My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 523

ARES 3 solar day 513

"Okay, so is everyone clear?" Mark fumbled around with his hands, looking for an outlet for his inner anxiety. "Now is not the time to argue. We are a loving and happy family. Anyway, the less trouble we cause to NASA by shooting this video, the better."

Fireball held a laptop computer and pointed the screen at the others. The laptop's camera was recording, and the screen displayed a video stream of one frame per second. Everyone stood or sat around the bridge of the Friendship, waiting for the moment when the PR event would begin.

"All we have to do is show Earth that we're all okay, happy, and ready for the rescue that's coming." He began to rattle off the video for the third time. "We show them the trailer. We show them a little magic. We also have to repeat some of the things we've already told them, because many of them didn't hear it a dozen times before. We don't bicker. We don't talk about current health problems. No sex jokes. RTG is also a complete no-no."

"Let's not talk about the death box, got it." Tingting said perfunctorily with a blank expression.

"Be happy and smile." Feihuo said this, but his face looked neither happy nor smiling.

"Please cooperate with us, okay?" Cherry Meimei almost begged, "We owe them this, so we should at least do something to help those who came to rescue us."

"Thanks." Mark replied, "Well, are you ready? Fireball, start transmitting."

Fireball pushed a button—and it turned out to be the wrong one. Since the computer screen and camera were both facing outward, he could barely see the screen. So instead of sending a command to the MAV's communications system to start video transmission, his action turned off the camera.

"Yeah." Mark sighed, "It's okay, this can still be adjusted..."

Transcript – ARES 4 MAV video transmission, start time 12:41 (based on ARES 3 mission)

Mark Watney: Yeah. Okay! Let's start filming! Hello, everyone on Earth! We've traveled thousands of miles to film this on the surface of Mars, and we're presenting it to you in high-definition PPT quality. Welcome to watch the Ares reality show! ... No, MD, why can't I come up with a cooler opening line?

Fireball: Mark, you're a nerd. Nerds are not cool.

Watney: Hey! Nerds are cool, right? And I'm not just a nerd! I'm an astronaut. Astronauts are cool.

Starlight Glimmer: Mark, if you think this is the end of your life, then be happy. But don't feel too sorry for yourself. Maybe one day you'll be able to achieve... unicorn levels of cool.

Watney: Uh... well, we'll see. By the way, my name is Mark Watney. I arrived at Acidalia Planitia in early November of the year 2035 as part of the Ares 3 mission crew. Six days after our landing, a dust storm of unprecedented magnitude forced us to abort the mission. Unfortunately, I was hit by a piece of debris and lost consciousness, which also destroyed my vital signs monitor. Under the circumstances, my colleagues had every reason to believe that I was dead, and their own lives were in danger, so they had no choice but to leave me behind. A series of extremely unusual events came together to make me survive unexpectedly.

Cherry Berry: I'm Cherry Berry. I'm the pilot and commander of the ship (Jili Gulu), which we've been calling the Friendship because that's what it means when translated. We were testing a new magic-powered engine, and it malfunctioned, transporting us from our original universe to yours. We crashed about ten kilometers from the Ares 3 settlement, and then followed the beacon sent by the settlement to find Mark. We've lived together ever since.

Watney: It is. You may have seen the photos we sent of the habitat and the cave where we grow the food we need to survive. You may also see the video we filmed there soon. But we are here in the Schiaparelli Basin, the original landing site of the Ares 4 mission, kilometers away from all of those places we just mentioned, and we are in the vehicle that brought us here.

Cherryberry: The remaining part of the vehicle.

Watney: Yeah, it wasn't like this on the drive up here. We removed all the seats a few days ago so that the ponies would have their own custom flight seats when we launched the MAV on Sol 551. So, it wasn't originally this spacious. Back to the point, this was originally the cockpit and bridge of the Friendship. Let's go to Mission Engineer Tingting to get her take on the details.

Tingting: Oh, hi! Can you all see me? Is this thing pointed at me? Okay, before I start, let me first say sorry for disappointing you all. I am deeply ashamed of my irresponsible behavior of draining Mark and running the car...

Watney: Tingting, they can understand. Can we start talking about the spaceship?

Tingting: This is really important. I really messed up, and...

Watney: You'll have a chance to talk about that when you're interviewed on your own. For now, can you focus on the spacecraft?

Tingting: Okay. Well, this is the Friendship. You can probably see the different shades of color on the floor and walls inside the cabin. They're the traces left when we removed a lot of the controls and consoles to reduce the weight when we converted our ship into a trailer. And, uh, although you can't see it, the outside of the ship looks different now, too. It was all pink and had a bunch of hearts on it, which was really funny.

Meimei: What do you mean? ? ?

Tingting: What else can I say? That’s just the way it is… For example, how would you feel if you saw a spaceship covered with hay?

Meimei: A bit confusing?

Tingting: Forget it. Let's get down to business. These are the remaining parts of the flight controls. We're keeping them because we need them to control the nose landing gear, which is the steering of the tail wheels of our current rover. Most of the equipment here will be left in place when we leave, because we don't need it on the MAV. The only exception is this small box here. This box contains our main communication system, which may be used in case we need to do an EVA after launch.

Friendship was originally designed to carry up to seven crew members for a month in space, so the cabin is so spacious. But if you look over here... Fireball, follow me!

Watney: Fireball is holding the computer we used to shoot this video. The video camera we use to record things outdoors doesn't have a one-frame-per-second mode like the camera software does.

Fireball: Mark, you can hold this thing for a while. Your people already know what humans look like. How common are dragons there?

Tingting: Wait a minute, let me show them the living quarters, okay? Here's the thing. The Friendship originally had three airtight compartments, or sections. The machinery section was near the tail of the ship, and it got cracked when we crashed. There was a big hole. We ended up having to cut it all off. Here, do you see this? This is the hatch that once led to the machinery section. In front of the hatch is our life support equipment.

We sleep on this pile of mattresses every night. We used to use the beds in the Hab back when we were there. In space we sleep on the walls - fireball, camera up! But the gravity on Mars is too strong to be comfortable. Up top you see the docking hatch that connects our space station to other ships. There's no airlock on that hatch, so we really take care to make sure it's always closed!

And then these are our magic batteries. This one here is one of only two that survived the accident. The other batteries were connected when the twinkle drive failed, and the engine consumed so much power that they broke them. We later built more batteries from the metal parts that were left. Not counting the fifteen large batteries we'll use to propel the MAV up and rendezvous with the Hermes, we have a total of twenty-one batteries here. Eight of them will go with us - seven to power the twinkle drives, and one to power the spacesuit communication system or as an emergency backup.

Starlight: Fireball, give the computer to Mark, and bring Eight over to the bridge!

Fireball: No problem.

Tingting: By the way, these are our food stocks. When we set out from the cave, we actually had twice as much food. When we launch, the food we bring with us on the MAV will be enough for seven days as a short-term reserve. At that time, we will have to rely on our space suit life support system for air and water. If everything goes well, we won't need this reserve at all, because Hermes still has enough food for all of us to eat for several months.

Starlight Glimmer: On our way back to the bridge, why don't we stop by and say hi to Spitfire? Spitfire, show us your wings.

Feihuo: I don’t want it.

Watney: Your fans are worried about you! Show them how you are doing. Please.

Feihuo: Okay.

Starlight: Spitfire lost more than half of her feathers after she flew up to destroy the Arabian Mesa dust storm. Most of the damaged feathers have grown back to about half of their original size...

Feihuo: Itchy. Itchy (gurgling).

Starlight: Feihuo's wings are slightly larger than average for a Pegasus. But if you want to really fly, these wings are obviously not big enough. Pegasus's magic can increase speed and lift, allowing Pegasus to fly and hover freely, and even to drag vehicles forward. You will see the power of magic with your own eyes in a moment.

Spitfire: I only said I could fly. I didn't say I would! There's no room on the bridge! Not enough space!

Starlight: All you need is a few antennas, like the two wrenches we use now, placed on the battery electrodes, to generate a small magic field with the battery. In our universe, magic energy is everywhere, but in your world, only life can generate magic energy. But life in our world needs to rely on at least a little bit of environmental magic energy to survive. When we realized this, we began to recuperate in the magic field every day to keep our bodies healthy.

The batteries recharge fairly quickly in our cave farm, but there are only six of us here, and we can only absorb a little bit of magic each day. Since the dust storm - the one you call the Great Dark Spot - we usually only cast magic for about two minutes a day; but on days like today we make an exception and extend it a little, so we can show you what our magic is capable of!

let's go!

Tingting: I’ll go first!

Starlight: Changelings can basically transform into anything. This is a minotaur... this is a big rock... this is a princess, uh...

Tingting (changed voice): Celestia.

Starlight: But this translation is wrong! ——Wait, what are you doing? !

Dragonfly: Daisy Duke.

Starlight: Of course I can tell it's Daisy Duke! And I can see way too many Daisy Dukes! Stop! There might be kids in the audience! Okay, that's all for today's Changelings. Changelings can also use their magic to lift objects or shoot beams of magical energy, but most can't cast more complex spells. Berry, could you please bring Groot over here?