Pilot’s Log
Date: 01/05/2406 10:34
The sight of thousands of ponies hauling resources from the crash site and the now torn down Processing Facility to the new camp at the base of the Smoky Mountains was truly a sight to behold. I was still sat in my Wyvern above it all with Dash in my Navigator seat, just high enough that the engines wouldn’t bother the work crews below to watch it all as I drifted along with my own cargo holds filled to maximum capacity.
Ponies were paired up to help each other cart the massive wagons that, thinking about it now, also contained many of their own personal living effects which would go into building the new and temporary town around the base of the operation which would serve to house the ever increasing mining workforce and their families and to help process the ores.
This is a remarkable sight to behold, Pilot. Celestia’s words flashed on the screen next to me, earning a brief chuckle in reply. With your arrival and need for workers, you’ve probably just put every unemployed pony in Equestria to work all at once.
“That may be, but I still have nothing to pay anypony with for their work. At best we could employ some kind of Communistic sub-government for the ponies so they wouldn’t have to worry about being paid or having money for food and whatnot and just disperse what each household needs to live mostly comfortably.” I remarked as I held the accelerator down a bit to push forward, watching Celestia, Luna and Sunset all react to the sudden shift in gravitational force.
I seem to remember we did our best to extinguish all traces of a communistic government some few hundred years back, Sister. Luna noted as she glared at her sister. But, given the circumstances we’ve been presented with, we may not have a choice.
Well, there are large deposits of gold ore in those mountains, right? What if we diverted a small portion of the raw ore towards padding the treasury so we can pay the ponies? Sunset suggested from her position just under the camera, her orange horn the only proof that she was still with us.
I can’t imagine there being too much issue with that. Celestia agreed before looking up at the camera, at me. Do you think we could afford to do that or is gold ore more of a necessity for the Projects?
After a few seconds of going through the approximate number of uses for gold, complete with making random noises that the Rosetta program tried to translate but failed at doing so, “The most important uses of the Gold will be in Gravity Generator components and superconductors for reactors and more powerful thrusters. While the amount of gold that’ll go into them is less, I suspect that we’ll be using a lot of gold for the thruster modules for the ships.”
So, we won’t be able to use it for our currency? Luna looked crestfallen at the news as indicated by the drop of her head. Then what do you suggest?
A little bit more of incomprehensive moaning and groaning from me as I considered the question, “Maybe Silver after the Reactor and Gravity Gen components? It’s also used in medical components and both hydrogen and oxygen bottles but I don't use many of those as it is.”
So if we can generate a large quantity of those components, then we’d be able to divert a larger sum of the ore towards currency processing? Someone inquired, Sunset for lack of options.
“Probably.” I shrugged back and began the descent towards an empty clearing at the base of the mountain that had the closest ore to the surface and would be the future site of the mine’s mouth. “Prepare for landing.” I added as the nose tilted up.
Coming to a gentle landing near to the spot I had selected to be the largest mine entrance, Dash set to turning mostly everything off while I checked on fuel and battery charge levels before the two of us climbed out of our respective cockpits to join the Princesses and Sunset.
I have a question, Sunset announced, rounding in front of me to get my attention and notify me that she was the one asking the question. What happened to your VI friend from the ship?
“Vinyl? She’s been deactivated and had her entirety moved to a temporary storage on the Wyvern until I can upload her into something.” I replied with the Rosetta Stone translating my voice to the Griffic language for ease of conversation.
Oh, okay. Sunset’s head dropped momentarily before cantering off to join the Princesses as they inspected the area.
I had selected an area of a few kilometers that had been cleared by the earthquakes but didn’t show evidence that it would suffer from such quakes while mining operations were underway. The mountain tore into the sky before us with it’s peak rising up into the heavens and higher into the cloud layer, earning its moniker. At the base, the early arrivers of the work force had begun setting up camps for their families in the forms of temporary tents large enough to house them and theirs until proper facilities could be erected.
A massive forest grew in the background, providing a scenic view for anyone aiming their tent that way for the early morning sun to wake them. While the forest itself wasn't a designated breeding ground for dangerous creatures like the Everfree, a guard regiment had been sent in ahead of time to set up a defense perimeter that I was planning to eventually upgrade with a relatively short wall and a few automatic guns. Yes, I realised that a massive steel wall with turrets would inevitably ruin the view but that was the price of safety, right?
Turning back to my ship, I began the process of loading myself up with as much steel as I could carry in addition to my usual Elite tools and set out towards the point at which the grade of the land began to shift towards being a cliff face. Since it was a cliff face, the point in which the mine entrance would be built, it would mean that it would be that much easier to burrow into the ground without having to deal with silly angles when I went to reinforce the mine. It also meant that I could build my new Processing Facility into the face of the mountain and save myself the resources by digging out what space I needed instead of applying materials to the project.
‘Scuse me, friend. An arrival of a message had me stop in my tracks and turn to greet a pair of ponies, one being orange with a stetson and the other being a large red Clydesdale-class pony each sporting some kind of apple mark on their flanks. I was wonderin’ if you’d let my brother and I set up a small apple orchard nearby to provide a source of food for the folks ‘round here. Figured it’d be easier than having to pay ponies to cart massive food stocks from town to town.
“Might as well, sure. I was kind of expecting the new locals to work gardens of some kind to provide the food they couldn’t source elsewhere on their own so an orchard could help. My only reservation is that we’re only planning to remain here for a few months longer, remember?” I said as I trudged across the ground towards my future building site and I set up my welder’s blueprint systems with my most used patterns.
You have a point, it might be easier to keep the trees where they are now and bring the harvests here from Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack remarked with a concerned frown. Oh! What if we spoke to the Princesses and had them change some of the trees here to fruit trees?
That could work. The red one, Big Macintosh replied with a nod of the head. Till then, do you need help? He offered, aiming the question at me as the three of us arrived at the build site.
“In a bit, yeah. If you’re willing to help cart my materials from the Wyvern to here once i’m empty of my current load, then i’d be happy to employ your assistance. Till then however, I’ve got nothing for you to do.” I announced and set to work at building the outline to the building’s face into the mountain side. “Come back in like… fifteen minutes or so.”
Sure. Big Mac and his sister nodded both before turning tail and wandering off to make whatever plans they had.
I set to work forming a relatively basic rectangular structure into the mountain face, still noticing that I was suffering from those strange blackouts every time I went to put a pattern down and found them in the first stage of being built as a block. With a block set into the ground as deep as it’d go, I formed the foundation a good nine blocks wide before going five blocks towards the stone surface. Switching out for a partial slope pattern, I added in a bit of flare to the building to break up the inevitable monotony of the structure by stacking the third layer upside down on the second layer, creating a small indentation into the face of the structure before continuing up to the fourth and fifth levels with plain cubed patterns.
Sealing in the roof provided me a place of shade while I worked on creating a floorplan for the rest of the building, throwing in the framework for an airlock door system to keep my building xenon-free.
~~~
Three hours of work and with help from Big Macintosh and his sister to cart supplies to my build site, I stopped for “lunch” and hauled myself up to sit on the roof of the building to watch the progression of the camps being erected beyond my new abode.
I had to create a scaffolding system up the side of my building after I had misjudged how much remaining hydrogen I still had left to bottle up and even now, my next plan was to build an oxygen generator to split water into both parts for my use given that I was running low on pure oxygen to breath. I could still refill my suit’s oxygen by pulling in air from the Wyvern cockpit’s automatic oxygen purification but the hydrogen was going to be a priority if I couldn’t fly.
So, seems your building is coming along nicely. Luna announced as she floated down to take a seat next to me, her mane waving gently in the non-breeze.
“Yep, I gotta start digging out the rest of it so I can drop in the reactor, batteries, Oxygen generator and appropriate tanks, Refinery and Assembler. Then mining production can truly begin.” I sighed as I laid back on my pack to get comfortable. Luna looked down at me and I only just noticed the silver and blue outfit she’d dressed herself up in. It wasn’t like she was wearing a dress or anything, it was more like she was dressed in a partial armour set thing in the form of a set of greaves and a mild armoured jacket thing.
What do you think? Luna asked with a smile, standing to show off her wardrobe. I tilted my head towards her to get a look before nodding back to normal.
“Looks great, what’s the occasion? My suit’s completely environmentally controlled so it could be absolute zero outside and I wouldn’t feel it; in case it’s all for weather.” I sighed and clasped my hands behind my back with my legs crossed over each other to rest for a few minutes longer.
Oh it’s just something I felt like putting on. You’ve got the makings of a town going on here so I figured i’d dress myself up in something nice for the occasion. Luna remarked and sat back down next to me, watching the progression of the ponies ahead of everyone.
“Well, it looks great.” I groaned as I worked at sitting myself up and let my feet dangle off the edge of the roof once more. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta get a venting system set up so I can actually live outside this suit.”
Of course, anything I can help with? I’ve already earned experience with that welding tool of yours, perhaps I could help with the building process? Luna looked hopefully at me as I leapt from the building, falling the few meters to impact the ground with a heavy thud. Sure, getting up was a bitch but falling was easy.
“I don’t see why not. I’ll lay out the basic patterns and all you have to do is weld them.” I replied and offered a spare Enhanced welder to the princess who took it in her magic before giving it a hearty twirl in the air.
Stepping through the airlock of the building together, Luna didn’t have to resort to applying her own air filter since there was yet to be an actual airseal but instead opted to surround my head in an air purification sphere of some kind.
Go ahead and open your helmet. Luna requested as she stood in front of me with glowing horn and her pink welder. With a raised eyebrow, I did as asked and broke the seal keeping me alive and safe to let a rush of fresh air into my suit; doing so also let my oxygen tanks refill at the same time. Taking in as large a breath I could, I let it all out slowly and with a smirk. “How’s it taste?” she asked, the suit translating from the Griffic Language.
“Coppery but I don’t think it’ll harm me.” I replied, the suit translating between the two of us. “If you could speak in the Griffic Language, why not just do that? Or better yet, why not the Minotese language?”
“I would speak in Minotese if I could. The Griffic language is the closest between our languages. I’m otherwise physically incapable of speaking Minotese so this will have to do.” Luna explained as we set to work setting up the vents in the corner between the ceiling and two walls to automatically purify the air outside and bring it inside.
“Okay, new question, why are we dealing with translations if you understand Minotese? It’s close enough to Basic Galactic English that I can understand him, so what gives?” I smirked as I set the patterns for the vents while Luna stepped back through the airlock to weld her side up before returning to my side.
“I cannot answer that. For as similar as you claim the languages are, I still cannot understand your language. I am willing to bet that I would be unable to speak your language for the same reason I can’t speak Minotese.” Luna explained as she took to welding up the walls connecting the building to the mountain while I worked opposite her to seal us in.
“Could try it, I suppose. Try saying, ‘My name Is Luna.’” I requested, disabling the translation for the suggestion. Luna stopped her work to stare down at the floor while she tried to form the words.
“Nope,” Luna announced with a shake of the head which told me to reactivate the translator, giving up on the task fairly quickly. “It is the same, I cannot physically speak your language.”
“That’s unfortunate.” I shrugged back and returned to my wall.
A few minutes of random conversation and the room began to pressurize, forcing Luna to remove the magic around my head and instead applied it to her own throat while I took my helmet off entirely. I kept my earpiece in in order to receive the translations and the Helmet would sit nearby to wherever Luna was in order to provide her translations as well.
“Its nice. Kind of dull though, with the grey walls and all.” Luna remarked as she sat down at the center of the room with me. She was staring at the front of the building while I was staring at the stone, imagining how I was going to dig everything out all at once.
“Yeah, but a splash of paint should fix that up. Maybe some interior decorating as well.” I shrugged back where I sat with my arms wrapped around a knee. “Frankly, I’m running kind of low on materials and I still have to build all the functionality or we’re screwed.”
“It would seem prudent to install the workings before the luxury, yes.” Luna’s mature voice chuckled even if the translation didn’t. I still got the idea, regardless. “I have a very random question I wish to ask of you, completely unrelated to the topics at hoof.”
“Go for it.” I sighed and leaned back to rest against Luna’s back, making her let out a quick gasp before recovering and remaining a rest.
“How old are you and how long do humans live for?”
“You're right, that is a very strange question. But, to answer it: I am technically three hundred forty years old. By my count however, I’m only actually twenty-two. Humanity, at it’s best last I knew, only lived to one hundred twenty.” I announced with a chuckle.
“So how are you so old if your race dies off at such a young age?” Luna inquired as she pushed me upright to shift from a seated position to laying out behind me and let me lean back against her stomach.
“I spent two-hundred ninety seven in cryostasis before being woken for my first exploration mission. I would then only spend a couple hours awake before going back to sleep for another five years. Rinse and repeat five times before being woken up here.” I explained as Luna watched me from her position on my right.
“Explain to me this ‘Cryostasis’ and how it keeps you looking twenty-two years old over two-hundred ninety-seven years.”
“Cryostasis, or commonly referred to as Cryo-sleep, stops all processes in your body all at once by freezing you at absolute zero. Doing so keeps your brain from thinking the body has died and allows you to remain alive after thawing out. Doing it this way, over using something like Liquid Nitrogen, also doesn’t give the fluids in your body a chance to crystalize and thereby destroying your internals. Freezing you at absolute zero means that even the crystallizing process is stopped.” I explained, relying on the information my teachers had given me what felt like only 25 years back.
“After that?” Luna edged me on to continue whatever further explanations I had. “Would the thawing process mean that you’d get to a point that your body would suffer that crystallizing problem?”
“For a time, that issue did plague the scientists. But, they figured that thawing you out at the same rate at which you were frozen would work. So when you wake up, you’re basically heated up by an instantaneous transfer of heat from a compressed plasma generator which creates some couple hundred million degrees of Kelvin. The heat is transferred into the cryopod for a few seconds before it gets vented out into space with the rest of the waste energy.” I explained with a sigh and hands behind my head, staring up at the ceiling with Luna watching me.
“That sounds really quite dangerous to me.” she frowned and shifted so her hooves were no longer at her side but instead were curled up under her body.
“For a couple hundred years, sure. Around the year 21-something, the scientists managed to successfully freeze a human being for eight years before thawing him out with use of thermite reactions. A couple dozen years of experiments later and the cryo-stasis system was put to practice in space exploration.” I groaned in mental exhaustion as I tried to comprehend the exact sciences that went into cryo. Somehow my mind had gone from the cryo systems, to the temperature of a nuclear reaction, to how the ship achieved FLT travel and how I had lost my Galactic Internet connection.
“I.. don’t think I understand any of that.” Luna admitted with a huff and rested her head on her crossed hooves. “It seems to be a millennia ahead of our understanding.”
“Maybe just a couple hundred years, not necessarily a millennia.” I shrugged back and moved my arms to cross them over my chest and got comfortable. Luna wasn’t as large as a terrestrial horse on Earth, but she wasn’t as small as the ponies either. She was probably about as tall as I was if she stood on her rear hooves with her forehooves up in the air. She was human sized, for a lack of a better description. Her sister, was a tad larger than her and Twilight was the usual pony-size for this planet: A time and a half larger than terran ponies. Needless to say, Luna was just large enough to be comfortable to rest upon.
“Should we get back to work?” Luna mumbled to herself as she cracked open an eye to question me.
“Probably, but i’m tired and my body is trying to go back to sleep for another five years.” I replied, equally mumbling as my eyes had already closed and my systems were threatening to shut themselves down into stasis.
“What about all the mining to do? Or the setup of all your important equipment? It’s only mid afternoon.” Luna remarked with a smirk as she too protested the act of remaining awake.
“I know…” I sighed and forced my eyes open and stood with a groan. Luna seemed to protest the act of getting up as well but she soon rose to her hooves and stretched, cracking a few joints like I was now doing. And regretting. “Fine! We’ll get mining!”
Retrieving my helmet and locking it over my face, I swapped out the welder for the hand drill in my pack before connecting it’s power supplies to my suit’s batteries. The welder had an internal charge that I could use before I had to connect it to my suit but the drill drew too much power for a small battery to be of use.
“You’ll probably want to step back. Risk of flying debris and what not.” I warned and started up the tool while setting it to it’s destroy setting. Applying pressure to the tip activated the hammer motion once it touched down to the stone. The hammer action worked once, firing a single massive punch into the stone to clear it away without dropping the stone. As a second thought, I figured I’d need the gravel for the reactor components so set the drill to smaller bursts to merely remove the stone and turn it into loose rocks for processing into gravel.
“I shall assist!” Luna shouted as she cloaked herself in some kind of shield spell before firing up a second spell. A large spell seal appeared before her shield in the shape of a square, remarkably the exact same size as the room before she began pushing the seal into the stone.
“A tunnel bore spell?” I gawked as I watched the massive spell chew through the stone at a relatively casual pace, creating a perfectly flat surface on which to walk and build off of. “Can you make it a bit deeper into the ground so I can place the floor down?”
“Not a problem!” Luna called back and made the change. The bottom of the seal began to dig into the floor, clearing out a half block’s worth of extra material as requested. A shake of the head and I returned to my own drilling, the two sounds -her screaming and my deep rumbling- mixing together into a soul shaking grinding sound.
Matching pace, even though she was doing much more work that I was, we eventually halted our progress into the tunnel after about a hundred meters or so and turned to view the work done.
“Well, that was effective…” I commented as I viewed Luna’s portion of the work and found it satisfactory. “Can all unicorns use that spell?”
“No. It is a special spell that my sister and I learned a millennia ago. The art of Spell Seals like the one I used has become outdated. It’s a shame, they were some of the most powerful magical arts ponies had access to.” Luna replied and turned her bore spell ninety degrees towards my tunnel to square off the edges. While she was doing the brunt of the work, I was using my tunnels to form the edges of the cavern i’d wanted that she could use to judge how far to go.
“That sucks, would make mining that much faster and we could get off-planet that much quicker.” I sighed in disappointment as I walked after Luna as she made the cuts into the stone. According to my drill’s internal ore detector, we had a deposit of Silicon some hundred meters away and had opted to keep from breaking into the vein if possible. I wanted to keep some kind of wall between the actual mines and my facility, after all.
While Luna turned another 90 degrees back towards the metal portion of the hole, I set out to drilling out sidelines where the conveyer system would go in preparation for the actual Production systems. Luna would then come in behind me with a block-sized bore head and carve out the necessary grooves for me so I could come in behind her and put down the patterns for the network.
~~~
Another two hours of work and Luna and I stood at the front of the building, staring into the newly lit cavern I was to live in. A few feet from the edge of the stone and metal on our left was a small room I’d cut out and fashioned into a living quarters for myself. Another couple feet down from that was the hallway into the Production Center where the Refinery frame and Assembler sat waiting to be completed. The main room itself was going to be used for business regarding mining and a conveyer system had been put into the ground to hook up to the ore collector sticking into the wall.
When the main mine shaft was to be built, that ore collector would stick out so that workers could deposit their ore into the system directly. It would also allow for future expansion so that I could build ore collectors further into the mine as progress was made and the distance grew further.
“Well, I’d say this was a very productive day.” Luna announced, looking proud of the work accomplished. I had to agree and did so with a nod. Luna had taken to doing most of the mining for me while I got to work on the welding, but eventually she’d joined me by adding a few creature comforts with the resources we could spare. That being said, I had an actual food replicator set up to my right with a small table ahead of that. “I suppose we should get something to eat?”
“I haven’t eaten all day, I agree wholeheartedly with that idea.” I replied and turned to the replicator. Since the room was pressurized for me, I was no longer in my suit and merely strolled around in the body suit underneath though the exo-frame remained for lack of options. Standing before the thing, I uploaded the entire history of Earth’s culinary accomplishments from the back of my storage unit’s memory and let it work through everything, synthesizing it all to perfection. It basically took that grey slop I ate and made it look like whatever it happened to taste like at the time of order. That being said, I have no idea what went into making my food and I wasn’t about to question it.
“Would you mind if I join you for dinner tonight?” Luna inquired, pausing me from making my selections as I turned to raise an eyebrow in her direction. “I mean, if it’s alright with you I could also invite my sister, Twilight and Sunset to join us…” she added hastily as her fur began to turn purple.
“I don’t see why not, but I probably won’t be able to provide the food for any of you. You’d have to source it yourself.” I replied slowly and cautiously while turning back to my machine to continue setting up my requested meal. I figured i’d start off with a caesar salad with plenty of cheese, some bacon bits and cucumber slices. After that I’d dive into a chicken parmesan with some kind of pasta to go alongside it. A couple libations would accompany the meal but i’d wait till the machine had finished replicating the food itself before I made those orders. All in all, it would take about half an hour for it all to be processed and created.
“That won’t be a problem! I shall return shortly!” Luna announced before taking her leave through the airlock to speak to her friends and family. I merely shrugged in reply and sat down at the table before instantly regretting not having a drink my hand.
Personal Data Log
Virtual- Error: Artificial Intelligence: Vinyl
Date: Error Time: Error
Where am I?
It’s dark.