Sol 144
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 144
ARES III SOL 144
[08:48] JPL: Ha ha, Mark, very funny. We handed that last “soil” sample analysis you did to Astromaterials, and they took one look at it and told us it belonged over at Medical. They put two and two together, or perhaps I should say Number Two and Number Two. The only way you could have picked up that soil sample from the surface would be if you figured out a way to drop your pants without dying out there. Well, you’ve had your laugh, so how about the soil sample we asked for?
[09:04] WATNEY: You correctly identified the substance, but not the source. That night soil came from Fireball, so properly speaking the word for it is “fewmets.” Now please tell both Astromaterials and Medical to take a second look at those numbers, because I can’t figure out how someone on a straight silica oxide diet produces droppings whose non-water content is over 80% carbon.
[09:20] JPL: Yeah, I can see how that might seem a little weird. I’m pretty sure none of us have experience with a digestive tract capable of elemental transmutation. Think you can talk your friends into a full medical baseline?
[09:40] WATNEY: We are here and can read all you send us. Try asking us direct. – Spitfire
[09:57] JPL: Hello, Spitfire. Your English is improving. We’d like you to let Mark weigh, measure, and take samples so we have a full baseline of your medical condition. May he do this?
[10:18] WATNEY: I ask my commander. She says yes. Lucky for you. - Spitfire
[10:19] WATNEY: Great. So now I get to do chemical analysis of everybody’s poop.
[10:21] WATNEY: Good luck finding mine! – Dragonfly
[10:22] WATNEY: Now that’s an Easter egg hunt I could stand to miss.
[10:40] JPL: Is it me, or is this chat becoming a little crowded?
[10:47] HERMES: Not our fault this time! – Johannsen
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Oh, shit!
As much as I hate to say it, the digestive tracks of dragons can be explained easily enough: Magic
Don't laugh it is a perfectly reasonable assumption given the information we have been given about the Equestrian crew.
However that does raise a red-flag for Fireball's health if his digestive track begins to suffer from the low-magic environment. And now that I'm fully thinking on it, what about Dragonfly? I can't think of any means by which an emotivore could function without relying on some manner of magic or psionic ability.
I was going to try to come up with a physical explanation for Fireball's digestive alchemy, but considering that fissioning silicon into carbon (plus oxygen, helium, or hydrogen) would require a significant net input of energy, I'm just going to chalk it up to magic. If anyone else wants to try explaining this conundrum using real science, I'm all ears.
8822290
Well, you already have a hint of that with her worry about not really feeling like she's being fed.
...I mean, I kind of figured? I know you're all for stranding cute, cuddly things on their own with no food, but presumed that didn't extend to real life...
Wonder what compelled Mark to study that... particular substance. Did he just decide to send it to them now after studying it back when they were first firtilizing the farm, or did he get bored?
I wonder how long it will be before NASA makes accounts for the ponies so they don't have to rely on Mark's.
:Edit:
Would that make them NASA employees? I mean NASA should probably already be paying them for "scientific contributions" considering all the research they've opened up.
:Edit #2:
Bits for shits.
What I'm wondering is what the purpose of transforming the silicon oxide to carbon is?
I mean wouldn't it be easier to excrete it as silicon still?
"And for the record, my neighbors and relatives are watching the house and taking care of my pets while I'm gone."
The door to a modest apartment in the vicinity of JPL gave a little rattle, then a creak as it swung open, revealing a scene of incredible horror.
"I can't believe Watney didn't pick up before heading out to space," grumbled Kapoor. "Oh, good GOD! That pizza box moved! I swear, I should just throw in a match."
He stumbled forward through the trash, vowing to have an intern return in his place with a case of trash bags, before going into the bedroom and regarding the pet who needed fed, and the plant that needed watered. Or more correctly, the fifty-pound lump of granite next to a bowl of pebbles labeled "Rocky" and a plastic ficus.
"You better get back from Mars alive," grumbled Kapoor as he turned to leave. "Because when you get back, I'm going to kill you!"
8822296
It's quite simple, actually: Dragons are plants that take carbon dioxide from air.
8822301
Yeah, in hindsight that connection should have been obvious. I was instead pondering on if perhaps the constant fear of death tugging on everyone's minds minds may of been giving the poor changeling indigestion. Either way it's a condition that deserves monitoring.
8822296
Simple, magic has an extremely good productivity rate.
8822325
And the silicon? Where does that go?
Technically Dragonfly's Excreta is the Goo she uses to patch up every pony's spacesuit. Don't think to clearly on this.
8822323
Maybe, back home, the ambient magic results in natural (inorganic or microbial) processes which transmute the other way and there's a selective pressure to keep things in balance... maybe even just "magic itself has a preference for balance and can inject selective pressures into the ecosystem somehow".
Sort of like how lichens are responsible for breaking volcanic rock down into the beginnings of soil.
8822347
Wouldn't it be more like the paper made by paper wasps, by chewing up wood pulp and mixing it with saliva, or the wax made by bees, which is a secretion, rather than an excretion?
bring in..... THE ASS PROBING!!!!!!
8822373
Isn't it also their form of excresion as well?
8822290
Dragonfly's magic only needs to work with other intelligent life, so it is probably functioning just fine from the natural magic given off by said life.
So what we're saying here is that dragons are incredibly valuable to any terraforming effort (and were likely critical in bringing life to Equus) through their mineral transmutation abilities?
I have to admit I was wondering something similar about changeling respiration. Dragonfly doesn't take in a lot of carbon--so is it still O2 in, CO2 out? So, uh, tack that question on to Fireball too now, I guess.
Moby Dick has a fart joke within the first couple pages. I feel this rivals that in its sophisticated delivery; you're in good company.
We don't know what dragons are made of exactly. They can swim in lava, and there's at least two things wrong with that. And it's not just scales being fireproof... I mean it's gotta be getting in their eyes and such.
8822388
As I understand it, in this interpretation of them, they eat love, physical food is optional, and love produces no physical waste products... so it would be more like wasp paper.
8822346
It's actually quite simple, my good man. into their bodies. Or rather, the accumulation of minerals are slowly contributing to the growth and development of a dragon. We see some evidence of this in Spike's molting episode, where just before he molts his skin and grows wings he is temporarily encased in stone.
Ha ha ha! I think scatology is hilarious, long as I don't have to smell it, unless it's my own, which doesn't stink.
Could dragons be at least partially silica based life forms? Maybe a hybrid of a Horta and pre-Dragon?
My headcanon has always been that dragons are silicon-based lifeforms. They are obligate lithovores that extract their energy mostly from trace radioactive elements in the rock they eat. So the rock is their "protein" (used to repair and build more tissue), and the radioisotopes are their "carbohydrate" (used to power their activity). Any carbon based food they eat is purely for flavor. Yes, that means that Spike is being unintentionally stunted in growth and is a victim of cross-species child abuse.
To me this explains many things neatly. Why don't they care about the two ponies who raise and lower the sun and moon? Because they aren't part of that entire food web to begin with. They don't ultimately draw their nourishment from the sun. If the sun just stopped existing they wouldn't care or need to care. Why must they take such long naps and generally have a very slow lifestyle? Very low energy food that requires a long time to "digest" and release its energy via radioactive decay, coupled with an energy-hungry silicon-based chemistry. Why all the hoarding of gems and generally selfish nature? There is ultimately a finite amount of food if your food is rocks. It doesn't keep growing back (rock farms notwithstanding). If you don't take and hold on to it, then others will. Why the immense physical toughness? They aren't made of carbon-based flesh, but are essentially stone.
So I would think that Fireball's faeces should have really funky elemental composition. Radioactive decay products, weird silicon based compounds, and carbon based compounds from the carbon based food he eats for flavor. I wouldn't rule out elemental transmutation being part of the dragon metabolism with all the nuclear reactions going on inside.
8822435
OBTW Horta have magma and powerful acids in their circulatory system.
AAAAH clever one for dragonfly... took me a minute for it to click in my head
For any one complaining about silica to carbon. Please remember you are preparing to argue the function of the digestive system of a magical talking fire breathing dragon marooned on mars with a crew of magical/flying ponies who's ship was mostly powered by magic. The answer is because magic
8822666
You know what I noticed? Silicon has a proton number of 14. Carbon has a proton number of 6, and oxygen has a proton number of 8. 14=8+6. Coincidence? I think not!
Just kidding, fission of silicon actually results in net loss of energy, so Fireball isn't nuclear.
Heehee, poop jokes!
Grats on making one gross chapter for the grossth sol.
8822853 Because then he'd be a Nuclear Fireball.
Equestria in a nutshell
And NASA scientists are yet to meet Pinkie Pie.
Now that I remember, in the book Flight of Dragons, the dragons ingested large quantities of calcium, obtained from limestone caves (a classic dragon habitat) in order to obtain the hydrogen needed for flying and breathing fire.
Ahh, theres the story I was thinking of.
Eggs
Show this to Fireball, and watch him not give a duck.
"poop is the solid or semisolid remains of the food that could not be digested or absorbed" ~ Very selective quote from google just to support what I wish to say.
Anything that comes back out of the human mouth does not count, because that could have been digested. But in Firefly's case, all food that comes out could be considered poop.
So:
I would say I found it, and it was used in your spacesuit repairs.
Huh, I kinda wish you'd had more ideas for this one.
Not for length. I wouldn't have minded if it came in other chapters, but because exploring fictional biology and such is a huge source of enjoyment for me.
8822450
wait
that HAPPENED?!
8822966
Or, in Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels, where the Fire Lizards and the dragons engineered from them rely on a phosphine-bearing rock to breathe fire, which is processed in a special pouch in their gullet.
(And have skeletons reinforced with the boron that's much more common in Pern's biosphere.)
If you haven't read them, most of them are "failed sci-fi colony" fantasy so, if you want the sci-fi explanations, the book that follows the original colonists discovering the details is Dragonsdawn.
Meet fewnets!
Meet fewmets!
Step right up and greet fewmets!
Bring your doctors, bring your nerds.
Guarantee they cannot explain these turds,
Because fewmets are really freaking bizarre
Regardless of what species you are...
8822346
Its exhaled. Specifically as Silane while breathing fire.
8822450
Unless that was one of the leaked episodes (which I haven't watched and don't plan on watching until their official releases), I don't recall that ever being a thing, dude...
8823312
With 6 moving parts he could get more letters faster.
Sure his metabolism is clearly magic...but maybe the WAY it's magic is that it uses alchemy to catalyze nuclear fission? So something that would normally be a net loss comes out positive.
8824037 I suspect if we're dealing with a fission reaction via magic, it'd catalyze the fission of silicon's 3 primary stable isotopes (Si28-Si30 into C12 and the 3 stable oxygen isotopes (O16-O18), which Fireball could use for aerobic metabolism or exhale.
All known radioactive isotopes of silicon undergo beta-decay (giving off an electron or positron), so it's definitely not a naturally mediated process by any mechanism. I suppose it's possible that Fireball has an internal fast neutron source which can fission the nuclei if the magical 'catalyst' targets the silicon nucleus in just the right fashion.
If the magical catalyst lowers the energy required for the probabilities of the fission significantly, the fission could result in a net energy release. Fusion carbon into silicon can be essentially the reverse reaction in one of the possible pathways, with the midway product being oxygen. And the net yield of energy is rather low for supergiants, with the star's cores running out of the O to Si step in less than 5 years, after which the star begins to fuse Si into iron, which is an energy-losing reaction (then star goes boom after core-collapse). So, it's not implausible to assume that structured biological magic might be able to squeeze some energy out of fissioning silicon.
This makes dragons radioactive! Hence: Spikezilla!
2.bp.blogspot.com/-tqRvbV37AP4/VNPwzmmlfvI/AAAAAAACI-s/6BT8_WyCuLc/s1600/Capture.JPG
8824062
Can't argue with that: it's just science!
Can't wait for Glim Glam's next conversation with Twilight and the ESA.
Twilight:
"They want information on WHAT?!?!"
" You want me to do what?"
(puppy dog eyes) "Please, seven lives hang in the balance!"
[later]
Spike:
Twilight:
Spike: "Fine, but you owe me big time."
8824094
Can't argue with that: it's just magic!
Umm, I think he just failed his daily update chal... Oh yea, he is driving to the other side of the country if I recall correctly, so he has maby 2 hours left.