The black sea of space, the possibilities of technology and magic combined
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The aliens talk to each other so much. At first it sounded like fast beeps, more like music than speech, but then he got into the rhythm of it and starting thinking of it as eight-beat patterns, and then each of those as a single beat with a pattern of third-division notes. There's patterns in groups of those beats too, and now he's learning the shape of a conversation and has some guesses at the meanings of words... An alien starts by saying one word that he's translating as 'yo!', in the sense of a spoken word or a wide broadcast, not like waving at someone in particular or a narrowbeam. Another alien - always exactly one and he's not sure how that happens - responds with the same word and then 'uh-huh?', and they sing a call-and-response:

"yo!"

"yo! uh-huh?"

"uh-huh? yo!" stuff he doesn't understand yet but a lot of the words are getting familiar

"regarding" and then a topic pronoun that he thinks is actually a number! and then some familiar words and then some totally unpredictable words

"mm-kay" the same topic pronoun number

A bunch of "regarding" and "mm-kay" cycles, always with the first alien saying the new information.

"done"

"uh-huh? done"

"done"

"uh-huh? done"

And there are a whole bunch of simultaneous conversations like this with different pitches of beeps.

There must be a reason they talk like this. To show deference? To demonstrate mastery of a difficult ritual? Because it's easier when they're synchronizing with something else that's happening?

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Official Exodus settlement naming vote

Thank you everyone for your creative submissions! We have selected those we feel reflect the fundamental human spirit that will help see us through these troubled times.

Vote here for as many as you would like within the next 48 hours. The ten with the most votes will participate in a second round election. In the case of multiple entries being tied for 10th place, all will be added to the next round.

Von Neumann
Michaelangelo
Pitcairn
Cryos
Fimbulheim
Jörmungandr 
Eclipsia
Frostbound
Endurance
Tabula
Aeternis
McMurdo
RenDaire
Discovery
Nivis
Glacies
Freljord
Permafrost
Janus
Whiteplains
Nova Terra
Igloo
Cryothis
Exponential Growth
Hope
Tenacity
Nadir
Whiteout
Glacium
Eden
Blessing
Valley of the Wind
Icehole
Charon
Marisa Espanoza
Foundation
Winterhold
Exodus
Aurora
Nordis
Hesperis
Htrae
Mir
Faith 
Astraux
Wegotthis
Thule
Hibernia
Stygia
Enterprise
Icelis
Refuge
Avalon
Frosthaven
Solstice
... [3 more pages]

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There's an odd sense of normalcy spreading over the Exodus colony. It's day 8, and they're raising new modules, exploring an alien planet, beginning to do science and investigation of its nature... Just, not on Avalon, the supposedly habitable exoplanet that they were meant for.

The Hydroponics Bay is setting up new racks of crops every day, the shift work steady as a clock. Rice and potatoes and fruit and beans and leafy greens and carrots and smaller numbers of trickier crops like maize or asparagus, for morale and variety. No eggs or chickens or dairy; The debates about bringing livestock for the trip were lengthy, but ultimately came down against, with the weight and efficiency concerns being the main deciding factor. They theoretically could clone new livestock using some of the equipment from the Laboratory Modules, eventually. If it's not smashed on the icy plain.

The 107 children in the colony, each chosen as a unit with their parent or parents in order to help keep up the sense that Exodus was about building a real future and community on another world, are attending school every day. They can clearly tell something is wrong, but children will mostly just grow sullen and quiet, or occasionally act out, when things are harsh. Thankfully, only a very few of them perished in the initial crash- Though it makes the surviving members of those families all the more inconsolable. There are five full-time teachers and plenty of call for guest lecturers and the like. The older ones take 'field trips' to the maintenance areas or the hydroponics module and learn about all the technology that is making surviving here viable, and how they can improve it or invent more in time.

People are spreading out into the second Habitat Module. There were six, each designed to house 250 people in comfortable conditions and 500 in decent conditions. 1106 people in just one was very cramped. Adding a second has taken it down to mostly tolerable levels, with only a few people needing to share rooms. The inner walls are designed to be modular, sliding around and packing away as the colony's needs change. They've all trained on this equipment for months and are used to the layout and facilities. Spreading out feels like going from one of the emergency drills back to normal training time.

The Recycling Module was constructed today in a central location, with all sorts of pipes and vents and even conveyor belts leading into and out of it from other areas, the churning chemistry equipment within processing trash and waste and scrap and carbon dioxide back into useful chemicals and materials. Steam pipes from the reactor power much of its heat-intensive processes, just like they're being extended to the other modules. A ready and free supply of oxygen and water from the outside makes things a LOT easier- They can change it to variant methods of catalysis and processing that use up those precious resources rather than producing them. They're making plastic feedstock.

Nobody seems to know anything about what went wrong. The rumors are wild, and have more room than ever to spread and whirl. People bemoan their submissions being rejected from the official list and come up with plenty of justifications for why they were actually completely serious, going to Shen Takagi to complain about it. (It feels good to complain about something.)

The heavy transports are sent out: One to trawl a particularly dense field of burnt scrap for usable metal and other materials, one to recover the Mining Module that was mapped earlier.

The rovers have been sent out to scout again, on a more reasonable pace after their hard run looking for urgently needed medicine. Today's finds are... One of the Exodus's orbital shuttles, a bank of solar panels, several intact-ish supply lockers, and an entertainment module perched slightly precariously, straddling a crevasse with two landing legs on either side of the gap.

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Nina gathers up the remaining shuttle technicians halfway through the day, to join a video call with the rover crew to look over the shuttle-

"I'm not sure if we're going to be trying to go into orbit soon. Launching a satellite for surveying would be a really big win, but you guys know more than me how viable that is. The shuttles are one of the most complicated pieces of kit in the entire mission, second only to the Brigman Cores and some of the most sensitive lab or medical equipment, or maybe the reactors. So I want to know what options we have and what they'll cost."

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After directing the rover in a loop around the outside -

"It looks fine from here, and should be packed up securely for landing. I'd say, with the information currently known, there's a 90% chance it will fly. Put two of us on inspecting it for a day and that number either goes to zero or 99.9%, with a cost and timeline, which will be at least two weeks plus time for repairs if needed.

...But if we're not busted after one day of inspections, it's also an option to launch like that and maybe something breaks but the pilots can probably handle it. In a normal situation I would never recommend that risk to the shuttle, cargo, and lives of the pilots, but it's an option."

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The other shuttle technicians mostly nod along and agree. "We'll need to construct a runway," one of the others adds.

"I appreciate the candid assessment. I'm going to argue for recovering it tomorrow, just because having orbit available opens up a lot of options, so maybe you'll get to do your actual jobs." She cracks a smile.

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"Yeah, and the braking action on this ice is basically nil, so it will have to be longer than the atmosphere suggests.

...Sir, I did not consider my statement to be unusually candid. With all due respect to you and your colleagues on Earth, sir, I feel it would be prudent to assure you that, if you expect people to over-promise and then cut corners to live up to their words, we do not do that with spacecraft."

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"Huh. Okay, let's clear the air a bit? I try to cultivate a work environment that's, not overly tense. The casual register is part of that. When I said 'candid' I meant I appreciated a pretty clear and brief report compared to some of my guys who would have spent five minutes trying to explain all the context. Marlene Lowell, right? Well, like I said, I'm Nina Gorman. Nice to meet you all. You can call me Nina, or boss, or even 'hey you' if you like. I think you've got a great point about the standards and culture for ground equipment and aerospace being different. I'd hate for us to get too upset with each other. We're all in this ice bucket together."

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"Ah, okay, Nina, thank you for clarifying. I always appreciate clarity. I certainly wasn't trying to start a fight, sorry."

Welp everyone hates her now. What a way to start off on a new planet.

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"No harm done. I hope I haven't given you a bad impression of the folks keeping the lights and heat on either! Rest assured, we're taking the nuclear power plant just as seriously."

Someone knocks on the door, then opens it without waiting for confirmation. "Boss! Question about the cooling tower feed, when you have a moment!"

"-Ah... Right. Lots to do, so thank you again for coming to check this. I'll let you know what happens."

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Marlene has a moment before her next duty and will relax by voting on names ...beginning by tensely holding her breath and scrolling to see if 'Icehole' got vetoed. Yay, it didn't!

Most of these names are so boring. That includes her own submission of 'Janus'. She skips over all the names that are already in use, or which could work anywhere. Even the names that reference cold are mostly too generic - humanity will probably colonize many more icy worlds (hopefully on purpose).

That leaves just 'Endurance', 'Icehole', 'Valley of the Wind'...yeah that's all she's going to vote for.

Oh, there are three more pages. She will fulfill her civic responsibility and evaluate them all.

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Why is the expedition going slower now?

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Technical reasons, namely...

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  • The walls of the tube are thicker now, so more material needs to be carried around.
  • The blocks of ice are harder to handle than blocks of stone.
  • It turns out that picking up the blocks is really hard. The stone blocks were long and narrow, so the werewolf who made a batch could, while still sitting on the ground, hold them by the base and pass them to the assembly workers walking by. But picking up a block of ice requires bending over. This alone is the main reason why they had to go back to normal 10-hour shifts.
  • They don't have enough catfolk and boarks to do all that, and no one else can handle the cold for long.
  • The ground is worse and is harder to fix. In particular, there are occasional deep crevices.
  • It's cold inside the tube, unpleasantly if not hazardously, since making it warm enough to be comfortable would risk melting the roof. This is bad for morale. Even the catfolk and boarks don't like seeing their friends suffer.
  • The food is bad for morale, too.

If we had unlimited resources, in particular plenty of catfolk, we could increase the speed to about 7.5 klicks per day.

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Are you going to pay for it?

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Yes. And we'll send some regional delicacies by express gnomunk.

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...We insist on paying the same amount as the Freedom Democracy.

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Don't take my catfolk! I mean, I'm not going to keep them from leaving, I'm not a don, but, speaking not as Magistrate but as the primary owner of the mill and the pumps, I will pay my current employees higher than I will pay their untrained replacements. 

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Is the tube over the ice going to be prepared for equartiers?

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We're not sure if equartiers running on the ice will be dangerous. The harpy barge is working fine for keeping the expedition supplied.

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Also, the equartiers are busy establishing a town at the base of the ice mountain. So far, we're calling it the Kef Orocide, but name suggestions are welcome.

It's great, we just plop chunks of ice onto a sled track and the wind blows them most of the way to Kef. We're working on making the track slope downward so gravity will take them the rest of the way.

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Hey, that's supposed to be my town!

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Technically, your shrine was destroyed in the accident that happened under your command, so you're not the founder. However, the Magistrate of Orocide would be honored to host you and receive your wisdom to his shrine.

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Is this 'orocide' going to cause earthquakes?

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