Chapter 23
Equinox Bill of Repair:
1. Hydroponics 8/8 COMPLETE
2. Repair the prospector 4/4 COMPLETE
3. Fully Refuel 2/20
4. Backup Cryogenics 0/4
5. Replace field equipment 0/2
6. Study of communications blackout 0/?
[In one month of repair time, Applejack has fully recovered from Cryosleep sickness, Twilight’s horn has completely healed. One month of nutrient paste has been used, another 3 months’ supply remain.]
Twilight adjusted the space suit a little tighter about her chest, wishing the standard design had done a little more to accommodate alicorns. As though just adding extra space for legs and horn was enough…
But she couldn’t rightly protest—this was her first visit to the mining site since the day Applejack had first anchored cables there. She needed to show support for the crew.
Out the airlock she went, into the sudden, uncomfortable silence of the air recyclers and the fluid heater in her suit. Far below, or at least it looked below, was Harmony’s Repost, an asteroid that had become a temporary home in the void. She could see the foil dome far below, doing its best to conserve heat against the unfathomable cold of space. There were several anchor lines, each one about a hundred meters out, and kept in tension so the asteroid wouldn’t drift closer to the Equinox and surprise them all with a few fresh hull breaches.
They were both down there now—the diligent Applejack and a Spike who would obviously rather keep working on the first assignment Twilight had given him. He was becoming almost obsessed with that thing. It’s not mind control he’s just excited, that’s all.
The nearest line had a motorized unit waiting, with an oversized clip meant to attach to a line from her suit. But Twilight’s horn was working now—she could afford to do what not even spacefaring pegasai could. She could fly.
She jumped, and that single push was enough to propel her “downward” towards the asteroid. What if I lost concentration right now? What if I failed a levitation spell like I failed to control the inertia on that starship? Then she would drift off and die alone, obviously. There was no Rarity around to rescue her, and skilled as Applejack was she was neither a pilot nor gifted with EVAs. It was all attached to a body for her, either starship or smaller.
But of course nothing like that happened to her horn, and after only a few more moments Twilight was approaching the asteroid. She needed a little more magic now, carefully directed force to cancel out what was left of her initial push. A bit of reversing direction, so that her hooves settled comfortably on the ice.
Well, comfortably enough so long as she was using her magic to keep her down. She’d be slipping and sliding all over the place without that help. “Cheating” as Rainbow called it. Well, she’d keep cheating, as she made her way over to the airlock and unzipped it carefully.
Inside was the prospector’s real airlock, so she didn’t have to rely on the questionable protection of a thin layer of plastic to separate her from the outside.
A few minutes of standing in place while air refilled, and she was in again.
Spike sat in only his jumpsuit in front of the ice-processor, with several oversized bins of ice all around him. He had a book open on the terminal in front of him, though he barely seemed to be reading. He brightened as she approached, turning to face her as she came in. But whatever he said was too muffled by her suit to be intelligible.
Twilight waved politely to him, making her way over and switching her suit to “external conversation” mode. “How’s the refining going?”
“Not as bad as being alone during an interstellar trip,” Spike admitted. “But almost as bad. At least I had the news from Equestria coming back, that was pretty interesting sometimes. This is just… ugh. If I knew we were gonna drop out of contact I would’ve ordered more books.”
Twilight nodded sympathetically—she had packed as many as her space on the computer allowed, but that was limited. “How close are we to done? Getting… a lot of argon out of that ice?”
Spike laughed bitterly. “My guess—two months of this. Two months sitting in this chair, running blocks through the machine. If we’re lucky.”
“We could switch to mining ore instead… build an external processor. One of those big…”
“Nope,” Spike cut her off. “I already asked her about that. But our chief engineer says it would be a waste of time and metal. This is the only time we do this. Once we go through a few more tons of rich ice, we’re done. We’ll have enough fuel to make it back home again, unless we spend a few decades circling Proximus first.”
He sat up. “Twilight, this is a waste of time. I just know that Signaler machine is going to change everything. But it can’t help us if we won’t even build it.”
Twilight imagined could see Cozy Glow’s face, a pale reflection in the glass terminal behind Spike. The promise of Equestria’s doom was still on her lips.
“We’ll be here a long time, Spike. There’s plenty of time to build it.”
He grumbled, folding his arms. “That’s what Applejack always says.”
Applejack was the real reason she was here. Twilight straightened, turning away. “I’ll be back in a few. Keep up the great work!” And she headed out, down the Prospector’s stairs. Everything was still strapped down around the ship—there was no gravity here, despite how easily she could pretend.
And out through another Airlock. There was air outside, in the growing pocket of excavated ice and ore that they worked. Twilight’s suit began to fog out its exhaust, and the fluid heaters began to struggle to keep up—a chilly atmosphere was much harder to keep warm in than the vacuum.
And there was Applejack—no space suit, though an emergency mask hung from her belt along with a spare tank. She worked a laser-saw with quick strokes, severing promising blocks of ice from the asteroid with ease.
“Ah, cap!” she grinned, settling it down. For all Spike had been dying of boredom, the prospector was all smiles. “I was hopin’ you’d show up. Got some good news.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Applejack pushed off, drifting closer. She seemed entirely unaffected by the cold, though a thin layer of ice had formed on what little coat emerged from her thermal jumpsuit. “First batch a Geneseed is through the processor. It’s time to pick our lucky recruit.”
- Rainbow Dash (Climatology, Military)
- Fluttershy (Medicine, Linguist)
- Pinkie Pie (Geology, Insight)
- Rarity (Physics, EVA Expert)
(Confidence 150 required)
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Love how there's a Cozy Glow option there, though at this point it would be BEYOND stupid to choose that... Gave me a chuckle.
I vote for Pinkie Pie, for one reason- Insight. Intuition can be a vital tool in the unknown.
I went with Fluttershy, because having medicine will be a general help and proper help ponies come out of cryo later on, and her linguist ability will allow her to check the message just in case Cozy was right.
9305797
It’s an option, at least!
I think it's already been mentioned that Fluttershy would be useful in decoding the message. I'd trust her over Pinkie's occasional insights.
Gimme some Ponk!
Yeah, what ever you want to believe.
I voted for Fluttershy.
Not only can she help deciphering the language, her medical knowledge may help others recovering from the cryosleep sickness, so they recover faster. Also, it's always good to have a medic around.
Found a typo:
It's pegasi.
First batch o' Geneseed
(It's an abbreviation of "of")
As much as Fluttershy's medical skills would be useful, I think Pinkie should come first as here geological skills come in useful with the refueling and mineral extraction operations as the others might be missing something.
Fluttershy, for the already mentioned reasons. With her around the others should recover faster, so it make sense thaw her out first, and she can check on the translation.
9305842
That's a Scottish or Irish accent, not a Southern one... though it IS still written wrong. Not sure what the right way is, but it involves either a " ' " mark, an "ah" instead of "a", or having it tied directly to the previous word.
Fluttershy is a medic. Medics are useful in most situations.
Pinkie Pie is a Geologist. That's good for mining. We're already mining, though.
Rarity sounds like someone useful to have around, especially now, where EVAs are going to be very common.
Rainbow Dash, as much as I like her character, doesn't have any relevant inmediate benefits except for the extra pair id hooves, and even then Rarity is peobably better at that.
My vote right now goes to Fluttershy. Then either Rarity or Pinkie Pie, and finally RD.
Gotta love that Cozy Glow has more votes than Rainbow Dash.
imagined she
So it's early Feudal Age and we need to decide whether to Archer Rush into Knights or Eco Boom into a Fast Castle/Fast Imp. Do we pull out somepony who's going to help with the asteroid, or somepony who's going to help with the overarching story? Oh, and our scout kinda got quick-walled and ganged up on by enemy vills, so we have approximately zero intel on the enemy base.
Gonna go with Fluttershy for the long term bonus of cracking that Signal. Might task her on validating the "secret code" our friend found while we're at it.
Oh, and who the buck voted for Cozy Glow? Yes, that can't possibly end poorly. Because the only thing worse than a saboteur is a saboteur whose last memory is getting drugged. It's too late for that option. Rainbow first, then Cozy. No other way. EDIT: "Now, there are two of them."
9305888
It's independent of accent. The line had the word "of" pronounced without sounding out the "f". The apostrophe is the proper way to indicate such omissions. (That's why contractions like can't (cannot) and 'til (until) use it.)
9305913
Yeah, the apostrophe method is likely accurate... but " o' " is how you'd write the sound "oh", whereas a Southern accent keeps the "uh" sound of the original word. That sound is exactly like how many pronounce the word "a", so " a' " would probably be the right way for AJ's speech.
I say Rarity. Think of it. How many times have we needed to do something outside, only to vote No because "Well if we had Rarity..."
Also:
But isn't vacuum about the best insulator there is?
Between medical capabilities for the next disaster and the ability to linguistically double-check Cozy Glow's assertions, Fluttershy does seem the most attractive, though Pinkie's geological insights might be able to speed up the argon mining. Might. Not sure how much ice farming goes on in space age rock farming. And, of course, there's reviving the EVA expert while the crew's doing a lot of extravehicular activity.
Sorry, Dash. You'll just have to chill for a bit longer. And speaking of apologies, I hope they remember to fix Fluttershy's room by the time she's ready for it.
Fluttershy.
Learning more about the xenos will soon be very very important and I would rather her be up to spec when crunch time happens.
9302796
Yeah, it was scary seeing people voting for splitting the party - this Twilight is a failure that can't do anything right (does she even have any particular skills besides being the vehicle through which we make the choices? Doesn't look like she is actually good at anything, magical or technical). If she went alone, that's probably the last time we would have seen her, which would be disastrous for crew morale if nothing else
--
Anyways, for this chapter I chose Rarity - the crew is doing lots of EVA right now, and will continue doing so for two more months. If there is a good time to have an EVA expert out and about, it's right now. And being a unicorn, she can probably save someone else from floating away as well or otherwise help with her TK in many a situation (I don't trust Twilight to save herself, much less anyone else).
I have to go with Pinkie Pie here. Geology will be useful for picking out prime mining spots that would have the richest ore. But more importantly, her insight could probably see if the device Spike is building is dangerous or influencing him in some way. As it stands, the device and any future probes are the only unknowns for the time being, and getting Pinkie to potentially squash concerns about Spike and the device is paramount.
As for Flutters, decoding the signal can wait for at least 1 revive cycle. As for who wakes up after Flutters, I'd say RD. If an other probe or even a 2nd alien group appear, her gunnery/piloting skills could prove critical.
I don't know why, but this line is confusing me
Also I vote Fluttershy
I chose pinkie just because they are mining an asteroid. If anything happens there she is the best one to help.
Glad I didn't miss this poll. This is a major decision.
Here are my thoughts:
Fluttershy is probably the most useful right now, and getting my vote. If she can translate the Alien messages we can make a lot of progress on our main mission, as well as potentially deconfirm Cozy's crazy conspiracy theories.
My secondary choices are Rarity and Pinkie. Rarity would give us a huge safety net any time we need to perform EVA. Every time someone goes out of the ship we risk losing them forever. Pinkie's Geology knowledge would likely speed up resource collection, and we need resources right now.
Lastly there's Rainbow. Whom I'm actually a little worried about as her hot-headed nature might get in the way of alien diplomacy and rational decision. My opinion here feels rather unfair if I'm being honest. She's probably not that bad.
Assuming it would distract spike from the alien machine building, I think Rarity would be a good one to wake up soon. Flutters takes priority because medic, but i believe rarity should come after that.
9305797
To be fair she IS a possibility for me, not right now but if things go a certain way I would.
I’m going to go with pinkie on this one seeing as there might be resources she might spot that nopony else could.
3 people voted in Cozy Glow but no one voted in Rainbow Dash? wow
MEDIC!!!!!
Twilight is busted, Spike was wounded and who knows how many medical problems AJ is hiding? Also better start with those translations asap, not to mention Linguist might have some good input on the coms system repair.
Also the something something Spike in the start of the story, might be something Fluttershy can pry out of him.
Pinkie Pie for certain. Her geology skills should be useful for the mining mission, and they desperately need her perspective on things.
Edit: 119 votes and nobody has voted for Rainbow. LOL
9305964
Definitely better regardless. The "a" on its own looks like a "typo that happened to also be a valid word so the spell-checker didn't catch it" moment.
Fluttershy. Get a second opinion on that translation and help others recover from cryosleep faster
Fluttershy. It would be good to have a medic on hand
Yeah, going to have to go with Fluttershy.
Besides the speed bonus of getting the next batch of wakers into work faster. She also can possibly decode Cozy Glows message to see if she tampered with the message and give the current crew a once over to make sure they're alright through the ordeals they went through thanks to Cozy Glow.
Raritys Physics knowledge could help us understand how the signalers tech functions.
The only thing thats currently an issue timewise is spikes possible mental instability/obsession. Best have that dealt with asap and then going back to the slow material collection grind. Fluttershy would likely be the most useful in dealing with that.
Tbh if this dash is anything like the one we know she'd be better off left frozen until we know there isnt gonna be long periods of waiting involved. Dash would just get bored out of her mind and complain about the lack of things going on. Probably wishing they'd left her frozen a bit longer
Honestly i was thinking that maybe somewhere down the road it might be worthwhile to defrost Cozy earlier and maybe convince her about the real meaning of the message (if it does turn out to be different). Then i remembered she attacked twilight while being escorted and shown mercy. To me she blew her second chance in that moment. She went aboard the ship with the mission of ensuring none of them would ever return. I honestly cant think of a scenario where having her would be a good thing while she has that mentality.
148 votes with 1 vote for Dash, sounds like a winner. One pegasi, one vote.
I voted Rarity, but admittedly I kinda forgot they had a whole linguistics puzzle with the original signal. Luckily, it looks like it is going to be a landslide.
Besides, we all know all you need to do is say “Welcome to Harmony’s Repost Party” and Pinkie will pop out like an overdone pop tart and throw a party. No drugs or recovery time needed.
Yeah, on both the medical and the linguist fronts, Fluttershy is the clear choice. Either one of them would make her a high priority, having both pretty much leaves out any other pony as who they need most right now.
Some Pinkie Sense would go down well about now.
It looks like Fluttershy is going to win, which is fair for the medicine aspect. But I voted for Pinkie Pie; Insight is always useful, and since they ARE on an asteroid that might have mining options, Geology also might be useful. Ah well, looking forward to seeing a new crew member rejoin the party!
Wow, Cozy has more votes that Dash. MY advice - don't let Dash know about that unless you want to spend the rest of the trip listening to her screaming.
Agree with getting Fluttershy - Glow may be a monster, but that doesn't necessarily make her wrong - best to get that thing translated as soon as possible. Plus, not only would she be useful as a medic, but I suspect she has an unofficial role of Counselor as well, which could be useful, given what we've seen.
Also, I'm curious - if, just as a hypothetical possibilty, things went massively wrong and everything ended terribly, would you change the story's tags to include, oh, say, for example, Dark, Tragedy or Horror?
Shouldn't the name of the asteroid be "Harmony's Repast" rather than "Harmony’s Repost"? A reposted article or re-sent item of mail doesn't make much sense for a name of a chunk of rock.
9305964
OK, but nobody writes it as five A clock. It's five o'clock. Same thing.
I can't complain about Fluttershy, but I feel like Pinkie is a good choice for long term morale, and you ARE attached to a big rock right now.
9307486
Like I said, that's an "oh" sound, not the "uh" that AJ's Southern accent is making here.
9306036
Vacuum is the best insulator but they aren't in a vacuum. They are on an asteroid which has a thin atmosphere of gas and they are inside an asteroid field/belt that also likely has gas floating around. A lot of space also has some form of material floating around so heat can be transferred in both cases.
9307702 I think you're overestimating - by several orders of magnitude - how dense the 'atmosphere' surrounding an asteroid would be. At most they'd have to worry about losing heat via conduction to the giant, frigid asteroid.