History Fanfic / ChangelingSpaceProgramAndTheMaretian

* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: On Sol 7, Mark describes Cherry Berry (emphasis added).
-->'''Mark:''' The first of these little horse alien things is pink -- pink like your kid sister's ''Pretty Pansy Princess Playroom'' Set.

** The other equestrians notice that Dragonfly has stopped her usual "silly changeling" routine and are concerned that it may be concealing a more serious problem.

* {{Retconjuration}}: A benevolent EldritchAbomination [[RealityWarper Pinkie]] applies this to ''Angel 16'''s film record, ensuring that no unfortunate inter-dimensional leakage can occur, because said film record never existed in the first place.

* AlienLunch: Mark expects this trope to apply to the ponies and any meat. Spitfire picks up on this and uses it to squick him out by claiming to like to eat fish whole -- bones, heads, and all. When Mark later serves her the bacon portion of one of his meal packs as revenge, the trope gets played straight.

* FiveManBand: The ''Amicitas'' crew, as they actually function. Cherry Berry is TheLeader, Spitfire is TheLancer, Starlight Glimmer is TheSmartGuy, Fireball is TheBigGuy, and Dragonfly is TheChick. Mark Watney tends to fall into the role of TheMentor.

* ContinuityNod: Despite the story’s AlternateContinuity, events proceed close enough to canon to have varying amounts of impact on the plot -- albeit in slightly altered order. ([[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017 The Festival of Friendship]] and parts of season 7 are somewhat scrambled.)

** Pegasai

* ContinuityNod: Despite the story’s AlternateContinuity, events proceed close enough to canon to have varying amounts of impact on the plot -- albeit in slightly altered order. ([[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017 The Festival of Friendship]] and parts of season 7 are somewhat scrambled.) During the lead-up to ESA missions 13, 14 and 15...
** Twilight is encountering setbacks with construction of the [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS8E1SchoolDazePart1 School of Friendship]].
** Rainbow Dash has to deal with [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E16CampfireTales flyder bites]] and [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E17DaringDone news that Daring Do is retiring]].
** An exhausted Twilight is convinced to [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E21OnceUponAZeppelin take a family vacation]].

There are three related works.

[[folder:All Stories]]

* ContinuityNod: Despite the story’s AlternateContinuity, events proceed close enough to canon to have varying amounts of impact on the plot -- albeit in slightly altered order. ([[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017 The Festival of Friendship]] and parts of season 7 are somewhat scrambled.) During the lead-up to ESA missions 13, 14 and 15...
** Twilight is encountering setbacks with construction of the [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS8E1SchoolDazePart1 School of Friendship]].
** Rainbow Dash has to deal with [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E16CampfireTales flyder bites]] and [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E17DaringDone news that Daring Do is retiring]].
** An exhausted Twilight is convinced to [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E21OnceUponAZeppelin take a family vacation]].

* HeadDesk: Starlight indulges in a bout of cranial percussion with a cabinet when she learns about how ''Amicitas'' misjumped.

* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: Even allowing for magical ponies, things generally sit around 3 ("Physics Plus") or harder.

* {{Mana}}: A critical limiting factor in how much the ponies can contribute to survival on Mars. Life generates mana, which can be collected and stored in purpose-made batteries. So food production not only supplies needed calories for consumption, but also mana which can then be used to enhance earth pony agricultural abilities (Yay, more food!), cast useful spells, or enchant objects (like more batteries, or a replacement Sparkle Drive crystal).

* TheMerch: In-universe, the Equestrians ask NASA to manage the marketing of toys and other merchandise based on the castaways. Hasbro appears to have won the bidding war for the right to make pony toys.

* IsThisThingStillOn: On Sol 426 the castaways test voice radio communication with ''Hermes''. While waiting for message turnaround, Mark and Fireball have a long conversation about quitting the astronaut biz. (This while rescue is still over four months away.) Their mikes are hot for all of it. And because of lightspeed lag, they don't find out for ''over nine minutes''. Mark backpedals immediately once he finds out: the two realize and agree that they shouldn't resign until Mark gets his backpay and Fireball gets back his worldly possessions from the Dragon Queen, respectively.

* DistantFinale: Some time after Mark is returned to Earth (long enough for him to earn his Botany [=PhD=]), we see how the various Martian castaways have fared. Enters FastForwardToReunion territory, depending on whether a jammed door is enough to avert it.

** After Dragonfly has cocooned herself, the others ask home for help getting her out again. What follows is Chrysalis's [[spoiler:half sarcasm, half test]] prescription to wake her up again:

* EldritchAbomination: They stop the efforts to locate the astronauts with extradimensional probes cold. There are a few close calls with attracting the attention of dangerous beings, such as when a Decepticon nearly gets their hands on a probe. But the final line is when they encounter an entity where even the ''saved video'' of it is enough to come to life and being attacking everypony's minds... until they're rescued by the local dimensional eldritch abomination counterpart of Pinkie Pie. Eldritch Pinkie also makes sure to close off its dimension by erasing the original footage so the vulnerable Equestrians can't be attacked again. At that point, the program is immediately shut down and they have to explore other options to find the correct dimensional coordinates.
** They later sent along a safety message to Earth's dimension, warning them to not make dimension-hopping probes.

* FiveTokenBand: The reason the five crewmembers of ''Amicitas'' were chosen. Two members each of Equus's two leading space programs, plus a veteran of one of the discontinued smaller programs. One each of the three pony tribes, one changeling, and a dragon to represent the other speaking races. Although the crew did have their duties and were given training for the sections they did not excel in, Twilight Sparkle chose the crew to maximize popular support rather than to pick the best-integrated team, because the mission, a manned scouting mission at best, was only expected to run five days, maximum (the space exploration equivalent of a [[Series/GilligansIsland a three-hour tour]]). Fortunately for the crew, the selections worked out much better than planned, partly because the team included Equestria's most experienced space pilot, the most powerful unicorn of her generation, a more-intelligent-than-average changeling, an elite military officer... [[AndZoidberg and Fireball]].
** To be fair though, most of Fireball's duties involved extravehicular activity in space, backup pilot, and spacesuit safety checks, one of which is useless on a planet and the other made moot by flight engineer Dragonfly being the only one that could repair their only set of suits. This largely left him as the super-strong guy.

* HeelRaceTurn: The only one who knows Chrysalis' actual plan to claim the power of the Moon is Chrysalis herself. Celestia, Luna, Twilight, and even Cherry Berry all suspect there's more to the space program than just "an enormously expensive exercise in public relations", but Celestia is betting that [[BefriendingTheEnemy openly integrating changelings into Equestrian society]] in furtherance of the space program will be enough of an overall benefit to stick.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Many of the scientific and technical experts Chrysalis recruits are based on pioneers in rocketry, mathematics, and electronics. A few other pioneers and notable space-related celebrties make an appearance as part of competing programs or tourists.

* EldritchAbomination: They stop the efforts to locate the astronauts with extradimensional probes cold. There are a few close calls with attracting the attention of dangerous beings, such as when a Decepticon nearly gets their hands on a probe. But the final line is when they encounter an entity where even the ''saved video'' of it is enough to come to life and being attacking everypony's minds... until it's driven off by the local dimensional counterpart of Pinkie Pie. Who is ''also'' an eldritch abomination, albeit a relatively friendly one. At that point the program is immediately shut down and they have to explore other options to find the correct dimensional coordinates.

* FiveTokenBand: The reason the five crewmembers of ''Amicitas'' were chosen. Two members each of Equus's two leading space programs, plus a veteran of one of the discontinued smaller programs. One each of the three pony tribes, one changeling, and a dragon to represent the other speaking races. Twilight Sparkle chose the crew to maximize popular support rather than to pick the best-integrated team, because the mission was only expected to run five days, maximum. Fortunately for the crew, the selections worked out much better than planned, partly because the team included Equestria's most experienced space pilot, the most powerful unicorn of her generation, a more-intelligent-than-average changeling, an elite military officer... [[AndZoidberg and Fireball]].

* IsThisThingStillOn: On Sol 426 the castaways test voice radio communication with ''Hermes''. While waiting for message turnaround, Mark and Fireball have a long conversation about quitting the astronaut biz. (This while rescue is still over four months away.) Their mikes are hot for all of it. And because of lightspeed lag, they don't find out for ''over nine minutes''. Mark backpedals immediately once he finds out.

* RealityEnsues: Soon after Chrysalis decides to go to the moon, she discovers just how difficult such an undertaking is.

* TheAllegedCar: Or Alleged Spacecraft -- CSP Mission Zero. It has a parachute. It has a solid rocket booster. It has a flight chair (complete with bucket for in-space, er, accidents). But the actual space capsule leaves something to be desired... i.e. ''everything.''
-->'''Cherry Berry: IT'S A BUCKING CARDBOARD BOX!'''
** In ''The Maretian'', a poster of this 'craft' is displayed in the Horseton Space Center museum. It is suggested that Cherry Berry was responsible for its caption, ''"This is Why We Do Not Do This."'

* AlienLunch: Mark expects this trope to apply to the ponies and any meat. Spitfire picks up on this and uses it to squick him out by claiming to like to eat fish whole- bones, heads, and all. When Mark later serves her the bacon portion of one of his meal packs as revenge, the trope gets played straight.

* BackgroundMagicField: The absence of this on Mars is a critical problem for the ponies. The initial stress of attempting to draw mana from the nonexistent field caused a cascade failure that destroyed all but two of the ponies' mana batteries. Life does generate some mana, which allows a slow recharge of their remaining batteries, but initially, all the life on Mars fits in the Ares III Hab with lots of room to spare.
** It is later realized that the ''Amicitas''' crew, having evolved in a universal magic field, require said field for their health. While changelings would starve to death in months, dragons would simply take longer by wasting away, and it is postulated that ponies would eventually suffer a permanent loss of their magic abilities.

* BlindIdiotTranslation: The translation spell Starlight Glimmer cobbles together to speak with Mark Watney tends to do this, especially when confronted with [[MeaningfulName the literal nature of pony-world names]]. For example, the spell at one point renders Spitfire's name as "Slobberflame." Between this problem and the fact that the spell can only be used for about ninety seconds before Starlight collapses from exhaustion, it's no wonder that she pushes hard to get everyone to learn English.

-->''For you or me, the day a stage magician shows up with real magic power and forces the town to kneel before his/her might would be a turning point in our dreary little lives. For ponies, it's Tuesday. Bear this in mind if you're tempted to make diplomatic threats.''

* CutTheJuice: A hardware malfunction in the computer used to generate the timing signal for the ''Phoenix''’s Sparkle Drive system causes the drive to engage at maximum frequency (1 billion jumps per second). As the mana batteries drain precipitously and the risk of catastrophic crystal failure rises, Mark averts total disaster by disconnecting the computer (yanking out the cable), stopping any further teleports.

* FiveTokenBand: The reason the five crewmembers of ''Amicitas'' were chosen. Two members each of Equus's two leading space programs, plus a veteran of one of the discontinued smaller programs. One each of the three pony tribes, one changeling, and a dragon to represent the other speaking races. Twilight Sparkle chose the crew to maximize popular support rather than to pick the best-integrated team, because the mission was only expected to run five days, maximum. Fortunately for the crew, the selections worked out much better than planned, partly because the team included Equestria's most experienced space pilot, the most powerful unicorn of her generation, a more intelligent than average changeling, an elite military officer... [[AndZoidberg and Fireball]].

* ForeignQueasine: The Vehicle Assembly Supervisor at Jiuquan contemplates subjecting Mitch Henderson to this ("...the traditional dishes of our back-country work force..."); Mitch has been expressing his anxiety by trying to boss around the Chinese engineers working to complete the ''Sleipnir'' 5 resupply rocket.
* GeniusLoci: ''Maybe.'' Mars certainly gives the impression of being actively hateful and malevolent, and aiming deadly storms or other mishaps at them whenever it gets enough mana from the castaway's experiments to do so. And Dragonfly certainly begins to sense malevolence from it as part of her growing ability to sense the emotions of inanimate objects... that may ''also'' be all in her head. And it's also possible that storms and atmospheric effects and the difficulty of spaceflight are simply a side effect of magic in this universe. Between this and the general effects of Murphy's Law, as well as the fact that NASA ''really'' doesn't want to come out and say "We think Mars is evil and wants our astronauts dead", it stays ambiguous leaning slightly in favor.

--> "When you see an egg or a pod or a cocoon or anything like that in a space cave, especially if it's black, you leave it the fuck alone!!"

* IWantMyJetpack: For all Mark's remarks about how the Equestrians are insane, he also states that they're exploring space the way humans ''should'' have, dang it!
-->They're not wasting time with their space program. One day they just decided, "Let's go to space!" And from that day they threw everything they had at it -- magic, science, courage, and political will. For most of my lifetime we had the science and the courage, but not the will. Now we've got it back. Don't give it up again.

* InterdimensionalTravelDevice: Unintended consequence of failure to limit the Sparkle Drive's collision avoidance system to just three dimensions. Later used purposefully for the search-and-rescue mission. The Mirror Portal to the ''[[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirls Equestria Girls]]'' universe also makes a brief appearance.

-->"[[TemptingFate It worked perfectly]]," Venkat said. "It worked absolutely perfectly."\\
"I wish you hadn't said that," Mitch muttered.\\
"Why's that?"\\
"Usually the first time you try to launch anything, it blows up on the pad," Mitch said. "Or there's some other in-flight glitch. But everything went right in the test. So what's going to happen next time, when they do it for real?"\\
Venkat sighed. "Thanks a lot, Mitch," he said. "[[DiscussedTrope I was just running short of nightmare fuel]]. Thanks very much for topping me off."

-->"Earth needs more princesses," Starlight Glimmer said.\\
"For the eighty-seventh time," Mark sighed, "it does not."

* UnwinnableTrainingSimulation: Although it's mentioned that Cherry Berry failed her fair share of simulator runs learning to fly the MAV, one particular run personally overseen by Major Martinez on ''Hermes'' was designed to be unwinnable... and Cherry (with Spitfire as copilot) won it anyway. The solution involved [[EmergencyCargoDump jettisoning over six hundred kilograms of materiel out the airlock]], misusing maneuvering thrusters to provide constant acceleration until the fuel ran out, then refilling them and doing it again. The ponies were about to ''[[ImprovisedMicrogravityManeuvering get out and push the spaceship]]'' when the simulation program reported a successful result[[note]]i. e. eventual rendezvous with a simulated ''Hermes''[[/note]]. And then Cherry shocks the humans on ''Hermes'' by saying she wasn't bothered because [[SeenItAll she's done all these things before in actual flight]].

** Mark sets up an encounter with a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_and_the_Dread_Gazebo Dread Gazebo]]. Starlight's cleric charms it and adds it to the party.

* AlienLunch: Mark expects this trope to apply to the ponies and any meat. Spitfire picks up on this and uses it to squick him out by claiming to like to eat fish whole- bones, heads and all. When Mark later serves her the bacon portion of one of his meal packs as revenge, the trope gets played straight.

* BackgroundMagicField: The absence of this on Mars is a critical problem for the ponies. The initial stress of attempting to draw mana from the nonexistant field caused a cascade failure that destroyed all but two of the ponies' mana batteries. Life does generate some mana, which allows a slow recharge of their remaining batteries, but initially, all the life on Mars fits in the Ares III Hab with lots of room to spare.

-->"Bash all the things," Dragonfly said. "But in a [[LawfulStupid lawful good]] way. For the glory of Insert Deity Here."

* TeethFlying: On Sol 90, after the crew stop Cherry Berry from resigning, notably through Fireball restraining her, she tells him to report to the medic for injuries... before giving him an uppercut hard enough to break a tooth. The dragon is less distressed by the pain than by the fact a pony broke his tooth, which he would never hear the end of it in the Dragonlands.