AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 94
ARES III SOL 95
[08:16] WATNEY: Good morning, Earth! This is Mark Watney, but not for very long. It’s been exactly thirty sols since I personally inspected the cave farm last, so I’m taking Rover 1 out there today with two of my guests. But don’t worry. I’m leaving another of my guests to talk with you and answer your questions about them. My beautiful assistant Dragonfly is the second-best at speaking and typing in English. Unfortunately the great wizard Starlight the Untranslatable Last Name, who went with me to Pathfinder, is the one who’s best at English. She’s restricted to the Hab because of that broken limb, which the inflatable cast just fits on. It's a bit long for her, but it works. Getting her suit on for the group photo three sols ago was a pain for everybody but especially her, so we’re not doing that again just for this chat.
I’m really hoping you guys come up with a procedure for me to repair the Hab radio. Here’s the low-down on what’s left. The actual radio unit inside the Hab is intact. The dish, as you probably know, sheared off its mast on Sol 6, taking the rotors with it. I have twenty-seven antenna fragments remaining, of various sizes, from the antenna farm. The cable that led from the farm to the dish mast snapped about thirty centimeters from the mast. The cable from the mast to the Hab is intact. The beacon system is fully functioning, as are the rover radios.
In addition, the alien ship has two communications systems. One works on principles that don’t operate well in this universe and which I don’t want to explain until you can receive photos. Sensitive stuff. The other is an old analog voice-only radio with five preset channels, all in or near the commercial FM bands. I tried using the alien ship’s antenna with the Hab, but it didn’t work.
I’ve used two of the #7 spare power cables and three voltage adapters to connect the alien ship to Hab electricity. That’s enough to run its airlock, remaining lights, and a little heat. I have a #3 power cable running to the MAV fuel plant for use in powering it to bottle CO2 for feeding plants and other uses. Four #2 lines, a solar farm multi-plug adapter, and a #8 line are being used to power a salvaged airlock and some heaters in the cave farm. All other electronics repair resources remain unused at this time.
That’s all I can think of. If you want to know about anything else, ask my beautiful bug assistant. Back around 13:00! – Mark
[08:34] JPL: Thanks, Mark. For future reference it might be a good idea to repeat the Pathfinder procedure on Rover 1 so you can use your modified Rover 2 for your long-distance EVAs.
We notice you don’t list the antenna farm lattice base in your inventory. I assume the dish smashed it into little bits when it sheared off, leaving nothing salvageable. Also, you don’t mention the MDV radio. We know the MDV was breached during the Sol 6 storm. Do you know if the MDV radio was broken? Can you take pictures of the damage if it is?
Based on prior image analysis our first response is to remove the radio from Rover 1, since you’re using it for spare parts, and set it up in one of the pop-tents attached to the Hab. The antenna cable can be run through a patch kit valve and sealed using the spare antenna gasket from the rover repair kit. The procedure may require depressurizing the Hab, but we’re testing to see if we can eliminate that step without risking another breach. I’ll have more for you on that tomorrow.
Anyway, I’m assuming Mark won’t read this until this afternoon. Is Dragonfly on? Please respond.
[08:54] WATNEY: Hello to Earth! I am Dragonfly. I type slow, so please be kind. I make some answers before time this morning so I can ctrl-C ctrl-V them here if they are what you ask about. (Why is it ctrl-V and not ctrl-P? C is for Copy, why is V for Paste?)
[09:06] JPL: Hello, Dragonfly. I am Venkat. My friends tell me Mark drove off around 08:23. We know Mark likes to play pranks, so we had to be sure this wasn’t one. How do you like living with Mark?
[09:22] WATNEY: Mark is good. He is very patient and kind. He has funny television shows. What is pranks? Is it a game? What are the rules?
[09:35] JPL: A prank is a kind of joke. You try to make someone else scared or confused. They can be mean, but Mark isn’t a mean person.
[09:42] HERMES: That’s what you think! – Martinez
[09:49] WATNEY: Ooooh! I know lots of people who like play pranks at home! Mark doesn’t do that to us. Spitfire played a good prank on him a few days ago.
[09:50] JPL: Hermes, you will have your chance to talk with our visitors. Please leave this conversation to us for now.
[09:58] HERMES: Roger. But Martinez is right. You weren’t there the day he had all our name labels changed on our uniforms when they were in the laundry. We had to report to the sims wearing each other’s coveralls, and Mark was there with the camera. – Lewis
[10:02] JPL: Dragonfly, which of the aliens are you? We only know you by satellite pictures. Here is what we’ve been calling you based on those:
TALL BOY – only one with two legs instead of four
ORANGE LEADER – always out in front
WHITE BOXY – almost always has a large box with her
WHITE HEN – usually very close to White Boxy or someone else
ORANGE RANDOM – could do anything
[10:19] WATNEY: Okay! I can ctrl-V now!
OUR CREW
CHERRY BERRY – Boss. Pilot. Earth horse/pony (don’t know which word is right). Best space pilot from our home. Works hard. Loves cherries a lot!
STARLIGHT LIGHT-THAT-DOES-NOT-STAY-THE-SAME-AND-IS-ALMOST-NOT-THERE (we don’t know the word) – Science and magic. Not a pilot. Unicorn. Keeps working on one thing until it is done and can’t see anything else. Helped make the engine that got us here. Her leg is broken now.
FIREBALL – Pilot, space walk boss. Dragon. Really grumpy. Eats shiny rocks.
DRAGONFLY – That’s me! Was pilot, now engineer. Mark calls me bug-pony- not what I am, but we don’t know the word for what I am. I fix things on our ship if they can be fixed. Was a fighter for my ruler before I went to space.
SPITFIRE – Pilot, medic. Pegasus. Used to be boss of top pegasus flying team and high in pony guard. This is her first time in space.
Typing this: I think Tall Boy is Fireball. Orange Leader is Cherry. White Boxy is Starlight. White Hen is Spitfire. I looked up "hen", and I really won't call her that! And I think I’m Orange Random. What is random?
[10:33] JPL: Thank you for having that written in advance. For Starlight’s name try twinkle, glimmer, or shimmer. You use the words unicorn, pegasus and dragon. Did Mark tell you these are myths- not-true things- on our world? Also, given the group picture we took, you are definitely not horses. Pony and ponies are the better words.
[10:35] JPL: Wait- why do you use the word magic?
[10:51] WATNEY: More ctrl-V!
THE KINDS OF HORSES/PONIES
EARTH HORSES/PONIES – No horn, no wings. Earth ponies are very strong and good with plants and animals. They grow the crops. Their magic is mostly in the hooves.
PEGASUS’S – Wings, no horn. A pegasus flies through the air and makes the weather. Their magic is mostly in the wings.
BAT HORSES/PONIES – Bat wings, no horn. Rare. They come out at night. Don't know much about them.
UNICORNS – Horn, no wings. Unicorns make magic with their horns. They make difficult things.
ALL-CORNS – Horn and wings. Most power ponies. There are only five and they rule the pony lands. Starlight’s boss at home is an all-corn.
BUG-HORSES/PONIES – Not really ponies. We have wings and horns but only our ruler is as power as an all-corn. We used to hide and steal love from ponies, but those were the bad days and things are different now. Our ruler was first in space!
OTHER TALKING PEOPLE THAT ARE NOT HORSES/PONIES: dragons, griffins, hippogriffs, yaks, buffalo, cows, minotaurs, many more that I could not find name for in your dictionary and that Mark could not name.
Typing: So my friends are ponies. Go- whoops! New question, more ctrl-V!
WHAT IS MAGIC?
Mark tells me you do not have magic and do not know what it is. Magic is like gravity or electric. It is a thing that moves other things. In our world it is everywhere. Here it is only where things are alive. There is magic in space at home; here there is not, and that is why we crashed. Most of our ship ran on magic. Now we only have magic when all of us are together to fill our battery about 4% each day.
Magic can do many things. Earth horses/ponies use magic to make plants grow faster and to take care of animals. Pegasuss and bug-ponies use magic to fly. Unicorns use magic to lift things and cast spells that change one thing into a new thing.
In our world much runs on magic. Blimps run on magic. Televisions run on magic. Video games are half electric, half magic. Our ship was the first to run all on magic, no chemical rockets after liftoff.
Mark says you will not believe this. He took many pictures of using magic. He wants you to see them so you will know we are not lying. I lie sometimes but not about this.
Typing: What is your next question?
[12:06] JPL: Mark was right. Did he tell you there is no such thing as magic on Earth? How did your ship work?
[12:42] WATNEY: I don’t have ctrl-V for this. I thought it would wait until we send you our ship books with translate. I try to answer.
Yes, Mark tells us you have no magic. You are wrong. If you have life, you have magic. The more life there is, the more magic there is. I don’t know why you can’t use it.
We don’t know how to say the name of our ship in English. The name comes from an old pony language. Starlight’s translate magic doesn’t work on it. We use big chemical rockets to launch it from the ground. They fall off. Magic batterys then run main engines that push us into orbit and from one planet to another. We have magic talk that lets the ground see our ship on a wall and which lets us talk to one another with no light delay. Much faster than this.
Our flight was test new engine magic that goes much faster than regular engines. Blink-jump very short distances many many many times in a short time. There was an accident. We made the new engine wrong. It jumped from our world into yours. When we got here the batterys blew up except for two use-when-bad-thing-happens batterys and small-rocket-turn-ship batterys. We could not go back home. We could not stop from crash on Mars. When we crash, new engine broke.
Cherry wants to try use our ship, MDV, MAV base to try to make new ship that can leave Mars. We can make new new engine using rocks from cave. New batterys too. But don’t know if we can get off ground with them. New engine very bad use on ground.
[12:55] JPL: Can you tell us how much thrust- how much push- your engines and thrusters make? (A thruster is a small rocket that turns a spaceship.) Also, can you tell us the mass of your ship? If you can, we can do the math to find out if your ship can fly again.
[13:07] WATNEY: Mark here again. Dammit, I didn’t want to tell you about the magic until I had proof. It took a long time before I believed it, and I saw it first-hand. I didn’t want you to think I’d gone crazy up here. Also, the pony ship has a big hole in the bottom in its rear airtight compartment. It’s structurally unsound. I didn’t know they were still pursuing this.
[13:20] JPL: Please thank Dragonfly for talking to us. All of us here are looking forward to talking to him again. And right now we’re choosing to believe in Clarke’s Third Law. Just because we don’t understand it doesn’t mean it won’t work. If Dragonfly’s ship still has working or repairable engines, we want to explore that option as a backup plan. Do you have photos of the hole?
[13:32] WATNEY: Affirmative. I also have photos of the cave and its crops as of today. The crops are beautiful. So are the crystals. I can’t wait to send the pics to you. Also, Dragonfly is still here, and she’s a bit miffed. Emphasis on SHE. All my guests are female except Fireball.
[13:43] JPL: We’ll work on that. Add to the task list getting a conversion into newtons for the specific impulse of all the alien ship’s surviving engines and a decent estimate of the ship’s current weight. Also an estimate of MDV hydrazine fuel remaining and available water or other hydrogen source for the MAV. We can send that info to Astrodynamics and get an answer about the flight potential of any combination of the components. Also, sorry, Dragonfly.
[13:55] WATNEY: Will do in my copious free time. I’m going to go eat now.
[14:07] JPL: Bon appétit. Will spend the rest of today transmitting emails. You have quite a fan club down here, Mark. JPL out.
[14:19] WATNEY: Really? Can I join? How many UPC codes for the secret decoder ring? Watney out.
Well, NASA has gotten all the bombshells at once. At least they are handling it fairly well all things considered.
“Pegasus’s”
Plural is Pegasi... Twilight would have a freaking fit
Huh, you'd really think that "emergency" would be the next word they all learned after "danger" and "boom".
They sound like they're handling it in a pragmatic fashion but I BET that the next chapter covering on Earth interaction is going to be madness.
Should have probably pasted everything they had prepared at the start, rather than on-demand.
Still, can't wait to see Earth-side scientists tearing their hair out over what they've just been told.
I wonder what happens when a few million people on Earth simultaneously download a picture of Dragonfly looking cute? Is Earth close enough to Mars that Dragonfly suddenly gets a burst of energy and can't figure out why, or will that have to wait until he actually reaches Earth?
8756654
As amusing as the picture of a changeling going super-saiyan is, I think they have to be near you to eat.
8756642
With magic now out of the bag and the possibility of evidence (including Amicitas' technical manual) available just waiting for transmission my guess is if this doesn't motivate NASA engineer's to figure out a faster upload/download option to get Mark's pictures/videos nothing will
8756654
Millions of cuteness induced heart attacks is what happens.
Dragonfly: *Jumps up, as if shocked*
Watney: "What is it?"
Dragonfly: "It's as if millions of voices d'aaawed and were suddenly silenced."
8756624
On a practical level they are still not realizing what they are dealing with. For example they just asked about water supplies. They are not expecting the answer they are going to get. That is, for any purposes short of terraforming the entire planet they have infinite water. And mana thruster’s SI is another big surprise.
8756672
Well they can't really use it to terraform, seeing as the water does come from somewhere. You'd basically be killing one planet for the sake of another.
Just a little disappointed that Mark as a known prankster didn't end the conversation
"Water supply is limitless because pony magic. Watney out."
Would developing an Earth-based fan club do Dragonfly any good? If changelings don't have to be close to the beings that love them, maybe NASA PR could send something useful to Mars after all.
8756675 Also, if you count permafrost, Mars has LOTS of water- enough to revive its ancient Boreal Ocean. It's just in an environment where it can't stay liquid (or molecularly stable in sunlight). Pumping in more from another planet isn't the answer.
Is hooves Dragonfly derping, or a typo?
You know, I know the story's not going to go this way, but Dragonfly's comment about "yes, you have magic. I don't know why you can't use it", reminds me of a sci-fi short story I read once. In it, it turns out that interstellar spaceflight/magic is actually a really simple concept that all other alien civilizations figured out in about the 1500-1600's technological age and they stopped advancing the other sciences when they discovered it. Humans, by sheer bad luck, somehow never stumbled across it and we built all our science and machines and understanding of universe without it. Long story short, everyone else is flying airtight galleons and caravels and firing cannonballs in space, and all the humans need is a three hour "so-easy-a-hobbyist-could-do-it" retrofit to turn any aircraft into the Enterprise.
Also, I think you meant to say that all of a pegasus's magic is in their wings, not their hooves.
8756699
Typo.
8756640
Did it die of bug pony cuteness?
8756675
Yeah, the water is only "infinite" on a small scale. Luckily Mars already has water. What they can do is use magic to solve a lot of other problems in terraforming, like the massive amounts of perchlorates. And the more they manage to terraform, the more magic will be available.
Of course, it still only solves smaller problems, not the temperatures or the lacking atmosphere.
8756689
Yeah that too. The main reason why Mars is the most explored planet in our solar system is because it already has loads of the stuff necessary for life.
8756640
I think the author handled the "Newbie typing English" quite well. I have fun with stuff like that, like the time I had an OC speaking with a muzzle for the first time. Fact: pony tongues are very different from human ones and we use ours for many words.
8756683 No. There's no universal field for the love energy to travel through.
8756679 Fixed.
8756704 You're not the first to point me in the direction of cuddly alien teddy bears trying to conquer Earth with flintlocks.
8756707 ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT PERCHLORATIA - ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE - NO, REALLY DON'T - YOU'LL BE SORRY
Again. Alicorn doesn't mean most powerful pony anymore. Starlight and Starswirl prooves this is actually false now.
Shadow Pony: She's almost as powerful as you, Starswirl.
With that statement, multiple head canons about how Equestria works were shot to pieces.
8756675
8756689
They could get the water from a place that doesn't need it. Like say, Europa.
A better idea to terraform Mars with this tech/magic would actually be to use Titan. Methane is a super strong greenhouse gas. With as little as 0,5% methane on the Martian atmosphere it would heat up super fast and naturaly melt all the permafrost.
8756704
The Road Not Taken is the story you are thinking of.
8756689
Glad to see that some
ponybug got to talk to NASA. Just wondering how panicked they'll be after they spend some time thinking about, "stealing love,"...8756704
Can you tell me the name of that short story? Sounds interesting.
8756753
Well, Twilight isn't a full grown alicorn yet.
"...talk to one another with no light delay."
In other news today, a mob of physicists stormed Mars Control today and have taken several janitors and a tourist hostage, demanding that the secrets of this 'null-time' communication system be given the full priority that it deserves. When we managed to talk to one of these enthusiastic scientists today, all we could get out of him was, "Einstein! Rolling over! Must make rockets!"
"All my guests are female except Fireball."
Yeah, *that* won't cause any fuss on Earth. "Astronought Stranded On Mars With Alien Harem!"
8756624
Nah, NASA doesn't know about the infinite water or that the aliens can still talk with their homeworld. Plenty of shocks still to come :p
8756760
The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove. Very applicable to this story!
I know this has been discussed before, but if Earth has magic why no living specie seems to display any magical related ability?
8756756 Methane breaks down really quickly under ultraviolet light. On Earth, even with the ozone layer and magnetic field, atmospheric methane has a half-life of about a year. On Mars it'd be a question of whether less solar input cancels out the total lack of protection against UV.
8756792 Possibly for the same reason very few life forms actively manipulate electricity?
We don't know why ponies can use magic and humans can't. Likely nobody ever will, since pony history and prehistory are in tatters thanks to Discord's disruption and the effects of the great pony migration from the north.
8756765
That only works if she is the immortal kind. But according to official sources, she is not. The words stated were, ' She will not outlive her friends. '
Which fits with my idea that only naturally born alicorns are true immortal powerful alicorns. Twilight and Cadence will not be getting anywhere near Celestia and Luna.
8756783
Just read it. Very good read!
8756807 Would the Pony of Shadows know about alicorns at that point?
If Star Swirl and the Pillars had to fight the evils of Equestria, that implies Celestia and Luna were hardly powerful at that age. So maybe Star Swirl was the most powerful back then, and thus ingrained in Stygian as his yardstick to measure others against? And, in the years Star Swirl was sealed away, Luna and Celestia have become way more powerful than he ever was?
8756783
I had actually completely forgotten the title, but yeah, that's exactly the right story. Thanks for finding it again!
This would have been the most adorable line in many other stories, but it just went up and up from there. I read Dragonfly's bits aloud to myself, they were that good.
Shouldn't it be ctrl+V though? Ctrl+P usually prints (at least on Windows; I think it's the same on Mac? Obviously I can't say on the Martian OS).
Amazing chapter, great job, thanks very much!
That time delay after the message about magic...!
8756833 More typos. In my brain it's "C&P" (cut and paste), and I don't think about what keys I actually use to do it.
If he has only a Terminal, VT100, VT200 emulation, he can can use the Pix font, 64 characters, 6 pixels high by 1 pixel wide, 1 bit monochrome, all possibly bit patterns, the use the Escape Codes in VT400? or maybe only 200 needed, lets you do up to 640*480*16 colour pixel resolution images on a pure text terminal screen. But it was never optmised and advanced further for actual image, video work.
Scary just how powerful modern systems are when you get old functions to run in similar instructions, operations mode.
So much information. Johhny 5 will be drunk for years.
8756654
As a rule, space is bigger than you can comfortably imagine.
8756640
Given that she's learning a language from scratch over the course of only a couple months and doesn't have a native speaker on hand to proof-read, I think it's fair to give Dragonfly a pass.
8756807
The other interpretation is that her friends will also become immortal at some point. Given the nature of the show, this is much more likely.
Adorable chapter!
Very minor niggle:
Specific impulse is measured in units of either velocity or time, not units of force. Thrust may have been the word you were after, especially if we're talking planetary liftoff.
8756632
Twilight doesn't know English. And she doesn't strike me as someone who flips out over others' grammar, etc. Maybe Rarity a little.
ETA: And if we really wanted to turn a Greek proper noun into a plural form, it would be Pegasodes. I'm making an incredibly petty point, aren't I?
8756639
I see no reason for that. "Mark, we have a danger!"
8756850
wait a min.....................
OH DAMN THAT MENA IN THIS WORLD THOSE SO CALL HEALING GEMS THOSE HIPPES USE OVER REAL MEDS ARE REAL!!!!!
8756753
8756765
Well, there are a lot of Unicorns, so plenty of opportunity for a very powerful one to show up. I think if there were (somehow) just as many Alicorns, they would be more powerful, on average.
And while I haven't seen the finale yet, I feel no shame brushing off anything the PoS said.
8756642
I'm going to need more popcorn.
Personal headcanon, magic usage/nonusage: ponies are one of the very few races extant on Equus which possess the magical equivalent of electrocytes (the cells in electric eels that allow for generation of electric current). These "magicytes " allow for the collection, storage, and distribution (in flat lots or patterned expression) of magical energy.
Earth ponies have these most concentrated in their hooves, pegasi in their wings (and both earth ponies and pegasi have decent concentrations threading their bones and tissues to allow for earth pony strength feats and g-force tolerance), and unicorns are almost exclusively horn-based. The closer the major concentrations are to the brain or the greater the array present the easier it is for conscious control to be exerted on the expression pattern of magic pushed back into the environment; thus, earth ponies with an extremely dense concentration in their hooves are almost entirely instinctual or limited to direct application of very simple patterns due to degradation of signal between conscious mind and magicyte hoof, pegasi with a wing array allowing for still limited but more varied and directly controlled expression, and unicorns with a horn basically packing an earth pony's four hooves of array into barely an eighth of the space and plugged directly into their conscious motor/thought neurons have access to "real" magic spells.
Alicorns have double concentrations of all the various pony races' magicyte arrays in the relevant places.
Changelings have an extremely specific pattern of magicytes woven through their bodies, the result of one of Discord's random chaos blasts swamping a village and fusing several hundred ponies into a couple dozen, that allows for both shapeshifting and the emotion-eating aspects.
Humans (as with all life, actually) do possess magicytes but the vast majority have such low concentrations as to be effectively magic-null. Maybe one in a thousand has enough to have inklings of additional perception on a subconscious level (think random "go that way" at a fork in the road, enough to go down that path but not realize that it's why you made that choice in the first place), one in a thousand of those will have conscious perception of the faint threads giving them hints about their surroundings (strong perception that the left fork is the one you want, and aware enough of it to feel that the right path is less desirable somehow), one in a thousand of those would have enough to have a certainty somehow of the right choice ("I know for a fact that's the way to go but couldn't explain in a million years why that is"), and one in a thousand of those might just have enough magicytes to pick up that there's something more in the air.
By that point, though, you're at literally one in a trillion people, so extremely beyond unlikely.
Humanity, as a whole, is almost exclusively somewhere between the one in a thousand and one in a million as far as magicyte concentration goes, but pony medicine hasn't gotten far enough to find those yet, magicytes being something that actually forms right along the nervous system and they don't have the medical know-how to examine such closely enough to say "wait, that one's the nerve, what's that thing twining around it?"
...and every time I went to type "magicyte" I had to double check I wasn't typing "magicute"... that's just too pony...
Man, I've been waiting forever for this first - well I guess more like second contact - between Earth and the Equestrians playing out and it was so worth the wait. What a glorious chapter! Also loved how Dragonfly was the one talking (which just makes sense really) and the way her writing is on one hand pretty advanced English comparatively, but on the other still sounds pretty funny.
In general, you've portrayed the language aquisition in one of the best ways I've seen so far on fimfiction. Even considering total immersion, most authors just have it happening way to quickly in my opinion and then write it of entirely after "fluency" is reached which isn't really how it works in my experience. In those cases it seems the language barrier is just removed as quickly as possible to get on with the story. In your fic however, it just felt really natural so far and adds a lot to the story as a whole.
Anyways, I have to admit I'm even more excited for the next Earth perspective chapter.
8756807
Which could mean that Twilight, like her friends, is mortal... or vice versa. Personally, I prefer the latter interpretation.