Prospect Meridian (ns final f2021)

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BEGIN [[LOAD TAPE|begin]] [[BIBLIOGRAPHY|citations]] <- my footnote formatting is probably not up to standard. this is because i chose to make them as minimal as possible; i felt that both mla-style in text citations and clickable links took away from the immersion. [[author's notes and info|readme]] [[supplemental art|art]] [[journal 5 (yeah thats right i included it with this)|jrnl5]] TIPS: this site is best viewed on desktop! i will fix the mobile formatting...eventually. press the RESTART button in the sidebar to return to the starting menu at any time! there's no data to be lost, so don't worry about the popup. you can use the arrow buttons above the title to navigate back and forth between pages.

[A black screen. The sound of a tape loading, a hard drive whirring, a click. A beep. Text appears on the screen - a terminal.] > LOADING FILE...LOG #65... > DISPLAY METADATA? Y/N… [[Y|loading screensd]]

> LOADING METADATA… DATE: [REDACTED] TIME: UTC 05:36:03 TITLE: UNTITLED...TOGGLE DROPDOWN MENU FOR MORE INFORMATION… > SYSTEM AUTOMATICALLY ASSIGNS LOG # BASED ON PREV. # OF FILES OF SAME FORMAT IN RELEVANT FOLDER. TO REPORT AN ERROR IN THIS CLASSIFICATION, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR. LOCATION: PROSPECT MERIDIAN HABITABLE SECTOR, [REDACTED]. COORDINATES [REDACTED]. MARS. AUTHOR: UNKNOWN LENGTH: 00:03:26 > WARNING: FILE DATA CORRUPTION AT ESTIMATED 24%. PLAYBACK MAY CAUSE ADDITIONAL DATA CORRUPTION. > PLAY FILE? Y/N… [[Y|file play]]

> BEGIN PLAYBACK... [The terminal screen gives way to a grainy, low-resolution video recording of a person sitting before a camera. The colors are clear, but it seems that data has been partly corrupted in the transfer, as the image warps occasionally, as a rewinding VHS tape might. The person filming is in a dimly lit room, which appears to be some kind of habitation pod. Though the design of the room is very minimalist, it appears well-lived in, and storage crates and lab equipment have spilled over alongside personal belongings. In the background, a hallway is visible. There are no windows. This is Prospect Meridian. The person filming is masculine in appearance, and is slouched over in their chair. They have long, slightly wavy black hair, which hangs over the right side of their face but is otherwise tied back in a ponytail. They have rectangular wire frame glasses, hearing aids, and slight stubble on their chin. They appear to be scowling a bit out of stress. They have deep eye bags, and the top portion of their shoulders and torso are visible, revealing what look like an engineer or astronaut’s typical garb. A nametag reading \ph comes into frame briefly. Log transcript follows.] ((there will be an image here lol)) Alright. [[continue|file play 2]]

Log number 65, time is a bit past 5:30 UTC. About midday in the Prospect. We’d normally be rotating each log, but Harper’s taken over the command center for the foreseeable future. We would also normally be recording from the command center, but this is a bit rushed, because we’ve had a little mishap with the atmosphere control in airlock 4, and half our backup glassware got fucking ejected this morning. Not lethal, and we managed to rescue some of it, because that shit’s six kinds of bulletproof, but we’ve spent the last hour carting our storage further into the base. [[continue|fp3]]

That means here, and the command center, and it means the containment room off the command center is now storing some nasty, nasty chemicals. So, CC’s sealed off unless you’re fully suited up, and Wu doesn’t feel safe going in there, and Harper won’t let me go in there. In the meantime, I’m on log duty, and of course I’m still doing the usual field sweeps. We’re going to be backed up on collecting and analyzing soil samples, though, which is...hm...not ideal. [[continue|fp4]]

So anyways, that’s most of it. I, uhhh, need to EVA to clean up the glass, and because this isn’t Earth I don’t have a vacuum cleaner to help me with that. On the bright side, low grav, not a lot of wind right now, so hopefully most of it will be easy to find and...not in small pieces. It’s still more trash, though, which is a pain. We’re gonna - man - we’re gonna leave a lot of trash behind when we go back home. I mean, yeah, there’ll be more people here after us, but the thought of littering on another planet, or even in space in general, is kinda fucked up. [[continue|fp5]]

Like, yeah, our planet is fucking dying, let’s get a bunch of funding from the assholes who pull all the strings, same fuckers who are responsible for most of it, and go cart some Ph.D-having commies off six million miles from home. Yeah, research or whatever, could help us back home, could be worth it, but let’s just see if we can do this to colonize~~1~~ or terraform~~2~~ or whatever the fuck, like all eight billion of us can just up and leave once we’ve fucked up the Earth so bad nobody can fix it except the motherfuckers who did it in the first place, and they’re the last ones who would give a fuck. [[continue|fp6]] ~~1. Smith et al~~ ~~2. Fogg~~

No, you know what? Fuck the glass. I’ll go clean it up, because I feel like I should, but who cares about the glass? We shouldn’t be here, not when… [Intense noise of upset, followed by the muffled sound of something against the camera.] [[continue|end file]]

> END PLAYBACK… [[return to directory|begin]]

> LOADING FILE… > DISPLAY METADATA? Y/N… [[N|no meta]]

> WARNING: FILE DATA CORRUPTION AT ESTIMATED 36%. PLAYBACK MAY CAUSE ADDITIONAL DATA CORRUPTION. > PLAY FILE? Y/N… [[Y|play 2]]

> BEGIN PLAYBACK… - documentary style short about prospect meridian - by the space agencies that run the operation, in collaboration with the sponsoring corporations [Images of Mars taken by rovers. Grainy, clearly old. The hand-colored Mariner 4 image, too.] <img src="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/system/resources/detail_files/693_PIA14033_1600.jpg" width="50%" height="50%"> ~~“First TV Image of Mars (Hand Colored).”~~ NARRATOR: Look out over the surface of the fourth planet from the Sun, Mars. A dry and barren place, once thought to be hotter than any desert on our home planet, but now known to in fact be much, much colder. [[continue|play22]]

LOADING FILE DIRECTORY... <img src="https://mars.nasa.gov/system/resources/detail_files/5260_20_Meridiani_Planum-full2.jpg" width="40%" height="40%"> ~~“Meridiani Planum.”~~ SELECT A FILE TO VIEW [[log065utc053603.mov|Load tape]] [[meridian_advertisement_2032.mp4|next file]] [[prospect_soillog_importedOLD.csv|sl0]] [[prospect_soillog_sol42.csv|sl1]] <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5260/meridiani-planum/">Meridiani Planum info from NASA website (right click to open link)</a> [[back to menu|starting passage]]

As far as we know, nothing can survive its harsh environment, save for the mechanical beasts - rovers [pan to a slideshow of various rovers real and fictional] - which we created to traverse its terrain and bring us back photos and other forms of digital data. Eventually, we were even able to return physical samples to the Earth. [pan to a 360 rotation of a Mars rock] [[continue|play23]]

Though Mars could not be further from idyllic, some brave souls have taken it upon themselves to travel to the red planet in the name of science. In one of the most ambitious collaborations yet between the world's space agencies [see logos, image of some people shaking hands on a stage under corresponding flags] and the most influential tech companies of our time, the last ten years have seen the construction of the first and second truly extraterrestrial permanent bases - on the Moon and Mars, respectively. [[continue|play24]]

A handful of the world's most talented pilots and scientists now live on the Mars base known as Prospect Meridian year-round, bringing the cutting-edge research of NASA, the ESA, SpaceY, Lua Borigin, and more quite literally out of this world! [[continue|play25]]

And you, lucky viewer [intersperse shots of past crews, including civilian and celebrity crews] may have a chance to go to Mars next! Our friends over at SpaceY have been hard at work to collect funding and manpower to test their brand new line of Colossus rockets, more powerful, economical, and reusable than any before, and they want YOU to test them out! For the low - bargain, even - price of 55 million dollars~~1~~, you can get the once-in-a-lifetime chance to train and maybe even work alongside the heroes of Meridiani Planum! Who knows, if you take to it well enough, you might even be hired permanently! [[continue|play26]] ~~1. Roulette~~

As for the steep price...don't worry, it covers everything. Many people have complained about how expensive it is, but going to space isn't easy! You can talk to one of our representatives at any participating space agency or company listed here [image of all the logos] about our exclusive rewards and payback programs if you want to build up credit towards raffle entries for a ticket when you shop on the Rio website, thanks to the generous contributions of the folks over at Lua Borigin! [[continue|play27]]

Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for more info about ways YOU can participate in the race to bring humanity into the final frontier of colonization! [in sped-up commercial disclaimer voice] ~~This video was brought to you by the joint efforts of NASA, the ESA, SpaceY, Lua Borigin, and more. For full credits go to any of the websites shown on the screen in the end credits. Video produced by SpaceY and the Lua Borigin team at Rio, Inc.. Follow us @RioMeridiani on any major social media platform. Rio and associates hold no responsibility for financial or material loss sustained during the Meridiani colonization program, including while attempting to obtain ticket entries.~~ [[END PLAYBACK|begin]]

Soil information from Meridiani Planum; Mars simulant soil info. Source: Opportunity Rover Editor's note: these data were collected in 2003, for the most part. Some analysis was performed as recently as 2017, but these data should be treated as a historical artefact, NOT current reference. Simulant Mars soil is generally of a regolith form, derived from basalt found in terrestrial volcanoes, namely those in Hawaii. While properties such as grain vary depending on what each simulant is being used for, they are all similar on a base level. One such simulant, JSC Mars-1a, has been described as a "very close replica of martian soil"~~1~~. Its composition is - 43.48% SiO2 (silica) - 16.08% Fe2O3 This is within 2% and 1%, respectfully, of SiO2 and Fe2O3 levels previously measured in Martian soils. New data have indicated the presence of highly toxic perchlorates, which has implications for the difficulty of establishing permanent human habitation on Mars. Meridiani Planum soil analyzed by the Opportunity rover is of a fine grain, and containes sulfate debris~~2~~. Soil thickness estimated at 1m. Soil cover observed to be flat, relatively thin. High volume of spherules~~3~~ - spherical hematite bodies - are present, possibly caused by meteor impacts~~4~~, volcanic events, or accumulation of minerals dispersed via water diffusion in the surface rocks. This could suggest the presence of historical surface water and an evaporation cycle, which would in turn indicate the possibility of conditions~~5~~ that were once suitable to harbor some form of life, but this is highly inconclusive. Further research is required to determine the origin of the spherules, at which point it will likely be less controversial to use this data to infer the past or present habitability of the Eagle crater in Meridiani Planum. [[Return to file directory|begin]] ~~1. Chemical & Engineering News~~ ~~2. Soderblom et al~~ ~~3. Soil Grain Analyses at Meridiani Planum, Mars. ~~ ~~4. Tiny “spherules” Reveal Details about Earth’s Asteroid Impacts.~~ ~~5. Squyres et al~~

Editor's note: the following is transcribed from handwritten digital notes retrieved from personal assistant device found in Meridiani Planum after [REDACTED] depressurization incident occurring on [REDACTED]. Handwriting samples match those of Prospect 3 crew member M. [REDACTED] with 76% confidence. All typos [sic]. MANTIS stands for Meridian/Martian AutoNomous TerrestrIal Surveyor. "Glassware" refers to incident recounted in video log #65 (see file directory). "Redhouse" refers to the greenhouse in the Prospect base, nicknamed as such for the red color of the dirt. UTC 12:43:02 sol 42 appx 6 hours since log 65 field analysis w/ MANTIS deployable exoskeleton - testing software config 0.08.06. armor deploy time avg 1300ms before update, hoping it won't be too much worse since we edited the parameters. link to suit vitals was too finicky; kept deploying buffer shield anytime adrenal and cortisol went too high, got confused about velocity if i walked too slow OR too fast. really happy with the grav boots, and manual deploy works fine. note for later - soil samples are going to be stored in the cold room, not sure which sector. EDIT THIS LATER FOR THE ACTUAL CLASSIFICATION! will move to standard storage when glassware gets cleaned up. MANTIS has enough storage for appx a dozen small samples and two cores, have to be careful tho. battery lasted 8 hours after charging last sol, carried around two dummy cores. one is a little jostled but usable, other one shattered. good thing these are biodegradeable...I've had to deal with enough glass today. going to take a look at the redhouse soon. UTC 14:06:15 went to the redhouse, did the usual run of soil samples. plants in the sample earth soil are doing fine, plants in the simulated regoliths have varying success (see raw data logs). JSC 1a samples appear most successful based on soil nitrogen and phosphorous levels; physical appearance of plants. still not doing great. as expected, no growth in any of the raw mars soil samples. superficial analysis indicates minimal change from the last check, and the one before that...and every check before that. as for the treated soils, also seeing no significant change. application of SpaceY formulas 42 and 43 have both changed the general composition, but perchlorate levels are steady. i don't expect anything to grow in these. atmosphere chamber is the same as always. formula chemicals cycling in the air, but nothing's changed. execs won't be happy with this. we want results in the sense that we want data we can use to move on to the next cycle of experimentation. they want results in the sense that they want their initial hypothesis confirmed. they can't take no for an answer. so in a way, i'm disappointed this appears to be a failure. am also glad, though - I don't know what I would do with myself, with my job, with anything if it conclusively worked. Easier to say for sure if it failed than if it succeeded, i guess, but i keep thinking, what do i do if one day i come in here and the soil turns up rich? it's one thing to pour thousand-dollar-an-ounce chemicals in some soil and make it arable, and it's another to take that data - or even data from the atmosphere chamber, if that were to turn up results out of nowhere - and use it for what they want. how could i tell them the truth, knowing what would happen? how could i hold that kind of responsibility, that they think our experiments can be replicated on a planetary scale - that they think that //should// happen? i fear what will happen if something comes of these experiments. what it'll mean for Prospect. what it'll mean for Earth. [[Return to file directory|begin]]

image shown in file directory, "Meridiani Planum info" page: mars.nasa.gov. “Meridiani Planum.” NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5260/meridiani-planum. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021. mariner 4 hand-colored image of mars: “First TV Image of Mars (Hand Colored).” NASA Solar System Exploration, https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/693/first-tv-image-of-mars-hand-colored. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021. 55 million dollars figure used in advertisement: Roulette, Joey. “How Much Does a Ticket to Space on New Shepard Cost? Blue Origin Isn’t Saying.” The New York Times, 13 Oct. 2021. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/science/space/blue-origin-ticket-cost.html. references on colonization and terraforming of mars: Smith, Kelly C., et al. “The Great Colonization Debate.” Futures, vol. 110, June 2019, pp. 4–14. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2019.02.004. Fogg, M. J. “Terraforming Mars: A Review of Current Research.” Advances in Space Research, vol. 22, no. 3, Jan. 1998, pp. 415–20. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0273-1177(98)00166-5. martian soil composition and spherules: “To Build Settlements on Mars, We’ll Need Materials Chemistry.” Chemical & Engineering News, https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i1/build-settlements-Mars-ll-need.html. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021. (this article specifically mentions the soil composition percentages used in the first soil log) Soil Grain Analyses at Meridiani Planum, Mars. https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70028756. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021. Soderblom, L. A., et al. “Soils of Eagle Crater and Meridiani Planum at the Opportunity Rover Landing Site.” Science (New York, N.Y.), vol. 306, no. 5702, Dec. 2004, pp. 1723–26. PubMed, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1105127. Tiny “spherules” Reveal Details about Earth’s Asteroid Impacts. https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2012/120425MeloshImpacts.html. Accessed 15 Dec. 2021. Squyres, S. W., et al. “In Situ Evidence for an Ancient Aqueous Environment at Meridiani Planum, Mars.” Science (New York, N.Y.), vol. 306, no. 5702, Dec. 2004, pp. 1709–14. PubMed, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1104559. [[back to menu|starting passage]]

hey there! you've made it to the out of character portion of this story! this is a final project for one of my college classes. for the purposes of this class, it's more or less done and does what i need it to do. as a project in general, it's just getting started. though it made the conflict-resolution bit fairly difficult, the epistolary, semi-interactive format i'm using for this has opened up a plethora of new possibilities in my mind to keep growing this project after this semester ends, messing with the overlap of analog horror, ARGs, satire, interactive fiction, and real life research. the files in the directory you see are ordered intentionally, as i think reading them in the given order sets out the context in the way i personally thought it up, and in a way that makes the reader sympathize with the astronauts on the meridian base before seeing corporate propaganda. however, i like that this format allows the reader to absorb files in whatever order they want, as it lets different people draw very different conclusions, and do their 'research' in a non-linear format. things i want to add to this in the future include, but are not limited to: - more soil logs and more crew logs - dynamic Y/N choices where relevant - letting you pick whether to view more info about a file or backtrack to the directory, instead of just clicking whatever option i chose to code in - more detail! i am not a soil scientist, and i don't really know how to replicate a full soil chart, but if i had more time i'd want to make a couple of mockups from real and simulated mars soil data - an actual video form of the advertisement script - video or other audio/visual form of the crew log - mockup news articles! what does the world think of the meridiani colonization project? how do various groups of people perceive this hypothetical version of a world where the private spaceflight industry takes off (heh) in such a way? - more mockup files in general! i want the reader to feel like they're scrolling through a real website, looking at real files on how to get a ticket to mars, whether they're paying the 55 mil out of pocket or trading their labor for a chance to get in on it. [[back to menu|starting passage]]

i initially wrote this journal about my thoughts on the movies, mainly on the martian. the tl;dr was that i really liked it because of all the context around it - - the author originally posted it in increments online, and incorporated a LOT of feedback on not just the plot, but on the scientific aspects of the story. there are a few logical stretches made for the sake of the plot, but it's by and large better researched than most mainstream sci-fi movies for that reason. it also harkens back to the jurassic park book for me, and how michael crichton would include notes about the science he was inspired by for his stories, as well as (sometimes) a bibliography for further reading. i wish more authors would do that - no unnecessary romance or interpersonal drama! obviously the situation is exaggerated because Fiction, but it's very realistic for what it is, and the whole baby plotline added in the very last scene of the movie wasn't present in the book. in fact, everything after mark's return to the crew was added to make the movie more hollywood-palatable, which is Unfortunate, but speaks volumes about the book itself. - the log format of the book, though lost somewhat in the movie, inspired my own format for my story. in the movie, the epistolary format kind of comes through by means of focusing the narrative on different perspectives, often some which have no means of communicating with the other narrators (e.g., the JPL interns, Mark, his family back home), and at times it gives the viewer the impression of looking at a bunch of different information on the story and trying to piece it together, much like what I want the reader to be doing for my story. on the other prompt, i really enjoyed soil day! i will admit that most of what i learned evaporated from my brain, and as much as i'd like to i don't feel confident about trying to mock up a soil analysis chart like the ones we looked at, whether based on real or simulated soil data, for mars. that being said, the martian is also a good example of how to selectively avoid elaborating on your scientific logic, which is helpful in making a point without saying something that might be false or just really poorly researched. for example, i avoided the time sink of having to refresh my memory of how martian time conversion works by simply having a couple arbitrary dates i stuck to, and having the fictional narrator of the logs be scatterbrained, not really caring about the time and date of their logs beyond comparison to a single reference point. of course, there's also the inclusion of corrupted data, which has the added bonus of adding //suspense// and //mystery// in the story. maybe the real reason for the missing details isn't that the author had very little time to put this together, but is actually because of a mysterious Accident that struck the mars base! i will also say that this class, //especially// this project, reinforced the creeping thought thats been rotating in my mind the last few months, which is that it would be really fun and cool if i took on a geophysics or adjacent concentration. i'm hesitant about having too much workload because of my chinese minor (6 credit classes every semester for my first two years, wooooo) but reading about astrogeology is sparking some serious interest in me, and is replacing my disdain for the heavy memorization from 8th grade earth science with a very strong interest in (reading off the back of my hand) regoliths and...//spherules//. even though i didn't really learn much more about martian soils, since there's not much surface-level (hah) information out there (as in, not much that's accessible to someone who lacks a lot of prior geology knowledge), i now have very reinforced interest in gaining that knowledge, and it's always fun to practice balancing speculative fiction with real research, especially when that research is so new and lacking in replication. [[back to menu|starting passage]]

right click + open image in new tab to see in high quality! <img src="group_ca.png" width="40%" height="40%"> ~~rough sketch of the main Prospect Meridian crew~~ <img src="collage_conceptart.png" width="40%" height="40%"> ~~collection of rough sketches i made while trying to figure out how to visualize the crew~~ <img src="protag_ca.png" width="40%" height="40%"> ~~some doodles of what i had in mind for the narrator of the logs~~ <img src="mantis_notes.jpg" width="40%" height="40%"> ~~(sorry this is hard to read!) notes on the MANTIS, because this wouldn't be proper scifi without at least one ridiculous acronym~~ <img src="protag_ca2.png" width="40%" height="40%"> ~~more concept art of the log narrator. in this art, they have the grav boots, which are similar to some real prosthetics. in the group art, the pilot has the grav boots instead, but i may wind up making those be his actual prosthetics. having boots that stabilize movement in a low-gravity environment is very important, but these kind of boots - modelled after the long fall boots in the portal games - would make more sense in a high-gravity environment. plus, the low contact area wouldn't work well in a sandy environment. back to the drawing board!~~ [[Return to file directory|begin]]