#they took the mars rover approach | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

birgittesilverbae · 7 months

Text

more fic: dads for @princington

Lilith staggers back a step as Libby sprints towards her and collides full-speed with her legs. She only just catches herself, then bends to sweep Libby up into her arms.

"Dad!" she crows, burrowing her face in Lilith's shoulder. "Missed you!"

"I missed you too, darling, but where's the fire?"

Libby squirms excitedly in her grasp. "Couldn't wait, wanna tell you 'bout me and baba's trip," she starts, twisting her fists in the collar of Lilith's jacket.

"My and baba's trip, Libs," Lilith says absently as she shifts Libby higher on her hips.

"Wanna tell you 'bout my and baba's trip," Libby echoes, her grin not faltering at the easy correction.

"Where'd you go?"

"Baba's pretty friend took us to the space museum! And she got me–" Libby releases her collar with one hand and moves to pat at her pants pocket. "She got me– Where's it?"

"I packed it in your bookbag for you, sweetheart," Beatrice says, hefting the bag for both of them to see as she approaches. "Along with a couple extra pairs of PJs this time," she adds. "We've had a couple accidents again recently."

"Thanks for the head's up. Baba's pretty friend, huh?"

Beatrice rolls her eyes. "Don't start; we ran into Lucia on the way home from the library the other day and Libby invited her on the museum trip I'd already had planned for today."

"Ah." Lilith jerks her head towards the car. "Can you put that in the passenger seat for me while I get Libby buckled in, please?"

Beatrice arches an eyebrow, amusement flickering at the edge of her mouth, but she moves to comply readily. Lilith doesn't watch her walk past, doesn't note the way her jeans hug her hips, definitely doesn't do anything but tip her forehead down to meet Libby's. "I love you, Libby," she says softly, "I'm so glad you had a fun time at the museum."

Lilith's just got Libby settled down to sleep, her tiny Mars rover model settled safely on her bedside table and three bedtime stories under her belt, when she hears the front door open. Libby must hear it too, in some unconscious way, because her face crinkles into a yawn as she rolls over and rubs at her eyes. "Baba?"

Lilith withholds a sigh and nods. "She'll be up in a moment, darling."

Sure enough, it's less than a minute before Beatrice's soft footsteps echo up the staircase. She pokes her head around the corner of Libby's doorjamb, takes in the pair of them staring back at her illuminated by the light from the hall. "Sorry," she whispers, crossing the room to settle on the edge of the bed beside Libby. "I didn't mean to wake you, darling."

"You didn't," Lilith lies, taking in Beatrice as she bends to speak softly to Libby. Her favourite pair of dark jeans, the sweater she always tends towards when she wants something to ground her as she steps out of her comfort zone, the residue of something on her cheek where she hasn't quite wiped it away properly. "Didn't know you were dating again," she says before she can catch herself, leaning heavily against the doorframe.

Beatrice raises her head sharply from where she'd dipped it to kiss the side of Libby's head. "Do you mean Lucia?" she asks evenly as she rises to her feet so she can tuck the edge of the blanket back up over Libby's shoulders. "I love you, Libby. Goodnight, sleep tight."

"Don't let the bedbugs bite," Libby finishes, words warping around a yawn. "Love you, baba. Love you, dad."

"I love you, Libby," Lilith replies. Beatrice shoulders past her and Lilith follows, shutting the door quietly behind her. Beatrice jerks her head towards the stairs and Lilith follows her down to the kitchen. "I mean whoever you went out with on what was clearly a date tonight," she says once they're firmly ensconced across the island from each other.

"Yes, I had a date tonight. Not that that's any of your business."

Lilith scoffs. "Not that it's– It becomes my business when you're disrupting our daughter's sleep schedule over it," she retorts. She's not sure where it's coming from, this feeling in her chest, this tightness in her throat, the warmth seeping into her face.

"You just said I hadn't woken her up," Beatrice counters. "If I did, I'm sorry, but I did tell you I was going to be late tonight. I appreciate you staying to see her to bed, I really do, but much less so if you're going to try to weaponize that request against me."

"I had just thought it would be for something important, not for–"

"Not for a date, you mean." Beatrice flexes her hands, works her fingers, and Lilith can't seem to tear her eyes away. "So, you can bring a parade of arm candy to Shannon and Mary's get togethers, but the one time I take a passing interest in someone–"

"Oh, we're calling two people a 'parade of arm candy' now?"

"If the shoe fits. At least Libby likes Lucia."

"Libby likes anyone with a pretty face who'll buy her a toy."

"What's that say about your taste in partners, then?"

Lilith bites back a laugh. "I don't know that that's the argument you want to be making right now, ex-wife."

Beatrice mutters something under her breath, her arms hugging around her middle, and then sighs. "I don't want to argue about this tonight, Lilith. Or ever, really. Thank you for staying late, I do appreciate it, but if you could see yourself out now that'd be wonderful."

"Sure," Lilith bites out around the lump in her throat. "Fine." She moves around the island, dips her mouth to Bea's ear as she passes. "You might want to do a better job wiping the lipstick off your cheek next time. Just a suggestion."

The sheer indignation in Beatrice's answering groan buoys Lilith right out into the crisp autumn evening.

#fic: dads #myfic #mywn #warrior nun #beatrice x lilith

78 notes · View notes

just--space · 2 years

Photo

Mars Panorama 360 from Curiosity : Which way up Mount Sharp? In early September, the robotic rover Curiosity continued its ascent up the central peak of Gale Crater, searching for more clues about ancient water and further evidence that Mars could once have been capable of supporting life. On this recent Martian morning, before exploratory drilling, the rolling rover took this 360-degree panorama, in part to help Curiosity's human team back on Earth access the landscape and chart possible future routes. In the horizontally-compressed featured image, an amazing vista across Mars was captured, complete with layered hills, red rocky ground, gray drifting sand, and a dusty atmosphere. The hill just left of center has been dubbed Maria Gordon Notch in honor of a famous Scottish geologist. The current plan is to direct Curiosity to approach, study, and pass just to the right of Gordon Notch on its exploratory trek. via NASA

#NASA #space #astronomy

316 notes · View notes

slippinmickeys · 1 year

Text

The Mesas of Deuteronilus Mensae (31/?)

The husk of the rover was still caked in dust, which built up around the edges of the windows in frost-like clumps. The air inside now had a permanent tinge of boiled eggs and the cots dipped in the middle, hewn to the center mass of the two people who slept in them. The table they sat at to eat had a permanent scratch and the lab had a drawer that wouldn’t quite close. The computers hummed, the oxygen scrubbers hissed; everything seemed worn and lived in. Maybe a little grubby.

Scully took in all these details as she looked at the screwdriver Mulder held up, as she marked the moment when she knew everything was not as it should be. Something was happening, something that had long been brewing and was of ill intent. Phobos and Deimos–Fear and Dread–looked down from the heavens above them, oblong and pitted, trapped in Mars' gravitational embrace.

She drew in a breath. “Oh my God, Mulder.”

“Yeah,” he said, sounding a little breathless.

“Is that scorching or blood?”

He squinted at it, then set it down on the table where it lay in a round pool of light. “Scorching, I think.”

“Still. Jesus.”

“What the fuck is going at the HAB, Scully?”

That was the real question, wasn’t it , Scully thought.

While Mulder stood there with most of his hardsuit still on, Scully walked over to the cockpit terminal and again tried to bring up comms with the HAB. Nothing . Mission Control. Nothing .

“Is Robo-3’s motherboard working in any capacity?” she asked, turning back to him.

“Well, I mean, up until about five minutes ago, it was at least still capable of mobility. Why?”

“We could try to patch through comms to the HAB and Mission Control on it,” Scully said.

“From every readout I’ve looked at, the rover isn’t the problem,” Mulder pointed out.

“Readouts can be wrong.”

Mulder gave her a long look. “Okay,” he finally said, “let me see what I can do.” He swiped a rover laptop off the table and grabbed his helmet, shoving it back into place. He was through the airlock before Scully could check it.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The unease he felt was beginning to resemble that of having his foot locked in a trap. There was no safe haven, no place to go. Something deeply troubling was going on or had gone on at the HAB, and they were not entirely safe here, either. They were running out of supplies—had only a couple weeks worth left—and Scully was pregnant and stuck in a tin can with a man that likely couldn’t save her if anything went wrong. Their options were few, and he still didn’t know how Scully was feeling about any of them.

Mulder approached Robo-3, whom he’d set to standby mode. The HAB robotic assistants drew most of their power from a stationary dock at the base, but each was equipped with an array of solar panels that had been swept clean by the wind. The old NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity far outlived their planned 90-day missions, due, in large part, to the strength of the Martian wind, which kept their solar panels clear and absorbent for six years in the case of Spirit, and fourteen for Opportunity. The large assistance robot likely would have kept trundling along for years if Mulder and Scully hadn’t come across it. Mulder, pulling open the hatch to the control station, wondered why it was out here in the first place.

While not a mechanical whiz, Mulder did have some training and a fair bit of game. He cleaned out the connections with compressed air from the rover, set things to rights as best he could from eyeballing the motherboard, and connected the rover’s laptop to the assistant.

He typed a few commands and found the robot responsive, but laggy, like a teenager getting out of bed.

“Robo-3, report,” Mulder said, reengaging the voice commands, which had for some reason been turned off.

“Robo-3 r-r-reporting,” came the voice of the machine on a squelch of feedback. Each robot was assigned a different voice—Robo-1 a cool, female voice with a posh British accent, Robo-2 a deep, round male voice that Mulder always thought sounded a bit like James Earl Jones, and this one, a higher tenor that, with a new glitchy, pitchy mechanical stutter, made him sound exactly like Max Headroom. “H-how can I assist you, M-Mulder?”

“What is your current assignment?”

“My assignment is to assist N-N-N-Nerio.”

“Right, but I’m asking what task you are currently on.”

“N-no task. D-deprogam.”

“Deprogramming is not necessary. I’m trying to determine why you’re out here.”

“N-no task. D-deprogram.”

Mulder felt his blood pressure rise. Something was obviously not right with the machine. He double checked the laptop, which showed no major errors, and sighed.

“Robo-3, what is your current location?”

Robo-3 rattled off their coordinates. Mulder, double-checked his heads up display and found that they were correct.

“How did you get out here?”

The robot didn’t respond, and Mulder could hear a high whine of a fan start running somewhere in the machine’s innards.

“You’re extremely far from the HAB, Three,” Mulder pointed out. “Why?”

“Intercept.”

“Intercept what? Intercept who? Scully and me?”

“Affirm-affirm-affirmative.”

“Who gave you the order?”

“N-no task. Deprogram.”

“Do not deprogram!” Mulder was practically yelling now. He took a deep breath, trying to overcome his frustration. He was getting nowhere. He needed to find out whether or not the machine could contact the HAB or Mission Control. That was the important thing.

“Robo-3 are your communication arrays functional?”

“Affirmative.”

“Call the HAB, please,” Mulder said, his pulse beginning to pick up.

On top of the robot, the small satellite dish motor clicked several times and turned a half inch. Mulder could hear what sounded like gears grinding.

“N-no task. De-deprogram.”

“Call Mission Control.”

“D-deprogramming.”

“Do not deprogram!” If Mulder hadn’t been wearing a helmet, he would have been squeezing the skin at the apex of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Robo-3, stand by.”

“S-standing by.”

Mulder stood for a moment until he was confident the robot wouldn’t attempt to deprogram, reset, or set itself back into motion, and then blew out another frustrated sigh, unhooked the rover’s laptop and headed back for the airlock.

When he re-entered the rover, Scully wasn’t in the cockpit, and so he set about removing his hardsuit on his own, having to bang on several pieces in order to get them to disengage. Finally fully out of his suit, he cracked his neck and made for the back half of the rover. When he walked through the accordion-like articulated section, he saw Scully, half bent over the lab table, grimacing.

“Scully?” he said, his breath leaving him in a rush.

“Mulder?” she said, looking up and connecting eyes with him. “Something’s wrong.”

#the x-files #fanfic #my fic #msr #au #wip #mars au

31 notes · View notes

ltenvs3000f23 · 6 months

Text

Unit 9 Blog Post

Interpet (through this blog) the most amazing thing you know about nature – get us excited. This is your blog – your audience isn’t in the field with you so bring the field to your armchair reader.

There are so many concepts of nature that I can speak upon that amaze me, such as bioluminesence, the beauty of the northern lights, and the captivating diversity in nature. However, for this week’s blog, I wanted to take a different approach and reflect upon the beauty that humans have provided within nature. Every piece tells a fascinating story; a collection can form a narrative that spans centuries, continents, and cultures.

I find it astounding to look back at the technical wonders that have shaped history, especially as we stand on the shoulders of innovation in the 21st century. When the world's wonders, like the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza, and the Colosseum, were built, they were engineering marvels. Fast forward to the present, and we are surrounded by a brand new category of wonder: the digital world.

I believe that a lot of the reason we are able to look back and appreciate our history is due to technology. It makes it so convenient for all of us to enhance our knowledge on a topic or concept that we find interesting. It is also worth noting that technology can aid in the transmission of interpretive messages at sites, allowing more visitors to learn about the location (Beck et al. 2018, p. 465). For example, when my family and I went to Los Angeles, we visited the Griffith Observatory (same planetarium seen in ‘La La Land’!). During this visit, we watched a show at the Dome at the planetarium that used the Zeiss Star Projector. The live show we watched was ‘Signs of Life’ which uncovered what it took to put life in the universe. I was truly captivated, along with the audience, by the magnificence of technology and how it can be used to interpret aspects of our history.

In the modern era, prominent technological wonders include the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Space Station, and Mars rovers. These innovative technologies have allowed for explanations of many mysteries in space as well as discoveries. Furthermore, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided us with countless stunning photos of space exploration and the beauty that exists within our solar system—a universe that will never cease to amaze me.

However, among these technological wonders, it is important not to forget the wonders that breathe history—true testaments to human ingenuity and ambition. Each structure within nature holds a unique place in history, leaving a persistent mark on the world (Beck et al. 2018, p. 329). As an Egyptian, it only feels fitting for me to speak of the brilliance of the pyramids of Giza. This is the only one of the Ancient Wonders of the World to survive largely intact today, along with its intricate details and massive scale. Though it remains a mystery how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids without modern technology, it sparks many theories on how exactly they were created. Nevertheless, it’s inspiring how these architectural marvels, whether ancient or modern, captivate tourists with their awe-inspiring designs and historical significance.

I hope you all find this as interesting as I do, we're embedded within nature and that includes the history that precedes us and continues to evolve. It is also fascinating to me personally how technology and the human creations embedded within nature can strive for many diverse interpretations!

I have provided some images taken from the Hubble Space telescope below :)

References

Beck, L., Cable, T.T., & Knudson, D.M. (2018). Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage For a Better World. Sagamore-Venture Publishing.

2 notes · View notes

iviarellereads · 6 months

Text

The Murderbot Diaries - Obsolescence

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one!)

In which we get our first new POV!

Jixy(1) hears yelling and crying, and heads for it vowing that this time, the kids are going too far. Only, when she gets there, Arnie smacks into her, and she realizes he's one of the ones crying. She hugs him, looking at the others, but before she can determine what's happened, the incident alarm jolts her. The kids know better than to hit it for anything minor.

She asks what happened. Lilly says Greggy is hurt, badly. Jixy's heart sinks, and she checks the comm to make sure Lilly also hit the code for medical emergency, before asking where he is. Lilly points at some storage compartments, and Jixy goes, telling the kids to stay where they are.

Inside the first storage compartment floats Greggy, in globs of floating blood and augment fluid. He's been damaged, several of his metal prosthetics torn to bits, and his metal skull torn into. Jixy first assumes some old bot part exploded, but that shouldn't be possible, and there's no blast or debris except Greggy himself.

Jixy gets Dubarre, the local fixer,(2) to look over the bay in search of the accident's source, while she and the medic, Shen Jean, take care of Greggy. She's never had to clean a friend's body like garbage before, and she keeps shaking. Shen Jean says he's still warm, and just the other day he thought he needed another refit. Jixy is surprised.

In an aside, we learn Greggy spent eighty years as an exploration rover for the Luna government, had helped build the first settlements on Luna and Mars. Twenty two years ago, the other rovers were pensioned out, but Greggy got some of his augments replaced and found work on Kidland Station as a teaching assistant. He was a teacher before the rover program, and he loved it.

Back in the "present"(3), Shen Jean starts to suggest there's too much damage to be an accident, before Dubarre says it definitely wasn't one. He's holding a tool that doesn't belong on a completed station. Jixy can hardly contemplate the tool, but Dubarre says Shen Jean will have to conduct an autopsy. She doesn't want to believe someone did this, but Jixy finally catches on, and asks Dubarre to show her. The tool has what's obviously some of Greggy's tissue on it, from his head.

The worst part is that she doesn't want to think that it could be anyone they work or live with.

They bag the rest of the remains. Dubarre and Shen Jean take it to the infirmary, while Jixy arranges for a headcount of all personnel, and then starts following procedures. She makes an emergency call to the Base Admin, with a brief description of what they found and theorize so far. Next, she calls Sully, whose title isn't given, and asks them to do a rescue search. It's not strictly protocol, but it's the search that looks in every nook and cranny that might hide a person.

Jixy also checks for anomalies on the hull, finding none, though some small vehicles or power suits might not register. Stations are designed for people to show up on schedules, or be calling loudly for help, not to prevent infiltration.

The headcount comes back full, it only took so long because Joi forgot that the total included Greggy.

Jixy puts the station in emergency mode, so every hatch requires an admin code. She forces her face into a calm expression, then heads out to the lounge. She remembers Greggy saying he felt comfortable here because Kidland has so many people with prostheses and medical augments, he didn't stand out as much.(4)

Tia Joi approaches Jixy, as Sully and Aarti come from the other direction. They discuss what's happened, and Sully says they've heard of an incident kind of like this, on Juno Outremer Three-four, some thieves snuck aboard and stole supplies. The group wonders if Greggy stumbled on them and got killed for his trouble.

Lilly slides in and says they need to be detectives. Tia Joi says Lilly needs to go sit down and finish her juice. Lilly says juice is for shock, and she doesn't have shock. Jixy says Base will surely send someone soon, they just need to stay calm until then. The adults go on to the infirmary.

Going over the autopsy, Shen Jean says whoever it was, attacked Greggy from the front, and tried to take his parts. Jixy sees the expression on her face and asks what that's about. Shen Jean says there's a story, told in the Mars tunnels, about some kind of serial killer who goes after helper robots and people with augments and prostheses. Dubarre confirms, there were hazard warnings from Juno Central that warned about someone like that, called them the Piecework Killer.

Jixy says they're supposed to use critical thinking, not conspiracy theories. Dubarre says augments get stolen. Jixy counters, from morgues and medical storage, not people. Augments are usually customized, and no use to anyone but the first recipient. Maybe it's happened, but it's no time to tell everyone there's a serial killer aboard.

Dubarre asks if Jixy has Greggy's comm on her. She doesn't. Dubarre can't even find pieces of it. Shen Jean suggests the murderer took it. Dubarre offers to scan for it, but Jixy thinks whoever did this wasn't dumb enough to leave it running. She says he can try, but she needs to check on the kids.

Jixy calls Lilly and Arnie into a compartment. Lilly is talking about investigation stuff, suggesting they should look for blood splatter.(5) Jixy is about to dismiss it, but suggests Shen Jean give everyone a scan for Greggy's augment fluid, since there was so much of it. Getting back to business, though, Jixy asks if Lilly or Arnie have Greggy's comm, or remember seeing it. The kids say they didn't even think it was a person, just a prank, at first. They didn't look too closely before or after they realized that wasn't the case.

Lilly suggests the murderer took it, to listen in on their conversations. Arnie says they'd have their own comm, but Lilly says nobody who lives here did this. With the mysterious tool as a murder weapon, Jixy can't quite say she's wrong.

The sweep for augment fluid comes up negative, but so does the comm scan. The call from Base comes in, and Jixy is upset to learn the nearest help is twelve hours out. When she tells the other adults, they're no happier. Tia Joi says at least the hatches are command-sealed, but Shen Jean says they might be able to hack them or "jimmy" the hatch seals.(6)

Jixy is worried that Shen Jean is right, and someone might be hanging around, hoping for another victim, or to destroy the station somehow. They haven't messed with any systems yet, but if they came for augments to steal, this is one of the best places in civilization to find them.

She can't just stay here, so she stands and says she has to go look "down the spoke" to check something. The adults are horrified, but Lilly just asks if she's looking for clues. Jixy confirms, clues, and everyone's to stay here while she checks the supply ship. Dubarre and Shen Jean say they'll go with her, but she doesn't want them down there, so heavily augmented, such good targets. Jixy says no, and that's an order.

Dubarre follows Jixy a short way, and whispers she's doing what dumb people in horror films do. She knows, but the supply ship that arrived a few days ago was the most likely source of a stowaway. If they went back there to hide until it leaves again, she might find them, comm for help, and set a trap.

So, on Jixy goes, and through several sets of security protocols and onto the lift, where a small figure flings itself on with her just as the doors are closing. Lilly has followed Jixy, and says she needs backup. Jixy can't turn the lift around mid-journey, and now has to waste all the time going there, coming back to bring Lilly back, and going back down again. Lilly says rule number one is you don't do anything dangerous alone, you take someone who can help or call for help.

Jixy protests, but Lilly says she's the one who found him, they killed her friend. He was her first friend on Kidland. Nobody liked her because she was from Earth, but he said he was too, and they should be nicer to her, and they were. He told her he knew what it was like, to be alone. Jixy isn't surprised that Greggy shared more of his life, before and after his augments, with the kids. She says Greggy was her friend too, but her priority is keeping Lilly safe.

Lilly promises to do whatever Jixy says, and she knows a LOT about mysteries! She can help! She's already guessed that it was the last supply ship. Jixy doesn't ask how long she's guessed that, lest Jixy be embarrassed at how long it took her to catch it. Jixy is angry at herself for letting Lilly stay, but it does feel better to not be alone.

The lift reaches its destination, and Jixy tells Lilly to stay here, and hit the return if she says so. Lilly promises. Jixy looks into the corridor first, then carefuly sneaks along to the shuttle. It doesn't look tampered with. She taps the entry code, and it hisses air as it opens. She cheks the panel again, and sees atmosphere readings as if it were a live transport, not sealed supplies.

Relief and fear hit in equal measure. Good, it wasn't one of her people, but oh no, it wasn't one of her people.

Jixy backs away a bit, then comms to the adults: the shuttle's been tampered with, it's definitely how the visitor got in. She asks them to check the news reports for the last stop it made, Station Titan. She tells them Lilly snuck down as well. The adults suggest they both come back, but Jixy says that she can't. Whoever did this is competent at hacking systems. She has to find them. Shen Jean says to kick their arse. Jixy is oddly comforted by the comment, and mutes the comm again.

She enters the shuttle, carefully. She doesn't find much sign, but little things, like a sticky residue on the handle of a locker, some kind of sugar, and a piece of food wrapper in the nearby intake vent, like someone broke a liquid ration and didn't quite clean it up fully, despite being so careful everywhere else.

Lilly is excited when Jixy comes back. They examine the "clue", and Lilly says they need to check where the shuttle was last. Jixy says Shen Jean is already on it, and asks why Lilly isn't on leadership track. Lilly doesn't know, but says they need to find a motive, that will tell them what the killer wants. Jixy says real life isn't like stories, but Lilly says the stories draw from real life events.

Jixy thinks about the Piecework Killer, and wonders if stealing prosthetics for fun is wrong, and they might have some need to replace their own augments.(7) She admits Lilly might be right, the killer might have wanted Greggy's interfaces. Only, why weren't they on the shuttle waiting to leave? Lilly thinks they might know that the residents know about the shuttle, or maybe they want something else before they escape. Jixy uses her system access to look at the inventory, and says she needs to seal off a particular workshop, which is stocked with everything they'd need to replace augments.

Jixy gets a lock from Dubarre that might stay sealed even against someone who could hack a command seal, and drops off Lilly in exchange. She takes the lift on to the engineering foyer, and sneaks along. She touches the panel for the door she needs to close down, and finds it sticky. She realizes it's blood and augment fluid just as a voice says it's too late.

She turns, activating the panic button in her comm strap silently with three even, subtle presses. The person is pale, nearly colourless, except for brown eyes. Jixy says they killed Greggy, and the person asks if they gave "it" a name. Jixy says he was her friend, and a teacher. The person says he was a rover. Jixy says he was still a person. The person says to make a rover, they murder a person. Jixy says they're the one who murdered a person.

The person stares at her for a moment, and Jixy has a moment of dissociation. She asks why they need his interfaces. They say, for themself. Jixy says Greggy's augments would only work with another rover, which they'd know if they knew anything about rovers. They're almost amused at that, and show Jixy their torso, which is entirely augment.

Jixy asks how they can be a rover, they're all accounted for. They say the heroic volunteers were accounted for, they were corporate.(8) Jixy read about some of the early corporate expansion, and how unsafe it was. She thought they wouldn't have been allowed to make rovers.(9) But no, they made their own, and nobody knew. The person says, of course, to mine the precious elements from the asteroid belt.

Jixy is still confused, can't they go to a hospital for help? They say they needed a refit, and when they need something, they take it. Her friends called it Piecework. Jixy, feeling "dumb as well as terrified", says they used Greggy's comm to eavesdrop. They say they don't need the comm, they can get into any system.(10) Jixy says she could help them get the parts they need. They say she's lying.

“I’m not lying,” she said. “The Luna government, the Mars med/health agency—”(11) “The Luna government didn’t murder me. Vision Space Dynamics murdered me.” Their voice was a whisper of fury. “They said the contract would be for twenty years. Do you know how long ago that was? Vision Space Dynamics went bankrupt, and their assets went to Io Explorations, and then they were bought by Sideral, and then they went bankrupt. And then they sent the old equipment to recycling and told me to leave. It has been seventy-six years.”(12)

Jixy struggles to process. This person deserves better treatment than they got, but they also killed Greggy, and who knows how many others. But then, they have been mistreated, and this is a sort of illness of the mind, and the corporation's tech is rotting from the inside out. The whole situation is unfair.

But she thinks Greggy would want her to help.

She asks the rover's name. It says to call it Piecework. She says that's not their name, not really. She adds that "we" can help them, get them a hospital, a lawyer. The rover is dismissive, and Jixy realizes all she's done is make them mad.

Fortunately, Jixy sees a slight glint down the corridor, as of light off dark hair. Somebody's risked coming to help, thanks to her panic button. She tells the rover she's not a corporation, nor does she work for one. She can get it real help, it's what Greggy would have wanted. As their mouth twists with anger, she steps aside, hoping the others are in place.

It almost works, more or less, but it's headed for a bloodbath. Then, the rover's eyes change expression, and they open the nearest hatch, dive through, and close it behind them before anyone can follow. Dubarre wonders how they could open a biometric hatch, but Jixy says they hacked the command seals, why not this, now get it open again. As schematics load, Jixy sees that they're probably headed for a construction skid they placed as backup.

Jixy works the panel, and just as the rover is about to leave, saying it won't come back, Jixy flushes the airlock, and the rover tumbles into space.

Some of the others are glad the rover is dead, some are upset about everything. Jixy feels like she failed Greggy twice, and the rover as well. Somewhere in their mind was a person who knew their actions were wrong, who escaped instead of having to hurt the humans.(13)

When the Base patrol shows up, they send a security group and search every inch of the station. They don't find the body, or the skid.

Later, Jixy explains what happened to Lilly. Lilly says Greggy would never have done what the other rover did. Jixy says Greggy had advantages that the other one didn't, like his gentle retirement. They have no way to know what the other one went through, or their real name, or anything to follow up besides the defunct corporation name that would never be linked, this long after, to illegal rover programs.

Lilly asks how many more rovers might be out there, like this one. She asks if they could find and help them. Jixy says probably not, but she has no way to know how to find out. Lilly thinks maybe she can think of a way, someday. Jixy says, when she does, to come and tell her. Lilly nods, and goes back to the other kids.(14)

=====

(1)The first not from Murderbot's POV! If you've read the whole story, you know we never go to it, either. This is much earlier in the timeline, it seems. They still talk about Earth, later on. We've never heard a mention of it before. It could be much later in the timeline, but I feel like it's earlier because space expansion is so recent to them. Especially since MB mentioned a documentary about the rover-times. (2) Finding "words not used as we understand them" is always fun in fiction, particularly since it's so common in far-future scifi, but this one may take the cake for me. When I think of a fixer, I think of someone political, like in Scandal, or someone who does that plus murder. I don't think of a repair tech or general handypal. (3) I mean, such as it is. (4) Like Murderbot, hoping to fit in as an augmented human, since they're common enough that it doesn't stand out SO much unless someone has seen real SecUnits before, since they're all identical. (5) This kid is so bright, I'm glad that Jixy doesn't just shut her down every time. She tries to keep things age appropriate, but Lilly is driven to help, and I think it's really sweet and kind and good that Jixy lets her, as much as feels safe. (6) To jimmy - to pry open, especially a lock and/or with a crowbar. (7) Since we've all finished the story before reading this, we can say confidently that the rover does need replacements, just like Greggy was about to get a refit. (8) Murderbot's documentary was somewhat true, but was also false in some of the ways it predicted. Of course corporations ran their own cyborg programs in secret. (9) Wells examining just how easy it is for corporations, even in our day, to make their own rules and answer to authority later, if at all. (10) Truly the early blueprint for SecUnits, then. Such total integration, and then abandoned. It's no wonder the corporation believes the governor modules are so necessary to keep them controlled, as if we didn't already know the mistreatment and control they require are torture in MB's time. They have every reason to fear what those who they've mistreated might do to them. (11) I assume from context that she's about to suggest that they'll help, pension the rover out, like they did for their own. I'm not entirely sure why the rover jumps their response the way they do, to the corporation that made and abandoned them. (12) Not seventy six comfortable years, either. Not like Greggy got. Alone, and on the run, hiding in the corners… just like Murderbot. A mirror version of it. Made obsolete (hence the story title) and abandoned. (13) And here, again, a strange and distorted mirror to MB. (14) I don't think we've heard of anyone called Lilly in the story so far. Do you think we'll get callbacks to this story someday? Do you think it would be Lilly, or the rover, or both at once that come into focus again? Or, was this just a side story, brought to its conclusion, not to be seen anymore? I don't know how I feel, honestly.

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #obsolescence (murderbot)#jixy (murderbot)#lilly (murderbot)#piecework (murderbot)

2 notes · View notes

spacetimewithstuartgary · 2 years

Photo

Swarm of tiny swimming robots could look for life on distant worlds Someday, a swarm of cellphone-size robots could whisk through the water beneath the miles-thick icy shell of Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's moon Enceladus, looking for signs of alien life. Packed inside a narrow ice-melting probe that would tunnel through the frozen crust, the tiny robots would be released underwater, swimming far from their mothercraft to take the measure of a new world. That's the vision of Ethan Schaler, a robotics mechanical engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, whose Sensing With Independent Micro-Swimmers (SWIM) concept was recently awarded $600,000 in Phase II funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. The funding, which follows his 2021 award of $125,000 in Phase I NIAC funding to study feasibility and design options, will allow him and his team to make and test 3D-printed prototypes over the next two years. A key innovation is that Schaler's mini-swimmers would be much smaller than other concepts for planetary ocean exploration robots, allowing many to be loaded compactly into an ice probe. They would add to the probe's scientific reach and could increase the likelihood of detecting evidence of life while assessing potential habitability on a distant ocean-bearing celestial body. "My idea is, where can we take miniaturized robotics and apply them in interesting new ways for exploring our solar system?" Schaler said. "With a swarm of small swimming robots, we are able to explore a much larger volume of ocean water and improve our measurements by having multiple robots collecting data in the same area." Not yet part of any NASA mission, the early-stage SWIM concept envisions wedge-shaped robots, each about 5 inches (12 centimeters) long and about 3 to 5 cubic inches (60 to 75 cubic centimeters) in volume. About four dozen of them could fit in a 4-inch-long (10-centimeter-long) section of a cryobot 10 inches (25 centimeters) in diameter, taking up just about 15% of the science payload volume. That would leave plenty of room for more powerful but less mobile science instruments that could gather data during the long journey through the ice and provide stationary measurements in the ocean. The Europa Clipper mission, planned for a 2024 launch, will begin gathering detailed science during multiple flybys with a large suite of instruments when it arrives at the Jovian moon in 2030. Looking further into the future, cryobot concepts to investigate such ocean worlds are being developed through NASA's Scientific Exploration Subsurface Access Mechanism for Europa (SESAME) program, as well as through other NASA technology development programs. Better together As ambitious as the SWIM concept is, its intent would be to reduce risk while enhancing science. The cryobot would be connected via a communications tether to the surface-based lander, which would in turn be the point of contact with mission controllers on Earth. That tethered approach, along with limited space to include large propulsion system, means the cryobot would likely be unable to venture much beyond the point where ice meets ocean. "What if, after all those years it took to get into an ocean, you come through the ice shell in the wrong place? What if there's signs of life over there but not where you entered the ocean?" said SWIM team scientist Samuel Howell of JPL, who also works on Europa Clipper. "By bringing these swarms of robots with us, we'd be able to look 'over there' to explore much more of our environment than a single cryobot would allow." Howell compared the concept to NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the airborne companion to the agency's Perseverance rover on the Red Planet. "The helicopter extends the reach of the rover, and the images it is sending back are context to help the rover understand how to explore its environment," he said. "If instead of one helicopter you had a bunch, you would know a lot more about your environment. That's the idea behind SWIM." SWIM would also allow data to be gathered away from the cryobot's blazing-hot nuclear battery, which the probe would rely on to melt a downward path through the ice. Once in the ocean, that heat from the battery would create a thermal bubble, slowly melting the ice above and potentially causing reactions that could change the water's chemistry, Schaler said. Additionally, the SWIM robots could "flock" together in a behavior inspired by fish or birds, thereby reducing errors in data through their overlapping measurements. That group data could also show gradients: temperature or salinity, for example, increasing across the swarm's collective sensors and pointing toward the source of the signal they're detecting. "If there are energy gradients or chemical gradients, that's how life can start to arise. We would need to get upstream from the cryobot to sense those," Schaler said. Each robot would have its own propulsion system, onboard computer, and ultrasound communications system, along with simple sensors for temperature, salinity, acidity, and pressure. Chemical sensors to monitor for biomarkers—signs of life—will be part of Schaler's Phase II study. TOP IMAGE....In the Sensing With Independent Micro-Swimmers (SWIM) concept, illustrated here, dozens of small robots would descend through the icy shell of a distant moon via a cryobot – depicted at left – to the ocean below. The project has received funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. Credit: Jet Propulsion Laboratory LOWER IMAGE....This illustration shows the NASA cryobot concept called Probe using Radioisotopes for Icy Moons Exploration (PRIME) deploying tiny wedge-shaped robots into the ocean miles below a lander on the frozen surface of an ocean world. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news #nasa

23 notes · View notes

valiantranchcreatorsuitcase · 2 years

Text

24/7 News Coverage

MARSDAILYNASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Finds a Clay Cache

by Staff Writers

DSI 9th Annual Space Resiliency Summit

Pasadena CA (JPL) May 30, 2019

NASA's Curiosity rover has confirmed that the region on Mars it's exploring, called the "clay-bearing unit," is well deserving of its name. Two samples the rover recently drilled at rock targets called "Aberlady" and "Kilmarie" have revealed the highest amounts of clay minerals ever found during the mission.

Both drill targets appear in a new selfie taken by the rover on May 12, 2019, the 2,405th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

This clay-enriched region, located on the side of lower Mount Sharp, stood out to NASA orbiters before Curiosity landed in 2012. Clay often forms in water, which is essential for life; Curiosity is exploring Mount Sharp to see if it had the conditions to support life billions of years ago.

The rover's mineralogy instrument, called CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy), provided the first analyses of rock samples drilled in the clay-bearing unit. CheMin also found very little hematite, an iron oxide mineral that was abundant just to the north, on Vera Rubin Ridge.

Other than proof that there was a significant amount of water once in Gale Crater, what these new findings mean for the region is still up for debate. It's likely that the rocks in the area formed as layers of mud in ancient lakes - something Curiosity also found lower on Mount Sharp. Water interacted with sediment over time, leaving an abundance of clay in the rocks there.

Cameras (Navcams) to snap images of drifting clouds on May 7 and May 12, 2019, sols 2400 and 2405. They're likely water-ice clouds about 19 miles (31 kilometers) above the surface.

The mission's team has been trying to coordinate cloud observations with NASA's InSight lander, located about 373 miles (600 kilometers) away, which recently took its own cloud images. Capturing the same clouds from two vantage points can help scientists calculate their altitude.

+ Additional cloud images are available at JPL - scroll down.

Related Links

Curiosity Mars Rover

Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com

Lunar Dreams and more

MARSDAILY

Massive Martian ice discovery opens a window into red planet's history

Austin TX (SPX) May 23, 2019

Newly discovered layers of ice buried a mile beneath Mars' north pole are the remnants of ancient polar ice sheets and could be one of the largest water reservoirs on the planet, according to scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Arizona. The team made the discovery using measurements gathered by the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). SHARAD emits radar waves that can penetrate up to a mile and a half beneath the surface of Mars.

DSI 9th Annual Space Resiliency Summit

MARSDAILY

NASA Awards Artemis Contract for Lunar Gateway Power, Propulsion

'A long ride': 50 years ago, a dress rehearsal for the Moon landing

Moon mission leader leaves NASA after 45 days

Water formation on the moon demonstrated by UH Manoa scientists

MARSDAILY

Yaogan-33 launch fails in north China, Possible debris recovered in Laos

China develops new-generation rockets for upcoming missions

China's satellite navigation industry sees rapid development

China's Yuanwang-7 departs for space monitoring missions

MARSDAILY

Curtin planetary scientist unravels mystery of Egyptian desert glass

GomSpace to design world's first stand-alone nanosatellite asteroid rendezvous mission

A family of comets reopens the debate about the origin of Earth's water

Oldest meteorite collection on Earth found in one of the driest places

MARSDAILY

On Pluto the Winter is approaching, and the atmosphere is vanishing into frost

Juno Finds Changes in Jupiter's Magnetic Field

Neptune's moon Triton fosters rare icy union

Gas insulation could be protecting an ocean inside Pluto

MARSDAILY

Researchers find ice feature on Saturn's giant moon

Giant planets and big data: What deep learning reveals about Saturn's storms

Deep learning takes Saturn by storm

NASA's Cassini Reveals Surprises with Titan's Lakes

MARSDAILY

More detailed picture of Earth's mantle

Illegal ozone-depleting gases traced to China: study

New Studies Increase Confidence in NASA's Measure of Earth's Temperature

NASA-Supported Monitoring Network Assesses Ozone Layer Threats

MARSDAILY

Wandering Earth: rocket scientist explains how we could move our planet

China's tech 'Long March' could be road to nowhere

NASA Prepares for Future Moon Exploration with International Undersea Crew

NASA Selects Studies for Future Space Communications and Services

MARSDAILY

Meteor magnets in outer space

Detecting bacteria in space

Features that could be used to detect life-friendly climates on other worlds

Microbes Exhibit Survival Skills in Ethiopia's Mars-like Wonderland

DSI 9th Annual Space Resiliency Summit

Buy Advertising Editorial Enquiries

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2018 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS newswire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement

0 notes

miekasa · 3 years

Note

speaking of college boys, what do the college au aot babies study??

Okay, okay, I think I’ve talked about this in an ask before but I can’t find it 😭😭 but it’s okay, I love college aus, so I’ll talk about it again! Plus, now I’ve got more thoughts for more characters, so here we go

Levi — neuroscience and psychology of human behavior

He started out on track to do a bachelor of arts in psychology, but when they touched on the anatomy and biological parts of it during his first year lecture, he switched to a bachelor of science.

The focus is still psychology, but through a more clinical lens. Essentially, he gets the best of both worlds this way. He’s intuitive and analytical, so clinical and mental diagnosis is easy to dissect for him. He’s also canonically good at math, so the calculus and stats parts aren’t too bad, either.

This major also leaves him with a few options post-grad, which is a nice bonus for him. He’s likely going to medical school, but that’s not the only route open to him: law school, therapy, lab work, medicine and pharmacy, even teaching are all viable options without going to grad school.

Do not talk to him about Freud unless you wanna get punted off a building.

Be careful with him, because with a single glance he’s already got scarily accurate predictions about your parental and emotional attachment styles, your behavior in social settings, and the onset (or seemingly lack thereof) of your frontal lobe development.

He thinks he’s so smart making comments like, “I see those synaptic connections aren’t working so well for you today,” like mf come here let me lobotomize you and see how well your synaptic connects are working after that🙄

Eren — general health sciences

He’s interested in science and the discovery aspects of it, but picking a specific field of focus right now feels too final. He likes it this way, because his schedule and requirements are less restrictive, and he has more room to find out what really interests him.

He does best when he’s doing something he loves, so picking a major with a bunch of reqs that he couldn’t care less about would have sucked big time for him. It also would have affected his grades. There are still some classes he has to take that he’s not fond of (see: chemistry), but that’s to be expected. Science in general is cool to him and he hopes to make his own discovery some day, even if it’s microscopic.

He also plays a lot of sports, keeping his schedule flexible is important. The sports end up helping him excel academically, which is a nice bonus. Honestly, Eren uses his time at university to learn more about himself than anything, so having control and freedom to do what he likes the majority of the time was important to him.

He uses his elective credits to take philosophy or history courses of his interest, or maybe even a course that you’re in just to spend time with you. He also uses you as a live model for his homework bye, congrats on being patient number one to him.

Armin — astronomy and physics

He’s still interested in marine biology, but unless he attended a school near a coast, or with a specialized integrated program for that, it’s unlikely he’d major in it during undergrad.

Space and ocean exploration aren’t all that different. Both are vast, largely unexplored domains that reel-in Armin’s interest for discovery. So, while studying astronomy, he still gets to study evolution and make his own predictions about what could be out there because there’s so much to know.

Physics comes with the territory of learning about planetary science, and he’s mathematically inclined, so it works out for him. Learning about the different physical properties of other planets and space masses is honestly pretty sick to him. Because math isn’t a struggle, he actually considered aeronautical engineering, but he didn’t want to be a part of the college to military pipeline; that is, he didn’t want any potential design of his to be weaponized.

He still gets to study animal biology through his elective courses, and might even find a few focused on marine animals to satiate him. Plant and cell biology are also of interest to him, and are just further applications of his primary study anyway, so he’s got plenty of room to work with.

This boy is interning at NASA and still, with his whole chest out is like, “I don’t need to discover a new planet, you’re my whole world.” Armin, go check on the Mars rover or something please.

Mikasa — anthropology + minor in japanese language studies

Anthropology is virtually interdisciplinary in nature, and Mikasa is a pretty well rounded student, so she’s able to excel in a program like this. She gets to study history, science, cultural studies, and even a bit of art all at once.

She’s still debating between going to law school vs med school, so anthro this is a good in-betweener. She gets a taste of science through her anatomy and kin courses; and lots of practice with reading and dissecting texts through the historical and cultural lectures. So, when the time comes to decide, she’ll have some experience with both.

Don’t know whether it’s confirmed that she’s (part) Japanese or not, but either way I headcanon that she speaks/spoke some second language at home. She wanted to delve more into it, and courses were offered at the university so why not?

Cultural studies courses end up being her favorite. She likes learning about the history of people and their cultures, and it encourages her to learn more about her own family history and culture. It also propels her to apply for a study abroad opportunity, so she spends at least one semester doing an exchange program and absolutely loves it.

She would also encourage you to apply and go, too. You guys might not be in the same program, but if there’s an applicable program in the same country she’s going to, then she’d definitely want you to apply. Spending the semester away with you would be a dream come true.

Hange — bioengineering + minor in political philosophy and law

It’s almost self-sabotage to be in an engineering program and have a minor; the coursework for engineering alone is backbreaking, and bioengineering has the added weight of human intricacies, but of course Hange makes it possible.

They’re nothing short of a genius, so of course they have time to work a completely unrelated minor into their schedule. It doesn’t surprise anyone that they go on to complete an MD-PhD after undergrad. Insane.

Bioengineering is essentially the synthesis of chemical engineering and health sciences; Hange spends their time exploring biological sciences and applies the engineering aspects of their coursework to their understanding of (and interest in creating) medicine. Truly a one of a kind mind.

They also have an interest in philosophy and justice, so when they found out they only needed a measly nine or ten courses to minor in, they went for it, of course. In honesty, they don’t find the studies all that opposing: both law making and medicine making both have some kind of philosophy or method to them in their eyes.

Hange has... little to no free time pls. They don’t mind it, because they love their coursework, but this means you are essentially ducking into their labs or scrambling to find them in-between their classes during your time in undergrad. They appreciate every second spent with you tho, and will gladly rope you into long discussions about their work.

Jean — biochemistry + minor in art sustainability

He was undeclared his first year, and took a little bit of everything: art, science, history, anthropology, english. Basically, anything that fit into his schedule. It was hard for him to pick one thing—he liked the science and lab applications of STEM courses, but not the math; and the obvious painting and creativity of art, but hated the pretentious air about art history.

What he wants to do is make a difference, which is how he ends up knowing that he wants to go to med school after, so he picks a science-heavy major, but uses his elective spaces to take art courses. When he mixes the two, he ends up on sustainability—and the complexities about it that are applicable to both science and art are what really reels him in.

Interdisciplinary studies end up being his forte. He can approach sustainability from a science perspective which impacts his art style and materials; and tuning into his creative side allows him to think about science not just from a purely clinical perspective, but from a human one, too—patients are people after all.

He believes that everything is connected somehow, even things as seemingly opposite as art and biochemistry. And he works towards finding the unique intersection where everything overlaps. His studies are pretty cool, and he’s very passionate about them, so ask him about it 😌

The art he makes is pretty sick, too, and often commentary about science; he’s proving they’re not so opposite. You also heavily influence his studies in both areas: caring about you so much inspires him to take the healthcare focus seriously, and your very nature is inspiration to his art.

Sasha — nursing

She’s friendly and good at working with people, so nursing was an easy choice for her. She accredits most of her motivation to being around her younger family members, and learns that she finds a simple kind of joy in helping to take care of others.

She struggles a bit her first year when it’s mostly all grades and standardized testing, but when she starts getting clinical experience and working in the hospital on campus, things round out for her.

Patient care is her strongest point. A lot of people often forget that knowing everything isn’t everything; if you don’t know how to calm or even just talk to your patient, you’re not that great of a healthcare professional.

Pretty certain that she wants to work with kids in the future, but she’s open to public health and even being a travel nurse if she finds opportunity there!

Of course, she’s pretty doting when it comes to you and all her friends. She might want to go into pediatrics, but the basics of nursing and health care extend to everyone, so you’re guaranteed to be well taken care of with Sasha around. You might even have to switch roles and take care of her sometimes, because her coursework can get pretty out of hand.

Connie — computer engineering with a focus on game design

He might not look it, but Connie has a brain under that shaved head of his. Computer engineering is cool to him because he basically learns about how simple things he uses every day (ie: phone, computer, microwave) works.

Systems and coding are actually the easy part for him, especially when they get into the application of it and aren’t just stuck looking at examples. That’s how he gets into game design.

The part about math and electricity and magnetic fields… well let’s just say he needed to make friends with someone who likes math and hardware his first year to get through it. But the struggle was worth it, because by his junior year he’s found a professor willing to mentor/supervise him as he works on his game and other projects, so life is good.

His school work is definitely hard, which is why the lives by the mantra of “work hard, party harder.” It’s only fair.

He makes you a little avatar so you can test out his games for him <33 best boyfriend things <33 He’d also… build a game about your relationship. Every level is a different date you guys went on, and he definitely includes something cheesy, like “There are unlimited lives because I love you forever babe <3”

Porco — kinesiology + maybe mechanical engineering

He’s pretty into athletics and working out, but didn’t wanna go down the sports psychology route; he wanted something that left him with a few more options, so he ended up in kinesiology.

He was surprisingly pretty good at biology in high school, so something stem-oriented works out in his favor, and it turns out he’s pretty damn good at anatomy, too. He’ll probably end up in physical therapy after graduation.

He’s also got a knack for cars, which is where the engineering comes in, but he doesn’t care so much for the math part of it (he doesn’t care for it at all actually, fuck that); he just wants the hands on experience of building/fixing things and working with his hands. So, if he can get a minor in it and not struggle through 4 years of math, then he’d do that. If not, he’d take a few workshop-like classes.

Because he wants to go into physical therapy, you are essentially his practice patient. Your back hurts? Not a problem, he’s basically a professional masseuse. Muscle aches? He’s got a remedy and understanding of why it’s happening. Don’t let him catch you hunting over your desk grinding away at your homework, because he will poke your neck and correct your posture (he’ll also massage your shoulders, but after the scolding).

Pieck — classics + minor in philosophy

Ancient studies interest her, but more than that, the language of ancient Greek and Roman culture fascinates her, so classics is the way to go.

Because her focus within Classics ends up being Greek and Latin language studies, she is essentially learning both languages at the same time. She gets farther with Latin that she does with Greek. For whatever reason, the former comes almost naturally to her, so her written and translated work is more complex in Latin.

However, she finds cultural studies relation to Greece more interesting than that of Rome, so it’s a give and take with both; better at languages for Roman studies, better at culture and history for Greek studies.

Her minor is a natural evolution from her primary coursework. Ancient Romans and Greeks set the foundation for a lot of modern day philosophy, so it comes up in her major classes, but she wanted to delve further into the philosophy, and not just look at it historically, so she takes more courses to fulfill the minor.

Can be found laying on a blanket in the quad on a hot day, with her books spread out all around her, highlighter in hand as she works through her reading. You’re always invited to sit with her, and more often than not, it ends up with Pieck’s head in your lap, a book in her hands, and your own schoolwork in yours as you both read in each other’s company.

Bertholdt — computer science and coding

He’s level headed, good at planning, and above all, patient, so he’s cut out for this. He doesn’t consider himself to be particularly creative, which is why he doesn’t pick a speciality with lots of design; but he’s good at streamlining and ideas to life.

The patience really comes in when his code doesn’t run. It’s frustrating to scroll for two hours just to find out that the issue is a missing semi-colon in line 273 that he overlooked, but Berty will sit there until he finds it.

He’s also good at fixing issues. That’s not limited to issues in the code itself; it can mean finding shorter ways to produce the same function or loop, or integrating new aspects into existing code.

Also, he’d just be so cute, coding away on his computer. Just imagine: Berty working on his homework in the library, he’s got his signature crewneck + collared shirt look going for him, his blue-light glasses, a cup of coffee nearly as tall as him sitting at the corner of his desk. Adorable.

He’d make little codes/programs for you, too, even if it’s silly. A simple code that helps you decide what to eat for dinner or where to go on a date, one that shuffles different reminders for you, hell he’ll even forgo the torture of design engineering just to build you a little robot that says “I love you” to you.

Reiner — english + minor in justice & political philosophy

Everyone expects Reiner, star quarterback of the university’s rugby team, to be a business student or communications student; but no, he’s an English major, and he loves it.

Just imagine a guy as huge as Reiner absolutely manhandling someone on the field, just to show up in his lectures with a tiny paperback of The Great Gatsby tucked between his fingers with his reading glasses on. It’s so precious.

He’s always running a bit late to class—either coming from the gym, or practice, or oversleeping from exhaustion—but he’s so sweet to his professors and genuinely interested in the literature that they don’t give him a hard time about it. They can tell that balancing school and sports is difficult, and they just appreciate that he takes his studies seriously.

Yeah he’s in a book club and he dog-ears his books. What about it. They’re doing poetry this month and Reiner actually likes Edgar Allen Poe. Who said jocks can’t be sentimental.

He also reads a lot outside of his classes, and has a soft spot for coming of age stories. He usually empathizes with the main character somehow. His ideal weekend plans after a week of grueling games and essays is taking a long, relaxing shower at your place, while you both share a bottle of wine, and maybe even get you to read a chapter or two of his current book out loud to him.

Annie — clinical psychology/neuroscience

Almost scarily analytical and methodic, so this major was calling her name. Localizing brain legions is… insanely intuitive to her it’s incredible. She’ll be an insanely impressive doctor someday, even if she doesn’t end up working with patients directly.

She doesn’t care too much for the more philosophical/reading heavy parts of psychology. Even experiments and research closer to the social end of the spectrum aren’t all that interesting to her; but the brain science behind it it.

Nobody should be good at cellular biology. Nobody should be able to ace cell bio and neuro and calc and work towards their thesis proposal in the same semester, but Annie proves it’s possible.

Ends up working in one of her professor’s labs by her junior year. She was offered three TA positions working with first year students, but she swiftly turned them down. Teaching isn’t her thing.

She doesn’t bring up her studies to you unprompted, but if you ask her about them she’ll explain it to you. Her notes are color coded and it’s super neat, and very cute; coloring them is somewhat relaxing for her. She usually saves the coloring part for when you guys study together; there’s extra comfort in doing it with you around.

532 notes · View notes

togglesbloggle · 3 years

Text

How We Decided

The day after tomorrow- that is, February 18, 2021- the Perseverance rover will attempt to land on the surface of Mars. It will enter the planetary atmosphere at an acute angle, giving it as much time as possible to experience drag and slow down from orbital velocities. Because Mars’ air is so thin, and the rover is so heavy, this will fail- in the best case, Perseverance would still be going almost a thousand miles an hour when it impacts the surface. To help save itself, the craft will deploy a parachute of advanced design, seventy feet across and able to withstand supersonic velocities. This, too, will fail. Even with a parachute, there is simply not enough air between Perseverance and the Martian surface to slow it down all the way. So this is where the rockets kick in. Once air resistance slows the rover to a bit less than two hundred miles per hour, the heavy heat shield will be jettisoned, and a system of secondary rockets will fire against the direction of motion until it slows to near-hovering. In a final flourish, the rover will descend from the rocket-boosted frame on coiled springs, until it touches down in the western part of Jezero crater in the northern hemisphere of Mars.

As it happens, Perseverance’s destination was one of the very last things we decided about it- not until the craft itself was fairly thoroughly engineered and designed. Formally, the decision was made by the mission directorate. In practice, they follow the consensus of the scientific community, which in turn hashes things out at a series of open-invitation workshops. Things began with a call for white papers- an open suggestion box, basically. In 2015, the first workshop narrowed things down from thirty serious proposals to eight candidates. In 2017, the second workshop further winnowed the list down to three. And in October of 2018, after three days of presentation, debate, and discussion, the final workshop selected Jezero Crater from these final three candidates using a simple vote of all attendees, and passed on the recommendation to the mission leads.

I haven’t been in the business for very long, so the final workshop was the only one of these where I actually participated. It wasn’t a close vote as such, and I didn’t break any ties, and technically we were just making a strongly worded suggestion. Nonetheless, my vote is one of the reasons why the Rover will be going to Jezero Crater instead of Syrtis Major or Gusev, and I think I’m entitled to feel ownership of this mission choice, just a little bit.

(This is, of course, terrifying.)

Having gone through the experience, there were a few surprises worth noting. The first was how small some of the numbers are here. The conference was not very large: only thirty proposals, debated by just a few hundred attendees. I’ve seen book review contests with more entries, and that are read by a wider audience. Which is to say, this is a situation that was, and is, extremely responsive to individual effort. In that small a room, populated by people that are philosophically committed to changing their minds when they see good evidence or a good argument, one person can stand up and change the future in a very real way.

The second surprise was the attendance requirements. Or rather, the lack thereof. The project is public, paid for by American taxpayers, to whom I am profoundly grateful. And one way the process reflected that public-spiritedness is that this is not a walled garden. A small attendance fee (iirc, $40?), and you’re in. You get a vote, if you want to use it. A few non-scientists even took us up on this; there’s one retiree (a former schoolteacher, I think) that’s attended every major conference I’ve been to in the last few years, and sets up a small table in the back with his home mineral collection just for fun. In practice this open-door policy is limited by the obscurity of the event itself; if you don’t move in research circles, you have to be something of a space exploration superfan to hear about it. Still, as symbols go, you could do worse.

And now that we’re coming up on the day itself, the same kind of public-facing mindset is making me think about why I was persuaded to vote for Jezero Crater, what it means to explore there, and how I’d justify that choice to those of you that made the ongoing discovery of Mars possible in the first place.

If you want to know what Perseverance is like, and what you can reasonably do with it, start with Curiosity- the two are built, more or less, on the same chassis. That means you have a mobile science lab about the size of a Volkswagon Beetle. Add some mechanical improvements (no more wheel punctures!) and a few bells and whistles (microphone! helicopter for some reason!). Trade out some of the scientific instruments- raman spectroscopy instead of a mass spectrometer, for example. And it’s got these:

That, dear reader, is a sample return canister. Not to be returned immediately, alas, but to be returned nonetheless. One of Persevereance’s primary directives is to find interesting rocks, collect them, and leave them in place for a sample return mission in the early 30s. There’s a ton of work we can do in situ, but there’s even more we can do in a clean lab back home; things like isotopic analysis really need a much more controlled environment than you’ll get in the field. And so a major, major consideration is to optimize Perseverance’s landing site for cool rocks that we’d like to take back home.

The other thing that Perseverance is really good at is astrobiology. There’s no such thing as a life sign detector as such, but this rover represents an attempt to approach that ideal: instruments like SHERLOC and SuperCam are adept at finding organic compounds and fine-scale mineralogy and chemistry that might be influenced by microbial metabolism. This is a natural extension of what we’ve been learning so far: Spirit and Opportunity showed us that Mars formed under the influence of liquid water. Curiosity showed us that this was not just wet, but actively habitable: lakes and rivers at a neutral pH under a rich and temperate atmosphere. The next question along this line is the hardest, and the scariest: we know it was habitable, but was it inhabited?

If you’re like me, that question makes you feel weird. Collecting rocks is one thing, but a fossil? The mind rebels. We’ve spent the last two generations of space exploration tempering our expectations, reminding ourselves that the other worlds in our solar system are largely barren and dead, learning again and again how precious life is in the cosmos. It’s hard to get in the mindset of people back in the 40s and 50s who could, somewhat reasonably, imagine that Mars might not just host life but multicellular life, vegetation and robust macroscopic ecosystems. We look back at the science fiction of the era, swarthy soldiers hopping from planet to planet in silver rockets, and laugh at the naivete. A smile at the exuberance of youth, if we’re feeling generous. When we were first beginning, we may have imagined ancient canals on Mars and crystal cities on Venus, but that was when space was a blank canvas for us to paint our fantasies. We’ve learned so much since then, and if it was less fun, at least it was true. We did the hard thing and accepted reality over fantasy. We accept that extraterrestrial environments are hostile to life- cratered, silent, and still. We’re grownups now.

Unless…

Unless.

Imagine that we were born just a bit earlier. Say, three and a half billion years or so. We raise our telescopes to the sky, and we see a sister-planet. Not red, but white and blue, with an atmosphere full of clouds and multiple large bodies of water scattered across its surface, prominent ice caps and snow-capped highlands, rivers tracing their way down to the lowlands in the north. (Maybe the water is all under the ice, not open to the air at the surface; maybe the liquid pools are small and limited to craters, not feeding a large ocean.) Sober scientists might have suggested we shouldn’t get our hopes up too much- after all, the gravity is much lower, there’s no tectonic recycling, and there’s no protective magnetosphere. But is sterility really the default assumption we should be making here? Is ‘we are alone in the cosmos’ really the most sane conclusion to draw from this situation? Is it not worth, perhaps, sending a rover to go see?

We’ve adapted our sensibilities to a dead solar system because in the moment we’re looking, it kind of is. We’re hopeful for the icy moons- and the evidence keeps mounting there as well- but the terrestrial planets are a grim reminder of the fragility and contingency of our own world. The thing is, the more we learn, the more we discover that we’re a bit late to a very, very interesting party. Venus is a hellscape, but it probably didn’t start that way. Mars is a desert, but once it was an oasis. What makes Earth special among the terrestrial worlds isn’t that it developed a temperate climate, but that it kept a temperate climate for more than four billion years. Stability, not habitability, is the party trick that makes us unique in the solar system. And if we’re really committed to being grownups, to accepting what’s real instead of what’s easy, we have to learn that lesson too.

And life does not need four billion years to begin. Not even close.

That brings us to Jezero Crater. The most interesting feature here is a large river delta- based on some clever geology, we’re pretty sure that a large river emptied into the crater during Mars’ wet period. When the rapidly-flowing water hit the still water of Lake Jezero, the loose sediments being carried along the current all fell out of suspension at this place, forming a large pile of detritus at the mouth of the river that accumulated over the lifetime of the system. Even more interesting, check out this geologic map:

See those tiny teal deposits to the right side of the image? Those are also river delta deposits. Which means the thing labeled ‘delta’ on this map isn’t the original extent- it used to be much, much larger, at least twice as wide. Which also means that the outer edge of the ‘delta’ that we see here in this image is actually an erosional surface, and we get a natural cross-section of the thing with the oldest deposits at the bottom and the youngest at the top, just before Mars lost its hydrosphere. By climbing the outer edge, we can move through time across a large fraction of the habitable period.

Here’s another image I’d like you to see:

The crater I’ve been showing you is the small circle in the lower right- color is elevation, covering a span of about 5 km. The black line is the watershed of that river, the region of Mars that channeled water to the delta. In other words, the river delta collects sediments- and potentially, biosignatures- from a region hundreds of kilometers in diameter, and gathers them all in one place, neatly sorted by time.

For this reason, ancient deltas on Earth are a favorite of paleontologists. In addition to being comfortably wet and active itself- plenty of access to biologically important nutrients, fresh supplies of liquid water, and a nice dynamic environment- deltas do the legwork for us. Rather than exploring a huge fraction of the planet with a tiny rover, hoping that we stumble upon an ancient life sign, we can position ourselves at the mouth of the proverbial fire hose and let life come to us.

This does come with some tradeoffs. Most importantly, whatever we find, we won’t know the original geologic setting. If we find an unambiguous fossil of some kind- a microbial mat, perhaps- then we’ll know less than if we’d found it in its original home. And if we don’t find life, then the samples we take will be similarly uncertain. They’ll be defined in time, at least relative to one another, but not in space. In the case of life signs, this is an important caveat, but the bare fact of proving that extraterrestrial life exists is sufficiently monumental that it’s still a secondary concern. But if we’re just talking about geology, that’s a hard thing to lose; that terrifying multi-stage descent isn’t the only risk we’re taking. We’re leaning into the astrobiology mission hard with this one.

And the search for life is, in itself, fraught. That’s putting it mildly. There’s every chance that any evidence that’s even slightly marginal is going to touch off decades of debate, rather than being some kind of slam-dunk. As it should! Life is such a fuzzy concept, and such an important concept, that it should absolutely be held to the highest degree of scrutiny we can muster. This is why it matters that Perseverance includes sample return- in the highly likely case that the findings are disputed, we’ll hopefully have the chance to subject those samples to the highest degrees of scrutiny. So it feels like the right time to go hunting.

On top of that, there’s the ‘evidence of absence’ problem. Strong biosignatures update our priors very hard in the direction of life on Mars. But what is the correct amount of evidence necessary to convince us that Mars never was alive? I’m not sure, but failure to find microbial mats in Jezero probably isn’t enough. So the search for life can succeed, but if it ‘fails’ that doesn’t necessarily teach us much; the best experiments teach you something no matter what, and ideally a commitment this large would meet that standard. This is, more or less, baked into the search for extraterrestrial life, and there aren’t too many ways out from under that problem.

That said, Jezero in particular has some compensation. As I mentioned, we’re collecting a lot of good data regardless; and even without the gologic context, there’s a ton of opportunity to sample different minerals and how they formed, and get a nice broad sample of the Martian surface over time. And, even better, here’s the location of another interesting potential field site, in northeast Syrtis:

Note the proximity to Jezero crater! And Syrtis is also a fantastic candidate for a sample return mission. It has exposed mesas with layered outcrops going all the way back to the earliest days of Mars, and extending (potentially) through many of the most interesting periods. Now, these are not ideal for the search for life, although they’d give us a ton of technical data about surface chemistry and the behavior of the atmosphere during the early, wet periods; it would go a long way towards resolving arguments about the temperature of the early Martian climate, for example, or tracing the early destabilization and loss of the magnetosphere while teaching us loads about the planet’s core.

Those mesas are still pretty far away. Too far, probably, for a sensible rover lifespan to make it all the way there. But there’s a plan- called the ‘Midway’ route, as a nod to the compromise nature of it. See, halfway between Jezero and these mesas, there are a lot of banded rocks that look suspiciously like they’re sourced from the table mesas in Syrtis. And those, we can get to, maybe. If we call a specific deadline on looking for life in Jezero, then we can pivot to Midway and hopefully take a really deep look. So, in the end, we’re going hard for astrobiology research, but we’re not going all-in.

The importance of the search for life is… well, there are a lot of people out there, and we enter the world in a lot of different ways. Most of us agree that the existence of extraterrestrial life would be a Big Deal, and we tend to have a lot of different reasons for that. It’s not a bad subject for a future post or three, in fact. But there’s one thing lurking in the back of my head that’s a non-obvious reason to go looking. This wasn’t discussed at the workshop particularly, but it fed into my vote somewhat. Check the logic of this for me, see if it makes sense:

Worrying about existential risks, we sometimes talk about the ‘great filter’. That is, the mysterious phenomenon which explains the lack of extraterrestrial civilizations reaching out to us. Now, maybe we’re in a zoo or a preserve or something, and intelligences are out there watching after all; maybe the Earth really is the center of the cosmos, because of the simulation hypothesis or the various religious explanations. There’s no real way to know for sure at this point. But consider the space of very real possibilities where the universe actually is material, and actually is mostly barren. Why?

Stepping through the sequence, it might be that abiogenesis is really hard- going from a temperate world to a living one is almost (but not quite) impossible. Maybe there’s some hurdle to clear between genesis and encephalization. Maybe, given encephalization, civilization and tool-use are almost impossible. Or maybe there are many civilizations like ours, and the great filter is ahead of us- it is almost impossible for technological civilizations not to self-destruct or turn in to lotus-eaters before they reach interstellar civilization. There are a lot of possibilities for the filter, and for present purposes we’ll divide them into two categories: those which we would have already passed, and those which are in our future.

And here’s the thing: for each possibility we can exclude from the great filter, all the other possibilities increase commensurately, becoming more likely in our estimation. (Assuming the exclusion is ‘clean’ and doesn’t favor some other possibility, that is.) Given that the silence continues, if we could somehow prove that technological self-destruction isn’t a big risk, that would commensurately increase our guesses about how hard abiogenesis is.

Life on Mars, especially if we could be very sure that it evolved independently of Earth life, would be a strong argument against the difficulty of abiogenesis. One biosphere in the solar system, and nowhere else, might be down to luck. The one biosphere has to be somewhere, right? Two in the solar system, and nowhere else, is a good bit less reasonable. If we find a second genesis on Mars, then we’ve learned that life is not rare. That the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way are likely host to many billions of different living (or at least once-living) worlds.

And as wonderful as that news is, as much as it makes me so happy that I literally had to take a second to cry on my bed for a bit, it also makes the great silence much, much scarier. Today, we can reassure ourselves by saying that life may be rare in the universe. But what if it isn’t? If the cosmos is full of life, but not full of thought, then…

If this is the case, we need to know. We need to know as soon as possible, and we need to know it while we’re engaged in the great project of technological development and moral progress. It’s easy to imagine that this particular mission is one that can be framed in purely positive terms- the joy of discovery, the vastness of truth, the love of how things might be. But I do also have this sense of civilizational fragility, you know? And understanding the risks that we face and the chances we’re taking- that’s not idle curiosity. That’s genuinely urgent.

212 notes · View notes

apod · 3 years

Photo

2021 September 14

Mars Panorama 360 from Curiosity Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS; Processing & License: Elisabetta Bonora & Marco Faccin (aliveuniverse.today)

Explanation: Which way up Mount Sharp? In early September, the robotic rover Curiosity continued its ascent up the central peak of Gale Crater, searching for more clues about ancient water and further evidence that Mars could once have been capable of supporting life. On this recent Martian morning, before exploratory drilling, the rolling rover took this 360-degree panorama, in part to help Curiosity's human team back on Earth access the landscape and chart possible future routes. In the horizontally-compressed featured image, an amazing vista across Mars was captured, complete with layered hills, red rocky ground, gray drifting sand, and a dusty atmosphere. The hill just left of center has been dubbed Maria Gordon Notch in honor of a famous Scottish geologist. The current plan is to direct Curiosity to approach, study, and pass just to the right of Gordon Notch on its exploratory trek.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210914.html

46 notes · View notes

herpronuonsarefemslash · 2 years

Text

To Shape a Life, Turn It Towards Happiness or Despair - Teaser

A little yarn where the Prothean beacon on Thessia re-activated, and the asari took to the stars 40,000 years ago, bringing all spare-faring species under the protection of the Asari Imperium. Imperatrix Liara T'Soni is awoken from a nap by a report that the human spacecraft approaching Mars has landed, and that Commander Shepard has done something to the Prothean ruins there.

It is time for humans to be brought into the Imperium, like it or not.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/65606484

=====

"Herakles-I, you are cleared for de-orbit burn."

Shepard looks over her shoulder. Kaidan, James and Ashley shoot her a quick thumbs up. The comm specialist, something Traynor--kid keeps to herself--looks like she is about to die of fright. She pulls up the kid’s vitals on a tablet dangling on a cord in front of her and enters a threshold so that the suit will dose her before she goes ballistic and hurts herself. She’s a shy, brilliant kid. Supposed to do some bullshit to get low bandwidth, Morse-code level comms with Mission Control.

Quantum Entanglement or Graphene Cat's Cradle or Nanotech Shibari or something.

Computer tech is not what they hired Shepard for.

NASA had hired her for someone willing to spend 12-hour shifts staring at radar and rad-meters from the outlying satellites in case the void isn't so void-y and a ship the size of a fucking oil tanker needs to bob and weave, or cosmic rays decide to make the cold of space hot. They hired her to pull them up alongside a hunk of space rock and so precisely a Marine sharpshooter like Ashley can put a probe into an asteroid from 50,000 clicks.

=====

Ashley keys open her tablet.

In 2029, the joint ESA/NASA/Indian Space Agency rover Atlantis disappeared. The public was told it was a sinkhole. That was a cover story. The Atlantis reappeared three days later, ejected from the sand at high speed. Severely damaged, it transmitted three images. [attached]

Submit biometric authentication within ten seconds to view.

Two corners of the screen light up. I am so in, Ashley thinks, jamming both her gloved thumbs into the scanners. Heat in the fingertips of the gloves makes her wince as the fingerprint readers someone must have built into the damn gloves take her prints.

A cave, smoother than any cave has a right to be, straight and round as the inside of a pipe. Lights in the far distance. A three fingered hand--shriveled and dried but unmistakably a hand--stretching out into the light.

The Ares mission has been made a national priority for all NATO nations, India, Japan and South Korea. The primary mission is to recon and analyze the unidentified structure. If it has not been transmitting, set up a security perimeter using packages Foxtrot-8 and Hotel-8 in the cargo landers. If it has been transmitting, destroy it. Commander Shepard has access to three 15 kiloton tactical nuclear devices. The public must not know about the primary mission.

Secondary mission is to establish viable settlements on Mars for Team 3 support crew with food/water self-sufficiency to await the Ares-II.

Details on Artemis recon/combat spacesuits and Silver Arrow no-atmo weapon systems attached.

"Fuck," she mumbles.

"No shit, Lola."

"I don't care if there're no guns in space, Vega. I can choke you with your own balls," Ashley reminds him. "Never call me Lola again."

"Just keeping you game-faced, Gunny."

Kaidan looks up from his tablet, at Shepard, and then at the lockers at the front of the ship.

"I'm ready, ma'am."

=====

Alarms flash and Liara jerks upright. She leans over to the bedside and touches the comm control there.

"Report."

"Transmission from the fourth planet, Imperatrix."

"And?" she groans. Monitoring and eventually absorbing humanity is proving far less enjoyable than her mother told her it would be.

"From the surface, milady. Piloted craft."

Liara lifts her hand off her face. Nearly everything about the human spaceship screamed deathtrap, so she'd never considered them arriving or landing. She had tuned out when Shiala, Slaere and the rest of the T'Soni legion-leaders had given her updates.

"Lag time?"

"Nanoseconds. They touched down almost on top of the Prothean beacon."

Interesting.

"Project to my omni-tool. Engage universal translators. Update it using the most recent captured transmissions."

=====

On the pad, five sets of vital signs fill the top half of the screen while the bottom plays footage their drone had captured. The leader of the team throwing her subordinates clear of danger--as any good Archon would for her huntresses--only to be caught in it herself. Two-thirds of the planet's day-night cycle passed before the field released her and they carried her out. The conclusion was obvious: She was dead. Then a clever huntress in Slaere's legion used a crawler-drone to get into the habitat and tap the data from the human's shelter.

She need not know exactly what these vital signs are--she knows she doesn't, radio-leakage is the bluntest of tools to learn about a species--so long as she knows that there should be four sets of heartbeats and breathing patterns. And one empty space.

There are five.

Whoever this 'Shepard, Commander of Ares Mission' is, she is the first being in ages more complicated than a beetle to touch a Prothean beacon and live to tell the tale.

Shepard can speak to the beacons. To be exposed for so long is more than enough time to transfer the Cipher plus the indexes of an archive that size.

This human is everything.

The plans for the device are incomplete. Centuries remain, likely fewer than five. The monitoring Reapers’ patrols will soon tighten. They must read the plans, and for that, they must have someone who can read and speak Prothean, as this Shepard likely now can.

=====

"Mr. Moreau, I recommend you look to your left."

Jeff pulls off the comic book he'd been using as a sleeping mask, and pushes his hat up. Looming between the Ares and Mars is a sleek, white-and-violet craft. Unless he misses his guess, that big round thing at the bottom is an engine, and the ship wraps around it like diamond dust pressed into a ring. There is not a single piece of machinery visible, just the ring of the engine, and from either side, thick fins with a downward curl at the tips. The ship looks like a manta ray that someone dug out of a diamond mine. Those sparkling dots could be windows, or just larger flecks of whatever pixie dust it's made of.

Four craft of similar design flank it, but they're smaller and bruise-purple with hulls that are fully angular, not fully rounded. Each has dozens of shutters open, some of which glow a spooky yellow- green.

"Fuck me."

"I do not possess the necessary equipment."

Wait, doesn't she usually add 'or inclination' to that?

"Raise the ground team!"

"I cannot. The electromagnetic interference from what I presume are their engines is...significant."

The sparkly craft leading the formation starts blinking. Blink. Blink. Blink that takes a really long time. Blink.

Wait.

"EDI, presume Morse code and translate as soon as it loops."

"Stand by...translated. Humanity, we are the Asari Imperium. Do not resist. We mean no harm."

#mass effect #my fics #teasers #Liara T'Soni #liara x femshep #femshep x liara #take us to your leader cutie #probe me daddy

5 notes · View notes

stefany · 3 years

Photo

Mars Panorama 360 from Curiosity Which way up Mount Sharp? In early September, the robotic rover Curiosity continued its ascent up the central peak of Gale Crater, searching for more clues about ancient water and further evidence that Mars could once have been capable of supporting life. On this recent Martian morning, before exploratory drilling, the rolling rover took this 360-degree panorama, in part to help Curiosity's human team back on Earth access the landscape and chart possible future routes. In the horizontally-compressed featured image, an amazing vista across Mars was captured, complete with layered hills, red rocky ground, gray drifting sand, and a dusty atmosphere. The hill just left of center has been dubbed Maria Gordon Notch in honor of a famous Scottish geologist. The current plan is to direct Curiosity to approach, study, and pass just to the right of Gordon Notch on its exploratory trek. September 14, 2021 via Space https://ift.tt/3htPpvZ

#IFTTT #NASA #astronomy #photo #space

2 notes · View notes

newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Next stop Mars: 3 spacecraft arriving in quick succession (AP) After hurtling hundreds of millions of miles through space since last summer, three robotic explorers are ready to hit the brakes at Mars. The United Arab Emirates’ orbiter reaches Mars on Tuesday, followed less than 24 hours later by China’s orbiter-rover combo. NASA’s rover, the cosmic caboose, will arrive on the scene a week later, on Feb. 18, to collect rocks for return to Earth—a key step in determining whether life ever existed at Mars. Both the UAE and China are newcomers at Mars, where more than half of Earth’s emissaries have failed. China’s first Mars mission, a joint effort with Russia in 2011, never made it past Earth’s orbit. All three spacecraft rocketed away within days of one another last July, during an Earth-to-Mars launch window that occurs only every two years. That’s why their arrivals are also close together.

Around the globe, virus cancels spring travel for millions (AP) They are the annual journeys of late winter and early spring: Factory workers in China heading home for the Lunar New Year; American college students going on road trips and hitting the beach over spring break; Germans and Britons fleeing drab skies for some Mediterranean sun over Easter. All of it canceled, in doubt or under pressure because of the coronavirus. Amid fears of new variants of the virus, new restrictions on movement have hit just as people start to look ahead to what is usually a busy time of year for travel. It means more pain for airlines, hotels, restaurants and tourist destinations that were already struggling more than a year into the pandemic, and a slower recovery for countries where tourism is a big chunk of the economy.

AP-NORC poll: Few in US say democracy is working very well (AP) Only a fragment of Americans believe democracy is thriving in the U.S., even as broad majorities agree that representative government is one of the country’s bedrock principles, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Just 16% of Americans say democracy is working well or extremely well, a pessimism that spans the political spectrum. Nearly half of Americans, 45%, think democracy isn’t functioning properly, while another 38% say it’s working only somewhat well. The poll’s findings are broadly consistent with how Americans graded democracy before the election. But there are signs that Trump’s attacks on the democratic process, including his repeated argument that the election was “stolen” because of voter irregularities, resonated with Republicans.

Schools plan for potential of remote learning into the fall (AP) Parents of schoolchildren learning from home shouldn’t necessarily count on reclaiming the dining room table any time soon. After seeing two academic years thrown off course by the pandemic, school leaders around the country are planning for the possibility of more distance learning next fall at the start of yet another school year. “We have no illusions that COVID will be eradicated by the time the start of the school year comes up,” said William “Chip” Sudderth III, a spokesperson for Durham, North Carolina schools, whose students have been out of school buildings since March. President Joe Biden has made reopening schools a top priority, but administrators say there is much to consider as new strains of the coronavirus appear and teachers wait their turn for vaccinations. And while many parents are demanding that schools fully reopen, others say they won’t feel safe sending children back to classrooms until vaccines are available to even young students.

2nd major snowstorm in a week blankets Northeast (AP) A major snowstorm pushed through the Northeastern United States on Sunday, less than a week after a storm dumped more than 2 feet on parts of the region. By early afternoon, 5 to 7 inches had already fallen in parts of northwestern New Jersey and southwestern Connecticut. New York’s Central Park reported about 3 inches. The highest total was recorded in West Whiteland Township, west of Philadelphia, where about 9 inches had fallen. The National Weather Service predicted up to 8 inches of snow in New York City and 2 to 4 inches in Washington, D.C. Up to a foot was projected to fall on some areas along the Connecticut coastline.

Biden faces border challenge as migrant families arrive in greater numbers and large groups (Washington Post) President Biden’s more-welcoming message to immigrants is facing an immediate challenge along the Mexican border, where Central American families and children have been crossing in numbers that point to a building crisis. In recent days, U.S. authorities have seen the return of large groups of parents and children crossing the border in the darkness, a replay of scenes that occurred during the record influx of families who arrived in 2018 and 2019, overwhelming migrant shelters and Border Patrol stations. Republican critics of Biden say the new wave is the start of the crisis they have long predicted, invited by the new administration’s eager rejection of Trump’s deterrent approach. Yet Biden also inherited a highly improvised enforcement system from his predecessor that was already under strain and highly dependent on Trump’s diplomatic bullying of Mexico. Late last month, Mexican authorities in some areas of the border stopped taking back families returned by the United States under emergency pandemic health measures implemented last March. With the U.S. capacity to hold adults and children reduced by the pandemic and the temporary closure of the largest Border Patrol facility in South Texas, U.S. Customs and Border Protection began dropping families off at bus stations and shelters last week.

Ecuador’s election (Foreign Policy) Ecuador’s presidential election is set to go to a second round after early returns showed a split electorate. Leftist Andrés Arauz leads the count with 31.5 percent of the vote, while his closest challengers Guillermo Lasso and Yaku Pérez both received roughly 20 percent. As the margin between them is so tight, it’s not yet clear whether Lasso or Pérez will face Arauz in the April 11 runoff.

Brexit growing pains (Foreign Policy) Exports from the United Kingdom to the European Union fell by 68 percent in January, according to a trade group representing British truck drivers. The Road Haulage Association (RHA) attributed the drop to trade disruptions due to the end of the Brexit transition period, although the British government has said border friction has been “minimal.” The news comes as EU and U.K. representatives meet this week to discuss extending post-Brexit grace periods on the trade of certain goods.

‘Al desko’ (Foreign Policy) The French labor ministry says it will soon relax a ban on workers eating lunch at their desks in order to enforce social distancing regulations. France’s labor laws currently forbid employees from eating “al desko” and companies face financial penalties if inspectors catch them flouting the law. The country’s strict labor rights include a 2017 law that allows workers to ignore work e-mails outside of normal working hours. “We French and you Americans have totally different ideas about work,” Agnès Dutin, a retired Parisian, told the New York Times. “It’s a catastrophe to eat at your desk. You need a pause to refresh the mind. It’s good to move your body. When you return, you see things differently.”

Russia considering at least $6.7 billion spending package to ease discontent (Reuters) Russian authorities are considering a new social spending package worth at least $6.7 billion to address discontent over falling living standards before an autumn election, according to two government sources. The package, which one of the sources said President Vladimir Putin was likely to unveil in an annual speech to senior political figures in coming weeks, follows unsanctioned nationwide protests last month that hit the value of the rouble. The two government sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media, told Reuters the spending package was meant to make people feel the authorities are aware of their financial concerns and are doing something to help them.

Myanmar junta imposes curfew, meeting bans as protests swell (AP) Myanmar’s new military rulers on Monday signaled their intention to crack down on opponents of their takeover, issuing decrees that effectively banned peaceful public protests in the country’s two biggest cities. The restrictive measures were ordered after police fired water cannons at hundreds of protesters in the Myanmar capital, Naypyitaw, who were demanding the military hand power back to elected officials. It was just one of many demonstrations around the country. Rallies and gatherings of more than five people, along with motorized processions, were banned, and an 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew was imposed for areas of Yangon and Mandalay, the country’s first- and second-biggest cities, where thousands of people have been demonstrating since Saturday. The growing wave of defiance—particularly in Naypyitaw, where such protests are unusual—was striking in a country where demonstrations have been met with severe force in the past.

Iran: US must lift sanctions before it lives up to nuke deal (AP) Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday urged the United States to lift all sanctions if it wants Iran to live up to commitments under its nuclear deal with world powers, state TV reported, but President Joe Biden says the U.S. won’t be making the first move. “If (the U.S.) wants Iran to return to its commitments, it must lift all sanctions in practice, then we will do verification … then we will return to our commitments,” state TV quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying, in his first comments on the matter since Biden took office. Biden rejected the idea in a “CBS Evening News” interview taped Friday and airing Sunday. Former President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. in 2018 from the atomic deal, which saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Biden has said he will seek to revive the deal, but insisted that Iran must first reverse its nuclear steps, creating a contest of wills between the nations.

Israel’s Netanyahu walks out on his own corruption trial (Washington Post) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told judges in a Jerusalem court on Monday that he is innocent of corruption charges before abruptly standing, saying “thank you very much” and leaving with his motorcade. Netanyahu quit the courtroom some 20 minutes after the start of Monday morning’s hearing, which continued on without him. The sessions kick-started the second phase of a precedent-setting legal procedure, which, for the first time, involves the indictment of an Israeli prime minister while still in office and campaigning for elections in the coming weeks—the fourth in two years.

Congo working to stop new Ebola outbreak in country’s east (AP) Health officials in Congo confirmed another Ebola outbreak in the country’s east on Sunday, the fourth in less than three years. On February 3, a woman died in Butembo town in North Kivu province, Minister of Health Eteni Longondo announced. This is the 12th outbreak in conflict-ridden Congo since the virus was first discovered in the country in 1976, and comes less than three months after an outbreak in the western province of Equateur, officially ended in November. The 2018 outbreak in Eastern Congo was the second deadliest in the world, killing 2,299 people before it ended in June. That outbreak lasted for nearly two years and was fought amid unprecedented challenges, including entrenched conflict between armed groups, the world’s largest measles epidemic, and the spread of COVID-19.

#headlines #news

3 notes · View notes