. Also we are still learning their language. Please keep it short and simple. Do you read, over?
BALTIMARE: Roger, Amicitas. Short and simple. Twilight says it’s important they understand how magic works so they can help rescue you. Also need a history of our space program, over.
AMICITAS: We’re telling them that stuff already. Don’t waste time on anything we can tell them. If they ask, we’ll handle the question here. Over.
BALTIMARE: Roger. I’ll tell Twilight and Chrysalis, over.
AMICITAS: Who is this? Over.
BALTIMARE: Spike. I just got up to get Twilight breakfast and saw the lights flashing in here. She’s not up yet, over.
AMICITAS: Okay. How’s Thorax? Over.
BALTIMARE: Still doing well in the Crystal Empire. He and Chrysalis met at a summit last month. No casualties, over.
AMICITAS: Thanks. Tell Twilight and the queen that they have one hour to tell us anything long they think we need to know in advance. After that I have to trot back to the Hab. Over.
BALTIMARE: I told her. She says Starlight knows most of it. We’ll be ready. Out.
[14:20] WATNEY: Before we begin, I want to report a bit of good news: the Hab antenna kludge just picked up about ten minutes of signal from the northern weather station. So we know its range is at least a kilometer, and we know that one weather station is at least partially functional. When I get a chance I’ll take the rover on a circuit, inspect the weather stations, clean off their solar panels, and see how many I can restore to operating condition. Just thought you’d like to know you’re in danger of actually getting some, y’know, actual science out of us at some point.
Okay, here’s how the system will work. The chat window is on the Hab projector so we can all see it. I’ll type whatever Starlight Glimmer tells me to type. Any questions she can handle herself, she will. Anything else, she’ll sort of Morse Code on her spacesuit water system, and they will respond using another suit nobody’s wearing at the moment.
To be clear, any questions about their homeworld up to the day they left- history, geography, etc.- should be held for another time. My guests can answer them just as well as a princess, and they won’t have to wait for a turnaround on dot-dot-dot splash-splash-splash translation. Also remember Starlight’s English is still half dependent on the thesaurus function of our computers, and she won’t have one for this chat. And her bosses don’t know any English at all. When in doubt, I’ll be filling in the gaps myself, and I may guess wrong. So please, keep it simple and short so we can get the most in before the window closes.
Once you check in, Starlight will contact them and make sure they’re on. Say the word.
[14:36] JPL: Venkat here. Teddy is running late again. Go ahead and get the chat going. Mars rotation isn’t going to wait on us. Also be aware that this chat is being released to the press live. We’re really serious about it this time, Mark: watch the language.
[14:48] WATNEY: Roger. I’ll keep it PG today. We’re connecting the ponies now: stand by.
[14:55] WATNEY: “Hello from (no translation)! Twilight Sparkle and Queen Chrysalis are here. Good morning, NASA Administrator!”
[15:08] JPL: Hello. This is Theodore Sanders, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. On behalf of the government of the United States of America, I want to say your people are very welcome here. There are a lot of our people rooting for them.
[15:26] WATNEY: “Thank you! We are told the name of your world is Earth, like soil or dirt. What is the United States of America? Does your world have more than one nation?”
[15:38] JPL: Yes, our world is Earth. What is your world’s name? We can’t translate it. There are about 200 nations on our world; the USA is one of the largest. How many nations are on your world?
[16:02] WATNEY: “The word for our world is an ancient name for horses. Our nation is named ‘land of horses’ in the same old language. There are many speaking people and several horse or pony countries, but ours is the largest. How many speaking people do you have?” (Note: by ‘speaking people’ I think they mean ‘intelligent species.’ Remember each of my guests is a different race or species from any of the others. – Watney)
[16:13] JPL: So far as we know we have only one intelligent species, though a few others come close. There are eight billion of us. Who rules your country? Chrysalis?
[16:27] WATNEY: (Oops. Sensitive topic. Dragonfly and Starlight just had a few sharp words in pony talk. Starlight’s going to answer this one herself. – Watney) “We are not as many people as you, of any kind. Land-of-horses is ruled by Princess Heavens (not the right word) and her sister Princess Luna (the right word). Princess Twilight Sparkle was Princess Heavens’ student before she became a princess. Queen Chrysalis is queen only of the bug-ponies. She has tried to conquer us before, but we are currently at peace.” – Starlight
[16:35] WATNEY: “We’re still working out how to live together. How did you get to space without any magic?”
[16:39] JPL: What can we do that might make it easier for you to rescue your crew and Mark?
[16:47] JPL: Re: last question, Mark can answer better than I. It wasn’t easy. Some people died trying. We don’t want Mark to be another one of those. Can you help?
[16:59] WATNEY: “We don’t know yet. Problems we have: finding your exact universe, landing on planet, picking up crew, leaving planet, getting back home. We don’t think you can help with the first or last ones. Any suggestions?” (Note: my guests’s English is almost good enough for a detailed history of Earth space flight. Starlight’s written up a brief history of her world’s space race, waiting on upload time on Pathfinder. – Watney)
[17:05] WATNEY: “We’re trying to help, but it’s not easy. We’re testing changes to our life support systems that would let us send food, magic power, etc. to the crew, but it’s a problem we’ve worked on for years with little progress.”
[17:11] JPL: We’re working on ways to get them off the planet, at least. We have a ship that could possibly get them into orbit in about a year, but someone has to be waiting in orbit to pick them up. Can you be there?
[17:17] JPL: We’re curious about your experimental FTL drive. Mark tells us you think your crew can build a new one. How does it work? How do you adjust it to compensate for burned fuel, dropped stages, etc.? Our scientists have some clever ideas if we can get one of those working…
[17:30] WATNEY: “If we can find your world, we can be there within a day. But we don’t know how to find your world yet.” (Also, had to explain FTL to the ponies. They say it didn’t actually go faster than light yet- would need more energy than their ship had. – Watney)
[17:40] WATNEY: “The egghead just ran for the doors. I think you just gave her an idea. She invented the drive. She’s changed it about a hundred times since the accident. So far as I know it never adjusted for anything- one setting only. – Chrysalis” (Note: Today we learned ponies and humans both have the term “egghead”. In pony language it really is the pony word for egg and the pony word for head put together. – Watney)
[17:42] JPL: Can you tell us how to make our world more visible to you?
[17:52] JPL: Please tell the princess thank you from us. Do you have any questions for us before we end?
[17:58] WATNEY: “I don’t know. – Chrysalis” (Note: I’m willing to bet what she actually said was, “Bleep if I know,” based on how Starlight hesitated before telling me what to type. And based on her face now, I’d call that confirmed. – Watney)
[18:17] WATNEY: “What are the rules for land claims in your universe? I want my subject and my employees to have someplace safe if you kick them out. – Chrysalis”
[18:30] WATNEY: The Earth transmission window is about to close. Time to say good night, all.
[18:31] JPL: International treaty forbids land claims outside of Earth. Treaties also require all people to come to the aid of stranded astronauts. Your people will not be kicked out under any circumstances.
[18:43] JPL: Thank you for your time, Queen Chrysalis. We’ll do everything we can for your people.
[18:50] WATNEY: “They better not be kicked out. One way or another, we are coming for them. Good night. – Chrysalis” (And that’s all, folks… - Watney)
I think Chrysalis would move Heaven and Earth to get Dragonfly and Cherry Berry home.
Aw Chryssy does care! (In her own threatening way)
Chrysalis has such good diplomatic skills. And she's such a charmer.
I'm curious of twilights potential idea.
8766426
If it would help she would probably force Celestia and Luna to do exactly that. (Not that they would need forcing. She would just do that anyway.)
8766439
I believe Celestia thinks of all the little ponies as her children. Of course, she'll do anything to Save them. Heck, through Twilight, Starlight is practically part of the family.
Celestia = Equestrias Mom
NOTE: tonight's KWLP (on dementiaradio.org) will have as its theme... OUTER SPACE! So if you like geeky comedy and streaming Internet radio, tune in at 9 PM Central (about two hours from the time I'm typing this)!
I see Twilight, Chrysalis, &Co having to pick them up from Earth
8766456
Maybe figure out a way to make a stable portal between the two worlds while they are there. Bring Starswirl. Then between him, Starlight, and Twilight, they can figure something out.
8766426
Huh. Princess Heaven might not like that, and Earth is a bit far away.
Wait a minute thorax is separate from the hive and apparently has enough authority that a summit needed to be made to have a meeting between him and chrysalis... I thought cannon did not apply?
8766460
That would be interesting, especially if it can be made permanent in Earth’s tidal lock zone
8766465
He might rule the northern hives or something.
I'm confused by Thorax existing, I thought all Season 6 and 7 changeling episodes were non-canon for CSP universe?
(Which I commend you on, I really don't like that they fixed the changelings to not need external love. I really liked them as antagonists. Or at the very least they could have made an interesting study of integration as a parasitic species could change to become symbiotic. I mean there's no reason they couldn't have stayed as they were and learned to live in harmony with Ponies. Instead of something interesting they just became normal essentially.)
8766465 Or there could have just been a summit in the Crystal Empire, where he lives, and the two bumped into each other.
The Season 6 ending definitely did not happen in the CSP/Maretian setting, but other things might do.
8766447
Neat. Thanks to my last update (at least I think that's the cause) I can finally tune in and see what it's all about.
Ah, the challenges of working at oh-god:30.
8766541
Ah I see. Thank you.
8766538 Thorax exists because, as bad as The Times They Are a Changeling was, it's not incompatible with CSP. The Season 6 ending definitely was, though.
One wonders if Twilight will send over an entire collection of Star Swirl's scrolls. And then Mars will have an ocean again.
Here’s hoping Chrysalis doesn’t set off the pundits. Actually I kind of want to see news media reactions.
8766447
8766435
A rule against interplanetary land claims don't mean anything if you can't enforce.
Cue Chrysalis going "nyah-nyah, I haz your Mars! What ya gonna do about it?"
Personally, while the rule against land claims was reasonable during the Cold War, I think it's hindering modern space flight as most countries and businesses aren't willing to invest in something they can't reap "short-term" benefits from.
Yeah, not a chance I'll be able to get something into Scribblefest this year. My Deadline-Motivator is busted cold. Missed most of the writeoffs to this point.
8766632 The enforceability is only the half of it. No investor is going to put $50m into a project that can return a $200m chuck of (for example) pure platinum that your company floats to earth on parachutes and lands in the Arizona desert, only to have lawyers from across the globe promptly sue your company into insolvency for a piece of it. The Moon Treaty (unratified, thank God) would have done just that. The UN Convention of the Law of the Sea screwed up ocean prospecting much the same way.
I feel like Nasa should have let the Esa know about planned food drops.
8766574
In fact, there is this amazing interlude chapter on CSP you wrote where Chryssie dreamed the season 6 finale and went off on Cherry Berry about how absurd it was. The chapter concludes with QC sending a letter to Thorax basically saying, you're perma-banished, but I won't come after you and hope you have a happy life.
I have this mental image of an emotional Thorax clutching that letter to his... thorax... whispering, "Thank you Mom, I'll do my best."
Hmm I wonder if the air or water that gets teleported by the pony life support system will retain its vibration state during the teleportation process, if yes it could in theory be used to transmit (probably rather quiet) audio from Equestria to Mars.
8766691 To be fair, the idea wasn't a bad one, and the visuals were lovely, but they really dropped the ball on the execution. There wasn't any excuse for the bad guys being that dumb and the McGuffin being that blatant.
8766632
"MARS KILL!"
Cue Chrysalis: Angry planet... ANGRY PLANET!!!
Politicians cant make deals when everyones watching?
Twilights going to try tracing the water? Wonder how isotopes behave through the link into a low magic universe?
Chrysalis plz for any god that may be real don't fuck with earth one bit it won't end on both side..... well mostly one side.
i wonder she will shit a brick like Bender when she see a nuke in action or the many many other weapon systems we made without magic.
and also i would love to see her see how we did it without magic to the life system to growing food to 3d printers and many other things in our history. also for dragonfly..... SENT HER VIDEO GAME HISTORY!
heh Chryssie is always the megalomaniac. =3 If she can't have Equus, she'll take over some other planet!
At least she's honest as far as that desire is concerned, and has the presence of mind for it to not be a reckless drive. She's well aware of what she can or cannot actually accomplish. Also....between CSP and Maretian, it really looks like she's come to enjoy the respect being a space pioneer gets her and her children, not to mention the constant worrying all of the princesses have over trying to figure out how she'll spin each thing to her advantage and what her ultimate goal is.
A thought you might want to consider. Can the ponys send anything other than water through the water system, say, oh broth, or soup?
8766574
And I presume Chrys’ prohibition re: Kevin remains in place...
8766460
Given its seems sparse plant life is able to generate enough magical energy for extremely limited spell usage, a portal attempted on a extremely life filled planet like earth would work. I personally think that magic does exists in the human universe but exists in a frequency that life wasn't able to adapt to using as easily so humanity has no basis to access until now. The magic that can be harnessed without study is just excess generated by life. Terran life basically generates equestrian attuned magic as a waste product.
So Watney and Chrysalis will be sharing the "Not Diplomats" table at the first Interplanetary meet and greet dinner. It's probably the fun table anyway.
Don't worry about being late, Teddy. No big deal, just the rulers of an alien world with a very limited talk window. Grab an extra croissant and coffee before strolling in.
8766886
Anything with complex chemistry like sugar is either Bad Day bad or just doesn't work.
This question comes up fairly regularly and is only addressed once or twice in the source.
8766954 To be fair, Teddy Sanders is the big cheese of NASA. He reports directly to the President and Congress. That means, as hard as he tries to be perfectly organized, there's always somebody wanting an unscheduled piece of his time.
8766465
There's an interlude in Changeling Space Program where Chrysalis had a nightmare of the Season 6 finale. Afterwards, she basically sent a letter to Thorax saying "we're cool for now, but if you come anywhere near my hive I will behead you."
Well, that went decently. I wonder what Twilight's idea was?
8766886
The life support only works with air/water. Anything else gets reduced to a horrible vomit like substance and/or explodes.
8766980
Oh I accept that, but he still gets ribbed for showing up late to something like this. Also fair.
8766886
I asked that awhile back, too. Turns out CSP covered it and I hadn't read that far. The particular spell, in exchange for unlimited distance, isn't a standard teleport and doesn't do nice things to carbon based stuff. Boom, iirc.
To the author... every side had the idiot ball in that finale. Every pony captured with no failures or even real trouble? I was immediately shaking my head and couldn't take any of it seriously.
8766790
Blood for the Blood God, skulls, murder, etc.
8766886
If my memory's right, I believe the issue with sending food was that either larger molecules, or specifically carbon molecule chains breaking down in transport.
Eitherway it makes sending food a bad idea.
Hello, everyone!
Important question!
In the book Mark suffered malnutrition because of his 'taters diet.
So.
Can you milk horses?
8766447 That was well worth it. And you're a bastard for reminding me about Scribblefest. I just sat down and wrote 2,000 words tonight for it in one long burst. I might even get it done. Hope you're happy. Sadist. (snerk)
i always wonder this how would magic do any good i mean sure it helps with things going fast and all that but then again mankind been doing very well for its self without it am more worry what it do to the mlp world, i mean just stop and think it would stop every basic thing different.
there going to face what during the industrial revolution where anti-tech (or luddies) brokering steam engine and more thinking its unholy but it was doing more good then bad, but with ponies given there whole world is base kinda around there cutie mark (see cerry is not part of that rule) So if anything this will happen sooner or later when a shoemaker pony can't out build a robot with it being not a living thing meaning no restroom breaks no water just energy to run it.
hell right now we are facing that in real life when robots taking over blue coller work all over to fast food buger flipping to the waiter that take your oder and hand you there food. but humans can do fine with it given its being a slow thing and by then humans would put all there time and engery to making music, games, art and last a VR world and to push the world of medical science with space tralver where we can make our own rules if we go out there on our own
8767106
Wow.
8767106
No, and it wouldn't help anyway. Even disregarding that Mark would be squicked (survival situation and all that) none of them are pregnant. Plus, they all have the same nutrient intake. The absolute best that would do would be give Mark an inefficient secondhand way to digest cellulose. And any nutrients in milk come out of the unfortunate pony's nutrition instead. Bad idea.
8767058
Hmm... I wonder if you can invest magical energy into water? If you can, a fountain of 'holy water' would be a good mana source. Which in turn would help deal with their food situation etc.
Hmm...Starlight lived with Twilight for quite a long time, and they've got an important emotional connection. And everyone on the planet is coming together as friends. Since this is MLP, both magic and friendship have to be the solution to the problem somehow... could Starlight unite the crew in Harmony and use that as a beacon for Twilight?
Magibabble aside, I also think that even if you can't send food via the crystals sending something simple could be handy. Even scrambled up carbon and associated molecules would be useful. Sugars and carbohydrates I'd expect to turn into a mix of carbon dioxide water and benzene, so no good there. But you could come up with some things. Pure carbon for the soil for example.