...He'd like somewhere more comfortable as long as they promise to send him to Exodus pretty quick once contact is made. He's a farmer, a bright one because Exodus chose smart people, but not a diplomat!

Yes, absolutely. 

...They might be able to find Exodus in just a few cycles, though. How is Audron's project doing?

It's going really well! His team, especially Klauva the werewolf, is working wonders on rapid prototyping of new designs. They have built an air-flyer that can hold a harpy, a catfolk powering the turbine (either of the two magic-users piloting the craft), and two additional people or a bundle of cargo. It's relatively slow (compared to his hopes, it manages maybe fifty or sixty klicks an hour in level flight)- The catfire only produces so much 'go'- And pretty tiring to fly for long durations, they haven't found a better way to run the controls than physically hauling on them with muscles yet.

But it flies well over the skies of the Chartreuse! Not tested in the drydark yet! He's kind of worried about not crashing into things when it's too dark to see landmarks.

Having harpy and catfolk magic available is really, really helping, here. They're able to just massively overbuild the whole frame and wings with still-relatively-thin spars and bars and wires of steel. Can you imagine trying to make something like this light enough to fly without magic? Let alone something to provide forward motion. Sheesh...

The ground in front of the tube needs vampire inspection. So does the new construction. And Chime would really like to look over the whole ice tube every few cycles. After a short time fretting over the conflict, and then actually not any arguing with Fuzzer at all, she gets a catfolk escort out over the ice for ten klicks, and approval to spend her following shift riding the barge to the edge of the ice and back. 

Huddled amid the catfolk, bored, enduring the restless combination of piercing cold and crispy heat, her attention drifts to the wind. The wind isn't doing anything unusual, but in the odd dark landscape, it's a fun game to guess at the shape of the ground far in front, beyond her echolocation range, based on the wind in her face. A slight rolling turbulence indicates... a gentle hill. A sideways drift could be a mountain behind and to the left, or one ahead and to the right... but the pressure gradient is getting steeper as they go and apparently get closer to the mountain ahead... and yep there's a layer of turbulence.

So Audron needs to know if there's a mountain in front of his contraption? She can do that. Well, when flying into the wind. When they return, flying with the wind, her warnings will be much more limited - there is a bit of distortion upwind of a large obstacle, but not enough to significantly improve on her plain echolocation range. But hopefully speed isn't as critical on the way back, with the wind helping them? And if they get lost, they can just go as high as they can and hang on until the chartreuse?

On the topic of navigation, he can direct an air-flyer to Exodus! He's not saying how, sorry, but he's sure he can.

Hooooo boy. Siamek is probably involved in some kind of "special effort". The kinds you hear grumbles and whispers about sometimes. And the other one is from Lei. Are there going to be people insisting on a Lei-FD balance? And cut the Allheart Alliance out of the plane ride? Because he's kinda pretty sure that most people who he hasn't trained and given practice time to are likely to crash this thing. Making it, instead, a version that carries six people in total would be a considerable additional expense and delay but maybe the next turbinewing can be even bigger and carry a dozen people.

Well, it's not his business to interfere! He got to build his turbinewing, and he's writing an amazing series in his usual compelling-personal-stories-and-cool-projects style. He got to meet the alien! He didn't say much, but technically he did! Other people can have their fun too.

He's willing to fly by vampire if Chime is willing to practice in lighted conditions with him so they're sure this works.

It's day sixteen. The colony name vote finished several days ago. The name the votes ultimately settled on was 'Nivis', with 'Icehole' being a close runner up.

So, they have a name for their new home. Nivis. But that's the name for the colony, not the planet..

No answers were forthcoming from the senior officers. Lucy Carver has made some generic speeches about adapting to adversity, and getting your bearings in a new environment. There were a series of wakes, public and private. One part of the new habitat module was sectioned off as a schoolyard and playground, and the manufacturing systems were taken off repairs for a few hours to build a variety of simple toys to keep them from getting too bored or antsy.

The problem is the debris field. The Exodus was thoroughly disassembled by the crash landing. The debris field is wide, and from the outside, even intact-looking modules might be fine or might be utterly destroyed inside, necessitating cautious investigation. Furthermore, a lot of the debris has become buried in ice and snow, and there is still a haze of elevated radiation in the area- While only acutely dangerous in a small area downwind of the damaged reactor, it's a chronic hazard. Continuous cataloguing and mapping and tagging of the debris is necessary in order to make follow-on salvage efforts efficient. They have to plant navigation beacons. Mark safe paths. Stop to respectfully gather bodies, sometimes still in their stasis pods, and - store them in clearly marked "morgues", for lack of a clear decision on what to do with them. Pick up the most useful and intact pieces of salvage as they go, such as motors, medicine, power cells, and electronics. Follow careful decontamination procedures once they're out of the debris area.

There's a lot of factors slowing the process down. Even with Bass and Nina's clever idea to build a 'secondary site', not for long-term habitation but just enough to warm up in, store things, maintain the vehicles, and run decon procedures, the scouting and salvage process is still slow.

Also slow is the one vehicle that is dedicated to wider exploration. There's a lot of empty ice out there, and the terrain has been consistently treacherous. So far, no safe route towards the lit side of the planet has been identified. The furthest scouted path proceeds nearly two hundred kilometers on a winding reach before terminating at a massive cliff face of ice, leading down to more ice. If they have to build major infrastructure to get to a more hospitable area, they'll do so, once the overall system is sustainable.

However, there are still three rovers and dozens of people working on this, in continuous shifts, over the course of a week. They make rapid progress as time continues, with the colony shifting steadily towards reclamation of everything that was lost. Towards proper establishment.

Despite his boys' best efforts and extensive scouting, the ship's bridge has not yet been found. Instead, they have found, among various smaller pieces of metal, of electronics and furniture and machinery from the ship's structure, the following:

Enough recognizable hull debris to account for six out of sixteen major sections of the Exodus's main structure. Much of it surprisingly intact, in large contiguous pieces... For the most part. If nothing else, that's a very large amount of metal ready to be worked into new equipment in the busy busy workshops.

An intact Brigman Core which has melted its way all the way down a hundred and eighty feet of ice, melting and boiling away the water into vapor as it slowly oozes blue plasma even now. Who knows how long it will keep going? They're certainly not touching it, and in fact put up plenty of warning signs, because they also found a crater that was eventually deduced to be the site of a former Brigman Core, which suffered some sort of catastrophic failure. Yikes!

Tragically, several Modules were confirmed destroyed, rendered into so much debris and scrap, only useful as base materials: One of the entertainment modules, a habitat, the second Hospital Module, and a mining module. Also a laboratory module- The rough structure was basically intact, but all the specialized equipment within was all but utterly ruined by even a fairly modest impact. Diamond anvils tossed out of alignment. Electron microscope filaments shattered. High-vacuum chambers ruined by a single microfracture. Vapor deposition chambers exposed to caustic damage from the very vapors supplying them breaking open. The research reactor and cleanrooms cracked and torn open, just slightly, but enough.

In terms of vehicles, two new rovers were located, bringing the grand total up to six- Though both were extensively damaged and needed several days to fix up. They also recovered a third heavy transport. The garage, accumulating a fairly large array of vehicles, has become a very busy place where over a hundred people work, and should accelerate the salvage effort even further in days to come!

They also found two intact modules- A mining module, and another recycling module. Each recovered module is a wonderful shot in the arm and improves the colony's ability to maintain and process resources. While most of the processes are automated or semi-automated, enough equipment has been recovered intact that previous worries about idleness breeding frustration can be pushed a bit further away. There's plenty of work to be had in supervising, optimizing, and maintaining all the equipment. Even if it's still less than half of what they should have...

Extensive processing in the recycler modules is recovering a major chunk of trash and waste, reforming it into agricultural chemicals or plastic feedstock. The new mining module and the first one found earlier are finally relevant too, because a bundle of mineral probes was found, and after a brief consult with Lucy Carver, brought to semi-random points over a wide area, charged up with a huge power cell, and allowed to run. The probes dutifully dove through the ice and then the rock below, leaving a terminal and a trail of fiber optic wire as they delved. The principles involved in the scan software are complex, but the results are clear: A medium-sized deposit of iron, a large deposit of copper, and a small deposit of cobalt were all identified by the data from the half-dozen cylindrical drill cores. So as soon as they figure out how to safely melt a ramp and pit down to the rock surface, the mining rig will go to work, sending down specialized snake-like drills to dutifully core out all the useful ores and prepare them for processing into metal.

The icy foundations the rest of the colony is built on are also starting to worry her, but they seem to be holding up so far... Well, they're sinking into the ice a little bit over time, but it's not urgent on the scale of days. Maybe it'll be urgent in a couple months. Best to start thinking about it now. The reactor, transports, and mining equipment is pretty beefy- Could they clear out a large ice-pit, a literal fucking ICE HOLE like the funny name that almost won, and build there? That might be the best solution if a safe path to sunlit ground isn't found soon...

The radiation poisoning scare is over; All remaining radiation poisoned patients survived. He is now only dealing with sniffles, work injuries, and the occasional ear infection, toothache, or eye exam. Shame about that laboratory module; It had pharmaceutical synthesis equipment. And cloning equipment, for replacement organs. He doesn't suppose that can be made a priority for the workshops to replace...? Hm, very well. He'll just have to make do with what he has from the mostly-intact hospital module. It will suffice until a proper high-tech industry can be built, one may hope.

In security terms, no news is good news. Her team did have to break up a pretty nasty domestic argument, though. And a few more cases of graffiti. Certain subsets of the popualtion are getting less and less happy about not being on Avalon and not having answers as to why the crash occurred. Tension's rising steadily. Just something to be aware of. 

Most of Lucy's time in private is spent planning industrial development. What machines, skills, parts, and materials are needed to build the tools to build more tools to build more tools? What is the most critical blocker on this 600-page hopelessly tangled web of a production plan? What are they going to salvage? What can they move around? What can they do without? She's good at it; She's always been better with systems than people. Her corporate experience wasn't white collar crime like so many stereotypes- No. It was a production manager for the factory floor that made machine tools. If Nina is running maintenance and keeping things that exist now going smoothly, she's focusing on future production.

Lucy announces the (true and accurate) statement that mapping of the debris field will be complete in the next six to eight days, with answers to be found and shared as soon as possible. The destruction of the Exodus is obviously a confusing and threatening situation, and she does not intend to hold elections until that is resolved one way or another. They signed on to Exodus, they read the regulations and agreed to them, the regulations are designed to create order in emergencies, which 'stuck on an arctic plain' still qualifies as. However! However, she solemnly swears to organize and abide by the result of a free and public election by, at the latest, three hundred days after planetfall, or 282 days from now.

Mary is right there with her, affirming the Security team's intent to uphold the regulations of the Exodus program in a fair and just manner, and so on and so forth.

...Might be good for her health if someone else wins that election, honestly. But until things are more settled, it's her duty to stay in charge and not fuck it up.

In terms of space news, a second shuttle was found, but the terminal thrusters on its lander evidently failed and it hit at about a hundred miles per hour. The shuttle team take one look at it and just... Shake their heads. The engine section is obviously crushed, and one of the wings has snapped in half. A steel beam from the roof of the lander lies pierced through the cockpit glass. Maybe a few spare parts will be intact enough to be used in the other shuttle... But really, just melt the whole thing down for the rare metals, more likely. Two out of four shuttles accounted for, two still missing.

They've also found more solar panels. And more solar panels again, three large sets of them tucked away in a chilly warehouse for safe keeping until the day they can be brought to the sun... Or perhaps to orbit. Three satellite rail launchers too, one of them bent and burnt alarmingly with the electromagnetic catapults badly damaged, not to mention the satellite itself. But the other two were dutifully recovered and dragged in for evaluation and maintenance. If they can serve as observation platforms or communication relays, that would be very useful to the whole colony. Who knows what the rail launchers themselves can be used for. Trains? New vehicles? Weapons? Well, they'll sit in a warehouse until then.

It's been seven days since Marlene estimated nine days until the shuttle was viable. The recycling module is making the necessary fuel. The runway is built. Does two days still seem like the correct estimate?

It does! This shuttle got lucky in the crash. Most of the damaged parts were easily replaced with spares packed in the same module. The horizontal stabilizer needed its left leading edge to be fabricated anew, and its trimming jackscrew, but those tasks were included in the estimate. The only substantial unexpected work was a leak in the A hydraulics, caused by the combination of a defective valve, the cold, the higher-than-planned pressure of the atmosphere, and a sequence of control inputs that would only be used in a rejected takeoff combined with sudden turbulence in the wind which has up to now been amazingly steady. It was caught by the fuzzer* Marlene wrote, a fact which she is very smug about, and fixed without exceeding the 'unknown unknowns' time included in the estimate.

*no relation

Okay. Good work.

He writes up a mission plan: Mounting one of two recovered satellites in the cargo bay mounts, takeoff, and then ascent to an orbital height of 120 kilometers and deployment of the satellite by the cargo bay's mission arm. The orbital path will be a polar orbit and nearly perpendicular to the 'green band'. It will cover different parts of the planet over the course of a year rather than a single day, as the planet is only rotating fast enough to stay tidally locked with its star. The second one would hopefully be set into an equatorial orbit, a more ambitious flight plan requiring orbital plane adjustments and more delta-V... He doesn't think they can get all the way up to higher orbits where it would take fewer satellites to maintain constant coverage, though. Maybe if they ended up building a boost module, later, for one of their pre-fab satellites to dock to, but all the planning for them involved their already being in high orbit.

The satellite itself is a one-ton behemoth packed with computers, sensors, solar panels, and transceiver equipment. It has been checked over by himself and a few electronics specialists, and appears to be in good working order, though with the rough treatment of the landing systems you can never be certain.

Comments, concerns, etc, welcome.

She thinks it through to herself... If he's circumnavigating the planet, and they don't currently know the weather on the bright side, is that going to be a problem? No, he'll be safely high up. The rovers searching for a path to the green band have mapped the terrain enough for a safe approach to Nivis from that direction. The shuttle will be very hot coming in - physically hot, not slang for 'excessive kinetic energy' - and the landing gear should be shielded from that, but just to be safe, she wants to install some extra temperature sensors on the gear? Touchdown when the gear is hot is probably fine, but as the shuttle slows down there might be a speed and temperature which would make the gear dig into the ice and shear off, causing catastrophic damage. And maybe touchdown isn't fine, actually, if it's hard enough. In extreme cases, a belly landing might be safer. She needs to run the calculations...

(And it's mortifying that she didn't think of this earlier.)

Potatoes! Start with a few small ones on the side, boiled with salt, as a teaser. Then hasselback potatoes, latkes, patatas bravas, and now it's rice! Sushi first, obviously, with greens and egg and synthetic fish. Then fried rice, patatas bravas again (to keep them on their toes) this time with Mexican rice on the side, a comforting stir-fry, and then burgers with rice buns and french fries. Rice noodles for lunch and then a whole Chinese feast for dinner, poke for lunch and then, surprise, time for the Indian feast for dinner with pilaf and aloo saag and aloo paratha and paneer tikka masala.

Hey Dr. Shor,

What are the differences between people and animals and things like the alien's image machine?

"If you're asking about how human magic knows what sort of creature it's targeting, I have no idea. If by 'people', you mean creatures that think, then I actually believe that it's not such a clear distinction. Rats and fish are both animals, but rats are a lot smarter than fish, which are smarter than bugs. Human magic makes species that are as smart as humans, but being smart can't be solely the domain of magic, because male humans are just as smart as female humans. Catfolk are smarter now than they used to be, so if you put that much effort into breeding rats, could you eventually get something as smart as a human?"

Siamek waves him to stop and quickly writes

alien machine math

"The alien's image machine does math? Which means it's smart, but you think it's not a person? Because you mean something different by 'person'. Like, do we expect it to behave like a person or do we expect to have to keep it in a cage like a rat? Does it have feelings?"

...yeah, 'does it have feelings' is close enough.

"...I don't know. I don't know anything about how the alien's machine works. In people, feelings are sometimes connected to liefling-substances and sometimes they aren't. It's possible the machine might do math where there's a number for each liefling-substance?"

You can have feelings without being aware of them. Can you be aware without having feelings?