Sol 188
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 189
ARES III SOL 188
TRANSCRIPT – WATER TELEGRAPH EXCHANGE, ESA BALTIMARE and ESA SHIP AMICITAS
AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltimare, use main life support for response, over.
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, over.
AMICITAS: SG - All in cave, ready to cast sealing spell. Standing by for your order to begin, over.
ESA: TS - Tracer spell active. Go for sealing spell, over.
AMICITAS: Casting now, over.
AMICITAS: Spell complete, you didn’t mention the rumbling. At least none of the crystals fell down, over.
ESA: Can you please recast the spell, over?
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, can you recast the spell, over?
AMICITAS: DF - Mare down, Baltimare, stand by, over.
ESA: Who? What cause, over?
AMICITAS: DF - SG, spell exhaustion, again, waiting on SF, stand by. Over.
ESA: Copy. Tell us when you can recast that spell, over.
AMICITAS: CB - We have nine batteries all down to less than ten percent. We have one unicorn flat on her face, SF attending. We have zero caves remaining that need sealing. Cast on what, with what, with who, over?
ESA: We picked up the spell, but it was weak and ended before we could complete the trace. Need bigger spell that lasts longer to pinpoint your position, over.
AMICITAS: DF – Not happening this week, Baltimare. SF says no more magic today. We need to recharge the batteries, we need to recharge SG, and we need more batteries. Over.
ESA: Sh
AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltimare, comms check, over?
ESA: Baltimare copies, Amicitas. I guess Chrysalis gets Angel 8 after all, over.
AMICITAS: Didn’t copy that last, what is Angel 8, over?
ESA: Interdimensional probe. Ask Mark’s people to pick a frequency, preferably between 110 and 130 megaHortz, for beacon signals receivable up to ten million kilometers away all around their world. Simple tone will do. If our probe picks up the signal, we’ve found you, over.
AMICITAS: Amicitas copies. How close are you to finding us, over?
ESA: Not very. The probe probably won’t work, but until you can send another spell up it’s what we have. Tell us when you have beacons, on what frequency. Over.
AMICITAS: Wilco. Going back to base now. Out.
MISSION LOG – SOL 188
The cave is sealed.
It took all of Starlight’s magic batteries, the old ones and the new ones she’s built, to do it, but apparently it’s done.
The spell is a neat example of magical logic at work. Apparently the ponies were knocking their heads against a wall trying to expand the crystals or turn them into some continuous substance, and that took too much power. But magic can just take the holes away, apparently. That’s right- just pick up holes as if they were things instead of an absence of things, and throw them away.
Question: when you throw away a hole, what do you throw it into?
Anyway, according to Starlight she used a subterranean topological tracing spell to outline the exact boundaries of the giant geode. She then cast the spell so that it would reach about six inches above and below that boundary and eliminate all the empty space within that zone. Below the boundary it would create a single continuous layer of solid, pure silicon dioxide. Above, it’d create a mixed layer of whatever materials are on top of the geode- mostly basaltic regolith, which makes for possibly the strongest concrete you can get without rebar or tension reinforcement.
What the rest of us saw began as a light show that might have come out of TRON- not the remake or the sequel, but the original crappy-CGI cheeseball movie. You know, the classic. The entire farm chamber of the cave, and a lot more I guess, lit up in this sort of grid that erupted from Starlight’s horn and penetrated into the crystal walls, giving us one hell of a laser show for a moment. Then we saw Starlight’s magic surge from her horn, and the whole cave… well, rumble isn’t the right word. It didn’t sound like an avalanche, though we were all spooked for a second. It sounded more like thunder from a way off, like what we get in Houston sometimes when thunderstorms are rolling in off the Gulf. You know, the sound your uncle makes about four hours after the enchiladas. But the echoes took a hell of a long time to die out.
Cherry Berry and Spitfire stood outside the cave and told me there was a slight dust slide off the slope of Site Epsilon (why haven’t we come up with a better name for the thing already?) when Starlight cast her spell, but that’s all. When the spell ended Starlight did her usual Captain Cavepony collapse, and we all had an impatient few minutes waiting on Cherry and Spitfire to cycle through the airlock to make sure she was okay. She is, but she’s going to spend tomorrow in bed. Again.
Tired unicorn aside, we’re all breathing a sigh of relief here. The more NASA worried about that cave blowing out, the more we worried about it, too. The ponies didn’t want to mess with it at first, but after the Sleipnir screw-ups they got on the ball and worked the problem.
And now, well, here we are. If it wouldn’t be such a gigantic pain in the ass to shift everything, we could move into the cave, because it’s the absolute safest place on Mars now.
We called it an early day to celebrate. The ponies told me the story of the Royal Canterlot Wedding (with Dragonfly giving interesting commentary from the other side of the Battle of Canterlot, without shame or regret, adorable little war criminal that she is). We read three chapters of Order of the Phoenix- getting to the really good stuff now. And all that was before supper, which means we have all night for bad 70s TV! Starsky and Hutch, Barney Miller, and Three’s Company is on the schedule…
… and, just before bed, we’re going to try out Kolchak the Night Stalker.
It’s not as scary as a glue factory, but I think we need a bit of horror to keep up the quota, now that “breach cave all die during harvest” is off the menu.
MISSION LOG – SOL 188 (2)
Just got this on the chat from Hermes right before the communications window closed for the night:
[19:41] HERMES: Be advised: Rich Purnell is a steely eyed missile man.
I wonder what the hell that’s all about?
He sat at his computer, “unsere kinder” on his screen once more.
Crunch time was technically tomorrow, but he didn’t think things were going to change by then.
JPL was having problems with the maneuvering thrusters required for course correction on Sleipnir 4’s long cruise to Mars. Certain welds had failed during testing, which meant the faulty thrusters had to be disassembled almost completely and rebuilt, setting the probe back several days. Word from Deva Plastics on production of new hab canvas for the tumbler landing system’s airbags continued to be discouraging. The schedule continued to slide, pushing closer and closer to the date, now eighty-four days away, when the probe had to launch to be of any use to Watney and his friends.
Of course, getting a booster to launch Sleipnir 4 wasn’t looking good either. In fact, refueling Sleipnir 3 for its Mars injection burn looked iffy. Congress was digging in its heels, with Teddy’s play on a sympathetic electorate countered by anti-NASA Congressmen waving letters from voters furious with SpaceX for putting the cute, adorable aliens in danger of their lives. Two of the majority members on the House subcommittee had defected to the minority side, and the chairman was trying to get them back on the team, but in the interim SpaceX was shut down waiting for the ranking minority member to accept eleven names from the list of notables offered by the chairman.
He called up his email client, opened the spoofed email he’d saved, and attached the file.
And still he hesitated. These were only setbacks, not disasters. Watney didn’t have a margin, but by the time Sleipnir 2 arrived he might well have one. His report today that they’d successfully sealed and strengthened the cave roof and walls was the only good news all week. And JPL would probably solve its problems in time to launch, and the minority leader couldn’t keep SpaceX shut down once the committee actually sat and took over the investigation. Sleipnir 4 was far from doomed, though the timing would be very tight.
But, he decided, the events of the past few days showed that the unexpected, the impossible, even the totally stupid could happen at any moment and wreck all your plans. The sooner Watney and his friends were on Earth, the sooner Murphy would be limited to non-lethal things to throw at them.
Was it worth his career, and possibly the careers of the five people currently aboard Hermes? Yes it w-
His phone rang.
Before he picked up the phone, he reached down, put in the earbud he used to listen to the live feed direct from Mission Control, and turned the volume back up.
“… and somebody find out who the hell Rich Purnell is!!”
That was Brendan Hutch’s voice, the graveyard shift flight leader. What the hell?
He picked up the phone. “Henderson,” he said.
“Sir, we have a problem with Hermes. It’s off course and accelerating. We don’t know why, but we think it’s deliberate. We’re trying to institute a computer override now.”
“Any idea what’s causing it?” he asked. “Any contact with the crew?”
“Only one text message,” the voice at the other end said. “Something about Rich Purnell being a steely-eyed missile man. No clue what it means.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said, and hung up.
The email, unsent, glowed at him from his monitor.
He deleted it. He deleted “unsere kinder” too. He emptied the recycle bin on his desktop.
As he shut down the computer, he thought: I didn’t send it. I didn’t send it!! But how? How??
Who???
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What a
!
Seriously, I thought the scenes were out of order before the big reveal. Mitch dodged that bullet.
Also, I find myself wondering how easy it would be to move the HAB. At this point, they might as well bring it to the cave, rather than trek 10k every day.
Hahaha. Really funny!
I'm going to guess it was Rich Purnell himself that sent the program. He's already sent messages to astronauts without authorization, so I wouldn't be surprised if he did it again.
Of course, that's the obvious answer, and after the Sleipnir 2 red herring, I've learned that you don't necessarily go with the obvious answer.
Who beat mit h to the punch!? This is going to bug me till you hint at who did it!!
Annie, Venkat, or did Teddy send it?!
Oh you sly fox you!
I'm guessing Venkat, so his scenes talking with Mitch turned out to be Mitch talking him into it, rather than him talking Mitch sort of out of it.
Well done Glim-Glam, sealing the cave
Not sure why Cherry would choose the medic to be one of the ponies stationed outside when unicorn collapse inside is likely, but maybe Fireball was just busy doing other things?
It would be rather hilarious if Hermes turns out to be unnecessary some two weeks before it reaches Mars again. Even better, before the Martians need to move, but too late for Hermes to simply turn back. Hilariously cruel to them, that is.
Okay now after this chapter my conclusion is that the Hermes is going to not have food resupply sent up during this pass, and so they all are starving by the time they reach Mars and the ponies have to send up the Ares IV MAV stocked with food instead of ponies just to feed the crew on their return to Earth. Then Equestria will have to rescue them off Mars anyway.
The ponies staying longer is the safer plan now that the cave has been fortified. I mean it's a bunker with 1 foot thick walls of what amount to terribly strong concrete and solid flawless quartz. Anything short of a direct meteor impact isn't going to do much of anything to it now. The Hab might fail at any time, but that bunker-cave is most likely going to outlast the NASA HQ building on Earth.
At some point they really might want to bite the bullet and relocate everything into the cave for safety reasons given how much more durable it is than the Hab.
Really though Equestria is taking a lead on the rescue timetable at this point. Even if they need double the power output, they can recharge all 9 current batteries and make another 9 inside 200 days and make a bigger signal to be picked up by Equestria. Equestria's rescue ship is basically ready to launch and could arrive in a couple of days. I'm not going to be surprised if they pick up the martian colonists at around Sol 450 and the whole side trip for the Hermes was wasted.
Will you be at RTX2018?
8861619 It would be a major pain. For one thing, the Hab is not designed to ever be disassembled. It's not stated explicitly in the books, but it must be anchored down somehow to the soil and rock underneath it for it to not have been significantly damaged by the Sol 6 storm. Also, it's got a lot of heavy equipment inside- the oxygenator, atmospheric regulator, water reclaimer, fifteen hydrogen fuel cells, the chem lab, the suit recharge rack, the bunks, possibly other things. And then there's the solar farm of over fifty panels- over a hundred square meters of solar cells. Oh, and there's the dirt and spuds inside the Hab that they're using to grow food as fast as possible. And, finally, there's Amicitas, which was a pain in the horn to move ONCE.
8861651 You know as well as I that there are few emergencies so urgent and compelling that there isn't at least one Congresscritter happy to bring everything to a halt for his or her pet project. And in this case, there are even some supporters of NASA who want a pound of SpaceX flesh after what amounts to a 50% success rate on Sleipnir launches.
Want a funny irony?
Hermes and the Equestrian ship do a joint rescue, with Twi and Chrysalis teleporting them straight to JPL
8861670 No, sorry. Booth space is too expensive, and I have another event booked that weekend (Ama-Con in Amarillo).
I'm watching the movie version of The Martian right now, and can't help but think how much better it would be with ponies.
Holy carp, they have interuniversal tracking capability sorted! They need a big bright spell to lock onto, but the principle is sound! Looks like it could end up being a race between ESA/CSA and Hermes to see who can rescue our reluctant Martians first.
And who beat Mitch to the email?
8861696
In the book, once the decision was made NASA decided to pretend they were for it from the start, in order to not look like idiots. In this case I could see them just stating "Congress playing games with the lives of Mark and the aliens forced us to take emergency measures." It would be basically declaring war on said congressmen, but they might be willing to bet on them not being around much longer.
8861671
Two words: magic batteries. They had two of them when they moved Amacitas. Now they have nine. In a matter of weeks, they could have dozens. You said it was an exponential process to create new batteries. With enough of them, Starlight could probably carry the whole HAB to the cave farm in a single trip.
8861643
I think that it was Teddy.
8861696
First of all, I hope that your bloodlust, however fictional its targets are, is entirely performative. It's making me uncomfortable, and the author has their own ideas of how to handle these elected officials' fates.
And second, that's now twice you've misused "populous" (inhabited by people) when you meant "populace" (a group of people). Much less pressing, but please learn the difference.
8861671
Fair point. I imagine that with enough persistence and strategic use of magic it could be done, but it might not be worth it just to save on the trip.
In that case, how hard it would be to reinforce the Hab in a similar way? Or failing that, construct more buildings; it should be relatively simple to use this spell to make bricks, then fuse the bricks into an airtight whole.
I think it was as Mulder. Skully covered for him.
8861769
(because we don't have a Maud emote)
You're joking. At least, the only ways this could be true are if Mitch somehow doesn't remember sending the maneuver once, or if the closing passage is from the perspective of a different NASA employee also named Henderson who also somehow knows about the maneuver. Despite not being included in the book version of Project Elrond.
I have an Idea what the rumble might have been. Don't be surprised if the area within about two meters of the Martian Geode has settled a bit.
8861772
They could use the mending spells to make sure that the hab canvas does not have any more tears in it. I wonder if it could also be used to keep the suits in good repair and maybe fix the broken glass on that one helmet.
8861783
I accidentally wrote Mitch at first, but realized that I mixed names up and changed it to Teddy.
8861769
I think it would be awesome if it was him.
Congress is fucking it all up 10/10 for realistic plot
?????????? WHOA I did NOT expect THAT! XD MAN this was the most exciting chapter in a while! Glad the cave spell worked, and now.... dang! I wonder who sent it??? I can't wait to find out. :D Way to keep us guessing, sir!
8861700
Everything would be better with ponies.
Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Avengers
Just everything.
8861794
They could, but even if Starlight knows the appropriate spell, they might not be able to apply them to complex materials or composites.
For the HAB, I would imagine they could simply form a shell of soil around it, section by section, and magic it solid. It might take a couple weeks, but afterwards the HAB would basically be a bunker instead of a tent.
8861696
Oh god yes. Can you imagine? Sleipnir 4—brought to you by Budweiser, Alienware, and Hasbro! First thing when they land, footage of Mark cracking open an ice-cold Bud. The Equestrian Space Agency exclusively uses Dell/Alienware compute hardware! And Hasbro...well, if there was ever a way to secure a use-of-likeness contract...
I'm not even in Marketing and I'm still getting the shivers thinking about it.
8861837
Who are we kidding? Disney will fund the whole thing.
They'll probably own Hasbro by then anyway.
Ww need a Starlight emoji. While I'm at it, a Sunset and a Luna one as well.
Now THAT was unexpected. Someone OTHER than Mitch sent the procedure up? Dude... that definitely caught me off guard. Congrats, Kris; that's not an easy thing to do...
Also, this seems relevant:
Mitch: I swear, I didn't send this! I was contemplating it, but I fucking didn't!
Teddy: Well if you didn't send it, who did?
//All present parties collectively scratch their heads, attempting to solve the mystery at hand//
Bruce: You don't think...
Venkat: He couldn't have
Annie: If he did, it's going to be a media nightmare
Mitch: And who are you thinking of, exactly?
Unison (minus Mitch): Rich
Hmm. I like the idea of Teddy snapping and sending the Rich Purnell Maneuver using the Other Rich Purnell Maneuver, but that assumes it's simple enough that anyone who knew about both could be a "suspect." So that raises a new possibility.
What are the chances that several people independently sent Hermes the RPM? We already know Mitch was just a little too slow.
8861794
OK, terrific. I do sometimes need help looking like an idiot.
as the ship comes this play...
8861619
Easy enough, according to the book! Just gotta fold it.
8861816
And this is how the first town on Mars is built.
HAB domes turned in to vaults.
8861849
I don't think it was Rich. He seems to be autistic, so planning something like that is outside his capabilities.
"Who is Rich Purnell?!"
"Duh, they told us. A steely eyed missile man. I mean you don't need to know more than that."
That aside... who did send it? They covered for the way he unwittingly bypassed protocol to send mail before... but that was to Mars, does Hermes have lesser security for mail? Dunno. Only other suspects are Venkat or Teddy. Teddy's been the play it safe type... to preserve NASA's future and minimize risk overall. It's not an enviable role, question is: did aliens change the equation for him when Con-gress started reminding us they're the opposite of pro-gress? Venkat's a less interesting choice, in only that it would be less surprising. He's always felt like the moderate between Mitch and Teddy. Annie? That feels pretty left field... and how would they even decipher the manuever with all the interladen cursing?
Urgh, you know it's a good chapter when you're annoyed at even waiting 24 hours for another.
Five Bits says Rich built his own Sparkle Drive.
You magnificent bastard!
Really got me laughing out loud with that reveal and hell of a red herring in the last chapters.
And there's my fix for the day, thank you for providing.
Looking forward to how the maneuver ploy plays out.
Everyone's talking about the intrigue, but I'm more intrigued by their steady progress towards an actual viable colony site.
Okay the water and air is imported, but that's likely to be an unavoidable issue for some time to come. Leaving it aside they have solid shelter, food, water, and all good for as long as the key components stay intact.
At this point it seems like retargetting future missions is likely to be on the cards.
8861887
Calling it now. Mark sent it. Because time travel.
"and Hutch,Barney"
"and Hutch, Barney"?
8861912
You know, given magic is involved (and probably about to be introduced to humanity) we can't actually rule the time travel angle out.
8861879
True, as far as the structure itself goes, but as the author here pointed out there's a lot of delicate and heavy stuff inside they'd have to disassemble and move, some of which they still need. As a long term project, maybe, but it's not going to be easy.
8861881
I can't think of any reason why they couldn't, though that doesn't mean there isn't one...
8861906
Unless, of course, there is something to Dragonfly's readings of Mars. In which case a permanent colony, especially one incorporating elements of magic, might be a bad idea. Then again, the story hasn't made much of that since it was introduced.
8861958
That actually makes sense. They need a big spell to get a dimensional lock. Starlight's time magic surely qualifies.
I am still worried about that cave. Did they consult Maud over this, was it tested well and did someone smack the Book Horse yet for apparently hiring her friends as the R&D for her own space program and placing her friends as pilots of the said program?
That pony needs a good smack if charges of corruption cannot be leveled against her.
If the battery prduction thing is exponential and they need living things to charge the magic so that magic can be used to alter, upgrade the crystals taken from the farm into magic batteries and sparkle drive parts...
What if Starlight didnt have to take the crystals out of place in the farm at all, and just went Black Hole Cygnus on the farm itself? Twilight said they needed a Much bigger spell cast.