My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 320

ARES 3 solar day 316

[08:35] System Message: Error – Signal loss exceeded recovery threshold – Content cannot be displayed

[09:36] System Message: Error – Signal loss exceeded recovery threshold – Content cannot be displayed

[10:37] System Message: Error – Signal loss exceeded recovery threshold – Content cannot be displayed

[11:38] JPL: Received the news about the magic resistance yesterday. Today's all-safe message was received in Morse code. Everything looks fine to us.

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 321

ARES 3 solar day 317

[08:35] System Message: Error – Signal loss exceeded recovery threshold – Content cannot be displayed

[09:36] System Message: Error – Signal loss exceeded recovery threshold – Content cannot be displayed

[10:37] JPL: Received all the safe news today. The situation has not changed.

This time they let Mark read an entire chapter by himself. None of them - not the ponies, not Fireball, not even Dragonfly - wanted to participate in the reading. They just listened silently the whole time, from the beginning of the chapter when the King of the Nazgul left the broken gate of Minas Tirith to the end of the chapter where Mark loudly recited the list of the dead in rhythm.

Dragonfly felt her own sadness, the sadness of the ponies, and even the sadness of Fireball, who was usually unmoved by the violence and death in human stories. She was also shocked that Mark didn't feel the same way; to him it was all just a story.

She was even more shocked that she would be shocked.

After giving the ponies a minute to voluntarily post their usual reflections, and waiting for a moment in the midst of choked silence and a few sobs from Starlight, Mark spoke, "This author has spent most of his adult life. , is a professor of linguistics and ancient literature. His area of ​​focus is the texts written by his ancestors thousands of years ago - of course, only a very small part has survived. And most of these texts are like The chapter ends with the same prayer, praising the glorious sacrifice in battle and mourning the tragic death of the hero."

"Who... can... sing... of... death in... battle...?" Feihuo obviously used every ounce of energy he could muster when he said this, but every word he spoke was... It felt like my heart was being twisted.

"My ancestors," Mark replied, "and Tolkien's ancestors. The Rohirrim were the people he based on the Anglo-Saxons. They eventually became the core of a country called England. I The families of the Anglo-Saxons are all descendants of English colonists. The Anglo-Saxons' obsession with war is almost to the point of worship. In fact, they are part of a larger culture that upholds the belief that it is the only honorable The way to die is to die in battle. If you die of illness or end of life, you will be forced to join the forces of evil in the final battle at the end of the world."

"This," Fireball said in an unquestionable tone, "is too perverted."

"The Battle of the Five Armies wasn't that bad. Helm's Deep wasn't that bad. Even the Battle of Hogwarts wasn't that bad," Cherry Berry added.

"Then he wrote the story like this because he likes war?" Dragonfly asked.

"Not really. It was quite the opposite," Mark explains. "He was writing with the intention of creating a mythological story that was close to what he was studying, but he was also working to portray the war as best he could at that time. Horrible and disgusting. To explain, when he was a young man - about half my age - there was a great war and countries from all over the world were involved. Tolkien's classmates and his They all volunteered to go to the front line. On the battlefield, Tolkien witnessed many terrible things and was injured - I don't remember why, but he spent more than a year in a hospital recovering. In Of all the people from his school who joined the army, he was the only survivor."

After telling this background story, the silence became more and more solemn, almost enough to suffocate the entire farm; Ting Ting thought so. Finally, she mustered up the courage to speak on her own initiative, "Speaking of which, when we were thrown hundreds of kilometers and collectively thrown back into the wasteland by the power of love, none of us died. This has always been a bit surprising to us. .We lost a few deserters at that time, and a few had broken bones or wings when they hit the ground, but none of them died. Of course, we have always been very careful not to kill any ponies. That way This behavior is purely a waste of food." Then she raised her hoof and waved the computer that displayed the reading materials to Mark, "But this? What is this?! So many people. Even those orcs. How many of them are here voluntarily? Of? And how many of them were driven behind it?"

"She makes sense." Starlight also said, "No species is completely evil. But sometimes I still doubt it when I see a dragonfly."

"Hey! I've been working hard to correct it! Has Xiaodie completely overcome her stage fright now?"

"I have to make a digression here," Mark interjected. "It must be pointed out that Tolkien was constantly criticized by later generations for shaping this entire concept of racial evil. Many writers even wrote specifically about this. I wrote a book and created a lot of images of orcs or goblins or other races that are not all vicious bastards who just stab people in the back all the time. But we still have to put ourselves in their shoes... For example, remember Did I mention Sanford and Sons before? That show was made twenty years after the books in the series were published. And Tolkien was almost sixty at the time. So socially, He has the...well, let's just say cognitive blind spots that belong to his generation."

"I still say your species needs some immortal princesses," Starlight muttered in response.

"I want to talk about Éowyn first," Cherry Berry interrupted their argument, "So she has always been Durnhelm? Did she actively choose to join the war? Did she do this intentionally??? Why? "

Mark thought for a while, "As for this, there is actually a little explanation in the book," he replied, "But you probably can't understand the cultural part. Let me put it this way. First of all, she is a member of Rohan Noble. But because the culture of the Rohirrim values ​​force - and warrior in this culture is a role that can only be performed by men..."

After hearing this, Feihuo snorted disdainfully enough to rival a big horse.

"...Yes, I understand, but this has been a practice in our culture for about two thousand years," Mark continued to explain, "Her brothers and other relatives - note that they are all men - can all ride on horses. On the battlefield, she established great achievements and was remembered by future generations. But she could only stay at home in the rear, watching her uncle grow old day by day under the torture of the poisonous tongue. After her death, if there were not two men for If they married her and started a civil war, her name wouldn't even be engraved on the tombstone. But she also wanted to achieve great things, just like them. Not to mention that at the time, their people were not as good as everything else in the world. They are all about to be wiped out. There is no way out."

"Changed." Fireball sighed again.

"No, this is not a perversion," Dragonfly said suddenly, "This is just like a changeling."

"Really?" Mark asked, "How do you say this?"

"Only the elites in the hive can become infiltrators," Dragonfly replied. "After all, not every changeling has the ability to truly integrate into pony society - only the smartest and most covert ones can stand out. . I could barely get over the threshold, and only because I was fast enough to pose as a courier. Obviously, there had to be bugs doing other jobs too - guarding, taking care of the larvae, maintaining the hive facilities, that sort of thing - but We always had this feeling that you weren't a true changeling if you never stepped out into the trenches and stole love from ponies."

"I'm pretty sure," Starlight interjected, "if Rohan were full of love-eating insectoids, Mr. Tolkien would have foreshadowed it in the article."

"This analogy is not very appropriate," Dragonfly continued, "But please imagine that if a changeling was born as one of the top changelings in the insect hive, strong, agile, and good at disguise and rhetoric, But I was told that I could only stay in the insect nest to take care of an old queen, or protect the old worker insects and larvae, and I could only watch other insects go out to make a big wedding. If it were me, if I thought I had a way If you sneak away, I will definitely find a way to sneak into the raiding team."

"As for Eowyn? She is... let me count... yes, three - only three! There are only three named female characters in this entire story!" She paused at this point. After a pause, "Wait a minute, no, there should be four. I always forget Bilbo's cousins, who are they called. But all in all, it is obvious that she wants to do something important and meaningful, and can It's something that people will remember, but no one will let her do it! No one is willing to give her a chance!" She turned to Berry and said, "And boss, I know you can relate to this! She pointed to one of her wings for emphasis; from the appearance, it was no longer as shabby and shriveled as when she first came out of the cocoon.

Berry nodded, "So she went to the battlefield like this," a tear fell from the corner of her mouth, "Poor child. She will die in the hospital, right?"

"If I say any more, it will be a spoiler," Mark warned.

"I knew it! She was going to die!"

Dragonfly decided to stop before their commander started to get into the mood and hysterically vent his emotions in a shower of sentimental pony tears. "What are you thinking, how is that possible," she said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, "I bet she'll be forced to stay in bed in the hospital for a while, with some wounded soldier in the next bed—probably the one named Farah. Mill's guy, the author must have written about him intentionally - and then they would spend time together and have a relationship, because otherwise what else would they be doing in the hospital."

It worked. Berry's storm cry stopped abruptly midway through the startup, and the pink earth pony stared at the changeling in front of her with disbelief. "What?" she asked, "Where on earth did you come up with such...such...such a stupid plot?"

"Inspired by my queen's collection of pulp paperback romance novels," Dragonfly replied, "When we go back, don't tell her that I stole it."

Of course, Tingting himself didn't believe any of the nonsense he told. This was obviously not going to happen this way; she believed that Éowyn was finished, and that within the next chapter or two the author would describe a painful bedside scene as her life faded away from the world. This is what an emotional anti-war theme should look like.

After all, if even Remus Lupine and Nymphadora Tonks didn't get a "happily ever after" ending in that book series for children, this militant, suicidal maniac How can it be an exception?

"But it's definitely not Faramir," Starlight pointed out a loophole. "Isn't he about to die? Isn't Denethor going to cremate him soon?"

"What is..."

"Burn to ashes!"

"Hey, treat the situation and not the person!"

Mark did not let the misunderstanding escalate and interrupted their discussion. “We’ll continue reading Pippin’s story in the next chapter,” he concluded. “Speaking of which, I think it’s time to take a break, put on my space suit, and go back to the Hab for lunch.”

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 322

ARES 3 solar day 318

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[10:48] System Message: Signal Received – Conversation Resume Service

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[11:00] System message: Session timeout (loss of signal error, signal reacquisition failed within 600 seconds)