*Friendship Not Included

by Liquid Truth

Manager's Log Entries 2

Cycle 9

I’ve printed another Duplicant, this one a cook. The electric grill I’ve set up might finally be of use with somepony that actually knows how to make something edible out of it.

I’ve also told her to prioritize on farming, because, apparently, everypony collectively forget about the mealwood that prevents them from dying of starvation. Their growth has been halted for two cycles now, and if the new Duplicant, Bloom, didn’t fertilize them soon, we’re going to need to resort to eating dirt.

---

Cycle 11

I’ve resorted to feeding my duplicants with processed dirt. I can taste the horrible sludginess of that putrefied mud slop just by telling my Duplicants to eat them. It’s still preferable to starvation, though.

Other than that, the geological scouring spell has finished another scan of the area. By my calculations, I’ve determined that this planet has enough resources to sustain a long-term colony, or even indefinitely with careful planning.

But what surprised me was traces of neutronium and abyssalite, pony-made elements that shouldn’t have occurred naturally. The abyssalite deposits have even made gigantic veins across the planet, segmenting areas into different parts that evolved into their own contrasting biomes and created extreme environments each with their own unique layout.

If all this is past me’s fault, I fear the day I inadvertently make the same mistake again.

---

Cycle 15

As far as I can tell, we’re hundreds of kilometers below the surface of the planet. Digging our way out may take some time. I need to prioritize on sustaining the lives of my Duplicants before thinking about digging upward.

Which is why, dear Duplicant #0004 “Celly”, should you never forget to empty the outhouses again, lest you let everypony to excrete their wastes straight into our water reserve in their sleep.

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Cycle 16

I’m going to need to find a way to sterilize my original water reserve from food poisoning bacteria. The new water reserve I’ve set up has been reinforced so that under no circumstances should anypony be able to contaminate it unless they shat themselves right when they’re using the pitcher pump, which should’ve been impossible given the circumstances. Should.

That being said,

YOU HAD ONE JOB, CELLY!

---

Cycle 19

Crisis averted, for now. Our fresh harvest of bristle berries finally came, and Bloom’s been rapidly cooking them into something more delicious and nutritious.

I’m tempted to use the microbe musher to process the meal lice we got from the mealwood plants into liceloaf. It will give my Dupes more calories per serving, but it will also use a lot of water to manufacture.

Given our dwindling clean water reserve, the choice is obvious.

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Cycle 21

I’ve decided to use the infected water for lavatories since the bacteria inside it won’t really matter.

That’s right, anyone who one day might read this. My dearest researcher, Twily, has finally finished a penultimate design for a plumbed lavatory! Suck on that, Duplicant-who-refused-to-clean-the-toilets!

Speaking of Twily, I’ve noticed that she actively avoids social interactions. The database suggests that it comes from the imperfection of the blueprint itself, not the individual.

That might explain why she’s stressing herself out. I’ll need to find a way to fix her misequinic behavior before she falls into depression.

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Cycle 25

My Duplicants have excavated an intact and partly working computer in the swamps. At first, I thought it proved my theory that a past version of me had tried and failed to establish a colony was true. It’s very tempting to blame myself for everything, it seems.

But, as my Dupes inspected further, the computer seemed to have come straight from Alicorn Tech. It was made by ponies.

As in, pony pony, not Duplicant pony.

Are we really on our designated planet?

---

Cycle 26

Per Twily’s request, I’ve managed to salvage what little remaining data in the computer we found yesterday. I've put the salvaged data in a different folder in the database, should anyone reading this be curious. It contained data from somepony’s email outbox, and Twily’s been ecstatic to read it since we got it.

She was heartbroken when I refused to let her see it, but doesn't comment any further.

On a related note, I think I know who Twily’s blueprint was based on.

From now on, I’m calling her Twilight. She’s quite fond of the name herself.

---

Author's Note:

Anyone who has played ONI for a given amount of time will, inadvertently, forget to clean the outhouses and let their Dupes excrete waste into their fifty tons of previously-clean water.

I still have no idea how to solve that problem.

Comments

[PonyDragon]

*reads report of Cycle 25*
Well, that is very interesting.

[Sylica telca]

Dupe: help were stuck!
Manager: how the fuck did you get stuck up there!?
Dupe: our ladder is to far away
Manager: its 2 feet below you!!

[WorldWalker128]

Anyone who has played ONI for a given amount of time will, inadvertently, forget to clean the outhouses and let their Dupes excrete waste into their fifty tons of previously-clean water.

I still have no idea how to solve that problem.

Set the outhouses priority level to 7 and everything else to 4 as you're building it. Other things that are important, such as farming, researching, and replenishing the Algae-to-oxygen thingies should be set higher than everything else, too. Be sure to make a mental (and if necessary, sticky-note) note of it to do this, and it'll help you stay sane. Just be aware that once a building is fully built, it's priority will reset back to 5. Not normally a problem, except in the case of the storage bins. I've had dupes drop what tasks I'd given them in favor of clean-sweeping the entire colony because I forgot to set their priority down below most other building-tasks in the colony. Went downstairs to make lunch while they were building them, and came back up 20 minutes later to find them close to suffocating, and still clean-sweeping.

[EasyBreeze]

Cycle 15

As far as I can tell, we’re hundreds of kilometers below the surface of the planet. Digging our way out may take some time. I need to prioritize on sustaining the lives of my Duplicants before thinking about digging upward.

Which is why, dear Duplicant #0004 “Celly”, should you never forget to empty the outhouses again, lest you let everypony to excrete their wastes straight into our water reserve in their sleep.

Oh? this must be the Celestia Duplicant!

The new water reserve I’ve set up has been reinforced so that under no circumstances should anypony be able to contaminate it unless they shat themselves right when they’re using the pitcher pump, which should’ve been impossible given the circumstances. Should.

That being said,

YOU HAD ONE JOB, CELLY!

HA, it really does suck when a Dupe makes a mess right into your clean water supply.

[Adeire]

About avoiding the mess, pick a nigh owl dupe early on, put in a night schedule with a decent priority in cleaning the outhouses. It does take care of most issues, the only times bad stuff happens is when every outhouse needs to be emptied, so yeah, pretty much when you mess up.

[Vaguely Demented]

Nice to think the mighty Tia started in waste management, and was crappy at her job.

[IneptusMechanicus]

9845548
Tell me about it. I had a work crew who got stuck in a hydrogen pocket 6 times because the ladder was 1 segment too short.

[RoshiRat]

"I still have no idea how to solve that problem."

CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

[the magitechie]

Which is why, dear Duplicant #0004 “Celly”, should you never forget to empty the outhouses again, lest you let everypony to excrete their wastes straight into our water reserve in their sleep.

Always the water supply... EVERY -ING TIME!