Chapter 89
Escape through the ring. 52%
Twilight would’ve loved to stay behind in this amazing station and study it for a hundred years. The technology that had built it was so advanced as to fill her with awe—and hope—for Equestria’s own future. If these builders could build impressive megastructures, there was no saying Equestria couldn’t too.
But however curious she was, however much she had to see what happened, her friends were still comatose, and the air was running out. Not to mention there was just as much useful information on the ship. The situation had been so desperate when Sunset finally woke that she hadn’t been able to learn what she knew quite yet. She was a captain, after all.
Twilight took a few more photos with her suit’s camera, then turned for the first door she could see. She needed an airlock, then she could jump back to the Equinox and use the rangefinder to try for another jump for the Prospector. She’d already failed one jump today, she wasn’t going to eyeball another one.
Twilight wandered for hours. She wandered so long that her suit’s scrubbers went from green to yellow, and eventually switched into filtration mode to preserve entropy on the carbon capsule. If there was one miracle for her, it was that the Signalers seemed to breathe the same air that ponies did, and kept it aboard their station long after the last of them left.
The amount of internal space on the ring was staggering. Chambers sometimes extended so far over her head that whole castles could’ve stacked on top of each other without getting near the roof. Other times she was forced to crawl through tiny passages, clearly not built for someone as large as she was.
At first Twilight tried to follow the friendliest writing on the station walls—but after her fifth dead end that way, she switched to using her EVA’s slate to sketch a map. Even a window would be enough for her to teleport out. But the station hadn’t had many of those, not from orbit. Maybe it didn’t have any at all.
Does Twilight find any useful information? Critical no.
More than once she encountered shelves of strange objects, rooms of active machines, or computers just begging to have their contents examined. But the longer she spent wandering, the more of them she passed by without so much as a picture. Her friends were running out of air.
I bet they could stretch it to a day, if they were smart about it and used the medical oxygen tanks. How long have I been walking? She took one glance down at her suit’s watch, then froze.
Fifteen hours. She’d been going for half a day and more, but still hadn’t found a way out.
This ring probably has more internal area than Equestria before the collapse. Depending on how they do the gravity, if it had just two floors, it certainly does. I’m not getting anywhere.
Twilight reached her next computer panel, stopping dead in front of it. She needed to do something, or else she might be walking at random until her friends were long dead, and she starved to death.
She had tried before, and each time her work on these identical consoles of floating holographic light always failed. Her hooves moved, following the things she thought the icons meant, the suggestions of meaning. She needed an exit, or a map.
Twilight attempts to find a map. Success.
Then it appeared. There was no mistaking the bright red dot for her position in the ring, and the periodic zooming until that dot took up more than a single pixel of the display. She could pinch and zoom the image with pressure the way she expected, tracing out the hallways until she found… a hangar.
It wasn’t that far away, just down a long stairwell and into a wide central passage. She stepped into the control room.
Former hangar. The inside of the facility had been thoroughly sabotaged. The corpses of ships hung in the air outside the control room, with perfect lines cut at various points, sheering through each ship component and out the other side.
The space beyond seemed to go on forever—there were hundreds of dead ships hanging there, each one broken in different ways. And their corpses.
Or something like corpses, anyway. The flesh was all gone, but there were still mechanical parts. Arms that floated, strong legs lodged into a gap in a broken ship. They were made of all the same stuff, and Twilight couldn’t even tell at a glance how much of what she saw was broken ship and how much might be broken pony. Not pony shapes. But they’re not the drones we found in the ruins earlier. Maybe these pieces are what the Signalers looked like.
Through the debris, Twilight could see a single clear shot out into the void, starlight shining.
Twilight closed her eyes, then jumped. Her suit hissed, then clicked as the atmosphere vanished from outside, sealing itself off again. Twilight twitched one leg, turning her maneuvering thruster so she could look back at the ring and grab a photo. This was an easy point of ingress, one that she could use for harvesting.
“Equinox, this is Twilight. Come in.”
There was a hiss of static, then. “Twilight,” Fluttershy answered. “What are… you’re still alive?”
“Apparently so,” Twilight said. “Suit chronometer says I’ve been gone… nineteen hours.”
“Nineteen hours, thirty-one minutes,” Spike said flatly. “I didn’t see you reappear. But I’m getting your transponder now. Guess I should’ve known you wouldn’t have Fluxed yourself.”
“Not today,” she said. “Listen, can you give me position and heading for the Prospector?”
“You mean the prospector that kept drifting at three meters per second for over nineteen hours?” Spike asked. “The one that’s over two hundred kilometers away?”
“I’ve done further,” Twilight muttered, though even the thought of it was giving her a headache. “I’ve done Canterlot Station to Ponyville. I can do this.”
“I’ve still got a live transponder signal, hold on,” Spike said. He gave her a heading a moment later, and she tilted her suit again to aim in the suggested direction. She couldn’t see the ship—or anything else, for that matter. It was all black.
“I take it we weren’t able to get in to remote pilot the Prospector?” she asked.
“Nope,” Spike agreed. “You have to set that up when you leave. So far as I can tell, you didn’t even take your key with you when you disembarked.”
“Twilight, we’re…” Fluttershy began. “I’ve got a decision to make here. Maybe you could share your insight. Sunset has her ideas, but she’s not my captain.”
“Go on.”
“We can scrub C02 all day, but we’ve already dropped to seventeen percent O2. If we wait much longer, we’re going to be too disoriented to… to…”
There was a brief burst of static, then Spike continued for her. “Fluttershy and Sunset are considering using the escape pod to return to Proximus B. But doing so would require the others be frozen.”
“Which means months until we can thaw them again,” Twilight finished. “And Celestia only knows what that will do to the connection to their minds, if they’re really stored elsewhere.”
“Right,” Fluttershy said. “Sunset can’t freeze, not for at least a year. She’s already waiting on the escape pod. But if I don’t get to work freezing our friends, I won’t be able to for much longer. It’s up to you, captain.”
She wouldn’t have long to decide, before what might be the hardest teleport of her career.
1. Freeze. The risk is unacceptable, even if we do lose some of the crew for awhile.
2. Do not. I get to keep my friends, but if I miss this teleport and we run out of time, their bodies will die.
(Certainty 225 required)
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Screw it!! Macke the jump and save them all.
I'll have to sit out for this one, I honestly couldn't decide which is the better (or rather, less bad) choice.
As I learned years ago, "No balls, no blue chips". Or, "Heroes die once, cowards die a thousand deaths". Or "'tis better to die trying than not try at all".
Don't go into freeze, make the jump! You can do it!
Twiggles has failed too many times in magic checks for us to trust she won't screw up again.
Arguably, comatose bodies use less oxygen, but they still need some. I'm not really sure if freezing would mess up the mental connection much unless it's using something that nobody understands. If the mind is still there, I'm not sure the time will matter much. It's already been quite a while.
No freezing the crew. Too many unknowns with that plan. Make the jump, and pray we make it (seriously, pray).
If Spike was still alive (well, alive alive) then I would be much more wary of freezing them since that may break the connection. However, because Spike's consciousness is in the ship we know 'souls' aren't really a thing in this story. That means it doesn't matter if the bodies go on ice because you can always reconnect the mind and body later.
I guess it's down to what we would lose, or be unable to do/ do as well, with most of the crew definitely out of action for months. Their base down planet side is there, and they have experience making one so that's an advantage if they need to start anew. Personally, I say the risk of losing so many ponies permanently is too much, and would put them on ice. However, I totally understand not wanting them out of action for so long as that's a risk in and of itself.
Also, just noticed your new profile pic, nice.
Damn Twilight, you need to pay more attention to how long things have been going on
Oh dear, I was afraid of this. A planetary megastructure represents a lot of volume to get lost in. And now there's quite a crisis to solve. Personally, I'm willing to take the risk. The worst-case scenario's disastrous, yes, but at this point, it's a choice between a disastrous gamble and a slow, morale-destroying grind. Let's see what happens.
looks at poll choices
....crap.
Rolling for insanity...
...17....
Make the jump. Re-freezing has too many unknowns to it. Besides, if we end up succeeding we will have the Prospector back
.....I have a horrible gut feeling this is going to go terribly wrong though
the jump also risks hunger.... hmm
I voted the dangerous option last time to take the risk and have the best chance to save the crew in time, I don’t see why I wouldn’t do it again. We don’t know if delays in getting them back in their bodies will have long lasting effects. Needs must when the devil drives.
Freezing them is just asking for more complications. They are on the ropes, bad, and need to come up with some clutch wins or it’s going to be the Spikequinox floating around a dead planet forever alone to go slowly insane.
#TeamCozy
I say freeze. I'm not banking on a harder roll than she failed last time.
Hmm that means that you could mix'n'match to get a functioning one, given time.
[The usual way is to break ALWAYS the same components if you are retreating so that it is impossible to salvage relatively quickly something functional...]
We probably just killed everyone by voting to have Twilight explore the planetary ring without trying to get anything useful out of the computer. Like, say, a map.
Twilight isn't going anywhere other than by means of the teleport, so I don't see any reason to have the others frozen before she tries. Either she gets to the Prospector and we have more options, or she doesn't and freezing is the only option left. 2.
Freeze: Number of oxygen-using ponies decreases by 4; number of useful ponies decreases by 0.
Don't freeze: Number of oxygen-using ponies decreases by 0; number of useful ponies decreases by 0.
Secret option: Number of oxygen-using ponies decreases by 0; number of useful ponies decreases by 1. Don't do this.
Side note: It's curious that those in the contingency haven't found a way out on their own yet. What's it take to get them out of there I wonder?
9648686
Though keep in mind, if we freeze them they'll be out of commission for months. If we don't freeze them and they live, getting them out might be the next thing we do. So it's not so clear cut. Although, personally, I did vote to freeze them.
Freezing seems more risky to me... it should be saved as a last resort, and we're not quite that screwed yet.
I'm abstaining too. I guess if the choices get so bad that most of the readers abstain and we never reach the threshold, the story grinds to a halt! Which it deserves, because frankly it's not just the bad rolls; the author has a heavy hand in making this just one long slog of endless disaster. I've come to think that CYOA stories where the readers suggest the next actions and the voting or random selection is used to choose whose suggestion to follow are far more enjoyable than this story where the readers have no real input.
9648769
Lies and slander. The rolls that govern these results are public and above-board for all to see. Visit my discord and inspect the Eqinox room for yourself. Then glance back to the story description and reread rule #3. If and when this mission is complete and Twilight + her friends make it out of this nightmare alive, it won't be because the author put their hand on the scales and decided it was time for them to win. The opposite is true: it will be because they overcame a universe that wanted to kill them at every turn.
The mythic system, which has been used openly since chapter one, has a system in place called "chaos." This score tends to escalate as the game goes on. The current chaos is 7 as we near the story's conclusion, which makes negative events exceptionally likely. That is likely where it will remain until the crew escapes, or dies horribly in space.
Lastly, the story will not "grind to a halt." The story has a minimum update speed of once weekly. If the number of votes isn't reached in a week, it updates anyway and the certainty requirement goes down. Eventually this reaches equilibrium.
9648831
Don't get so defensive that you completely miss my point. I'm not saying you're fudging the rolls. I'm saying your choice of how to write the story and what the events actually are is the problem. The story is being destroyed by the mechanism you've chosen. Writing it without any randomness would have been far less annoying.
9648843
As Starscribe said, this is how it has been since the start. Don’t go complaining about a story being written with an inherent level of randomness if your complaint is you don’t like the randomness. If it’s not your kind of story, don’t read it, and just move on. It’s like complaining about how bad a story it is when your friend tells you how their entire D&D party was slaughtered due to a series of poor rolls. That’s simply how the medium works. If you want to say that the rules of D&D (or Mythic in this case) are stupid that’s a different argument, but don’t call the story bad for simply following the system.
9648883
It's not just the choice of Mythic. Mythic doesn't write the actual story. The author uses Mythic as a tool, and interprets the rolls. I love D&D, but a campaign can go bad when the DM is so focussed on the rules that they are failing to ensure the game is enjoyable for the players. The bones of an interesting story are here, and there's nothing wrong with CYOA as a method of storytelling, but somehow this story is missing an actual heart. The tone is just becoming nonstop grimness. That's why I think it could really use a rewrite as a plain story without the CYOA, and why I think using Mythic hasn't turned out well for this particular story and author. A lighter story, or even this premise in a different author's hands, might be able to lift itself above the endless darkness.
9648843
I fully understood your point, but I don't get in the habit of arguing with people about how to tell my stories. To your point I'll only say that I'm eminently satisfied with the way Voyage is going, I'm fully confident I'm delivering on the promises I made in its description, and I hope you'll choose to continue reading.
The only reason I responded at all was this statement specifically:
I just wanted to make sure that everyone in the comments section knew this is absolutely, categorically false. The rolls that caused these failures were in response to votes, the failure of those rolls is documented, and the random events the system caused as a result are likewise cataloged by chat log and many witnesses who watched them live.
Peeking behind the curtain for a moment, the exact opposite is actually true. I've said several times I wanted the story to end at 100,000 words, a figure we surpassed with no end to the mission in sight. I've been trying to get these ponies safely home for about 12,000 words worth of chapters now, but the GM has resisted me at every turn. Those in my discord have seen this happen, since only a small fraction of my questions actually make it into the chapters.
As to your other points, or the discussion of whether the system is better or worse, or wanting more reader control--I leave that to the comments section. I just wanted to make sure to correct that specific error.
9648883
Incidentally, I read this far and bothered to comment because I appreciate Starswirl and their talent, and have enjoyed their other stories. Please don't take constructive criticism as an attack. And I notice there's no "Dark" tag on the story, which it really needs at this point.
9648908
I'm sorry that my original comment was so unclear that you misinterpreted it as a claim that you were fudging the rolls. I thank you for your explanation, which rather makes my point for me - you've been fighting against Mythic to tell the story you've actually wanted to tell all along, and it's ruining the pacing. But as an author, you could have made the choice to alter the way you used Mythic, or just abandon Mythic altogether, in order to make the story shine.
9648917
And that's where we disagree. I think the story told this way does shine, I think the pacing Mythic gives me is perfect and beautiful even as it beats me into the dirt.
If we get these ponies home, those who vote and myself as the author writing it, it won't be because I decided this was act three and it was time for a final conflict and the victory at the end. I do think those generally make for better stories overall--and I'm telling several of them right now, just not this one. In this one, it will be because we clawed our way back against a universe that was trying to kill us every step of the way, and we won anyway.
I promised readers from the very first page a world where: "Fate is cruel and the universe is heartless." I'm confident Mythic is helping to deliver.
I have to go with freeze honestly. It's too unethical to gamble on Twilight's skill. Particularly after she failed once. And has been awake for quite some time. And not eaten. And so on.
I don't like it. At all. But definitely alive friends you have to wait for is better than possibly dead friends you don't. And it's also true Twilight still knows diddly about the contingency. For what it's worth, we could still try to get AB and Node back, couldn't we?
Yea, as I'm reading this, this is what I worried about:
I said we needed to give her a 10 minute limit. The prospector was moving away.
I can only guess that we are about to find ourselves in a horrible, horrible situation. The prospector is probably unrecoverable now.
Alright, this is good news. This is the only good news in this chapter.
Now, some bad news:
Somehow, I thought that the chaos system was supposed to be a self-righting system.
Higher chaos == higher chance of "Yes" responses, so phrasing a question such that "yes" favors the party, the more crazy things get, the more likely things will go the party's way.
Random events are more common with higher chaos, but again, I thought those were at worst neutral, not more negative than positive.
Also, "near conclusion"? What?
We are no where near ready to go home. If going home was the goal, we could have done that long ago.
We have no information to report.
We have had nothing but problem after problem.
We know this place is horribly hostile, at least ** something here ** is horribly hostile. There's evidence of some non-hostility as well. We know nothing about what Cozy's group was trying to do, we haven't had a chance to debrief Sunset, we've got more stuff to investigate at the next site, and we've got a ship to repair, a homestead that has been under attack once and might be attacked again, a huge amount of unknown technology to try to gather information about, and a big "what the bleep happened" on our trip out here to try to decipher.
Home? Not unless we want to declare the mission a failure.
====
If I have any complaint, it's that we don't have a meaningful way to influence the decision. We get a small number of choices, and cannot do part of one, part of another -- and the inability to say "10 minutes is all we can afford" -- note that I worried in the comments last time that Twilight would lose track of time -- is just one example.
We cannot alter a vote once the total has reached a certain point. It's not, for example, the first option to 225 votes; it's "as soon as we have 225 votes we take the leader". So as soon as something hits 50% of the confidence nothing can overturn it.
Of all the choices available, this is probably the first time I'd intentionally take a HUNGER option if we had a choice. We don't.
We don't have a choice to appeal to the insight gift that she seemed to fight for.
If we want to teleport to the ship? Trying to make it in one jump vs trying to make it in multiple short jumps. Hey, I mentioned that issue last vote. The difference between a small number (3) of "easy enough" -- two jumps, the first about half-way, the second to sight-range of the prospector, the third to the inside when she can see it -- and one blind jump for the full length -- is the difference in the world.
Consider the difference between jumping two places when both are relatively fixed, and you've been to both, versus jumping two places when both are moving and you don't know the "where" between them. I cannot see how a single jump has a high chance of success, versus three minor risks of shorter-range teleports.
If there is a problem with this story telling system, it is not the use of Mythic to take the roll of GM.
This is the problem -- we are not able to give feedback on what we want to do, not very well.
For the future: How about adding a new choice: "None of the above". If this choice wins, take a look at the comments that people have made, and come up with a new set of choices based on the comments?
So just a quick question: How is scrubbing the CO2 not restoring the oxygen? Isn't that was CO2 scrubbing does?
9648945
OK, I see your point. And it's an interesting experiment. But for me personally, the frustration has grown to the point where it severely hampers my enjoyment of this story. Can we at least get a "Dark" tag though, to warn any prospective new readers?
If I was writing this story, I'd be so frustrated at this point that I'd just let the next bad roll kill everyone, or at least Twilight, then have her wake up from a prophetic dream the day before the launch and arrange to take Cozy Glow off the ship an hour before launch, when it's too late for the terrorists to change their plans. Then start the story again with Twilight having foreknowledge.
9649530
Yes! Yes! That is exactly my point. Starscribe decides what questions to pose and how to interpret the results, and that's where I have some serious concerns. Sometimes the interpretations are pretty far from what people may have thought they were voting for, and sometimes the choices are unclear or all bad. That's why CYOA stories where the readers propose the next action and voting or random selection picks which one to use seem to be so much more fun than this.
9649541
No, that is not what it does. You could use the general term atmospheric processors if something more was happening. C02 scrubbers remove C02, nothing more.
The most common C02 scrubber used today is in diving rebreathers, though there are many variations. In this system, C02 reacts with container of Sofnolime, forming calcium carbonate in the capsule which can be changed on land. There are variations that can be reversed, variations that use other chemicals.
In any case, the C02 is removed completely, and O2 must be added to replace what was consumed. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_scrubber.
Re-reading the story from the beginning.
Chapter 19:
That was the hidden message sent in the signal.
This is the mystery that we want to try to decipher.
It looks like Contingency has done just this -- turned ponies from living into ... AI?
We have node; we have mechanical AB; we are doing mechanical limbs now.
Hmm ... and we have an orbital ring that is now lifeless, and we've been warned about machines, heck we had an attack of machines.
It looks like this planet has suffered a massive AI overrun?
And, I just realized.
In chapter 20, it was suggested that if we had Fluttershy, she would be able to better decypher the message.
Have we ever given this translation to Fluttershy for a better translation?
EDIT: Yes, chapter 25. Fluttershy thought that the signalers mistranslated their message into Ponish by not understanding the language properly.
Man ... I can't forsee a reallity were putting there bodies in a freeze is more dangerous then leaving there minds in the singularity but the risk of stacking different problems is a ALOT of rolls that we can lose. So in my mind this breaks down to just about this: do we bet saving the crew on THIS ONE ROLE or putting the crew at risk through SEVERAL rolls AND being out of the picture FOR MONTHS
On rolls.... we also must consider the odds on the rolls. For example if Fluttershy later has to revive the crew and Twilight has to get them back in their bodies, those might be... I'm kinda pulling this out of nowhere, but they might be like 40-70% odds each. Meanwhile if you gamble it all on the one roll that roll might have a 10% chance of success. Me? I'll take a few rolls with over double the odds to the one with small odds. Not to mention those multiple rolls may not all have as dire consequences as the one roll for failure. For example Twilight may take a longer time to get them out of the orb, or she may get sucked in and then Sunset in theory has the same chance with more experience on what to expect or something. Then there's also the chance of critical successes and the like. Who knows how much better things may go if you roll a big success or two?
9649862
Wonder what the odds are that two or more get body swapped?
Also (and this is an extreme last resort because I’m not sure the escape pod can dock with the Equinox after launch), couldn’t Sunset pilot the escape pod over towards the Prospector with Twilight aboard, then have Twilight teleport to the outside, then into the Prospector?
And an hard decision on what to do with her friends.
Really. I have no idea what I should vote for.
...
I do't like either option, but we should trust Twi to make the teleport. Freezing the crew now is too risky.
This will bite us in the back, won'tit?
Suggestion ofr the author:
Instead of writing "CO2" and "O2" you can write "CO2" and "O2".
You can create them like this:
"CO[sub]2[/sub]" and "O[sub]2[/sub]".why not this:
teleport first. if twilight makes it and can establish radio contact with the equinox again, nobody is frozen. if twilight fails at either, they will be frozen
We can't risk it. Our luck with the dice, if you guys haven't noticed, has been TERRIBLE lately. Freeze them.
9650081
More review:
Roughly 40-44 was getting node down to the planet, at the specified location. This was Pinkie's "Turn Left" moment (and yes, I'm thinking of Doctor Who as I write that). This got Node a self-mobile body, found the computer system and maintenance stuff that Node could influence, and a 50 meter metal-or-mechanical "life form" that wanted to destroy them all.
This planet seriously looks like it went through a terminator-style loss. All that's left seems to be two systems of mechanical stuff to guard against intruders.
The orbital ring matches the construction/design style of the attacking monster, according to Twilight back then, and I don't recall anything since then that would indicate otherwise.
19 hours in the ring without being attacked, or even seeing anything, is a good indication that the ring is "safe" -- either there is nothing there to worry about, or it doesn't consider a pony to be a threat (reminds me of the first time on a Borg ship, actually.)
But at this point, it looks like the next planet is where we want to go. We got a map info that shows more ships/things to investigate out there.
So our primary goal now should be "How to repair things well enough to get to the next planet". We know we can do full repairs with time there.
9650518
Hmm. I don't know if I'd trust that smile folks.
Further checking the archives: Chapter 50, when we found the escape pod from an unknown equestrian ship containing Sunset Shimmer, we got this:
So that's now twice we've been told to get to Prox C and check out a ship there.
That still needs to be our goal, as soon as we can get our crew back into something able to fly.
So step 1 needs to be the ship.
And that means air resupply.
At this point, the only question is, can Twilight / Spike / Sunset / Node / (Fluttershy) manage to survive on the ground long enough to grow enough wakeup- crop to revive unconcious bodies and then find a way to recover their minds. If the answer to that is no, then we cannot risk the freeze and recover option. And frankly, that just seems to unlikely to me.
(Actually, did Node survive the wipe of minds?)
Risky or not, I'm really thinking that teleporting miles is the least risky way. I just don't like the "all in one shot" option that we were given.
Oh, ho ho ho! Here be spoilers, dug up from the ancient archives of the production channel.
!mythic ask 1 Is it a pod?
Is it a pod?
Critical Yes
Random Event: (Remote event) The Excitement of A path
Ooooh....
!mythic ask 2 Does the pod indicate a working radio beacon?
Does the pod indicate a working radio beacon?
Yes
Random Event: (Neutral event) The Excitement of War
COME ON
Leave me alone events.
!mythic ask 3 Is a distant, dangerous device activated, that will seek our our heroes?
Is a distant, dangerous device activated, that will seek our our heroes?
Yes
!mythic new thread The Device
Said thread for The Device is still active (May 11th campaign review).
Ohh, hold on:
01/19/2019
Is the release Node telling them the terrible secret about why the planet was destroyed?
Yes
What was the reason the planet was destroyed? Jan 19th ...
that's chapter 45, I just read that. Hmm ...
I still cannot understand what Node told us back then.
So the big mystery that I see, on re-reading (chp 52 now) is:
1. What is the crystal heart doing here?
2. How did at least one, possibly two ships get here?
3. What happened to even the basic "we are here" signal from Equestria?
4. What happened on arrival in the system?
Maybe what the "anti signal-ers" were worried about was the "turn you into machines" virus that gave us mechanical apple bloom, spike-AI, and iron horse? Something that has potentially life-extending, ass well as potentially harmful behavior? Change from organic, frail life, into mechanical, survivable life?
This planet was originally sterile, with nothing. That there is life now indicates that whoever built the machines that assembled Node were able to do terraforming. That we have a perfectly square "island of green" means that it is artificially protected from the harvesters. That we find this green at "the memorial" means that it was intentionally protected.
Yet despite that, the security system still was able to attack the visitors, so this "Safe memorial" is not "safe".
We've seen some indication that the mechanization has converted some creatures that probably should not have been converted/accidental -- see the 50 meter mechanical version of something that used to be organic when we got Node's body.
Something keeps this area organic.
Something threatens to consume and/or transform if we leave this area.
Something of a defense system exists.
And "Contingency" exists as a protection against ... ???
The memorial had a device that was supposed to aid us in understanding things. According to Node, the creators did not want to harm us, wanted to help us -- and that chair was basically more deadly than helpful except for some very good rolls. So what's going on with that?
Our time budget was 10 years on-site. We don't know what the actual passage of time was. We know that somehow, an equestrian ship was here long enough to suffer massive water damage/erosion, the crystal heart could become part of the memorial, and ... ???
More questions than answers. Re-read continues.