Sol 230
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 232
ARES III SOL 230
Mark was eating, which was a victory. He had to be reminded to continue eating with every forkful, and he chewed as slowly as a foal who’d taken an unwise dare about how many pieces of bubble gum he could chew at one time, but food was going in and staying in. That was victory.
Cherry Berry had taken it upon herself to be Mark’s caretaker. She’d done occasional volunteer work in Ponyville Hospital, and she’d taken innumerable odd jobs for elderly ponies who couldn’t quite keep up with little chores around their homes anymore. Mark was like them, at the moment… if a more extreme case than she’d ever before encountered.
The others were doing what they could. Yesterday Starlight Glimmer and Fireball had set up the dropped engine for its test, verifying as well as they could that no visible damage had been done to it by the incident. Spitfire kept checking Mark’s vitals and making him drink water and take vitamin pills, though her brusque bedside manner made it a struggle. Mark’s response to direct orders was to shut down even harder, which forced Spitfire to push the vitamins into his mouth and put the water to his lips personally.
But, according to Dr. Shields, any response at all was cause for optimism. The truly catatonic remained totally unaware of their environment. Mark responded to stimuli, if barely and reluctantly. But he lacked all motivation. He didn’t want to do anything. It required constant cajolery or overwhelming pressure to persuade him to any action.
And, most concerning of all, he had a two word vocabulary: “Beth” and “Johanssen,” said with brief hope when he first awoke, whispered with a final sigh as he was put to bed.
But today he was chewing food- not enjoying it, possibly not tasting it, but chewing it. (Cherry Berry was pretty sure of this; the meal was a mush of fifty percent random meal pack, fifty percent potatoes, and despite that the small dollop of ketchup on Mark’s plate remained untouched. And, since Mark never actually looked at his meal, or at anything at all, it probably remained unseen as well.) Spitfire had requested a suit drill, but Cherry Berry had drawn the line. Getting food into Mark, as much as he would take, as often as he’d take it, was the top priority. Absolutely nothing would interfere with that.
There was still a disappointing amount of food on Mark’s tray when his fork hand went down and refused to come up again for any begging whatever. But after two days of practically nothing, this was the second meal in a row in which Mark had cooperated, so Cherry still counted it a win. She took the tray in her teeth and put it back in the Hab’s mini-fridge, to be brought out and reheated (again) in a few hours.
“Is he done?” Starlight asked. “Because I’ve got a very special treat for him!” She reared up and rested her forehooves on his knees. “NASA has some very special messages from his family and friends! Would he like to listen to them?”
Mark didn’t move. His eyes didn’t shift position as a computer floated its way over to the table in front of him.
“Dr. Shields says the sound of loved ones might bring him around,” Starlight whispered to Cherry.
But the photo on the screen wasn’t of any of the Hermes crew. Nor did it look like it might be one of Mark’s parents, though the man seemed old enough. A full head of shaggy gray hair, a rough white beard, and wild, piercing eyes stared out of the computer as a voice that reminded Cherry of Time Turner back home said, “Hallo, Mark! This is David Tennant. Sorry I can’t bring the TARDIS to come pick you up, but I would if I could. I just wanted you to know you’ve got a lot of people back on Earth rooting for you. You’ve done humanity proud. And the next time you go to space, I’d be honored if you let me be your companion. Take care of yourself!”
Mark didn’t twitch.
The picture changed. The hair was a bit different, the jump suit worn and rumpled, but it was clearly the Ares commander, Melissa Lewis. “Mark, this is Lewis,” her voice said, crisp and clear. “I’m not good at making jokes right now. I just want you to remember: we’re coming for you, and we will bring you home. I’m not going to lose you again.”
Mark didn’t blink.
A new picture, this one of a smiling man with short-cropped hair and sallow skin. “Heeeeeey, Mark! It’s Rick!” his voice said. “You know? Martinez? The guy who drives the ship, you said? Well, I’ve got the foot to the floor now. We’ll be there in no time, so try not to let your alien harem distract you with their feminine wiles. And tell Spitfire that some of my buddies in the Air Force have her pic taped in their lockers. Later!”
Spitfire made choking sounds. Mark, none.
“Mark, this is Chris Beck,” a new voice said, as the photo changed to a man who looked more like Mark did. “Your alien friends are trying to help you. Do what they say. We all need you to pull through. The team needs your strength. You probably feel like there’s nothing left to you, but I know you’re still there. It will get better, Mark. Trust me.”
Cherry Berry didn’t think much of that talk. Neither, apparently, did Mark.
The next photo was of a large, bald-headed man. “Hallo, Watney,” he said in a heavily accented voice. “This is Vogel. What have you been doing to my supervillain lair? I see the mess you are making and I cannot believe it. Next I will hear you are eating my sausages! I will be there in two hundred and twenty-one sols, Mark, and I expect some answers!”
Cherry couldn’t believe the tone of the message, but it did bring the first change of expression from Mark- a momentary twitch of one corner of his mouth.
And then the photo and voice Cherry had hoped for and dreaded popped up. “Hi, Mark. It’s Beth. Johanssen.”
Mark’s eyes widened a moment. “Johanssen,” he whispered.
“I don’t exactly know what to say,” Johanssen continued. “I read Starlight’s report. All I can say is, I wasn’t there on Sol 40 or Sol 228. But I wish I was. I wish I could be there right now and get you off Mars, right now. But we’re coming, Mark. Wait for us.”
By the end of the short message Mark’s face had settled back into its non-expression. The short message from Mark’s parents that followed didn’t change it an inch.
Mark didn’t eat any more food that day.
And when he went to bed, he sighed, “Johanssen,” just like before, as if the message had never happened.
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*wakes up* : Maretian?
*goes to sleep* : Maretian...
A flicker of hope at least.
Good call with Tennant as the Doctor who had the most similar trip to Mars to Watney's situation. Little do the ponies realise he's also Barty Crouch Jr...
8921087
bippity, boppity, boo.
You're a puddle of goo.
I don't remember the details I just remember she was horrific.
"Cherry couldn’t believe the tone of the message, but it did bring the first change of expression from Mark- a momentary twitch of one corner of his mouth."
This angle is worth exploiting. Engage the intellectual prankster in mental challenges.
They need to get more recorded messages from Beth. Mark can watch all the others later.
Why hasn't Twilight forwarded the information about the person that the Changeling imitated being the one crucial to recovery? Nasa could be spamming messages from Johanssen and they'd be much better off.
Hell knowing that her physical presence would be a hundred percent cure at least would alleviate their worries about this being permanent, and dial back justified paranoia about Changelings a bit.
Was Beth the one who is a fan of Starlight?
The one thing that keeps getting me: Equestria is sending them air and water. WHY has Twilight not figured out a spell to recognize the amount of dimensional shift the spells are undergoing? Even if it was not precise, it would cut the number of dimensions they need to check from near infinite to less than a thousand.
8922013 She already has done. It cut down the search area from all of five-dimensional space (assuming space is so limited) to a cone so narrow as to effectively be a vector. She also has a maximum distance for that vector- about thirty-five meters. But when whole universes can be separated by nothing more than the thickness of the interface between the surface of a mirror and its interior, that's still millions, if not billions, of the things.
8922028
Since you made EqG cannon here, has she thought to move one of the suit life support crystals to the EqG universe and track from there as well? This would establish a second vector from which to triangulate, and thus even with the error margins involved narrow down the search.
8922045
For that matter, they should think to move their number-crunching operations there too if they possibly can. Sci-twi probably has access to greater computing resources than all of the ESA!
Come to think of it, why hasn't princes twilight been milking her access to an earth-equivalent civilization for all it's worth? Did she somehow fail to mention the Equestrian space-race to sunset? Or did she insist on figuring it all out herself...
8922068
Since Sunset is confirmed to exist here, did Starlight recognize Marks form as being similar to that worlds?
8922080
Huh, don't recall... let us go check real quick...
"edit" here we go, sol 9...
So she has seen "humans" and they look nothing like him. might as well compare wookies and eewoks. In either case, she's not about to go blabbing state secrets to an international crew and some random alien.
8922045 If they are searching along a vector then you can't use triangulation.
8922045
It wouldn't even be necessary. They already have a straight-line direction. Triangulation would only require two broadcast points. It wouldn't matter which dimension those points occupy. The second broadcast point could be in their own dimension.
Sit at a table. Draw two points anywhere on the table. Call them Points A and B. Imagine that you're at Point A, and that you know only the direction to reach Point B, but not the distance. Do you need to extend out into the third dimension off the table to triangulate to determine distance? No, of course not. Simply draw a line in the general direction from Point A to Point B, and move at 90 degrees in either direction from that line. Pick some arbitrary place to stop and call it Point C. From Point C, now determine the direction to Point B and draw a line in that direction.
You now have two lines. Extend them until they meet and voila, you've now located Point B.
Now, move Point B out into the third dimension above the table. It doesn't make any difference. If you know the direction from Points A and C, you can still determine the location of Point B in the third dimension, even though Points A and C are both confined to the same two dimensional space on the table.
This same general principal applies in a four-dimensional space. If they can determine direction, which they can, they should be able to locate Mars simply by flying a ship in any direction that isn't directly towards or away from Mars. They can triangulate even from two points within the three dimensional space that is local Equestrian space. You don't need to fly out into four dimensional space any more than you needed to fly out into three dimensional space when you located Point B on the table.
And incidentally, every direction in their own dimension is not in a "straight line to Mars." With Point A on the table and Point B somewhere above it, move Point C anywhere you want on the table. The only way to get all three points on a straight line is to move Point C out of the two dimensional plane of the table. All they need to do is pick any random direction away from Equus and fly an ordinary spaceship to wherever and broadcast from wherever. In principle, they wouldn't even need a spaceship. Simply ping from both ESA's and CSP's headquarters, and that would give them two points to triangulate from.
This was pointed out a long time ago, but it was handwaved away I think because if Twilight weren't stuck thinking one-dimensionally, they could have been rescued over 100 Sols ago.
8922142
There's no reason for them to search along the vector though. I think that's the point Helix is making in the first place. They're able to determine direction. They've narrowed the location of Mars down to a single line in four-dimensional space, and the problem is that there are an infinite number of points along that line. So rather than jumping to halfway points along that line and pinging to determine "left or right" and slowly narrowing down infinity 50% at a time, it would be much simpler to move at 90 degrees to the line, and get a direction from a second point.
Then they can triangulate. Triangulation doesn't care how many dimensions you're working in.
The confusion, I think,comes from the fact that ESA is able to determine direction not distance, which is the opposite of the typical case in real life. Typically in broadcast triangulation, you're able to determine distance, not direction. So in a two dimensional space, from a single broadcast point you're able to narrow down the location of your target to a circle. And then with a second broadcast point, you're able to narrow it down your target to two points on the circle, and then need a third broadcast point to determine which of the two is your target. If you're attempting to locate a target in three-dimensional space, your first broadcast ping only narrows the location to your target to within the shell of a sphere. In four dimensions, your first broadcast points narrows it down to the shell of a hypersphere.
But that's not their situation. They can determine direction, and distance is what they don't know. They only need two points, and it doesn't matter where those points are, provided they're not all on the same line.
They should be able to simply broadcast from any two arbitrary points within their local three dimensional space to locate Mars.
8922149
the mirror though, that presents options twilights not considering, they have advanced there tech in exchange of having no real magic, if there was a way to tap into that technological know how to help meld tech and magic to aid them that could be the ticket, get scitwi in there!
8922188
I think we are forgetting that the EG world is abut 20 years behind The Martian universe technology wise. So it really won't make much difference.
You know because EQ Girls is in the 2010's and The Martian universe is about 2036.
Plus I'm a firm believer in the Prime Directive in this case. Most of the time it is a stupid idea to be bringing technology a cultures not ready for into their world on purpose. Sure you might save them, but in return you cause a disaster sometime down the line thats worse. Like a Storm King situation when someone gets a hold of that technology to cause mayhem and death to you. (I still wouldn't trust Chrysalis as far as I could throw her)
So, I’m a little late to the party. But over the last three days I have burned through the chapters to date.
Let me congratulate you on creating a thrilling page turner, one that captures the spirit and tone of the source material. I’m looking forward to future updates.
8922149
You're reading it wrong. They have a distance, but not a vector. A very close range of vectors calculated from the air and water connection still leaves them with billions of potential matches.
8922188
Using resourses (information or otherwise) from EqG has been avoided for unexplained reasons. In story, I suspect Twilight would consider it "cheating". Out of story, it would break the narrative. Personally, I feel the CSP-verse should have divorced itself from EqG to tie up those potential plot holes. Kris, however, likes to stay as close to Hasbro canon as possible. The only major deviation being Thorax and the glitterbugs. That was skipped not because Kris hated it (he liked it, made a whole blog post and everything) but because it would have broken the story.
8922233
Well, its not a question of how far behind sunset's world is from Watney's, but rather how far ahead it is of twilight's world. twould be more a matter of equalizing between the two extremes. I would also be fascinated to see what Sci-twi could do with Purnell's equations.
8921935
They don't know if it's a guaranteed cure though, or if it's a cure at all, so that's not an assurance they can give. Chrysalis is speculating that it might help, but she isn't sure. They have never cared to try and deliberately cure a complete draining victim before, so she doesn't know for certain. Remember, these Changelings aren't nice, good, the least bit benevolent or any other adjective that might describe a society with positive traits or one that cared at all about what happened to those they drained. Humans very much deserve to know what they are dealing with.
Time for the Lemonade Tap.
8922261 Correction: Chrysalis is evil. (Though in the CSPverse she leans more towards affable-evil with faint redemption possibilities.) But her subjects run the full gamut of personality bases, with an overlay of cultural indoctrination that encourages paranoia, selfishness, and treating other speaking peoples quite literally as food. And they have room for growth, as witness Dragonfly, who is honestly ashamed for having done what, in the Bad Old Days, wouldn't have been in any way remarkable.
Good chapter. The only thing that surprised me was that David Tennent's voice did nothing to stir him...I mean the man played Scrooge McDuck for crying out loud!
#KeepDragonflyAlive
Well what do you expect after repeatedly shoving your rump into the camera?
8922245
You've got it mixed up. They've got a direction, but not a distance.
8922468
Chrysalis is lawful evil, nudged towards lawful neutral?
Heh David Tenant.
8922261 Good, evil, Chryssie is always the best and a Chryssiemass Miracle.
8922563 #Death2DaChernglerngs All demonic bug-ponies must be destroyed! They are the demon grasshoppers! IT'S IN REVELATIONS, PEOPLE!!
Martinez is my hero right now. And Spits gets what was coming. She should have seen it from a mile away.
Yeah, her bedside manner is about on par with the changeling medics
Well, at least he's not burning too many calories in this state, either
Heh... David Tennant. Didn't he dislike being reminded of his Dr. Who role?
Come now, Spitfire. You totally asked for that
Chris Beck is such a forgettable character
Hah. Vogel succeeded in what Lewis explicitly said she couldn't do - joking around with him.
Welp. That's not good.
Maybe the news she's shagging Beck will snap him out of it
9253877 No, David Tennant loves being the Doctor, even now. It's Chris Eccleston who regrets ever taking the job, and to the best of my knowledge he's the only Doctor to have that feeling.
9254538
Ah, indeed, that was Eccleston. Sad, really; I loved his performance as the 9th doctor.
9254538
Even then from what I gathered it was more like he resented the staff than the role.
Can't kept but picture Doctor Weller from Gen: LOCK.
There on a heavy time restricted plan lost 2 crew and hold everyone else bussy... At this point i be happy for a singel surviver...
Re-reading... Never see the end result coming...
If ever the Tardis was needed... It is now!
I'm sorry, how do you have me fangirling for someone who isn't even in this story?!
11346667
I tell you, if they play some Dr. WHO theme songs they get anyone in gear!