Sol 320
MISSION LOG – SOL 320
You know, Superman wasn’t the first man to fly without wings. There were some saints back in the Middle Ages who could fly. Of course the only record we have of it is in the paperwork the Vatican of the time put together to justify their sainthood, so take that with a clump of magically harvested Martian salt. The story is the same in all cases: they flew for no other reason than that they were happy about being holy, or something. They didn’t do anything with it like, I dunno, rescue orphans from cathederal spires or anything like that. Just a couple laps around the ceiling and ‘yay God,’ and that was all.
Of course, those saints might be just as fictional as Superman for all we know today. The only reason I bring them up (besides the fact they’re practically all I remember from my Comparative Religion class in college) is that, if we discount those stories as myth, that makes me the first human being to fly through the air on a non-ballistic trajectory without the use of any mechanical aid whatever. I can say that because a unicorn is not a machine, and Starlight Glimmer is nobody’s idea of a mechanic.
What I’m talking about is, we decided to go ahead and tackle mounting solar panels to the roof of the trailer today. Dragonfly and I worked together and made me a tether belt that would allow me to hook on to two of the mounting points that used to hold Friendship’s outer skin to the pressure vessel. That way, if I slipped, I’d have at least one hook to keep me from falling all the way to the ground.
And to get me up and down from the roof of the ex-ship, Starlight levitated me up at the start of the job and then down at the end. To tell the truth, it freaked me out- a lot. It’s one thing to know I’m safely in the magical grip of a unicorn with a full battery under her hooves. But in the back of my brain is my monkey ancestor, the one who knows nothing about magic, the one that a couple million years of evolution taught: if you’re out of the tree, you fall. And that monkey screeched the entire time my feet weren’t firmly on either regolith or steel.
But aside from that, it was a good EVA. Starlight lifted the panels up to me, I used the existing stake holes to bolt them onto the ship’s mounting points, and Fireball plugged each wire into the harness we’d already set up to run through the ship’s charging point and its electrical system. That’s already connected to the Hab, so it’s as if the panels never left the Hab’s solar farm. It went like clockwork, mostly because we took our time, didn’t rush, and were very careful.
We quit when the CO2 alarm went off in my suit, indicating the current filter was saturated and needed replacing. In four hours we mounted twelve panels, which means it’ll take another five to six hours to finish covering the top of the Whinnybago with solar cells.
All in all, a productive enough day. It kind of fills in for the loss of communications with Earth, which I’m missing a lot more than I ought to. I mean, for the last couple weeks we could barely say anything at all, and in another month or so we should have a clear connection again better than before. But for some reason I feel cut off and alone anyway.
Maybe I’ll ask Starlight or Dragonfly to work their water telegraph and let me chat with their bosses. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken directly to them yet. Now might not be a bad time to try it.
Well, not now-now, now. Maybe tomorrow. Tonight Starlight Glimmer has promised a new campaign. She’s decided to try making a homebrew adaptation of the D&D rules we have for pony characters.
That’s right. I’m going to roleplay a talking horse.
Because hey, if you haven’t noticed, my dignity left this planet along with my crew and the Ares III MAV. So why not?
“The Tree of Harmony, its branches limp, its colors dull, deposits the shards of the Elements of Harmony at your hooves.”
“How does it do that?” Mark asked. “It’s a tree, isn’t it?”
“Ssh,” Spitfire said. “Magic thing.”
The two of them looked at Starlight Glimmer, who glared at them for a moment before resuming her opening to the adventure. “The five of you gathered here, in the very shadow of Nightmare Satellite’s castle, made your way across Dark Equestria, avoiding the patrols of the Shadow Storm Troops, to arrive here. And in this holy place, the one place the Nightmare’s power has not yet touched, you have been entrusted with the mission of restoring harmony and peace to this accursed land.”
Her horn lit up, and a line drawing in light of a rampant mare wearing helmet and armor appeared above her head. “Nightmare Satellite, who returned from a thousand years of exile, destroyed the Elements and imprisoned her sister, Princess Celestia, in the same moon that once held her. Now she rules from the castle just two hundred hooves above where you stand in the gorge, ruling a land that never sees the sun with an iron hoof.
“She rules through seven mares she has brainwashed, seven exceptionally talented and dangerous ponies. Her vizier, the meticulous Dawn Rays. Her chief enforcer, Monochrome Wave. Her chief of intelligence, the unstoppable Pinkie Spy. Her chief of the secret police, Commonplace. The mighty mare-mountain Applecrack. The mistress of the creatures of the night, Fluttermoth. And, second only to Nightmare Satellite herself, the wicked sorceress Garlight Slimmer.”
This last name was too much for the others, and they all broke down laughing, even Fireball.
“Hey!” Starlight shouted. “I forgot to put in a real name, all right? That was supposed to be a placeholder.”
More laughter, with Mark interjecting, “Whatever you say, Garlight.” That set the others off again.
“So hey!” Dragonfly said. “What’s her master plan? ‘Bow to me or you’ll loose ten to fifteen pounds in a month while eating what you normally eat?’”
The laughter continued for a moment, then cut off at the sound of one of Starlight’s magic-carved crystal dice trundling atop the worktable behind the computer screen.
“What are you rolling for, Starlight?” Mark asked, no trace of amusement in his voice.
“Nothing,” Starlight said innocently.
The others looked at each other, then went silent.
“All righty,” Starlight said brightly. “Continuing. Only one hope remains to restore Equestrian freedom. The four sacred horseshoes of Celestia lie broken and scattered in the four corners of the kingdom-“
“How do we know?” Cherry Berry asked. “Who’s telling us? Isn’t it just us and the tree?”
“Rrrgh! You just know, okay? Magic mystic harmony knowledge thing!” Starlight took a deep breath. “You must retrieve the four sacred horseshoes and then bring them all to the Dragonroost to be reforged in the hottest flames of the world by the hottest dragons-“
Mark failed to suppress a snort of amusement. Struggling mightily to not make it two snorts, he covered his mouth and waved away Starlight’s furious stare.
“-reforged so that Princess Celestia may be released from her prison. Along the way you will face all of Nightmare Satellite’s minions, who must be released from the spell of the Nightmare so that the five Elements whose dust you now hold will be restored. Only then will the sixth element reveal itself, and only with all six elements can Celestia’s power be restored and the Nightmare and her evil sorceress overthrown for good.”
The five players looked at each other.
“Er,” Starlight Glimmer added, a little uncertain, “that’s it. You can interact now if you want.”
Cherry Berry pushed her computer forward. “I wanna re-roll my character,” she said. “I want a hobbit.”
“How about we steal airship, turn pirate?” Fireball asked. “Go to that city south of the Burning Sands.”
“Pirate is good,” Spitfire agreed.
“Does this city in the south have a Thieves’ Guild?” Mark asked.
“What I hear,” Fireball said, “whole city is thieves.”
Cherry Berry looked interested in this. “Do we steal the ship here, or do we go to the city and steal one there?” she asked.
Starlight Glimmer moaned and tapped her forehead against the edge of the table.
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.
......
And that was when we heard it,
The sound of rolling dice.
We wondered why we had ignored
Those words of sage advice~
I have a feeling they're going suffer the consequence of that unknown dice roll.
Hottest dragons you say...
I still think it would be fun to casually let it be known that they have an actual, physical sun goddess on hoof, so we can watch Mark and Venkat and NASA in general freak out while the ponies are totally confused because it's so normal. Plenty of seeds have been planted for that to happen. And it's been made perfectly clear that the Equestrians find "Everfree Universe" unnerving. It seems only fair to reverse the roles at some point and show the humans unnerved by what's normal and ordinary for ponies.
I'm less certain that this is the right story for it to happen in though. It might be better as part of diplomatic shenanigans and cultural misunderstandings in a sequel to Maretian.
Did they finally figure out the right word, or should this be "all sky"?Nevermind. This is what happens when we comment before reading the whole chapter in order to get a jump on other commenters.
Golden Horseshoes? Very G1.
An EXCELLENT way to make the players nervous: start rolling behind the DM screen. Even if it really is for nothing.
What are you rolling for, Starlight?”
What could possibly go wrong?
You've been cursed with the anti- Midas touch.
"Nightmare Satellite"? Surely Mark would hear this and think to himself "Wouldn't 'Nightmare Moon' sound better? That's probably what she meant, since a moon is a natural satellite." I'm happy to see that Starlight figured out "Celestia", though! Great job, Starlight! *reads author's note* Well, you're getting there, at least.
I have DM'd for a group before and I can say that the sound of rolling dice will immediately make the group straighten up and take notice. It's the most terrifying sound for a player right after "You don't notice anything unusual."
Heh. Some while back I got my hands on the Xtreme Dungeon Mastery book (mostly for kicks, and because Howard Tayler was involved, I have never DM'd) and as I recall one of the suggested things to do to keep things interesting was nonsense rolls - as the DM, you just rolled a die, and made a random scribble on your paper.
Paranoia, apparently, has nothing on the reactions of players to such an event...
I had something witty to say, but I forgot what it was.
Oh well...
When dealing with dungeon master Glimglam, they would do well to remember that she's an actual (reformed) super villain. She destroyed multiple timelines on accident. The fact that she's in charge of the game ought to make them very scared indeed.
You know, speaking tongues isn't supposed to be 'roll around spouting gibberish.' It was the ability of speaking clearly to anyone the speaker needed to talk with, no matter how different their native languages were. Japanese compared to Spanish, maybe. It's amazing how humans can change things around, isn't it?
Campaign derailed on the very first player action, nice!
9015971
"Two words—diversified portfolio."
Friendship is Dragons!
I'm sorry, I was too busy laughing at the screw-up of NMM's name to notice that Tia's name was actually properly translated for once...
9016306
Eh, you could gang somewhat scaled-up Kilopower reactors. The advantages would be:
The biggest drawback I can think of is that an assembled reactor gang could potentially mass more than a purpose-built monolithic reactor. There’s also the issue of the shadow shield; unless the modular reactors were aligned single file along the ship’s spine (keel?), you’d have to deal with multiple point radiation sources instead of a single one. The resulting shadow shield area would thus have to be larger, i.e., have more mass, with the resulting reaction mass hit. But the advantages outweigh that, to me, anyway.
9016082
She is trying to modify everyone's names. Just like the mane6 all got renamed. Its a thing newbie gms tend to do when they have based their plot/characters off of another media property.
The players almost always see through it though.... although ion this case Starlight giving herself a placeholder name made it so much more obvious even to Mark.
Also.... if Rarity ever finds out she was called Commonplace, the response would be terrifying.
9016395
I see now. Hmm, perhaps Starlight does know the correct name for Nightmare Moon in English, but deliberately changed it to "Satellite" here.
I wonder how Fireball would react to #4 or #5-ish on that standard saints list: Praying with such faith and conviction, that it causes dragons to explode.
Remember reading St. Lucia's backstory in particular, and I distinctly remember this poor, goofy tiny dragon that got blown the... well, hell up, just for crawling into her cell.
It actually disturbed me quite a bit as a kid, because here in Sweden we have a few myths of GOOD dragons, lindormar, and guess what? In their natural shapes, they're tiny, a bit ugly silver snakes or mix-matches of other animals, and among other powers & quirks, will drop everything to come to the aid of a person that is pure of heart..
Her martyrdom felt just a bit tragic in all the wrong reasons when read from that perspective, you know?
9015986
I just spent an hour finding the chapter Where This Has Already Been Discussed.
The good news about having to empty batteries to keep the other batteries full, is that now they don't need to bring 160 kg of quartz for fireball. Just feed him the old batteries.
Ponyfinder, from the source.
Not particularly inspired when coming up with original content, are you Glim Glam? Still...
-I know better than to temp the gods.
Starlight, honey. I’m comaritivly new to the DM’ing field, but I DO have some experience in world building. I offer classes!
It is a tradition as dnd players to immediately ignore the dm's campaign and try to become pirates. I have been both a player and a Dm in this situation.
Only a month to play a new campaign from the start? Theyll be lucky to make it to town in that short a time, especially if they decide to go shopping for gear first.
Woven grass or reeds? dark blue or blacked steel blade? What do you mean, 15 bits for a carrot?
Well, as they say, Ponies And Dragons Have Fun.
*sighs* Garlight, garlight.. A D&D player takes baby steps. They're not going to take on a world-spanning quest against ancient evil without 12 or so levels under their belt, or some really pressing incentive.
Even Frodo didn't start his quest without the threat of a crazy old wizard being upset with him.
All this made me think was… He is an astronaut, right? He's already been through free-fall and been flung about in a variety of other fairly extreme ways. I'm sure being levitated is an experience worthy of comment, but this seems like a bit much. And as long as he is commenting, maybe something of how it actually felt or how it compares to those other astronaut experiences might have been appropriate.
Well, to be fair, we litterally have a relatively famous saint called St. George the Dragon Slayer, so flight isn't really that far out there.
"Where are those hottest dragons because I wanna DO them!"
Couldn't you just have used Darklight, Glimglam?
Well, that compete derailment didn't take long.
9015986
I'm pretty sure this has been addressed with Mark already. The brains back in earth may have figured it out/been told that it isn't hyperbole, but have more immediate problems than figuring out how alien dimensions work.
9016523 He is an astronaut, yes, and he has trained for spacewalking, and he has experienced free-fall.
But the thing about free-fall is, there is no sensation of gravity.
When being lifted from the ground by an almost-invisible force, there definitely still is a sensation of gravity, and that's what triggered Mark's back-brain. He feels like he's going to fall.
NIGHTMARE SPUTNIK
I'm honestly surprised Fireball didn't flex or something at 'hottest dragons'. Also I keep forgetting to comment but the addition of DnD to this mix is delightful. Always happy to see that little update marker.
Of course they weren't the really important saints. And you have to bleed from somewhere awkward for to be in the martyr club.
Stoplight is best DM.
9016146
Realistically, every intent to verify the second one has turned out to be the first.
wow. reminds me of a silly story involving a changeling queen (not Chrysalis) who kept getting their names wrong... she actually called them "spectrum fast", "purple smart", etc.
9016499
well you know there was also the wraiths hunting him
but yeah Gandalf being mildly peeved at him defiantly incentive.
Garlight Slimmer... lord of toothy fishes.
Gar is kind of pike-like fish, they are very slim
9017030
That's why epic quest lines require some kind of 'railroad' at beginning, perceived time limit and buck into rear for better momentum.
Frodo, ring, wraiths and Gandalf
Vault Dweller,water chip and mutants
Blackjack , ec-1101 and Deus.
9016684
solvable by making him a lift basket?
9016395
I dunno, Rarity might find the idea quaint. Probably get an amused snort of out AJ. I bet all the bits that Spike would do his best to convert the campaign to the O&O ruleset-- so he could rp with his waifu "Commonplace"... (wink wink)
9016534
"we"? "relatively"?
Oh so they did manage to translate celestia’s name
9017030
Well, if I remember right, the start of that quest was "You hear me?! I'm a mighty wizard! You must do this task for me and take this ring to the elves!" So that's a half-senile old warlock ranting about how this magical ring, which is also the heirloom of your uncle, needs to be taken to this location. It started small, like most things, and then grew into a cumbersome chore.
The Ringwraiths didn't show up till later.
9017107
Catholicism. He's one of the more popular ones because, you know, he supposedly killed a dragon.
Ok these D&D game chapters are really making me think of "Full Frontal Nerdity" a webcomic
http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1019