The testing team was half and half- half pony, half changeling. The pony half, in turn, was also half and half- unicorn and pegasus, with only those unicorns Twilight Sparkle could muster who were good at long-range teleportation.
The tests were simple: set up the test vehicle on the launch pad, with its array of fifteen enchanted pylons, trigger the enchantment, and get the heck out of the way of ten tons of rapidly rising (or falling) metal.
“Test Fourteen at T minus thirty seconds,” echoed the call from the dozen or so loudspeakers scattered around the little island well off the coast of Horseton Space Center. “All personnel prepare to evacuate. T minus twenty-five seconds…”
Well offshore, on a small barge that rocked gently in the slow swells of the Celestial Sea, one unicorn after another popped into existence with a flash of light (and, in one instance, with a splash of water, having unexpectedly been bumped aside by the spell’s failsafe when another unicorn arrived at the chosen destination a split second earlier). Some pegasi and most of the changelings followed at a more normal flying speed, while the four fastest pegasi and the two fastest changelings, plus one alicorn princess, hovered and watched for whatever was about to happen.
The princess in question, Twilight Sparkle, wore one of the new wireless headsets, and as she counted down every word echoed over the little island launch pad. “… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one!”
What happened next, in tests one through eight, had been the sudden appearance of a magical blast wave, a force dome that rapidly expanded and left trees standing while carrying the test vehicle- and usually a lot of things that hadn’t been intended to become test vehicles- up into the air along with it.
Test Nine had been the first test to see if less of the dome could be generated. Subsequent tests had reduced the dome into a more or less round magical plate- or, rather, a trampoline, since what it did was essentially bounce whatever was above it into the air at tremendous speeds.
But, as with the prior tests, Test Fourteen proved that the spell had extreme difficulty discerning which things it should toss into the air, and which it shouldn’t. The mock-up spacecraft caught only the edge of the field, which was still enough to lift it in the air a bit before it slipped out of the forcefield’s effect and almost immediately plunged back to the ground.
The launch tower, on the other hoof, went almost straight up and kept accelerating, driven swiftly through the sound barrier by the fifteen pylons that generated the spell.
“Forget the capsule! Track the tower!” Twilight called out over her headset. “It’s still valid data!”
Inside the earphones of her headset, an imperious and grating voice snapped, “I don’t care if it’s data or not, it’s heading directly for my space center!!”
“Pssh,” Twilight scoffed. “It’s still accelerating upwards. I can follow it and prevent it from-“
Far, far up in the sky, the launch tower, already not at all well from having been ripped up off its foundation by the spell and then accelerated to over three times the speed of sound, gave up what structural integrity it had remaining, turning from one slightly mangled object into over a hundred smaller, but still very destructive, ballistic projectiles of tremendous weight. The spell lost its focus, and without its target it shut down.
“My space center, princess!” Chrysalis demanded over the radio.
“Shoot. Hold on one moment.”
Twilight Sparkle had heard the occasional joke about her being the Alicorn Princess of OCD, but even her detractors would have to admit that a miles-distant telekinetic grab of almost a gross of different objects, collectively massing about seven tons, followed by a mass teleport that left the metal neatly stacked in careful rows next to the launch pad for reassembly, was a feat not even Celestia would have been able to perform.
“There. All sorted out. What did we get?”
“Tracking reports maximum speed at breakup of twelve hundred sixty-two meters per second,” came the response from the minotaur chief scientist of the Changeling Space Program, Warner von Brawn. “Altitude approximately fourteen thousand, five hundred meters. Rate of acceleration had dropped by fourteen percent below launch estimate, with numbers inexact due to not tracking the tower for the first six seconds of flight.”
“Perfect!” Twilight Sparkle cheered. “Mares and gentlecolts, we have proof of concept!”
“What?” Chrysalis wasn’t having it. “Did it escape your attention that the actual capsule flew about two hundred meters, came down, and exploded on the pad? Or that we still have no way of actually steering the thing without a unicorn controlling the spell in person?”
“Oh, those? I solved those problems a week ago,” Twilight said, her voice too chipper to be smug. “The only question was whether or not the same kind of projectors that Starlight Glimmer will have available, at her much reduced power levels, would be able to produce sufficient force to be worth bothering with! Today’s experiment shows that, if anything, the spell might be slightly overpowered!”
“There is some truth to that,” the minotaur rumbled over the radio. “The estimated G forces for the tower’s launch would severely inconvenience a changeling and would pose lethal danger for practically anyone else.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you solved the other problems?” Chrysalis asked.
“Aren’t you going to ask how I solved them?” Twilight asked, pouting a little.
“Would I understand it? No. And I have no need to understand- not the theory, anyway. All I need to know is how to make it go in the right direction.”
“I’ll show you when I get back to your space center,” Twilight said. “I need to call Rainbow Dash, anyway. Test Fifteen will require a live pilot.”
“Tell her to stay home,” Chrysalis replied. “I’ll fly Fifteen.”
“Aren’t you two weeks overdue to relieve Concordia?” Twilight asked.
“Concordia is in good hooves,” Chrysalis said.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles overhead, the current officer in command of CSP Concordia looked sternly at her subordinate and said, “I don’t care if you can teleport here in one go, I’ve told you, you’re not allowed to visit Mama when she’s at work.”
“But Mama!” Flurry Heart whined.
“No buts,” Cadance replied. “Now go sit in the corner and think about what a dangerous thing you’ve just done.”
“Isn’t a corner, Mama.”
“Fine. Over by the ladder, then.”
“An’ can’t sit in zero-G.”
“Improvise.”
As the overpowered alicorn child floated past one of the changelings on duty on the half-ship, half-space station’s bridge, she asked, “Can Mr. Changeling play with me?”
“No,” Cadance said, but her glare was reserved for the drone whose crimes were (a) Being a Changeling Who is Not Thorax, and (b) Being Here.
The changeling, remembering that his current commanding officer had once launched himself, his queen, and tens of thousands of his friends hundreds of miles at ballistic speed, bent back to his console and thought small thoughts.
Cadence doesn't hold grudges. She keeps them carefully tucked away in little grudge greenhouses and feeds them every day until they grow up to be proper divine retribution. Ask Shining Armor why he no longer leaves the toilet seat up.
‘Princess of food’
Having not read CSP, Cadence seems a strange choice to me, but I presume there’s backstory there I’m not privy to. For such an [insert all the bad things some people usually say about her], Chrysalis is very quick to risk her own life and limbs
That is sad my favorite name for cadence is princess of food
9025794 Long story short: in the initial craze for space, practically everybody had a space program of one kind or another. The crystal ponies demanded their own and elected their princess as their first astromare, and she flew a couple of missions before logistics and the high latitude of the Empire more or less forced that program to merge with ESA. She was more or less retired from space flight, but Chrysalis had wanted to be on hand for the repulsor tests, and Cadance made the mistake of agreeing to relieve Rainbow Dash in command of Concordia "for just a couple of days until we straighten things out." What happened in this chapter is just another reason why she regrets it.
Flurry in space is a bad combo....
9025814 Ah, great, thanks for letting me know!
Cadence might have been a bit more forgiving of the invasion of it hadn't been on her wedding day. That kinda made it personal.
9025814
But who in the h*** thought it was a good idea to send a child into space?!?!
Oh, forgot to put this in the author note, and meant to, so for those who already read the chapter:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/8879638
My favorite post-rescue Martian story.
9025830 The child did, of course.
"Good news, everyone! My new TK cannon has enough oomph to not only put you into Space, but also pulp anything that's not a changeling!"
Princess of Food.
9025833
Wait, Flurry actually teleported that far? XD
Yay, we have a potential way off of Mars! Twilight is OP and nothing is wrong with this. Flurry Heart is massively OP and all is forgiven by virtue of her also-OP cuteness. Dang Cadence, you scary! Poor lovebugs.
9024545
But that model falls apart when you begin dealing with professions that require harder work or more specialization to perform. If everyone is paid equally it doesn't incentivize people taking up the more difficult jobs that need to be done. Equal pay for unequal work isn't a viable model.
This isn't the place to get into a discussion about economic equality though. If you want to keep up this train of conversation PM me or something so everyone here can focus on the story about ponies on Mars.
9025830
it's Flurry Heart, the fuck did you think that 'Thing That Should Not Be' in pony form would do?
9025850 If anypony could, you know it would be her.
Is it possible to passively leech away the enthusiasm of overpowered alicorn fillies? I mean, that solves any energy crisis for the foreseeable future.
Twilights going to go with the Orion Verne Phase Conjugate Thaumic Locked Loop ground launch autotracking method?
As for reducing the acceleration on a given mass when said mass is a propulsve upper stage? Wouldnt the easiest way be, bolt more mass in the form of drive and supplies or such on it?
Just a pity after all the effort for Sliepnir that there will be noone left waiting to collect it, except for Pathfinder and Sojourner? But how would they access the supplies and drag them into the cave farm without airlock access etc?
9025831
Yeah, I'm not ashamed to admit that your story resulted in my going through every Martian story on both Ao3 and FF.net. I didn't read all of them (personally, I mainly read the stories where Mark gets shipped with either Mindy, Beth, or Lewis, but there were several non-shipping stories I enjoyed), but I certainly found several dozen I added to my bookmarks.
If she doesn’t like being referred t as the “Princess of Food,” then maybe she should stop being so delicious.
Bet she didn’t think about that.
9025868 Well, there's plenty of good reason to go back to the Ares III site- especially to study whatever's left of the Site Epsilon cave after the crew leaves. Sleipnirs 2 and 3 can be presupply for that.
In regards to this chapter, can the amount of force generated by the spell be improved by altering the terrain the spell would be used on? In other words, can the Crew essentially terraform the land immediately around the MAV to get the most out of the launching spell? Say for example, changing the ground so that the MAV is in a sort of bowl, to both contain and direct the force of the spell in a more upwards direction?
Originally, I was going to ask if Shining Armor could devise a shield spell to contain/concentrate/direct the force of the spell, but then I remembered that he wouldn't be on Mars
9025868 They're testing with ten tons (deliberately) or less (not so deliberately). The fully fueled MAV will weigh 27 tons before any modifications are done to lighten the ship.
9025865
And now I'm picturing the Crystal Empire lit up like Las Pegasus due to Flurry Heart's excess mana getting drained by the Crystal Heart.
If crystal ponies didn't have to pay power bills, would they be "early adopters" of Minotaur or Neighponese electronics technology?
Hipster Shining Armor: "The Crystal Empire had computers before they went mainstream."
I see that Twilight "Disaster" Sparkle is in her element, screwing things up as usual and almost getting people killed. The fact she so reliably screws up that it has become part of her procedure says a lot.
It astounds me that they would give her authority over a child's chemistry set, much less a space program. But of course, that's the joke: the CSP and the ESA are in the hooves of a psychopathic megalomaniac and a monument to incompetence, respectively.
9025906 The idea of Flurry Heart as a living battery like how Elizabeth is pretty much the source of Columbia’s energy unnerves me.
9025914 No, this time nobody was in much danger- they all cleared out of the area before launch, and Twilight handled what might have escaped the test area.
9025831
Thanks for sharing that. Agreed at the accurate vibe.
9025855
Starlight probaly misses being massively OP. Bet she can't wait to be back in a magic rich environment.
9025951
And then nearly fries her self with a simple tk grab, because she is used to working with very little power. Then she'll whish she was back on mars. She'll need the magical equivalent of physical Therapy as she learns not to crush a grape, or accidentally fling it mach speeds.
9025850
How else do you think she made it?
Unicorn farts?
9026052
Like weight/gravity training in Dragon Ball. I hope she doesn't just explode from her own background mana flux.
9025890
Are you advocating the use of Martian terrain as a waveguide for contained force of propulsive nature?
I think that would work better from Olympus Mons.
9025830
Flurry Heart did, obviously. I think it's also obvious that she's been getting lessons from her aunt. To whit, she teleported, on the first try:
Think about that for a minute. Who needs space probes equipped with the Sparkle Drive when they could just stick Flurry Heart in a spacesuit and point her in the right direction?
9026052
On the other hoof, Spitfire may be able to perform a Sonic Rainboom when she gets back by virtue of continuous exercise in a low mana environment, though I can't decide if flying without mana would sufficiently offset muscle atrophy in Mars' low gravity, to say nothing of calcium loss.
9026099
Flurry Teleports to Mars.
...Mars is soon VERY sorry for trying to kill everyone.
(I'm not sorry. This is my Flurry Heart theme music.)
9025803
Sounds like the name of a fast-food chain or grocery store, don't it?
Bahaha! XD LOVE when Flurry Heart shows up at the space station! Also those poor changelings. And thanks for recommending that fanfic, it was great!
Y O U M U S T C O N S T R U C T A D D I T I O N A L P Y L O N S
friends-partners.org/mwade/graphics/r/redstowr.jpg
I know the feel, Twilight.
Darn, I'm late again. I've made improvements to the "Witch Doctor Dungeon Master" song from two days ago! https://musescore.com/user/27997005/scores/5153455
9025787
And now I'm trying to picture an equine trying to use a designed-for-humans toilet. Thank you for that.
9026205 Girls, much the same, with tail to one side. Boys back up for #2, forward for #1 *unless* it's a pony toilet, which has a longer, pointed bowl and therefore can accommodate boys doing #1 and #2 at the same time. In either case, they'd be much lower to the ground at a *painfully* awkward height for Americans used to a chair-altitude.
9025831
Huh. I was not expecting AO3 to have 105 stories tagged with "potatoes".
Drop... THE BASS!
Considering they're propelling by the spell pushing the ground (or the rocket, you know, Newton's second law) probably with the same rhytmic bursts that Sparkle Drive does, Twilight basically build a magical subwoofer. So this IS the Bass Rocket!
9026342
When did they invite Newtonian physics?
Assuming this is the same repulsive field tech as the engines, they work by Aristotelian principles, Maybe.
9026226
Nah, man-ponys can do some elephantine things with their trunk. Don't worry about them.
9026390
GUYS THIS IS A SPACE STORY DON'T GO ALL BIG BANG THEORY ON IT!
9026342
So, when the launch tower went up instead of teh module, properly, you could say
She got it Bass Akwards?