My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 179

ARES 3 solar day 178

Transcript – Coded Communication – ESA spacecraft AMICITAS ＜-＞ NASA spacecraft HERMES

AMICITAS: Friendship number is calling Hermes. Please answer when you receive it. Over.

HERMES: Hermes calls the friendship number. Please answer when you receive it. The received signal quality is acceptable. Complete.

AMICITAS: Good reception. Is it Johnson? complete.

HERMES: Correct, done.

AMICITAS: I’m not very familiar with using Morse code yet. I’m just kidding. Over.

HERMES: Mark, it's okay. I have also been practicing recently, over.

AMICITAS: How are you guys doing lately? complete.

HERMES: All good. This question should be asked by us. How are you doing? complete.

AMICITAS: Still thinking about how to eat potatoes and hay for the next few hundred days, over.

HERMES: I apologize, over.

AMICITAS: It's not your fault. It's just Murphy's Law. Don't forget to grab a steak for me when you get home, over.

HERMES: Got it. Gotta get back to work now. The call is completed.

Transcript (Abstract) – Hydraulic Telegraph Switch – ESA Maltimore Center ＜-＞ ESA spacecraft AMICITAS

AMICITAS: Amicitas calls Maltimore, uses the starlight space suit to reply, completed.

ESA: Maltimore calls Amicitas, over.

AMICITAS: A long message containing the magic formula is about to be sent. Please prepare to receive and signal to begin transmission. Also, please give us your spell recommendations for sealing the cave farm as soon as possible, done.

ESA: Twilight Sparkle will be here soon. Why is there such a rush to deal with the cave issue now? complete.

AMICITAS: The supply mission launched from Mark's planet failed and is over.

ESA: Twilight - Try using the Porcelain Transformation Spell with the Terrain Tracking Spell. complete.

AMICITAS: Starlight—turned into ceramic? complete.

ESA: Twilight - this was Trixie's idea, over and over.

ESA: Maltimore calls Amicitas, please answer when received, over.

AMICITAS: Amicitas received. Tell Lao Cui that this is a good idea, we might as well just plant crops in a big teacup, that's it.

ESA: Starlight, I’m serious! complete.

AMICITAS: Twilight, sorry, over.

ESA: This is indeed a good idea. Do you know Jammy Devil’s Torus Tracer? complete.

AMICITAS: I haven't heard of it, but I know Inside Leg's Automatic Measure. Over.

ESA: That should work too. Note that the transformation spell should be superimposed on the tracking spell; don't do it the other way around, otherwise the target of the transformation will become the crystal in the cave. complete.

AMICITAS: Got it, just deal with the outside, otherwise the fireball will eat tens of millions of teacups, over.

ESA: The receiving formula is prepared and completed.

AMICITAS: The news begins...

There was silence at the dinner table in the cabin tonight. In fact, about three days after the first batch of hay was harvested, there was no laughter at the dining table in the habitation module; however, the bad news came from the Sleipnir project - one of the aircraft was destroyed and the other was trapped in the earth's orbit. The only survivor flying to Mars also faces the potential threats of various unknown accidents on the way - further damaging the remaining morale.

It is obviously an exaggeration to call Cherry Berry the best cook among the Amicitas members. It would be more accurate to call Cherry Berry the "least worst" cook; however, they actually have no other choice. Berry had at least worked part-time in the kitchen a few times before, while Starlight's skills in this area could only handle breakfast and tea parties at most; Spitfire had never been on his own since he worked as a kitchen helper during training at the flight academy. After cooking, Ting Ting and Huo Qiu both had dark eyes and no enthusiasm for learning.

So in this case, it makes sense to try to modify the air conditioner heating element to cook hay and potatoes, but ultimately to no avail. The food ingredients used in Mark's memory of the Thanksgiving dinner that was originally going to be made on the 16th of Sol were already packaged, dehydrated and reconstituted semi-finished products, so this cooking method was not suitable for their current difficult environment where they were running out of food. It took Mark a while to explain the concept of "golden and crispy", but before he finished speaking, everyone was already indifferent.

Similarly, previous attempts to cook hay and potato soup using a chemical laboratory electric stove also came up empty. Other cooking experiments that failed include fried hay (an oil-free version), salt-baked potatoes (which made a mess in the microwave), and alfalfa-braised potatoes (which were actually quite palatable, but had the disadvantage of cannot be cooked in batches). The only result from a large number of cooking experiments is probably the very light alfalfa tea, but this is actually what NASA came up with.

So another attempt to increase dietary diversity failed miserably; faced with plain dehydrated alfalfa and microwave-roasted potatoes for hundreds of solar days in the future, the residents in the cabin could only chew their dinner in silence. Mark took out the last bottle of Tabasco to lighten the mood, but out of an unspoken agreement, the bottle of sauce remained intact on the table after dinner.

The ponies noticed that Mark hadn't opened a single food packet today. He ate three potatoes for lunch and probably chewed a hay stalk during the afternoon soil experiment.

Dinner was finally finished, and everyone's mood became lighter, but Mark was an exception. He handed his improvised sample box cover to Starlight to clean, and then walked through several rows of potato plants dotted with small clusters of alfalfa, playing with them nonchalantly.

"So, what should you do next?" Tingting asked, "Watch TV, or read a few chapters of Order of the Phoenix?"

"It depends. Can we see that Jim Rockford guy tonight?" Fireball asked.

"I stand for Harry Potter." Starlight responded.

"That's just because you have the best reading ability." Spitfire complained at the side.

Cherry Berry looked at Mark sitting alone on the edge of the field, idly playing with a green leaf.

"Hey, boss! Are we together?" Fireball turned to Berry and asked, "You can make the final decision."

Berry, who was wandering in a fugue, was stunned for a moment. "Huh?" she asked, "What's the final word?"

"Splitfire and Fireball want to watch TV first," said Dragonfly, "Starlight and I want to read Harry Potter first."

Berry looked at Mark next to him who was still fiddling with the same leaf on the same potato plant over and over again, and asked, "What if you don't choose either one?"

"What else can we do?" Fireball asked.

"Mark has been telling us various stories about their world before," Berry said.

"Yes, and some are really bad," Spitfire muttered. "Like 'The Adventures of Letterman'? Is he serious?"

"I think," Berry raised her voice to cover everyone's complaints, "it's our turn to share with him some stories from our place. Stories from the past."

"Stories from the past?" Starlight asked, "We didn't even speak his language in the past!"

"But we can do it now." Berry replied, "At least you and Tingting are fine, and the rest of us are also working hard to catch up. Besides, I think Mark can also take this opportunity to relax."

"Looks like we have to tell pony stories, doesn't it?" Fireball said, "We dragons don't tell stories."

Spitfire smiled proudly, "Probably because you only have stories to tell about being beaten up by ponies."

Fireball raised his eyebrows and looked down at the pegasus in front of him. "Really?" he asked, "Because the version I heard is that many ponies have been entangled with dragons but kept it secret. The real reason is actually..."

"That's enough." Berry snapped. "Tell me the story first, and that's it. This is an order."

Fireball and Flying Fire could only lower their heads in frustration. At this time, Dragonfly suddenly said out of nowhere, "We changelings don't tell stories either. In most cases, we have action summary reports."

"How about I pick a story?" Starlight said, "Let's start with the legend of the two sisters. Everyone has heard this story, right?"

Even Fireball nodded.

A few minutes later a fireball led Mark to the side of the bunk. Starlight took out the time-honored whiteboard and sketched a simple pattern of two ponies with wings and one horn on it. A little magic adds due luster to the two princesses on the white board, embracing the sun and moon they control (this is just a legend, the accurate astronomical explanation is more complicated).

Starlight had previously communicated with several other humans on the planet Mark by email, and also talked about topics related to myths and legends. She was particularly amazed that a large number of Equestrian creatures were hard to find on the earth, but they could be found in myths and legends one after another. As she continued to delve deeper through e-mails, she also learned how to properly tell ancient legends in human terms.

So Mark sat down, and the melancholy and gloomy expression on his face disappeared, turning into pure curiosity; he only heard a voice narrating the legend of Nightmare Moon's fall and redemption: "A long time ago, in Pony In this magical land full of magic..."