Sol 342
MISSION LOG – SOL 342
Today NASA decided the new communications link via Hermes was stable enough to resume our email accounts. Our bandwidth is only about six hundred bits per second- Hermes is closer to us than Earth, but not that much closer, and it’s going to be pretty close to the sun for at least another month. So NASA is limiting us to thirty emails total- the most urgent in-house messages plus whatever they think is most interesting from the weeks we spent without email.
Four of us, of course, are glued to computers, reading and replying to messages from the outside world. But not Starlight, and not me. We both have homework, which means our emails have to sit on the computer a while longer.
Today Starlight actually rigged up four magic field projectors to run at once so she could make a new core crystal for the Sparkle Drive. She wasn’t taking any chances on it being underpowered. In order to make it, she covered both the whiteboards with notes, used up all the remaining sample labels, and even transmuted some of the really old hay into a sort of unbleached paper that smells a lot like hay, just so she had something to write on.
Then, once the enchanting was done and she’d shut everything off, she examined the crystal until she keeled over from exhaustion. (She hasn’t done that in a while, so I know she was really working hard on it. Starlight got good at making a little magic go a long way since she arrived here on Mars.) She says the enchantment matches the final designs she and Twilight Sparkle came up with. Unfortunately, that’s not the same thing as saying “we did it, it works.” We won’t know that until we test it.
And by test it, I mean “switch it on while in deep space on a trajectory to nowhere, assuming we live even that long.” We can’t do a ground test, because when you switch on the Drive, it and anything physically attached to it moves. We’d either have to go along for the ride or else wave goodbye as it achieves Warp One and departs for the Klingon Neutral Zone without us. And, as Starlight has repeatedly warned me, the spell is a little vague about the difference between “attached to,” “sitting inside,” and “standing on top of.” The odds are pretty good the Drive would take a large chunk of Mars along with it if we used it for a ground launch.
So follow along with me: our escape plan, if absolutely anything goes even marginally wrong with our launch, requires that we use a totally untested magical rock to correct the problem and get us either rendezvous with Hermes or a rapid Earth intercept. As you might expect, NASA is less than thrilled by this, which is why they’re working overtime to give us the best odds of getting a rendezvous without using the Drive.
Which brings us to Starlight’s homework. With the Sparkle Drive replaced, Twilight Sparkle is now pouring out a river over their magical water telegraph giving her details about the extra enchantment she has to make. This one is much simpler, though: adding a spell that, when triggered, tells the enchanted rock to push hard against a particular other enchanted rock. In theory, nothing much to it.
There’s a funny story about this. The spell is older than dirt, so to speak. It was invented before the pony tribes united into the modern pony nation. Seems the unicorns wanted a city in the sky to match ancient (according to the spell this is actually a name) Pegasopolis. So they made a small crystal forest, enchanted it, and used its power to lift a large chunk of continent into the air about five thousand feet. Voila, flying city… until some earth ponies came along, saw some pretty crystals, and mined the enchanted boosters away. The unicorns couldn’t get the earth ponies to leave their enchanted rocks alone, so they had to land their flying city in a hurry before it landed on its own, and that more or less ended that. There’s a lot more to the story, mostly about unicorns trying to get the earth ponies and pegasi back for their humiliation and how this helped bring on the Go Windys, but that’s where Starlight left off..
Anyway, there’s one problem with the current design for the magic punkin’ chunker, as I like to call it. There’s currently no way to turn it on remotely. We don’t have any radio-controlled switches we can use. We’ll have to figure out a way around that before Launch Day, or else someone’s staying behind.
For the record, not it.
Did I say one problem? I meant one major problem. There are also a ton of minor problems, such as getting magic power from the super-sized batteries to the chunker enchantment, regulating the power output so it doesn’t unload all its push at one shot and turn us into chunky salsa, things of that nature. And that’s kept Starlight glued to the water telegraph again, all afternoon and evening, hashing it all out with Twilight. I’m about to pull the plug for the evening; the auxiliary tank on the water reclaimer is almost full, again, which means we’ll have to start dumping excess water out the airlocks, again.
Speaking of airlocks, it’s now about three times as long since Airlock 1 blew out as between the assembly of the Hab and the blowout. Tomorrow I’m going to ask Starlight, Spitfire and Dragonfly to help with a thorough check for incipient flaws in the Hab canvas. It’s been over a month since we last did one. I don’t expect to find anything, but that’s exactly why we do the check. It’s the shit we don’t expect that kills, and we’re getting too close to getting off this rock for me to literally blow it now.
Why not tonight? Well, that’s because of my homework. Cherry Berry asked Starlight for ideas on how to keep the cave going after we leave. Starlight says she has some ideas, but she needs to know exactly what’s required to keep the farm healthy and growing once we’re gone. So she handed that off to me.
Which is why I’m spending this evening calculating oxygen and carbon dioxide cycles between aerobic bacteria and plants. I’m calculating water consumption and respiration. I’m making an educated guesstimate at heat losses for the cave based on past data (from the Cave Fart and its aftermath). I’m seeing a need to measure current insolation through the solar relay crystals so I can make an educated guess on what the rate will be during the Martian winter roughly three hundred sols from now.
But there’s one problem that no amount of magic or tinkering will solve: bees. We don’t have any.
Here’s the thing. If we can somehow create a self-maintaining environment suitable for plant life, the cherry trees will live a very long time- possibly fifty Martian years or until they outgrow the cave, whichever comes first. And the potato plants can theoretically keep sprouting new plants from buried tubers, so there will be potatoes in the cave for years, possibly decades.
The limiting factor is the alfalfa. Alfalfa plants live for about five to seven years if left to grow continually, but eventually they get old and die. Alfalfa doesn’t bud like potatoes, and cuttings require human care and tending to get started. And without animal life with animal digestive systems to fix nitrogen and provide certain amino acids, the alfalfa is the only thing that will keep the soil from playing out within a couple of years.
We’re out of seeds after the replanting we did after the Cave Fart and the sinkholes and the anaerobic bacteria plague. And in three hundred plus sols of growing hay on Mars, we’ve yet to see a single bud, let alone an actual flower, on any of the alfalfa plants. And if we did see a bud, we’d have to fertilize it by hand, if that’s even possible, because there are no bees on Mars.
Without bees, alfalfa doesn’t produce seeds. Neither do potato flowers (of which we have seen a few) or cherry blossoms (the trees are way too young). No seeds means no new alfalfa.
If NASA proceeds with Ares IV landing at Schiaparelli on schedule- which will require a really fast refit after Hermes makes it home- and if Ares V is redirected to this site for a follow-up picking through our garbage, they’ll get here about eight Earth years from now. By that time the cave farm will be plenty sick if not totally dead, for lack of soil nutrients. And I just don’t see any way around that.
Eh, maybe I’m overthinking this. Maybe Starlight can make little crystal bees out of magic. Maybe the alfalfa will spontaneously mutate to reproduce by parthenogenesis, like in Jurassic Park, only without the bloody murderous pack predators.
(Come to think of it, what would alfalfa hunt? How much tactical knowledge do you need to sneak up on loam?)
I’m getting punchy. Time to put this aside and pull out my other homework: campaign building. Starlight’s too busy to try making a new campaign for D&D, and we’ve played all the pre-gen adventure modules twice, so she asked me to work on a Discworld campaign setting.
If I do this right, they’ll never get out of Ankh-Morpork…
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9034349 According to the movie material, Commander Lewis, USN, was an officer on a nuclear sub before entering the astronaut corps. In this story I also gave her carrier pilot experience, which isn't impossible if she's deliberately requesting assignments for an astronaut fast-track career program.
My first thought was magical bees and so was Mark's.
Oh Mark, you're so optimistic about predatory plants and equestrian magic. I KNOW you know about Timber Wolves...
And ah Ahnk Morpork...the city who deals with invaders by inviting them in and letting them turn into yet another ethnic neighborhood.
Curse the lack of crystal bees...
There might be another option depending if Starlight can use a spell to enlarge an insect. You see they already have some possible candidate species with them. No amount of scrubbing baths or months in space will completely remove the vast plethora of parasites we humans carry on our bodies (and ponies with their fur even more)
As an example pretty much 100% of humans have tiny spiders living in your eyebrows. (Hope you don't have Arachnophobia) they are all too small to be good pollinators but enlarge some from microscopic to "normal" insect size and some might adapt.Info about insects on our bodies.
The thought of one of them accidentally activating the new Sparkle Drive on the surface and sending the entire planet zooming off in a random direction in space is making me grin.
Also -- and I have no way of knowing how they could even manage it -- I had a thought of them somehow converting Sojourner into something that would help maintain the Farm after they depart.
epic idea, one of the drones show up to see the cave farm and its still alive somehow
Ankh-Morpork, you say? Will there be Pork Futures and a Wandering Shop present?
One major issue future technology will be needed to solve, is how to keep pollination happening after bees.
Because if we can solve that, we can kill all the bees :)
Which is good because I hate bees, and wasps. Yet every time I propose killing them all, people keep complaining that billions of people will die without them... Its a sacrifice I'd be willing to make, but if science can help us not lose billions of people and entire ecosystems I think it be a lot easier to convince people that eradicating them is a good idea.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this next campaign will score a 0.9 on the Henderson Scale...
If and when they get the, for lack of a better term, repulsor lift system online and installed into the ship I hope someone on Mars, Earth, or Equestria has the forethought to make sure that the crystal on the ship is surrounded by reinforced mountings to the point that the force applied does not rupture the hull, or allows the crystal to punch free of the ship entirely.
Never forget the lessons learned that fateful day when they turned on the anti-grav units for the SDF-1 Macross for the first time.
For pollinators you need a 3D positional arm with a fine brush on the end. Given the camera mount can only rotate, but there are two rovers, one way, using very careful vector calculation and positioning and pulsed microstepping in the motors, is to attatch a stick to Pathfinders camera mount so it can be rotated, but this stresses it, so you attatch a stick to Sojourner, not only as a brace, but given differential positioing, gives a range of vertical motion as well as Sojourner moves closer and further from Pathfinder? Both are solar powered, the trick being to create the linkage such that the brush can be used to clean the solar panels or even handle very low stress manipulators, like saw, needle etc? Like excavators with a hook on the end of the arm for lifting end attatchments?
Given the processing power,between teh two vehicles, the Gameboy Camera, ROB, and understanding of limitation of maths and systems, it could be simulated to see how difficult to even attempt to try or not even start at all?
9042495
NO. Bad human. You do NOT solve your nature problems by getting rid of them! It's not just humans who depend on bees and wasps. Besides, with few exceptions, they won't bother you unless they feel threatened. I've sat half a meter from bees and watched them with no incidents whatsoever. Heck, I once had a tarantula hawk (giant wasp with a nasty sting) crawl up my leg, and I caught it, identified it, and released it with no damage. I have good relations with the order Hymenoptera, and so can you.
9041617 Alondro finds a full-body mirror, strips down... and 'digivolves to the Ultimate', if you get my drift.
Hooves off my emeralds?
Mark read my mind. When Starlight gets back to Equestria, she'll be the best at magic, period. Able to get amazing results with very little magic thanks to her long stay oN Mars. Considering she's already one of the strongest right now, imagine what she will be able to do when back to her full strength. She might just surpass Starswirl as greatest sorcerer.
9042532
I'm just glad that bee populations are starting to recover from Colony Collapse Disorder, things were looking bad for a while...
i.imgur.com/86P4gzs_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium
9042495
I think it would be preferable to eradicate all humans, if you're going to take the genocide route. That would save the ecosystem. Since we are pretty much parasites on this planet, taking far more from it then we are giving back.
9042510
Nah, the reason he is saying they won't leave Ankh-Morpork is not because of Rails, but because the nature of that city.
Its the heart of the Disc.
Combine New York with London, then add magic, legal (if you have a permit) crime, temples to every god good and evil, and the highest Supernatural presence outside of Überwald, AND due to the Mended Drum, literally has barbarians who raid temples resting the the city for a pint....
And their is significant question of why you need to leave. You want to raid a temple....OK. You want to catch a criminal....OK. You want to become Assassins....OK. You want to join the war with Klatch (if it starts up again)....OK.
You don't need to leave the city to do any of those.
But damn....Mark GMing a Discworld game would be really funny. Jealous of the ponies.
Oh yeah. Tangently related but what ever happened with DT's pet robot?
9042532 People say that, but if someone else antagonizes the bees, intentionally or accidentally. Say by weed whacking. And then you happen to walk by... Then the entire hive comes after you. Well at least if its yellow jackets.
Also the few relatively nice and docile species of bees are dying out... (granted that is my species fault mainly). And now the meaner more aggressive ones are taking over everywhere. Thanks to international transport the worse of the worse from around the world are all coming here.
Even the nicest most docile bee.. that is dumb enough to fly into your soda when your not looking will sting you in the tongue when you didn't notice it fly in and go to take a sip.
Samples, yay!
9042620
Well, you're not wrong—many stinging insects have a rather fuzzy definition of what constitutes a threat. Then again, one could say the same about humans. I wonder how many species, living and extinct, would want to kill off all humans as a threat to their existence?
Funny thing about the more aggressive honey bees (I assume you're referring to the Africanized bees): that's entirely our fault. Some guy crossed two bee species to make a bee that could live in the rainforest. It worked both better and worse than expected.
9042532
Uh... yes we do. Why are lions, wolves, and bears on the no hunting list? because we nearly extincted them because we could. And they used to be competition for our spot on the top of the food chain. Now that they are no longer a threat, we can safely prevent them from going extinct.
I totally agree that genociding bees is moronic. Bees have been THE driving force in evolutionary change for eons, While bees are going extinct due to human error, that is no reason to exacerbate the issue.
9042495
You're forgetting about honey, just for a start.
Bee pollination is massively important. But it's far from the only thing that bees do for humanity as a whole.
9042594
I think your opinion is wrong, but I freely admit I am terribly biased on the subject.
I'm a bit of a speciest honestly.
9042602 And more to the point, if there's a threat to the continued existence of the world, the odds are 2:1 in favor of it coming to Ankh-Morpork and/or originating there.
9042495
Bro.
I'm with you.
9042602
Oh, trust me... if there's a way for a party to derail a campaign, they'll do it. The Equestrians may not need to leave the city, but I'm willing to bet good money that they will not only find an excuse to do so, but that they will force it to happen no matter what Mark does (short of a TPK, that is).
Just ask the guy in my last campaign that managed to single-handedly derail a simple dungeon encounter by charging in blindly, setting everything on fire, and then yelling (in character, mind you) "HARD RESET, HARD RESET, HARD RESET" ad nauseam like the meta gamer that he is... got one of the best DMs I've ever had so flustered he ended the encounter early. Real shame.
Anyway, we also have to remember that Starlight might be looking for a bit of revenge after that whole Witch Doctor Song incident...
9042579
I cannot count the number of times I have watched Jurassic Park, and only now do I realize the cleverness at play in that scene.
9042445
Forced permanent resizing would not work, the bugs would promptly die. Any creature that evolved to be a given size; will die if moved to a different scale, if you don't also drastically change it's biology and metabolic rate to match it's new size. Kurzgesagt does a much better job of explaining this than i could:
9042664
Question: will this setting include a rule that if an event (success or failure) has calculated odds (easily done by calling dice rolls) sufficiently close to a million to one, the dice rolls can be substituted by rolling 1d10 and not getting a particular digit?
The pony life support system runs both water and air. Could they pull whatever filters and other obstructions there may be, then persuade a bee colony through?
I don’t recall if there was any reason given for not using it to send other stuff through. They must still be using the water telegraph and not passing notes for some reason. Has no one thought of jerry-rigging it?
9042866
Anything more complex than water or air explodes when going through the link; that's why they don't send food through (or magic items, or fuel, or anything else they need).
This sort of thing has been suggested many times.
Back in CSP, they tried various experiments - most were messy, and some dangerous.
Remember how Sweetie Belle created the sneezing flower? I think there lies the solution. When the time comes the flowers will get allergy and sneeze the pollen all around themselves.
9042882
IIRC it isn't complexity that is the problem, it's carbon bonds: the link rips those apart.
Why is the chapter in one big qhoute
9042654
You mean we can safely turn hunting them into a luxury and make money from it? :P
Their water and air teleportation disturbs carbon bonds. Just have Slimlight Glamour create an air purifier based on that. Magic should fix all things.
9042892
Ooh, good memory.
AKA, a golem.
Pollination is a simple, and entirely mechanical process. I've done it by hand. You simply brush a finger up against a stamen then brush the same finger against a flower pistil. Repeat. Any 6 year old can be taught to do it in minutes. A tiny golem instructed simply to randomly seek out particular colors and then swap between them from time to time would be sufficient.
9042882
And yet, there doesn't seem to be anything stopping them from making better use of the system than mares code. For example, if they were to simply talk into the water, presumably it would vibrate. And once teleported over those same vibrations would presumably persist, where they could be heard. Put your head in a bowl of water and tap the bowl. Can you hear the tapping? Yes, you can. Sit in a pool and lower your head under the water. Can you hear people talking by the edge of the pool? Yes you can.
Water is a suitable medium for the transmission of sound, just like air is. It shouldn't take anything more than an amplifier at most to use it to transmit voice conversation.
9042602
Don't forget Rincewind. The secret agent of Lady Luck (so secret not even he is aware of it). When players see him around, they know shit is about to happens.
9042989
Rincwind knows about the lady always helping him but makes sure not to say anything about it or draw attention to it because as we all know saying lady luck is on your side is the fastest way to lose it.
9042641
Best description I've seen of them, from cracked.com.
9042908 Because it's one of Mark's mission logs.
9043052 Also, to be honest, he hates her guts for what she puts him through... but he's too smart to say so out loud, most of the time.
9042467
A lone robot left behind, tending to a garden in space? Were you thinking of Silent Running? I was thinking of Silent Running.
Hmm. A Discworld D&D setting would need some serious work to overhaul the magic system. It's not a world where problems are best solved by chucking fireballs at them.
In any case, hopefully the new Sparkle Drive crystal accounts for more dimensions than the last one. And they figure out some way to remote-start the repulsor crystals. And all those other issues...
Oh, and lovely tidbit with ancient unicorn Laputa.
9043129
I can't help but feel that THE SPELL had a hand in influencing a lot of the times she helped him. That thing rewrote reality to get him out a deadly jam more than once so I have no problem thinking it could make the diskworld gods do things they thought they were doing themselves.
9043227 The Eighth Spell was out of Rincewind's head by the end of the second book. Rincewind had a lot of misadventures after that.
Ahhhh, Punkin’ Chunkin’.