AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 360
ARES III SOL 354
“Oh, yes, these books are home.”
Spitfire’s smile grew and grew as Starlight Glimmer’s turn at reading Men at Arms got to the part where Sam Vimes, commoner bordering on commonest, was forced to attend a party of the city’s wealthy aristocracy as part of the build-up to his marriage into their ranks.
Cherry Berry, on the other hoof, found herself squirming on her haunches.
She’d spent years in close proximity to a queen who, on her good days, showed brief and fleeting glimpses of something that might, in a good light, resemble a decent pony, but who on her bad days was only restrained from being worse than Tirek by her own paranoia. She was on greeting terms with three princesses and a reasonably close acquaintance (and sometime rival) of a fourth, and knew all their major foibles and failings. But despite it all, Cherry Berry had always had the faith of most ponies that Celestia and her ministers and nobles were wise and benevolent ponies who always sought the best for all Equestria.
So several pages of nobles being ignoble shook one of her fundamental views of the world to the core, even if they were fictional, even if they were on a world that rode on a turtle instead of her own. “Spitfire, I just can’t see it,” she said.
“You never went to Celestia’s ball before Twilight and friends did, no?”
“Excuse me,” Starlight muttered, “might I continue, please?”
“No, I didn’t,” Cherry Berry said. “I only went once, after the moon landing.”
“I saw before Twilight broke the ball,” Spitfire said. “Shake hooves with Prince Blueblood, pretend not see where he looks. Shake hooves with dukes and counts and rich ponies and don’t see them turn up noses at working ponies. All so rich. All so… so good parents, good blood. And only a couple not greedy, petty dummies.”
“I don’t see it that way. The capital ponies I meet are just ponies, rich or not.”
“There reason why changelings fly all joy-ride flights.”
“Excuse me!” Starlight Glimmer said. “Do you want to end Story Time early today? No? Then stop interrupting! We can discuss this all at the end like we usually do!”
Spitfire took her usual short turn, and then Cherry Berry read the section about Vimes and Carrot in a murdered dwarf’s workshop.
About midway through, Dragonfly spoke up. “You know, I kind of understand that. It always feels weird using a tool that belongs to somebody else.”
“Oh really?” Mark asked. “Was that why you were so eager to mess with my tools the first couple hundred sols?”
“That’s different!” Dragonfly protested. “I thought they might be all neato keen alien tools, with mysterious alien properties and functions.” She snorted and added, “And all I got was your electric screwdriver and the sample probe. We have power drills back home.”
“Well, forgive my species for not having improved on the hammer!” Mark said. “And I’m sorry that hydrospanners were too much trouble for NASA to ship up here! Speaking of, where’s my half-inch ratchet wrench?”
“I told you,” Dragonfly said, “it’s in the tool box in Rover 2, because the only things that take your half-inch sockets are on the rover.”
“I looked there.”
“Excuse me,” Cherry Berry protested. “Maybe you two could do this not during Story Time?”
“Sorry.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you. Continuing-“
“But it’s just as weird having someone else using your tools as it is to use someone else’s tools.”
“Even weirder. It’s like your hoof is on some other bug’s leg, and you want to-“
“I said later!”
Silence, in stereo.
“Continuing. Rubbing his head with one hand…”
It was Mark’s turn again when the book got to the visit of Detritus the troll and Cuddy the dwarf to the Alchemist’s Guild, complete with exploding billiard balls.
“Now this,” Fireball said with feeling, “feels like home. Feels like the job.”
“I can’t count the times I’ve walked into Twilight Sparkle’s lab and had to duck the instant I opened the door,” Starlight Glimmer said.
“It’s like they took the changelings who work in vehicle assembly,” Cherry Berry said, “and gave them chemistry sets and a budget.”
“Except without the old griffon to keep them in line,” Dragonfly said. “Do you think he’s enjoying his retirement?”
“With as much as we paid him, he ought to be,” Cherry Berry replied.
“Come to think of it,” Starlight added, “these people remind me a bit of Sunburst, too. And Minuette, come to think of it. And, well, every experimental potion brewer I ever met.”
“Leonard of Quirm,” Spitfire struggled to pronounce the name. “Think he minotaur?”
“The way they talk about him, sounds like he’d fit in with our bulls,” Cherry Berry agreed.
The conversation paused for a moment, and Dragonfly took the opportunity to ask Mark, “Aren’t you going to ask us to shut up, too?”
“Why?” Mark asked. “For me this is much more interesting. For one thing, if your space programs are run like the Ankh-Morpork Alchemists’ Guild, it would explain so much about how you got here.”
“Hey, that’s a bit mean,” Dragonfly said. “Accurate, but mean.”
“It not just space program,” Fireball said. “All pony science and magic like that.”
“All of it?” Mark looked at his visitors. “How do you still have a planet?”
“Immortal princesses,” Starlight Glimmer said. “It really works, I’m telling you.”
MISSION LOG – SOL 354
Finished the second bracket for supporting the rover saddlebags. We need eight in total for the load we’re going to put in them. The jumbo batteries will ride in loops outside the brackets, so most of their weight will be borne by the brackets. The cold-resistant food and other stuff will ride in pouches between the brackets and the rover body. Based on our best estimates, the roof will bear about a ton of weight, or about double its rating on Earth. In Mars gravity, it’s less of an issue, so long as we don’t slam down off a cliff or something.
It’s good to be working with my hands. Dragonfly and Fireball are assisting me on this, and I think they’re glad of the work, too. Working with the plants ceased to be interesting for anyone except Cherry ages ago, and we’ve cut back D&D sessions to once per week to keep us from getting tired of it too quickly. The Whinnybago is almost done except for testing, which we can’t do until we’re done with the cave farm. We’re almost out of the solvents and reagents for the chem lab, so geology science experiments are pretty much over. Boredom is beginning to be a serious problem, so any busy-work seems like a treat now.
Take Starlight Glimmer. She’s waiting until Sol 360 to do the repulsor enchantment, because she wants to use the batteries she’s reserved for making more batteries to do that job. We won’t be able to take many more batteries with us than we already have due to weight and space issues, so using them to make the things that will throw the MAV hard enough for us to meet Hermes makes sense. But in the meantime she’s got down time, so she’s thrown herself into the Save the Cave project.
Today she made a bunch of new sunlight relay crystals in the deeper parts of the cave. The idea is that the sunlight channeled through also contains heat, so the more light the inside of the cave gets, the less dependent we are on running water.
Which brings up a question that, in retrospect, is so obvious I’m surprised you, historians of the future, haven’t shouted it loudly enough for me to hear it here in the past: “Why didn’t you think of this before? Starlight made all the other crystals with almost zero magic, so what took so long?” And the answer is, we didn’t think of it, what with making batteries, sealing the cave, getting rid of methane, reviving Sleeping Ugly, and Starlight falling over and nearly dying half the time she casts spells. You know, petty unimportant little distractions like that. But we still should have thought of it, especially when we saw how efficient the original lighting crystals turned out to be.
We’ll have to monitor the temperature inside the cave closely over the next couple of weeks. The ultimate goal, of course, is to shut off the water heating system altogether. We’re nowhere near that point.
Of course, heat is just one of the many problems. But Starlight is exploring another avenue: the rainbow crystals. After all, we know two things about that random enchantment- it stores magic energy, and other enchantments can be added on top of it. That means, in theory, the rainbow crystals could be used to power other things, like for example a way of circulating water more reliable than condensation dripping off the cave ceiling. (Which it doesn’t do, by the way; the cave roof is high, but not high enough for the temperature to be that different. Also, the life support box’s air circulation keeps the humidity down quite a bit.)
About the only person who doesn’t have something to occupy her time is Spitfire. She tends to hang around Starlight like a vulture, waiting for our adorable little four-legged power tool to blow a fuse again. She doesn’t complain, but it can’t be rewarding.
I wish I could think of something she could do to be useful. Maybe I could reactivate the MDV improvised flight sim. We disconnected its power after we stole a third of the Hab’s electrical storage to install in the Whinnybago, but we might be able to spare the juice for some flight sim runs.
(Speaking of, it would be nice if NASA settled on the MAV modifications so they could send us an updated flight sim program before we leave here for Schiaparelli. Cherry Berry got very good at flying a stock MAV in the sims, but we’re going to be riding to rescue or doom in the kludge from hell. It’s not the same thing.)
Ah, well. The others have pulled out the computers for a network hearts tournament. Guess I’ll join them. It beats watching more CHiPs. (And yeah, I know Ponch is meant to be a lousy cop with a heart of gold, but he’s the only one in that department who doesn’t have a giant redwood up his ass… )
I feel like describing Terry Pratchett books is some sort of literary cheat, because they're so good that even reading about people talking about them is fun.
9052819 I try not to do the book-talk bits unless there's something in the work that causes the Maretians to reveal something about themselves or their homes to the others. So far, to be honest, Pratchett isn't as good for that as the Tolkien was.
Filler that is entertaining and shows how the crew is avoiding cabin fever and avoiding murdering each other is not wasteful. It is world building, which is always fun.
But it is very good, and keep up the good work. And hopefully things go well for you, and you don't run into any more boars. :D
While the filler is entertaining, it does feel like it's getting into a bit of a rut. A lot of the last few chapters could have be boiled down to one or two moments per a sol and told as a montage. I'm still enjoying it over all, just feels like you should start doing larger time skips.
Cave farm to be a way of saying "fuck you mars deal with it"
Heh, as someone known for slicing life down to 12000 words per day of in-world time, I fully appreciate a little relaxation and exploring each other's personalities.
A nice, long, somewhat funny chapter, even if it's filler.
9052837 I'm working on it. Part of the problem, of course, is coming up with something for the day's post when I have no buffer and a lot of work.
"...my half-inch ratchet wrench?”
Ah, Problem #1 found. Ship is not metric.
"...as we don’t slam down off a cliff or something. "
Shut up! Shut up!! Mars will hear you!
9052851 The bolts are metric, but the ratchet head isn't. (I used that line thinking of my socket wrench sets, which have a ton of metric sockets, but the ratchet heads are either 1/4" or 1/2".)
9052851
12.7mm. When a significant chunk of the country uses the nut size in common mechanical apparatii, changing all of your wrenches out for sets made to whole millimeters isn't practical.
Believe me, I agree wholeheartedly that Imperial = Satan and Metric is holy, but most of the times I need a wrench at work, it's to tighten a half-inch nut.
If you discovered a fantastic means of power generation, far beyond anything we have today, would you kludge together a proprietary network to go to every home, or would you hook it up to the existing A/C grid?
And then you can publish all the fill chapters you cut out as a separate book.
Title: The Sil-mare-illion
"All pony science and magic like that."
Words to bring so much joy to NASA's heart, I'm sure, given how much the Mars escape plan relies on untested and brand-new pony magical technology partially build from scrap metal.
(I also wonder if NASA sent The Last Hero, though unfortunately all those color illustrations could be trouble to send to Mars as well as Genua.)
"into the Save the Hab project"
Really? That's what they went with? When "Save the Cave" not only rhymes but is more accurate?
"And if I edit this down to a proper book, I might end up doing the same."
You've got some good stuff in this "filler", though! Maybe all of it might not be worth keeping, but I don't think all of it's bad enough to throw away, either.
9052868
...And what could possibly go wrong with a Mars mission using a mix of metric and American units?
(Not implausible, really, especially given some much more serious issues with some items of mission equipment already mentioned, but... yeah.)
9052872
There's a reason why automobiles and trucks are no wider than they are with the exception of certain special use cases. Compare that width to the that of two horses harnessed side-by-side to pull a cart. Then think how far back that goes, and just how much has been designed and constructed working around that single metric.
9052847
9052837 Remember that prediction I made a while back about two of the characters sleeping together on Sol 400? Now that boredom is becoming a real problem you could start dropping hints along those lines. Even just having two characters being all romantically awkward without doing anything beyond that would add a whole storm of conflict to work your magic on and make this stretch stop being filler.
Another reason to take this road is that The Martian, by its nature, can't. It feels like part of the whole point of this story, beyond the cultural interactions, is exploring what it's like for many people to be stranded on Mars as opposed to one. Romance/sexual tension is not a solo undertaking, and it almost feels like a missed opportunity to not bring it up given that the source material can never explore it. You've also already brought the subject to attention during the trip to retrieve the Death Box, so it's not like it's coming out of nowhere.
Finally, if they get sufficiently bored they might decide to make a still and ferment some Vodka, i.e. Bad Decision Catalysttm.
Save the Cave, surely?
Note: keep Berry from human History books. And newspapers.
Nah, Tirek was a butcher, Chryssie is an artist.
... Has Cherry even SEEN Canterlot nobles?
Sure that's not gonna happen, right, guys?
9052980
First: Yeast. No yeast means no vodka, no matter how good of a chemist you are.
Also thought of it, but Kris clearely says no vodka.
Second: Xenophilia on Mars? With a bug thag makes Riddley Scott salivate? Seems fitting.
On the other hand, I believe that Mark and DF developed sorta forced bromance rather than anything more intimate, and I simply cannot see anyone else dwell into that territory except rover accident which no one wants to bring up, but you do you, pal.
I think mark is still not convinced. But I'm starting to warm up to the idea that that might work.
First-hoof experience?
You're making the fluff super enjoyable.
9053067
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep34670
Make chemistry great again!
The great thing about Discworld, is that it gives you another viewpoint on reality that gives you more ways to solve problems, several of which you never realised you actually had.
Also, for communications, such as streaming, 5 thousand bits per second, a tenth V92 dialup, gives you over a Gigabyte per month, which is why you get all those free minutes and texts on your smartphone. Compared to your net requirments, texts dont even use up the slot left in the engineering channel for them, and the free minites are the actual cost or split half and half or so with net.
After every work on the Rover, the next day someone else goes out to check, and the week later someone else goes to check. Different viewpoints, different times.
If only Cherry is in the Cave Farm, does that mean the biomass of the crops exceeds the ponies that their absence hasnt reduced the magic much?
*snickers*
Well.. with so much filler, things tend to get boring... But would not that also be the case for the people on earth?
What's happening on that "watney and friends" show? Are they as bored and content-lacking as the crew is right now?
Or have those media geniuses found some fun twist to it?
I am very happy that saving the cave is now something they’re seriously working towards
There's filler, and then there's slice of life character interactions. Too many stories today lose so much of the latter while trying to clean up the former. More story is a good thing.
As I've said before, I like filler.
I mean, if you're running out of filler things to put on Mars, you can always stagger it by writing filler for the things happening on Earth: various social media issues stemming from the publicly released logs, congressional meetings about the cost of the rescue project, Elon Musk Jr. coming up with some crazy shit that he says will save everyone, but nobody believes. Did you write about the Cubs having a Mark Watney night, or did I read that in another fic?
Or, you can do the other side and make Equestria filler, with things happening outside the ESA; a Wonderbolts benefit to help fund the efforts on behalf of Spitfire, more Flurry shenanigans, etc.
Given Starlight's insistence Earth needs immortal princesses, I must ask: how does she expect us to get them?
Also, Men of Arms was amazing. Loved Discworld.
9050111
Donald Trump isn't that unpopular despite what the twitter hate mobs would have you believe. In fact his approval rating has actually improved since he was sworn into office.
Not long till the Ball Drop, I wonder will NASA be able to rig up a way to stream that little event to Mark?
This is horrifying and explains so very, very much.
And yeah, the ideal of people in charge so rarely matches the reality. Thank goodness for those immortal princesses.
As for the mother of all kludges... Well, I have the distinct feeling that Mars will effectively say "Hold my beer" in a few hundred sols.
XD
Because Kris is too busy for keeping one chapter per day , and can not think that.
But I’m enjoying the filler
9053145
No shit, man, I need to start selling this!
Gonna put it into those Clorox-shaped white bottles and call it Brain Bleach.
I thought it was established that the batteries if left out in the mars atmosphere lost charge at a slow rate and therefore all batteries were to be carried inside the crew compartment of this little RV.
Andy Weir only had one character, one species, and one space program to play with, you have a lot more so taking these filler chapters as you think of them to flesh out the characters and work on developing a team dynamic and exploring there differences is a lot more interesting than the 150 sols of just surviving Mark would have done on his own. Hence I think your choice not to jump to many days is the right one.
I've been enjoying the filler so far, but I do think that it's beginning to slightly wear on me. I'm not sure I could tell you a quarter of what happened over the last week without rereading it. While there are some good moments interspersed that I wouldn't want to get rid of, I feel like they're starting to get spaced out a bit.
Maybe some more stuff on Earth or Equus would help, but there's probably only so much you can do with that as well.
Speaking of which, Sunset does have one of the Angel probes, right? Has anything come of that?
Hi there Chekhov, nice looking gun you have there.
9053277
Starlight Glimmer princess of Mars is going to emigrate to Earth of course.
9053402
Everyone else on the planet hates Trump. Most of the decisions he makes are just wrong,
9054055 The regular batteries, yes. The jumbos are five feet long, and there are fifteen of them, and they weigh over four tons total. Putting them in Amicitas, along with the smaller batteries they're taking with them, would weigh down an already badly overloaded chassis, and putting them inside the rover would leave the question of where Mark is going to sit while he drives.
9053402 9054535 Enough, please.
9053158
A SMS message can be up to 140 bytes, or 1120 bits, excluding overhead for routing data, and the limit for a MMS picture message is 300 Kilobytes. Your average smartphone camera likely saves a jpg image of a few Megabytes, which is why you always should ask that the picture you want to print be sent in an email or file hosting service.
Comparing those values puts into perspective how useful a skill verbal and textual description and communication can be, particularly when your medium is so limited as an inter-planetary P2P network.
The messages are a tiny, tiny pittance of your phone plan, and were so even at their conception in the 2G days.
Rant time!
Any cellular plan that offers anything other than fully unlimited calling and texting is equivalent to the sales clerk charging you a solid gold coin, at modern value of gold, for a slice of bread--a slice, not a loaf--and telling you that you should be grateful for it.
All the data plans are artificial scarcity. The networks are more than capable of sustaining modest throughput continuously to most devices so long as those devices have a consistent connection and maintain decent channel assignments.
The same goes for DOCSIS cable internet service. Case in point, in my area, the fastest service available prior to Time Warner Cable's change to Spectrum was 50Mbps down, 5 up. After the name change (and that's all it was, because their advertising and billing practices are still disingenuous), and after the repeal of Net Neutrality recently, they quietly bumped their sole internet plan up to 100Mbps, as though subliminally letting people know that the repeal was a good thing for them.
Thieving cretins.
9052943
I would point out the "explanation" via chariot ruts which commonly goes around the Internet has been solidly debunked as little more than an urban legend. Both railway gauges and road sizes vary all over the place, with no relation to horse-butts. Here in the United States, the maximum width of a road-going truck has been set by the Code of Federal Regulations of 1956 as 96 inches, which was specifically set to match the width of a standard intermodal shipping container. The 96 inch width of those dates to the Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company's invention of "Sea-Land" civilian shipping containers in 1955, based on military-invented CONEX containers but smaller to better suit the capacity limits of existing road trucks.
Ooh. The story about the Gonne. Right! That one's a doozy and a half
Hah.
I think they'll be disappointed
Not much to add to that
Yes! Valid point in favour of princesses! Take that, Mark!
Very good point
Your contribution to my insight into Pratchett's sources of inspiration is greatly appreciated!