Sol 470
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 479
ARES III SOL 470
Dragonfly stepped in through Amicitas’s sole remaining airlock, carrying on her back the mana battery that had just been used to top off the jumbo batteries hanging from Rover 2. It had been a long morning’s drive, but not as long as any of the days before, at least not since entering Mawrth Vallis. She barely even noticed Starlight Glimmer walking into the ship beside her.
Dragonfly was more than ready for the lunch hug and the eight minutes of magic time. (The meager recharge the batteries in the ship got from the crew hadn’t quite kept up with both maintaining the charge in the big batteries outside and providing ten minutes of environmental magic, so Starlight had trimmed the daily dose down.) She’d put in a hard morning’s work, and she was hungry…
… but more than hungry, she was worried.
Thus far, Dragonfly hadn’t felt any more hungry than, say she’d felt on an average afternoon in the Bad Old Days. That applied to magic hunger as well as hunger for love. But after a day galloping behind Cherry Berry and Spitfire, she felt more or less like she did when she fell out of the cocoon in the cave. She’d been an all-day flyer before this little trip. Now three to four hours of running and occasional rock-kicking (a lot less of the latter than Spitfire, and massively less than the boss pony) laid her out like a six-hoof-wide flyswatter.
And Spitfire was worried about not getting her edge back when they got home? Ha! Dragonfly felt ready for a desk job, if not a wheelchair, once they got back. No comparison.
And the worst part of it all-
“Come here, Dragonfly. You look terrible.”
-was that she didn’t have the energy to even attempt to hide how weak she felt.
“Here you go,” Mark said, finding a seat on one of the ex-ship’s flight couches and picking up the changeling to put in his lap. “Before-lunch snack, okay?”
Unfortunately love wasn’t the main emotion Mark was putting out at the moment. “Can I just say one thing?” Dragonfly said. “Yes, I’m still sick. I won’t get better until I get home. But I will get better. Once I get back to the pony world, everything will be just fine. So will you please quit throwing all that worry at me?”
“Sorry,” Mark muttered. “I can’t exactly turn it off. To be honest, you look like shit.”
“Way to make a bug feel beautiful, Mark.”
“Well, you do,” Starlight agreed. “Not as bad as when you came out of the cocoon, but…”
“You look like after fight with rock slide, second place,” Spitfire half-stammered.
“Oh really?” Dragonfly didn’t know which annoyed her more, the low level of concern coming from the pegasus or the low level of English, despite how many months of speaking it? “So you mean, about twice as good as the Canterlot guards when we got through with them?” she snapped back.
To her surprise, Spitfire didn’t rise to the bait like she usually did. “Maybe,” she said. “I wasn’t there. But really bad.”
“Maybe you can rest for a few days,” Cherry said. “Did you notice the valley walls today?”
“Yeah. One of ‘em was gone, pretty much. The other got tall again, though.”
“That’s not a valley wall,” Mark said. “That’s a crater rim. We’re out of Mawrth Vallis.” He frowned, giving her a little squeeze on his lap as he added, “That means we just ran out of easy navigation again. We’ll have to rely on sun sightings, Phobos, and reports from Hermes to verify our position from now on.”
“Does the crater have a name?” Cherry asked. “The mountain ridge around it seems a lot taller than anything in Acidalia.”
“Trouvelot,” Mark said. “Tomorrow we drive between it and another one called Rutherford. Ideally, we’d keep going east-southeast for several sols afterwards until we reached Marth Crater- um, spelled differently from Mawrth Vallis.” He pronounced the two the same. “Then we’d swing around the south side of Marth to bypass a bunch of smaller craters. That’d put us into Terra Meridiani, which is a lot smoother than Arabia Terra, and that would take us most of the way to Schiaparelli.”
“You said ‘ideally’,” Dragonfly said. “I think that means ‘if all goes well.’ Right?”
“Yes,” Mark sighed, “and it’s not going to go well. I think we’re going to turn southwards and go around Trouvelot’s rim tomorrow. Have you noticed that Johanssen hasn’t mentioned the dust storm in days?”
“Maybe it’s gone,” Cherry suggested.
“Nope,” Mark said. “I’m betting they didn’t want to talk about it until we were out of the valley. No distractions.”
“We didn’t ask, did we?” Fireball pointed out. He returned to the pilot’s seat he’d occupied for three hours that morning, switched on the radio, and said, “Hermes, Friendship. Fireball here. What about the dust storm? Respond. Over.”
“And now we’re tied down here for sixteen minutes waiting for the answer,” Starlight grumbled. “Whoopee.”
“So we eat while we wait.” Fireball shrugged. “Big deal.”
“What’s on the menu?” Cherry asked. “Besides hay and potatoes, I mean.”
“Quartz,” Fireball growled.
“And roast beef with reconstituted mashed potatoes,” Mark sighed, “broccoli and cauliflower Florentine, and apple crumble.”
“And hugs, I hope!” Dragonfly pointed out. Honestly, sometimes you had to remind people…
“I dunno, Dragonfly,” Mark said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have the beef? The gravy is really tangy. You don’t get that with hugs.”
“Says you.”
It was stupid pony-type gabble, but it did one good thing- it got rid of the worry and pity. Her lunch wouldn’t be spoiled.
Everyone else’s lunch, on the other hoof, did get spoiled, since Hermes’s response came in about midway through it. “Friendship, Hermes.” Instead of Johanssen’s voice, they heard Commander Lewis talking. “We’re still working out the details, but we want you to turn due south after tomorrow’s driving. We’d like you to turn south now, but there are several large ravines that would block your path if you tried to hug the edge of Trouvalot.
“The dust storm is intensifying. The combination of growth and movement has it coming towards you at about four kilometers per hour. Its main direction of movement is a little north of true west. At this point if you tried to backtrack to the Hab, the storm would catch you long before you could get back. NASA figures your best hope is to move due south and hopefully get beyond its southern edge.
“Unfortunately we figure you’re going to get caught by the edges at least. That means a reduction in solar cell efficiency. After tomorrow we need you to return to your original driving schedule to maximize battery recharge. I don’t need to explain to you why that’s important.
“Good luck, everyone. We’ll be watching… and listening. Hermes out.”
Mark looked at his meal pack. “I’m not looking forward to cold food,” he said. “But once we’re in the storm, we can’t afford the microwave.”
Dragonfly, who’d had to leave the human’s lap during lunch, leaned against him. At least her meals, no matter how they tasted, never came cold.
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“That means we just rain out of easy navigation again..." - Think you meant ran, instead of rain.
Another enjoyable chapter, and can't wait to see Mar's next (and maybe last?) attempt at being a serial killer?
Sooner or later, that storm's going to find a voice. And then poor Dragonfly won't know a moment's peace. This is going to somehow end up in the Martian astral realm isn't it? With either Dragonfly or the whole crew brawling with a saturnine avatar of Mars to subdue that storm. Imagine the sheer joy when they realize that they have an opportunity to punch Mars in its own personal face.
9139123
Probably won't happen, but it's still an awesome image.
9139129
Oh, it is absolutely not happening, except perhaps in some trippy omake. I suspect that the concept is well outside the realms that the author wishes to explore in this story.
I thought the issue with the Comet was the riveting process creating microfractures. Square windows may have been an exacerbating factor, but the riveting is what I understand was the underlying cause.
Arches are typically not circles -- the most structurally sound arches are catenaries or parabolas.
9139119
At this point would Mark rather be a cereal killer, especially if milk (reconstituted) were involved?
9139123 Well, denied that opportunity, they can at least take comfort in knowing what they're doing to Mars's actual real non-ghostly face every time they flush the Amicitas toilet...
9139161
But to get the full enjoyment they'd need to be aware of the existence of an actual intelligence to spite. Dragonfly still thinks she's hallucinating.
I would hug a bug
The only reason the LEM hatch was square was so they could get out with the suits and PLSS on, a round hatch was just a bit to small for it it the space they had.
9139145 If you believe a certain fanfic, Johanssen is the cereal killer.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/6702124/chapters/24477453
9139161
Speaking of Opportunity, if they keep going south, and then hang a hard left to Schiaparelli, they'll hit it.
9139178 And the LM was never meant to experience atmospheric stresses. On the way up it's protected by the Saturn V third stage. On the way down (on the three occasions when it came down at all) it breaks up.
9139208
It is a truly awesome machine in every respect. There's a great book on how they built it by Thomas Kelly, and he's willing to even talk about the things they screwed up during the project.
And then there are triangles, which are a balance between the distributive properties of arches and the geometric simplicity of squares
A picture of the route they're taking, for those who haven't seen it yet:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/The_route_of_%27The_Martian%27_-_from_Chryse_Planitia_over_Arabia_Terra_in_the_Martian_highlands_to_Ares_4.jpg
Direct link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/The_route_of_%27The_Martian%27_-_from_Chryse_Planitia_over_Arabia_Terra_in_the_Martian_highlands_to_Ares_4.jpg
That author's note seems oddly specific. Is it aimed at what I think it is?
9138247
Ooh, a good thought.
I HAVE BEEN ENLIGHTENED!
I feel like one thing that needs to be thought about is not that Dragonfly's weak just because of magic being so low, but because she's being poisoned by Mars' absolutely malevolent emotional feed. She can't even begin to build back up right now because any extra magical power she gets, is whittled away at having to fight off constant low level empathic poisoning.
Also, I wonder what Chrysalis is thinking about concerning humans. Especially with reports coming to her, and her own limited actions concerning Mark. The guy found out changelings feed on love (and magic), got drained to within' an inch of his emotional life, and doesn't bat an eye.
Definitely a welcome change from all the fiction that force-feeds (pun not intended) us hooey about Predators == Evil, Prey == Good. Doesn't matter what you eat, you are ALL equally killable to Mars.
I don’t know why, but I got the song want you gone From portal stuck in my head and thinking of mars. But the really weird combo but it’s hilarious
9139356
Well humans are predators so...
9139176
I want a bug to hug. I'm supprised the show hasn't used that 'friend that needs your love to stay alive' plot point more. Very Tinker Bell.
For some reason I though that pony ship is made of mild steel with relatively little concern for weight, both things significantly reducing chances of Mr. fatigue suddenly going Pinkie Pie on them.
Arches make sure that everything is under compression stress, which is good thing since ancient construction materials are very good at handling compression, but not good at all at handling tension (especially something made of a lot of small rocks). Corners won't fail if they're not under tension.
Still kinda sad Dragonfly isn't getting the good stuff.
9139400
There's still a major undertone in fiction that when you anthropomorphize animals, predators end up being evil while prey is the good guy.
This carried a bit into MLP and a lot of MLP fiction. Especially with Griffons and Changelings. "It eats meat! WE'RE MEAT! It must be evil!"
Changelings, because they eat love, seem to be cast as soul-sucking monsters, and a lot of fics focus on that predator-prey racism aspect. I like that said fics usually try to reconcile that aspect. But I'd also like to come across more works where 'Oh, it's a soul eating monster. That's okay as long as it has sense to eat in moderation.'
Imagine if all predators could just 'bite off an arm' and the prey grows it back like Deadpool. That's kind of what the love-eating a changelings does can do. So long as they don't empty the well, it fills back up. Having an INITIAL reaction figure that out before drama even comes up is all kinds of cool.
Half way and wearing down before the storm hits to keep them inside while crawling on fixed panels? Even though the concentrators are quartz, so is the dust storm, with high heamatite particulate content and depending on wind speed, harmonics, wirlygigs, even pebbles?
Thats a big distance between Rutherford and Meowth, you could miss the UK in there.
In fact, how bad does the storm have to get before they have to stop completely and bury the winebago in rocks to stop it getting blown over? The Rovers cant turn relative enough to be used as a crank brace, or if the Towing Rover is still demountable, use it as a T Brace?
At least I thought it was one Rover bolted to the Winneybago, and the other having to pull towing and LEM Escape Module duties?
Spike? We seem to have run out of freshly harvested lizert tails for the Griffin delegates. Can you come here a moment?
I agree Kriss, on the whole window thing, I saw Concorde at the Intrepid Air and Space Museum when I visited New York earlier in the month. Those windows are tiny, maybe a little bigger than a iPhone 5S.
it looks as if things are going down hill.
Dragonfly is getting sicker or should i say starving slowly witch will put the team down a pony.
this needs fixed some how. it is time for a miracle.
"Wait, the yaks made it here?"
"Not surprising. This place is only slightly less habitable than Yakyakistan."
In any case, the next few sols are going to suck. Hopefully there won't be too much damage to the solar panels, the saddlebags, the collector crystals...
Again, this is gonna suck.
9139490
The reason I have for changelings being antagonistic doesn’t actually have much to do with their feeding causing harm. You can live at peace with changelings just fine. Technically.
I just have it so they need to eat Eros or Storge directed at them (or who someone thinks they are). And actual romantic love, lust doesn’t cut it. Maintaining loving relationships is hard enough without a fight meaning you miss meals and breaking up threatening starvation unless you get help from the rest of the hive. It’s hard for a relationship when you literally need someone to live to not be poisoned by resentment. Especially when ultimately they don’t need you the same way.
And so they use their shapeshifting to steal love, because it’s just so much easier and means they don’t have to rely on others.
This whole exchange was lovely
One now imagines Dragonfly getting her prom night makeover, turning this way and that in front of the mirror to admire herself in her dress, thinking of how beautiful she feels.
The line about Spitfire's language skills was great too!
9139490 I'd like to think we've all been in this comment section long enough for this to not just appear as horrible self-promotion, but I did write a story addressing that exact subject a while ago, and I think I got some of the issues pretty well-addressed?
9139713
oh, you reminded me of one of my other favorites, "shifting melodies". in that story, there were different hives of changelings, with different colors, who could feed off different emotions. Red and Yellow liked Courage and Loyalty (i forget which was which), Violet changelings liked Lust, and Pink changelings liked Happiness.
and yes, the Pinks were as weird as Pinkie Pie!
The next-strongest basic shape is an equilateral triangle. Hexagons are also very strong.
So this story has seeped into my brain. I dreamed last night that Dragonfly was giving a speech to the UN on World Peace. A pretty good one too. The main thrust of it was that in a cruel and uncaring universe it is tempting to cut yourself off, be selfish, and only look out for your own interest. But if anyone knows better, it's someone like her. In a world this harsh, the only sane response is to come together to face the dangers of the universe rather than try to struggle through alone.
Meanwhile in other meetings Twilight Sparkle was negotiating making Mars a world that was governed multinationally, to allow it to be terraformed without conflicting territories or competition for control.
9139832
That sounds pretty amazing, I'll have to look into that. Was Pinkie secretly one of the Pinks? It would explain alot.
9139490
Honestly, the tv show missed a really big opportunity to do something cool with how it handled the changelings. Rather than playing on their need to eat love as the way to resolve the conflict (IE: Ponies put out lots of love. If we befriend the changelings, they'll never be at risk of starving anyway.) the writers basically said 'Welp. We've got cute-scary bug-ponies that feed on love. The only way to make them work is if we make them more like the ponies.' Which really sends all kinds of negative messages about accepting others and finding ways to work around difficult problems.
They had a chance to do something interesting and original and instead they went cliched and xenophobic.
Not always true. Bulkhead hatches, airlocks, and such are circular or rounded.
But there are plenty of rectangular non-pressure retaining doors on ships even today.
I know, it's a quibble. But it's still a valid point.
To that episode with Starlight terramorphing dream.
9139986
Triangle for external pressure.
Circle for internal.
9140011 It's a mis-targeted quibble. I specifically said "airlock doors, pressure seals, and windows." Not interior non-pressure doors.
9139971
And that's clearly spoken by someone who can take for granted grass, or some other food, will just be there whenever they want.
Not to mention that moving in herds, which is a prey thing, requires social intelligence.
9140178
Eh. In the USA, a philosopher is just a windbag with a college degree who spends a lot of hot air on the meaning of life. So most Americans wouldn't get the idea of a "Philosopher's Stone" being something magical and transformative unless it was explained bluntly with short words. Now, you say "sorcerer" to us, and we go "oooh! Must be maaaaagical!"
We (the common Joe Six-pack) here in the USA aren't much for the classical educations these days. Teaching Latin and Greek in high school was once common. Now you're laughed at for even suggesting doing it.
9140047
Well, as long as the corners are round, square hatches are fine, even on external pressure doors. NASA's CBM is squarish, as are airplane doors, and the backpack-entry seals on russian space suits. You need to use more mass to make it work, but you've said that ponies tend to make things a lot heavier than NASA does.
As to Star Trek doors they would work fine if you assume they're recessed into the floor slightly, and have wrap around seals on both sides. Then any pressure differential will just push the door into the seal. Even a completely square hatch with corners sharp enough to cut yourself will work for a limited number of times. Just as long as you don't repeatedly cycle it like Comet...
Speaking of which, has it comes up what is Friendship actually rated for? Given the speed of the sparkle drive, and the rate of advancement in their technology, I imagine not much more than a few thousand hours, and a few hundred pressure-cycles. That's what SpaceX does with the Falcons and plans to do with BFR. On the logic that by the time you hit those limits, you have a better ship design, and stop using the old one. Is that likely to become an issue in the future? Or possible more realistically... How long ago did it exceed it's airfame rating?
9140435 THOU ART AN UNCOUTH HERETIC!!
9140436 Yes... exactly.
(Lol, you must have seen the Redlettermedia review)
9140423 Amicitas had less than 500 hours of actual flight time, and two re-entries, before it left Equus on the Sparkle Drive proving flight. Of course, the unplanned landing on Mars thoroughly voided any warranties the ship might have had.
We actually see Amicitas, briefly, in Changeling Space Program; Cherry looks at it, not yet named, while visiting Cape Friendship on a "technology exchange" (polite spying) trip, while unknown to her Chrysalis is throwing Mission Five together. Amicitas was Twilight Sparkle's test platform for magic-thrust conversion rocketry- and her vision of what a spaceship ought to look and function like, petty physics be damned. Its first two flights will be mentioned in CSP in more detail; suffice to say, after its second flight it was grounded for years until the Sparkle Drive, plus advancements in thruster tech, gave good reason to bring it out of retirement.
9139713
And then chrysalis would run across a colt like me who would love HER instead of her disguises so theoretically she could actively feed for as long as i live and i wouldnt get weaker
Ah, the good ol' 'splodey comet. Not a good idea to rivet through thin aluminium that is often compressed and decompressed.
#hugabug!
9140435
Hercule Poirot, one of Agatha Christie's more famous detectives.
9140822
Sure yeah, definitely not impossible. Just complicated to sustain a civilization on.
I figure after the metamorphosis then can digest Philia now too.
9139870
Hexagons are the best.
Start a store that specializes in buckyballs and carbon fiber frames. Call it the Hex Shop.
9141287
Actually that happened in Moscow... that and War Hammer (spelled that way) shops. Both also specialized in table tops and miniatures
Well, about shapes and structural integrity. In a plate of material, if you cut a hole and there are corners, those are crack starters, and the crack will grow slowly every load cycle until it reaches a critical lenght and then it propagates spontaneously... which means a very bad day. That's why corners are rounded under those conditions. The worst part with cracks is that everything looks fine until it doesn't. Those Comet planes are the prime example, as mentioned in the author notes.
A heart shape would be relatively ok as long as the corner at the bottom of said shape is rounded. Of course a round window would be better.
Damn... So mutch for smooth sailing.
Nice chapter