Stars in your multitudes, scarce to be counted, filling the darkness with order and light.

[tookashirototheknee]

[Matt might be good at the network, but that doesn't mean he has complete control over his thoughts. Sometimes things slip through. But in this case, it's probably for the better.]

Oh, for the love of space peas, that's it!

[He pauses, and then sets out to make slightly more coherent comments. Standing in front of a mirror, at first all people can see is a detailed star chart. Anyone who is familiar with stars from earth would know this isn't exactly a view from Earth, but it's similar.]

So, I totally forgot that I got blessed with visions or hallucinations or something like that, but I had a... something of a star field. I don't know if I was there or in a planetarium or what, but I drew it out.

And then I realized. This is the star field as seen from Mars. I'd be a crap Garrison graduate if I couldn't figure that one out. So, uh, on top of everything else that's going on, we're going to Mars.

I haven't been there myself, but my dad's told me a lot about it, so I can help. I hope.

Comments

[tookashirototheknee]

Absolutely. Meet you at the room in about five?

[tookashirototheknee]

Hey, I'd probably hate me if I wasn't me.

[Does that make sense? Probably not.]

... good point. That could be a huge pain in the ass.

[tookashirototheknee]

Hey! Dad loves space peas. Granted, I never really got his obsession with them, but. He's not nobody.

Ew. Yeah. I really don't want to have to be in one of the old suits. How in the world did anyone get anything done with those clunky boots and gloves?! And the breathing and cooling systems were completely archaic.

[vrepit_no]

I'll be there.

[hiddensword]

He's your dad, of course he told you they're good. Eat your space veggies and all that.

I think they had to use like...joystick claw arms or something and had chest mounted displays.

Early astronauts were crazy.

[willyousee]

It speaks to... something, I suppose, that my first thought was to question why the God of War would wish peas from beyond Earth's limits.

But it is the next furthest planet out from the sun, yes? Forgive me, but I am not as familiar with the history of the solar system of Earth as perhaps I ought, given the number of times we have journeyed into space. May I ask, what is its significance?

[helborn]

Yeha, unfortunately I can't make my place any bigger or I'd offer you some space. Pretty sure I can't, anyway.

[rustyhonesty]

... yeah, I guess that's true. Probably there's an ocean beyond our walls and lands beyond the ocean just like there are elsewhere. The problem is will we ever reach them.

It sounds amazing, being able to see places. I guess Traveling helps with that too, in a sense.

[truerevelation]

A living planet...? Damn. Yeah... it's crazy to think about how much stuff we just ain't gonna get to see because ... it's in the wrong place.

Think they're mostly just pointing telescopes at stuff and sending probes places at home. Wasn't like I was really following 'em back then.

[carbonatedscientist]

It's not that hard to be more cautious than some of the people here, that's the worrisome thing. There are just varying degrees of recklessness on display.

[levelthreehooligan]

A voice pipes up on the Network

Mars?? What is a 'Mars'?

Wait this is... SpacE??!! You're talking about outside of the Planet!!!???

[No one in Hydaelyn has gone off-planet before, The Allegans managed to launch a satellite, but that was it. She's incredibly excited about this.]

[vrepit_no]

Heh. That was a shuttle.

[He extends a memory to Tachibana, though he'll provide it for anyone else who asks: first, a launchpad with the shuttle docked and awaiting its final checks. Second, a short sequence of a shuttle being launched. ((OOC: as a note, he would not show these exact shots, but the shuttle would remain the same.))]

We haven't gotten to cruiser size yet.

[triggerhappytraitor]

That was just...?!

[[One moment, his science fiction knowledge is very small and mostly limited to things he saw on TV growing up, mixed with a "saw it on the news" awareness of the space program and some of the more hypothetical advances from one of his more vocal colleges. (At least he was pretty sure the talk about sending a car into space was hypothetical...)]]

But that was a long range mission, wasn't it?

[vrepit_no]

Yes. Our tech is probably more compact than it is in your era. We only needed a ship that size to do a long range mission with three people. Out to Pluto's moon.

The hard part, as always, is getting the ship off the planet. So far we kept using fuel pods like you saw there. Once we get out through atmo, we wait till the fuel runs out, then jettison the pods and start the engines.

They don't run on the same stuff. It's way more efficient than that, and you don't keep it up the whole time. Small, controlled pushes set you up on the right trajectory, and then you put her into a timed series of boosts to keep coasting unless you need to correct course for an unexpected object. [Beat.] Or the asteroid belt. [Beat.] Or a brief side trip to skim the rings of Saturn. That was great.