“Are you telling me,” Teddy said carefully, “that the aliens might have accidentally set up a gray goo Doomsday scenario on Mars? And they’re not telling us about it until now?”
“No,” Venkat said, “I’m saying the exact opposite. Something weird happened, they performed some experiments, and they’re fairly sure it’s not a gray goo event.”
It had taken three iterations over three days, but the report had come in over the Pathfinder chat from Starlight Glimmer, who had sent it- or the abstract, anyway, since a proper report would be much longer- one line at a time, with the lines numbered, thus:
[08:15] WATNEY: (1) Starlight Glimmer here. Posts are numbered; reply with any numbers not received and highest number post received so I can re-send only those missing.
[08:17] WATNEY: (2) The method used to successfully revive Dragonfly had an unexpected effect. We became curious and began an investigation.
[08:19] WATNEY: (3) It seems I accidentally produced a strange random enchantment in the crystals behind Dragonfly’s cocoon, and it appears to be self-replicating.
And so on. There were forty-seven lines in the initial report, not all of which related to the rainbow crystals described on lines 6, 7 and 8. Two-thirds of the lines made it through the increasing solar interference on the first pass, but three lines persistently got eaten and required a total of six repetitions before they got through- by which time Starlight had added seventeen lines of follow-up report, all without any response by NASA aside for requests to repeat lines not received.
“The rainbow crystals go inert in the absence of magic,” Venkat said, repeating a point he’d made in the presentation to Teddy. “And apparently, since our universe doesn’t have a magic constant higher than zero, magic doesn’t propagate well through solid objects. It tends to either be absorbed or reflected away. And the enchantment requires crystals above a certain size threshold to function. So it’s safe to say that the enchantment is confined to the crystal cave. Which, of course, is already contaminated all to hell with Earth bacteria, plant life, and our castaways.”
“But the fact remains that it was a possible global catastrophe,” Teddy said, “and the crew didn’t see fit to tell us until now.”
“Bear in mind it’s getting impossible for them to tell us anything,” Venkat replied. “And anyway, if they had told us, what could we have done? We know nothing about magic beyond what we read in Starlight Glimmer’s reports. But there on Mars we have a magic expert plus Mark Watney, a trained and experienced scientist. They saw the problem, tackled it systematically and scientifically, and their preliminary report is that it’s a non-issue. Absolutely harmless.”
“All right,” Teddy said. “What does this absolutely harmless enchantment do?”
“It stores magical energy,” Venkat said. “It uses that energy for two things; duplicating the enchantment in crystals in physical contact, and changing the colors of the crystal without changing the chemical composition. According to Starlight, you can add at least one enchantment to it, and the new enchantment will replicate with the old, but the new enchantment will function a lot more weakly than if it were placed on a clean crystal.”
“So,” Teddy said, “not particularly useful?”
Venkat shook his head. “Starlight used a line of her report to make clear that a purpose-made enchantment would be an order of magnitude more efficient than the random one. The main curiosity is that, according to her, it follows none of the ponies’ known rules about enchantment design. She doesn’t know how the enchantment does anything that it does, only that it does it.”
“I see,” Teddy said carefully. “Are there any long-term consequences from this?”
“Only one, at least as far as the wild crystals go,” Venkat said. “Any enchantment is difficult to remove once laid on. It’s always easier to destroy the enchanted object than to clear it of spells. The wild enchantment is easy to break, but almost impossible to clean completely. So any infected crystal becomes almost useless for future applications in pony magical technology.” Venkat allowed himself to smile just a little as he added, “However, a pre-existing enchantment immunizes the crystal from the rainbow infection.”
“So you’re saying they can contain the infection.”
“It’ll probably contain itself,” Venkat said. “It’s spreading at about a meter every five sols. At that rate the first chamber of the cave might not be completely converted by the time Ares IV lands on Mars years from now. And that’s assuming the farm doesn’t die when Mark and the ponies leave, which it almost certainly will without the heat and air cycling provided by the pony life support system. Without the farm, the crystals won’t have any magic, and the enchantment will shut down.”
“All right. Good.” Teddy nodded. “I’m still disappointed that they waited until now to present this to us, but I can see where the decision came from. And, for once, this doesn’t actually present any problems for the rescue plan.”
“Well,” Venkat said uncomfortably, “yes and no.”
“Yes and no?” Teddy asked. “Explain, please.”
“One of the last experiments they did with the rainbow crystals was to see what they’d do outside,” Venkat said. “They already knew the crystals wouldn’t infect ordinary rock or sand or even small crystal pieces. But even surrounded by crystals, outside on the surface of Mars they did nothing.
“But that made Starlight curious about something. They assumed that their magic batteries recharged faster when close to life and not at all away from it, but they hadn’t really questioned whether the batteries could recharge on the opposite side of a wall from life. So they conducted two experiments, with controls. In one case they compared a battery in the Hab with one immediately on the other side of the Hab canvas- even giving it a stand so it wouldn’t be blocked by the Hab flooring or internal components. In the other, they compared a battery sitting just outside the cave airlock with one of the ones charging normally inside the cave.
“The results were really clear-cut. In both cases, the battery outside didn’t recharge at all. In fact, both batteries actually lost a tiny bit of charge.”
“What?” Teddy asked. “Lost charge?”
“The battery casings have readouts on them,” Venkat said, “to show charge level. Also control systems to balance load and charge levels. It’s a very tiny power draw, but it’s not zero. In their home universe that’s not a problem, because the universal magic constant would more than cover the loss. There the batteries function more like power collectors and regulators than actual storage units. But on Mars, in our universe?”
“No recharge,” Teddy said glumly. “And that means any batteries carried on the outside of the Sirius tandem rover won’t recharge at all.”
Venkat nodded. “Starlight says that once they get moving, magic use will have to be reduced to emergencies only. The big batteries for launch- however we do it- will have to be fully charged at the start of the trip and topped off from other batteries right up until launch.” He took a deep breath to steady himself, then continued, “That means any procedures we suggest during the trip will have to be based entirely on non-magical resources. Mark and his equipment, basically.”
“Let’s hope they won’t be needed,” Teddy said, and then winced a second after he’d said it. “And I just guaranteed they will, didn’t I?”
“Look on the bright side,” Venkat said. “This is Mars we’re talking about. It’s not like it was ever going to go easy on us.”
“Mike, I have a problem,” Rich said.
Mike tried not to roll his eyes. Rich now had an office bigger than Mike’s. The only reason he didn’t get Mike’s job was that he didn’t want it (and, also, both Director Sanders and Dr. Kapoor saw Rich was not supervisor material). Those things which Rich Purnell wanted, he got more or less instantly. It was a tribute to Rich’s innate decency- or, at least, his extremely narrow personal vision- that he showed no inclination to abuse that power… or, for that matter, no awareness that the power even existed to be abused.
“What is it, Rich?” Mike asked.
“This job from Dr. Glimmer,” Rich said, handing Mike a piece of paper. “I don’t have the pony baseline for air resistance to coherent magic. I could assume that their homeworld’s atmosphere has the same properties as ours, but I still need the baseline before I can calculate what it would be on Mars. And I don’t want to get you in trouble again for asking her directly.”
“Thank you,” Mike said. “Well, this job is top priority, so I’ll go straight to Dr. Kapoor with it. But I warn you, our comms with Mars are pretty ratty right now.”
“Solar conjunction,” Rich said. “Yes, I know. I thought I’d go home while I was waiting.” He leaned a bit closer and said in a quieter tone, “I noticed today I don’t smell very good.”
Mike pretended not to hear the soft single beep that sounded from somewhere in the Astrodynamics cubicle hive. Just as he’d pretended for some time now that he knew nothing about the Rich Purnell Hygiene Betting Pool. If he did take notice, he’d have to shut it down, and that would hurt morale more than allowing it to run, no matter how cruel it was to Rich.
But he’d have to talk to Rich again about the subject sometime soon… once he figured out a new way to say a thing he’d tried to tell the man about a dozen times with no success. In fact, he might have to just start ordering him home again every so often, blessings from on high or not.
“That’s probably a good idea, Rich,” he said. “Other people don’t like being around people who smell.”
“Thanks,” Rich said. “I’ll try to remember that.” And, without any further leavetaking, Rich walked out.
The hell of it is, Mike thought, he sincerely means it when he says he’ll try to remember it.
Shaking his head at some of the strange personalities you met in government work and in space flight, he checked over Rich’s note, found it complete without being too verbose, and got up to take it to the admin building and Dr. Kapoor.
As he stepped out the same door Rich had left by, he heard someone- he carefully didn’t recognize the voice- call out, “Okay, who had five days, four hours, and twenty-two minutes?”
At least it's not raining, what could possibly go wrong, this can't get any worse,
9011920
and the classic "I'm washing my car"
I found a bit left over, anyone know what its supposed to be for?
So the life needs the roof light crystals and the deep core heat to survive, and the magic needs the life to exist, and the rainbow effect needs the trees and the magic to make crystal roots long enough to reach down to the source of heat deep underground?
looks like Conways Castle needs to fire up the Gliders.
Would it be possible to enchant the rainbow crystals to put out heat, sunlight, air and moisture? Could they be used to make the cave self-sustaining? If so, could the effect be pushed beyond the cave? If so, terraforming just got a lot easier.
I just deleted two comments making cracks about the current political situation.
Now more than ever, people need a place where they can rest, recover, and not have the current controversies thrown in their faces again.
Please respect that.
Here's what I'm curious about, in regards to the batteries and life magic. Let's quantify the battery recharge rate in scales of "life" (think how Watney used "percent power loss" in regards to the solar cells during the dust storm in the book).
Is "life" defined by the number of living organisms, or by the total biomass of an organism; can a bunch of small organisms surrounding a magic battery keep it from losing power as effectively as a battery being in proximity to the Caves plant life and the crew?
Because I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, they can keep the charges of the jumbo batteries up by figuring out a way to encase them in the soil from the Cave farm for the trip. The living bacteria in the soil might possess enough "life" to maintain the charge levels (or at the least, slow the drop in said levels) for the duration of the trip. All that would have to be done is figure out a way to keep the soil above freezing and get oxygen to the bacteria; both can be done by connecting it to the Rover's air supply. The small amount of water the Crew would exhale would be absorbed by the soil (at least to a point), and keep the bacteria viable.
It may not be enough of a solution to keep the jumbo batteries at 100%, but it might be enough to reduce the drain on the batteries that otherwise could've been.
This line is supremely hilarious! Shouldn’t New Years also be coming up soon in story?
If the battery's need direct contact with life in order to recharge, why not create a biomass battery. It quite simple. Just take a crystal, cut it into slices. Fill the space between the slices with excrement. Use changeling goop to seal the slices making them air tight and water proof.
If kept warm the biomass would support bacterial growth for at least several months. By linking them in series they could provide a steady trickle charge for a regular battery.
A thought I had on the previous chapter: Perhaps I'm ignorant when it comes to Transformers Prime, but why is Megatron in space? I thought the Decepticons were hiding on Earth.
9012072
Sounds like the beginnings of the magical equivalent of an RTG.
9012034
It has potential, but adds more mass to the Bago. This could end up backfiring if too much mass is added, slowing down their transit time. And that could result in a net loss of total charge by trip completion.
9012093 He flies back and forth from Cybertron a couple times. The Space Bridge, IIRC, is off-planet.
9012029 You laugh, but I've read several persuasive theories that some form of autism might explain the western European myth of changeling children...
So... if magic doesn't travel though "normal" materials, generated magic should be trapped inside the rover or cave, with no place to go except to be absorbed into the batteries. So putting a single battery inside the rover would collect all the magic generated inside it - and the same should go for the cave farm; adding batteries would simply divide the available magic between them, not result in a greater overall collection. Something there does not seem to make sense. Presumably there is another factor?
That's really unexpected, to put it really mildly. After all, she did that enchantment at random.
They could make a sled to store the batteries sure rock could be a problem but the weight wouldn’t be on the bago’s suspension system
XD Oh my word, I love Rich Purnell. I love him even more in your story where he gets expanded upon in such hilarious fashion. Also, love your Anti-Christmas idea!
9012122 Only if the magic is reflected off the interior walls. Most of it gets absorbed and eventually dissipates.
How long until the self-replicating crystal spell evolves a sunlight-to-magic photosynthesis cycle, becomes sapient, and starts referring to Mark and the ponies as "ugly-bags-of-mostly-water"?
9012114
Maybe, but how much mass would it take to encase a jumbo battery in an inch-thick layer of soil? Half an inch? Certainly less than 50lbs, and probably less than half that, since the soil would also have to be aerated. I'm sure Starlight could find a way to test how much bacteria-rich soil would be needed to make the plan viable; certainly she could determine how much power is preserved using the soil, by comparing varying amounts of soil applied to a battery, to the baseline power loss they'd already discovered to occur.
Of course not. As Venkat immediately mentions, it's the fact that they're on Mars that practically ensures that something will happen beyond their ability to imagine and plan for in advance...
...is what I'd say if they were in our universe where, to the best of our ability to detect—within the bounds of our current level of understanding—there is absolutely no magic. Of course in a universe where there is magic, no matter how tiny a spark of it there is, there is no way to rule out that thinking about something somehow potentiates it, no matter how great the physical distance.
I laughed at this, then quietly realized this summed up my teenage years.
9012257
i.giphy.com/media/o14YPU6vooy0o/giphy.gif
HR is taking a vacation at NASA, huh.
wait.... when there's water there's life.....
9012284
It depends. But keep in mind, dirt is heavy.
How much of the charge loss is due to absence of an insulating medium, the life-saturated air, which normally would act as equal "pressure" outside the container, so to speak, and how much might be due to the effects of heat loss, and therefore total energy loss, in the battery system?
What about efficiency in extreme cold? Lithium batteries are less efficient at cold temperatures. Could quartz-based magic batteries have similar limitations?
9012284
Also known as feculence, poo, stool, shite, excrements, manure and horseapples.
Covering the floor of the van that they have to drive for... three months straight, i recall?
psv4.userapi.com/c848132/u2000001078/docs/d12/e60a0641d037/file.gif?extra=jSN33ACM7coLYihHn8-jvmBH6JWQKbjqja4aD4dHrQ1nPRkWycjZMfkvFdEdGxbUYXI_JYiCtOKvX8iSaol6kuCouzv3ryPChtgqzcZlsHIGImi1TGMG7r_z0FidEZcRozqNvBU7UYwQfIQ
So, you want them to get off Mars literally on bowel movement power.
9012537
True, but don't forget, that the volume of dirt would weigh only .4 as much as it would've on earth; even the equivalent of 50lbs of soil would only add 20lbs to the Rover
9012731
Not all the bacteria in the soil came from their poop. Remember, a good portion came from the small amount of Earth soil Mark was provided for his experiments on Mars, which he propagated with his dirt doubling methods, and was supplemented with the waste bacteria.
As far as my idea, it's my understanding they have to hang the jumbo batteries on the outside of the Rover due to lack of space; my idea would essentially be for them to put the batteries in bags made out of Hab canvas (they can strip a lot of canvas from the Hab when they get ready to depart if they need to), surround the batteries with a layer of farm soil, and connect the bag of battery and soil to the Rover's air supply via hoses so that the bacteria doesn't freeze or run out of oxygen, either of which would kill off the population and ruin the whole plan.
Also in the book, Mark gets off of Mars by literally turning his pee into rocket fuel
It's the thought that counts, Rich.
Stop jinxing things, people!
9012731 Shitrockets FTW!
9012754
Mass is mass. No cheating physics here.
9011387
By ares 4 MAV
That thing is designed to get into Low Mars orbit. with 6 passengers and 500 kg of cargo
How do you get hermes in Low Mars orbit? Aerobraking, and using fuel otherwise reserved for slowing down when Earth draws closer.
I do appreciate Venkat's experienced optimism. On Mars, the silver lining is that the situation's going to suck no matter what you do.
In any case, good to know that the rainbow goo scenario won't be taking place... as long as that growth rate is constant and not exponential. Of course, that rate of magic consumption may not be feasible... Well, I suppose we'll see what happens.
9012793
True, and I probably should've phrased that better. What I was trying to say was that because of Mars' lower gravity, they can bring along (relatively) large amounts of mass with less impact on the overall weight that has to be handled by the Rover. Remember, mass and weight aren't the same thing, and the torque the Rover's wheels provide is more about the weight being put on the chassis.
I'm sorry. I'm not doing a good job of explaining it, but I hope that you get what I'm trying to say?
9013105 Mass remains constant. Weight is important for load bearing, but mass is important for issues of momentum and inertia.
And they're already flat-out voiding the warranty on mass with the remains of Amicitas.
9012172
9011998
9012257
Biology question: How many generations does it take for bacteria to adapt to a new environment or exploit a new resource?
I'm trying to figure out the possible impact of magic-nurtured bacteria spreading beyond the cave farm, and whether it'd make future human terraforming easier or more difficult.
9013112
True, but they've already begun talk about using repulsing spells to get the MAV launched; surely they can use a much smaller version of that spell to overcome inertia every time they set out for the day's travels? They can use one of the smaller magic batteries to help give the Rover that initial push to overcome inertia, and since the small battery will likely be stored inside Amicitas, it can be recharged over the course of the day until they need to use it again.
9013142 It depends on a lot of factors, but the key point is that evolution and adaptation have to work with what's at hand- namely, the existing genome of the bacteria in question. Right now we know that bacteria can hibernate and survive to become viable again in hard vacuum for at least three years (based on the Surveyor probe parts returned from the Moon to Earth as part of the Apollo program). But we don't know of any bacteria that can actually multiply and thrive in near-vacuum, below-freezing conditions. This isn't to say that bacteria couldn't do it, but don't hold your breath waiting.
EDIT: Correction- I seem to recall reading somewhere that there were bacteria found on a camera lens or somesuch on the ISS, apparently surviving thanks to outgassing from the hull. But even then the temperatures are a lot warmer than Mars...
9013165 With what magic? An inertia-nullifying spell would require upkeep. A LOT of upkeep.
And that leaves aside the fact that living in an inertia-free environment, assuming no problems on the cellular level, would not be terribly fun.
9013185
I didn't say it would nullify inertia; what I mean is use the same spell they plan to use to "push" the MAV off of Mars into orbit, to give the Rover a small shove to get it moving before Mark engages the engines. To get it rolling without using battery power. It wouldn't be constant, and certainly not one that would alter the environment; think of it as a horizontal launch that lasts less than a fraction of a second.
i just think of something is basically Thanksgiving season there right? I wonder what the ponies dragon and chengalling will think of USA FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!!!!
9011955
What is that a reference to?
9012883
I must say that looks like a really promising idea! Crystals seem to already handle ~1% of inert gases in air pretty well, and they have available to spare high pressure pump and tanks on Mars from both pony ship and fuel plant. The only question is if they can carry enough.
Although it opens another questions: why haven't NASA considered that earlier and got additional xenon when Hermes did Earth fly-by.
9013265 Because they didn't do it in the book. With enough xenon, Hermes could have orbited, made rendezvous, broken orbit, and boosted/braked to the speed needed for the fastest possible Earth intercept. But they didn't, and my assumption is that it's for two reasons: weight limitation on the Tai Yang Shen, and because the xenon tanks that feed the engines are not accessible from inside the ship, and probably not refillable using any system on board.
So that's my working assumption for this story: the xenon tanks are only accessible during Hermes's between-trips refits, and can't be serviced mid-flight.
If the enchanted "chaos gems" retain the extra enchantment when they copy themselves,they could do natural selection. Get an array of 10x10 crystals and place the enchanted one in the middle. Then when the enchantment has done spreading,get ten arrays of 10x10 crystals,and use the best performing enchantments as the seed,while disenchanting the rest. Voila,you got yourself a magic evolution array. Enchantments complex beyond what even starset sperkel can understand,yay.
EDIT: And if the enchantments suddenly find a way to do energy to mana converson then oh boy,gems crystallize in magical enviroments like potatoe. That chaos gems like. Ad infinitum.
9013511 Except there's a problem with this. You have no way to select for the 'best' enchantment. They all spread to the other crystals equally, it sounds like.
9013511
Ah,but doesn't the enchantment look like a pile of spaget? I got the impression that it is random every time? Hence weird colors?
9013265
Well, i would bring the crystals to hermes, and send the xenon at that point.
I vaguely remember fully feuling hermes would take 40 000 kg of xenon. That sounds about right to me.
9013344
On the topic of the tanks only being accessible during refits: Magic. Teleport that crystal directly into the fuel tank.