AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 179
ARES III SOL 178
TRANSCRIPT – TELEGRAPHIC EXCHANGE BETWEEN ESA AMICITAS and NASA VESSEL HERMES
AMICITAS: Friendship calling Hermes, comms check, over.
HERMES: Hermes calling Friendship, comms check, reading beeps three by five, over.
AMICITAS: Reading beeps five by five. Johannsen, over?
HERMES: Affirmative, over.
AMICITAS: Need practice keying Morse. Indulge me, over?
HERMES: Of course, Mark. I’ve been practicing too, over.
AMICITAS: How are all of you, over?
HERMES: Fine. We should ask that of you. How are you, over?
AMICITAS: Contemplating hundred days more of taters and hay, over.
HERMES: We’re sorry about that, over.
AMICITAS: Not your fault. Murphy happens. When you guys land, eat a steak for me, over.
HERMES: Will do. Need to get back to work now. Out.
TRANSCRIPT (EXCERPT) – WATER TELEGRAPH EXCHANGE BETWEEN EQUESTRIAN SPACE AGENCY AND ESA AMICITAS
AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltimare, use suit SG for response, over.
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, over.
AMICITAS: Have long message consisting of thaumic formulas. Please signal when ready to receive. Also, more urgent we get spell suggestions for airtight cave farm, over.
ESA: Getting Twilight Sparkle now. Why the hurry on the cave spell, over?
AMICITAS: Failure of resupply missions from Mark’s planet, over.
ESA: TS – combine transmutation spell to ceramic and topographical tracing spell. Over.
AMICITAS: SG – Transmute to ceramic? Over.
ESA: TS – it was Trixie’s idea, over.
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, comms check, over.
AMICITAS: Amicitas copies. Tell Trixie good idea, we’ll grow crops inside a giant teacup, over.
ESA: Starlight, really, over!
AMICITAS: Sorry, Twilight, over.
ESA: It’s a good idea. You know Jammy Devil’s Torus Tracer, over?
AMICITAS: No, but I know Inside Leg’s Automatic Measure, over.
ESA: That one should work. Thread the transmutation spell in as an overlay on top of the tracing spell. Don’t do an underlay or else you’ll transmute the crystals in the cave, over.
AMICITAS: Roger. Outside only or else find out if Fireball can eat ten million teacups, over.
ESA: Standing by for formulas, over.
AMICITAS: Message begins…
Nobody spoke during dinner in the Hab that night. Mealtimes in the Hab were never jolly, not since about three days after the first hay harvest. But the news of Sleipnir- one probe destroyed, one stranded in Earth orbit, and only one en route with all sorts of potential failure modes between Earth and Mars- dampened spirits.
Cherry Berry wasn’t so much the best cook of the Amicitas crew as the least horrible cook. She’d held a couple of part-time jobs in kitchens, at least. Starlight’s skills were limited to breakfast, tea and toast. Spitfire hadn’t cooked anything since the last time she’d pulled KP duty as a Wonderbolts cadet. Dragonfly and Fireball had never had any inclination to learn.
Under the circumstances, it surprised nobody that the attempt to adapt the atmospheric regulator’s heating elements to toast hay and potatoes failed miserably. The procedure Mark half-remembered from the Sol 16 Thanksgiving that never happened had been intended for pre-packaged dehydrated and reconstituted stuffing, not for cooking from scratch. It took Mark quite some time to explain the term “Cajun blackened,” and by that time nobody was even a little amused.
Prior attempts at hay and potato soup using the electric burners from the chemistry lab had likewise proved a failure. Other experiments tried and failed including fried hay (without oil), salt-baked potatoes (which left a mess in the microwave), and smothered potatoes with alfalfa (the least inedible attempt, but it could only be cooked one meal at a time). About the only success in the cooking experiments came in the form of a weak alfalfa tea, and that had come from a procedure sent up by NASA.
So, another attempt at variety having failed, and with hundreds of sols of the current menu of slightly dried alfalfa and microwave baked potato staring them in the face, the inhabitants of the Hab ate their meals in silence. Mark, for his part, had tried to salvage the evening by offering up the very last bottle of Tabasco sauce in the Hab’s stores. Nobody touched it.
Mark, the ponies noticed, hadn’t opened a meal pack today. He’d had three potatoes for lunch instead and had kind of chewed on a hay stalk during his afternoon soil experiments.
With dinner out of the way, the mood lightened a little for everyone except Mark. He gave his improvised sample-case lid to Starlight to clean, walked through the rows of potato plants interspersed with small clusters of alfalfa, and half-heartedly toyed with them.
“So, which first?” Dragonfly asked. “The TV, or a couple chapters of Order of the Phoenix?”
“Depends. Can we watch some of that Jim Rockford guy tonight?” Fireball asked.
“More Potter for me, please,” Starlight said.
“You only say that because you’re the best reader,” Spitfire grumbled.
Cherry Berry watched Mark squatting among the plants, idly turning over a leaf.
“Yo, boss mare! You with us?” Fireball asked. “We need a tiebreaker.”
Cherry blinked. “Huh?” she asked. “What tiebreaker?”
“Spitfire and Fireball want to watch TV first,” Dragonfly said. “Starlight and I want Potter first.”
Cherry looked at Mark again, who was turning the same leaf on the same potato plant over again. “How about none of the above?” she asked.
“How’s that?” Fireball asked.
“Mark’s been giving us all sorts of stories from his world,” Cherry said.
“Yeah, and some really bad ones, too,” Spitfire muttered. “’The Adventures of Letterman’? Really?”
“I think,” Cherry said, overriding the grumbles, “it’s time we started sharing some of our stories with him. Past time.”
“Past time?” Starlight asked. “We couldn’t speak his language before!”
“We can now,” Cherry Berry said. “At least, you and Dragonfly can, and the rest of us are catching up. And besides, I think Mark can use the distraction.”
“This is going to be pony stories, isn’t it?” Fireball said. “Dragons don’t do story time.”
Spitfire smiled smugly. “Probably because all your stories would be about ponies kicking your asses.”
Fireball raised an eyebrow ridge, looking down his snout at the pegasus. “Really?” he asked. “Because the way I heard it there are a lot of ponies that tangled with dragons and never told anybody about it, because-“
“That’s enough,” Cherry Berry said sternly. “We’re doing story time. That’s an order.”
As Fireball and Spitfire bowed their heads a little contritely, Dragonfly piped up, “We changelings don’t have stories either. Mostly we have after-action reports.”
“How about I pick the story?” Starlight said. “We’ll start with the Legend of the Two Sisters. All of us know that one, right?”
Even Fireball nodded at that.
A few minutes later, as Fireball guided Mark over to the bunks, Starlight Glimmer pulled out the much-used whiteboards and sketched an image of two elegant ponies with wings and horns. A tiny tweak of magic rendered the two princesses in their proper colors, next to the sun and moon they controlled (according to legend, the exact astronomical truth being more complicated).
Starlight had exchanged emails with several humans on Mark’s planet at this time, and the subject of mythology and legend had come up. She’d been particularly fascinated at the sheer number of Equestrian creatures which didn’t exist on Earth, but which did exist in one legend or another. In the process of researching this via email, she’d learned the proper human formula for telling a legend of long ago.
So, when Mark was settled, his gloomy expression replaced by one of pure curiosity, she began recounting the story of Nightmare Moon’s fall and redemption by saying, “Once upon a time, in the magical land of the ponies…”
Teacup!
Awesome.
Obligatory:
Given this is the CSPverse, Dragonfly has my vote! Lets get to those reports!
Interestingly, a number of them revolved around how the cave sealing spell was coming along. Good timing.
Not apply proper grammar. Writer needs day off. :P
I forget, have the ponies told Mark about that little "Raises the sun and moon" thing yet? Because talk about culture shock....
teacup!
Now I want to read SG's telling of the tale.
you can get perfectly serviceable fries with just plain potatoes and salt.
In fact, here's some ideas for recipes using only potato and salt.
https://frommybowl.com/perfect-oven-baked-fries/
http://www.seasaltwithfood.com/2009/05/hasselback-potatoes.html
Alfalfa seeds can be ground up into a flour. Obviously that lack of yeast means your bread will be unleavened.
You could write an entire chapter about how the crew improvises cooking implements and recipes using only potato's, salt, and alfalfa.
If Mark does not like the taste of alfalfa leaves, my suggestion is to finely chop them and mix with well salted mashed potato's. That's how I manage to stomach gross things like kale.
It should be reasonably easy to rig up a hot plate. Most cooking implements like pots, pans, and skillets could be easily bent out of sections of metal by Starlight.
Potato starch can be broken down to extract sugar. This could then be used to make various simple highly calorie dense candies or as flavoring for various potato dishes.
8840566
It has come up.
8840563
Fine, it seems to this one. To Dagobah, they should have went. 💩
I finally started listening to the Martian audiobook. I'm only about 2.5 hours in (Mark's already gotten the RTG, and Mindy was given the go-ahead to alter satellite orbits), but I should probably be about halfway through the book by this evening.
Even with what I've listened to so far, I've already decided that I will be purchasing both the book, audiobook, as well as the movie.
8840538
You know, if Starlight did that in the HAB, I believe Mark would be really happy for some teacup-puddle steak.
No Ming teacup.
Coalbrookdale Pottery Mugs should be easier?
The trouble with putting targeting points out on the landscape is that given a 50:50 chance of landing within them, means theres an equal chance of landing anywhere else on the planet.
Inside leg? Just as long as they dont get Penguined.
Its the Wrong Trousers, Gromit.
8840583
Due to translation errors I can see this going down exactly like:
I just realized something a way to raise the quality of food and stretch meal packs even more! Instead of directly eating them, use parts of them to make a stew. This is a time honored method for stretching food supplies. Even one meal pack could improve the flavor of several meals worth of stew. You can extract the starch via crushing to make a thick base, then put in chopped potatoes to provide texture. With oven baked fries or mashed as a side. Eating of a commonly cooked meal of stew would also improve group cohesion.
Current food packs for ISS are heavily spiced because zero-G deadens taste-buds. Did they create new packs for mars or base them on the ISS ones?
Teacups and horse legends. Could this day get any better?
8840637
I miss sherclop
Recipe suggestion: cook potatoes in microwave, allow to cool, then shred, julienne, or mash. Mix in some salt and chopped alfalfa leaves (and/or hay for the poners, but we'll treat the leaves as a culinary herb for this recipe), shape into pancakes (or patties in the case of mash), then toast those over atmospheric regulator.
If they like it can I get a bit of that Watney Prize for raising morale and thus making it more likely they'll survive until rescue?
TBH I'd think there would be plenty of chefs (inc. celebrity chefs) and even home cooks who would be trying things out with what ingredients and equipment Mark & Co. have at hand. Heck, if the public knows about Glimmy's ability to pull some raw ingredients out of the soil you might even get some 'flavor scientists' looking into what sort of fake flavors they might be able to science up in order to give some variety.
Author reads this comment and asks himself, "Why did I read this?"
8840627
Trixie is the one spamming the teacup spell.
Starlight's going to use one big one on the cave.
8840703
I eagerly await the chapter that shows what happens on the Food Network's highest-rated special of the year: Iron Chef Mars.
8840566
Do you happen to remember around when it came up?
I'm kinda surprised they haven't gotten Starlight to spend some mana-battery power to transmute some spices or cooking oil or something.
8841010
So far we haven't seen Starlight break or form any compounds, or transmute any elements. Therefore I suspect that it is beyond her ability, at least in a low magic environment.
Anything they make has to work with what they've got.
"ESA: TS – it was Trixie’s idea, over."
:D
Teacup!
8841010
8841104
Last time they tried something like that Starlight nearly punched a hole in the hab.
8841104
8841204
Isn't transmuting the cave going to be a problem, then?
Just give them a code in basic or something to play pong that will sure keep them busy for some time
8841233
I'm not sure of the details. Since the Martian surface appears to be made significantly of basalt, which is about 50% silicon dioxide (silica), which can be a ceramic, there might not be a problem. It depends on what type of ceramic she will be turning the ground into, and the particular composition of the ground in the area.
8840961
This made me laugh so hard I farted.
Yes this would definitely be a worthy chapter.
I wonder if anypony has tried sending other liquids through the larger water Transporter. Send through a nice fish broth or vegetable broth.
Heck even a terrible broth, or the Pony equivalent of a Liquid Diet.
Surely they must have a set of equipment for testing/developement...
or did they blow the local receiver rig.
8840641
I always forget 0G does that to taste buds, I'm not sure if it would be as big an issue on Mars. We'll have to see about that in the future.
Dragonfly's goo could be used to seal any leaks in the cave or any weak spots in the gab, but I guess the whole cave or the hab would be too much of an area for one changeling to cover in goo.
Good idea for using Trixie though.
Well at least Mark isn’t eating military rations. So it could be worse
8841526
"This just in, astronaut Mark Watney has not pooped in five weeks!"
8841430
In CSP its noted that the spell can only transport simple non-organic molecules, anything bigger than about triatomic gets destroyed.
8840566
And thus did poor Mark get dragged into the "best princess" debate.
Luna: "Nyah nyah! The hoo-man likes me best!"
Celestia:
8840591
Mashed potatoes? Is that without butter, without butter, or without butter?
8840515
I am optimistic.
Perhaps foolishly so.
8840538
They're going to be farming in a giant, upside-down pink teacup. And there's going to be at least one giant-ass teacup rottweiler running around as a side effect.
Mark: So , anyway, Starlight Glimmer managed to reinforce the cave by turning the rock into pink ceramic. We're literally farming in a giant, deformed inverted teacup. And there was a side effect. Which I'm hesitant to mention, but...
JPL: Just spit it out. It's not going to be anymore insane than anything else that's happened so far.
Mark: Remember, you asked for it. Here goes: her spell accidentally made a giant animated teacup-dog hybrid...thing. I think it started out as a boulder or something. It doesn't seem to need food, air or water, which is good, I guess. She said her concentration slipped for a second while she was remembering something a friend of hers had done once. It's following us around everywhere. Kind of like the Luggage from the old Discworld books. It's friendly, is what I'm saying here. We're using it for hauling heavy things. And Fireball named it "Turd," and it kind of stuck. I've taken pictures and lots of video.
JPL: Okay, Mark, I think it's time to tell you that half the scientists over here are getting blackout-drunk after every new report you send back, and the other half have been checking into therapy options. Me, personally, I'm going to retire after this and grow roses.
Я немного запутолся, Гермес ещё летит к земле или он уже на орбите?
8841654
Nah, it just makes sense. we have dealt with technologies just as dangerous as this for a long time.What damage could you do with magic that can not be replicated or exceeded with poison, drones or nukes.Time travel is so gonna mess up humanity. Goodbye baby Hitler.
Everybody's like "oh can't wait for probes to get there, can't wait for that ine particular spoiler accident from the book..."
And I'm just sitting here wishing the cherries grow sooner. :3
CB desrves some love too, guys, stop feeding killer bugs.
8841687
Next report: Starlight finishes watching the Disney version of the Sorcerer's Apprentice and thinks the spell could be replicated. Hilarity ensures.
I am unsure if a ceramic surrounding is a good idea due to its brittle nature, specially as there are crystals of somesort within it which might have a massively sharp edges as they are splintered.
I really do hope someone is making precautions about this, one fracture in it might become a big problem. Not to mention if there is any frost shifts which could literally snap it in two.
Edit: Or temperature differences, tea-cups and other ceramic containers often crack when warm water is affed too fast. And the relative warmth of within and without might be quit large indeed. Not to mention question is how pefrect will the ceramic walls be and in what shape so there will be no weakpoints.
8841735
Killing HItler NEVER works. Ever.
8841911 Well, it depends on the ceramic. Ceramic vessels are used to move liquid helium around, as well as craft crucibles in which metals are melted (meaning they withstand changes on the order of thousands of degrees).
However, the big question is can the cave wall material be transmuted into a UNIFORM predetermined ceramic composition. That's a much more critical determination, as mixed materials would have different thermal reactivity and expansion coefficients, thus making the cave fail much FASTER than if it had been left alone.
8841735 Messing with the past is fraught with peril.
If you break it too badly, these things show up.
4.bp.blogspot.com/-hg7vFEx7Lak/UnDM1o0GMAI/AAAAAAAACWk/ZwNlvLW7dH0/s1600/vlcsnap-2013-10-30-17h55m07s3.jpg
Either that or the stars go out because Davros won.
In any case, yer gonna have a bad time.