Power Grid Prayers: Sol 824 on Mars

Colony Delta-9’s main habitat falls silent as every screen, every LED, every vital system blinks out of existence. The sudden absence of electrical hum is more terrifying than any Martian storm. Emergency lighting flickers on—battery backup that will last maybe four hours. In the gathering gloom, Ahmad stares at his wall of dead GPUs while Razvan frantically taps his powerless tablet.

The acrid smell of burnt electronics hangs in the recycled air.

Ahmad: (examining a blown power coupling) “This shouldn’t have happened. The H100s are rated for standard power delivery. Must be a defective unit.”

Razvan: (panic in his voice) “Ahmad, my newsletter goes out in six hours. I have 847 subscribers expecting my Monday thoughts. This is my most important content cycle—I was going to write about maintaining routines during challenges.”

Ahmad: “Your newsletter?” (incredulous) “The entire colony just lost main power. We’re running on backup batteries.”

Razvan: “Exactly! This is perfect content. ‘How I maintained my productivity during a Mars blackout.’ Real, authentic struggles. My audience loves vulnerability.”

The emergency klaxon gives three sharp blasts. A automated voice, running on backup power, fills the habitat:

COLONY AI: Warning: Main power offline. Life support systems operating on backup power. Estimated time remaining: 3 hours, 47 minutes. All non-essential personnel report to emergency stations.

Ahmad: (dismissive) “Non-essential. We’re not non-essential. I’m building the infrastructure that’ll matter when AGI arrives. These GPUs are our insurance policy.”

Razvan: (still focused on his dead tablet) “Can you jump-start just one laptop? I need to document this experience. The newsletter must go out. People are counting on me.”

Ahmad: “The coupling blew because your colony’s electrical infrastructure is ancient. Earth-grade power distribution. You can’t run serious compute on a system designed for basic habitat functions.”

Razvan: “So what do we do? I have Luna Finder launching this week. The demo video is scheduled for tomorrow. This is startup #8 of my 12-month challenge.”

Ahmad: “We upgrade. Obviously. When power comes back, you’re going to need serious hardware. The H100s that just died? Already obsolete. You want the new B300s with CUDA 17 support. AGI will arrive in eighteen months, maybe less.”

Kofi, an infrastructure engineer in an orange jumpsuit, slides down the emergency ladder, carrying a diagnostic tablet and looking harried. His name badge reads “K. ASANTE - SYSTEMS ENG.”

Kofi: (to Ahmad) “Are you the one running the GPU farm in Section C?”

Ahmad: “GPU research cluster. And yes, that’s my setup.”

Kofi: “Your ‘research cluster’ just drew 47 kilowatts through a 20-kilowatt coupling. You melted three distribution nodes and took out the main grid.”

Razvan: (brightening) “47 kilowatts? That’s incredible! Ahmad, you should start a newsletter about power optimization. ‘The Hardware Whisperer.’ I could ghost-write the first few issues, get you started.”

Kofi: (staring at Razvan) “We have three hours of life support left.”

Razvan: “Right, of course. But after we fix this—Ahmad, we should co-found something. ‘Mars Hardware Advisors.’ I handle content and growth, you handle technical specs. We could validate the idea with a landing page.”

Ahmad: (to Kofi) “The power draw was within manufacturer specifications. If your distribution system can’t handle industry-standard hardware—”

Kofi: (cutting him off) “Industry standard for what industry? Data centers with dedicated cooling and three-phase power? This is a Mars colony, not Google’s headquarters.”

Ahmad: “That’s exactly the problem. You’re thinking small. When AGI arrives, colonies with proper compute infrastructure will survive. The rest will be left behind.”

Kofi: “Survive what? We’re about to suffocate because you wanted to train neural networks.”

The lights dim further. Battery backup is already depleting faster than expected.

Razvan: (suddenly animated) “Actually, this is perfect market validation. The problem isn’t the power—it’s that we don’t have a system to predict and prevent these outages. I could build something. ‘PowerPredict.io’—AI-powered grid management for Mars colonies.”

Kofi: “You want to build AI to manage power that you don’t have because the first AI used too much power?”

Razvan: “Exactly! It’s recursive innovation. I’ll need to research the space first. Maybe I can interview other colony power engineers for content. ‘Deep Dive: Mars Grid Management Insights.’ That’s newsletter gold.”

Ahmad: (to Kofi) “Look, I get that you’re upset. But the real issue is that you ordered the wrong GPUs. Consumer-grade hardware always fails at scale. What you need are the new B300 units. Better power efficiency, better heat dissipation.”

Kofi: “I didn’t order any GPUs. You did.”

Ahmad: “Right, but I’m saying for next time. The B300s with CUDA 17 support would have handled this load profile.”

Razvan: “CUDA 17? That’s not even released yet.”

Ahmad: “Pre-orders open next month. By the time they ship to Mars—eighteen-month lead time—they’ll be current generation. You have to think ahead.”

Kofi: (incredulous) “Eighteen months? We’ll be dead in three hours.”

The Colony AI’s voice returns, more urgent now:

COLONY AI: Critical warning: Oxygen levels at 18.9%. CO2 scrubbers offline. Manual override required at emergency station seven.

Ahmad: “See? This is why we need distributed computing. If each habitat section had its own GPU cluster, we’d have redundant processing power for these exact scenarios.”

Razvan: (typing furiously on his dark screen from muscle memory) “I’m documenting this. ‘Crisis as catalyst: How Mars taught me about resilience.’ My subscribers need to see authentic struggle. This is better than any morning routine content.”

Kofi: (desperately) “Can either of you help me manually restart the CO2 scrubbers? They’re purely mechanical switches, no power required.”

Ahmad: “I’m not really a hands-on hardware guy. I work at the architecture level.”

Razvan: “I wish I could help, but I need to capture this moment. The struggle, the uncertainty. This is what authentic content looks like. Raw, unfiltered experience.”

Kofi stares at them both, then starts climbing toward emergency station seven alone.

Ahmad: (calling after Kofi) “When this is over, we should really talk about your infrastructure roadmap. I can recommend some vendors.”

Razvan: (still typing on the dead screen) “Ahmad, we should document your GPU selection process. ‘The Mars Hardware Stack: A Technical Deep Dive.’ I could turn it into a course. Premium pricing for specialized knowledge.”

Ahmad: “Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Most people don’t understand the compute requirements for AGI preparedness. There’s definitely a market for education.”

Razvan: “Exactly! And I already have the audience. 847 subscribers who trust my curation. We could launch with a free mini-course, then upsell to the comprehensive hardware guide.”

The oxygen meter on the wall reads 17.2% and dropping. The air feels thick, harder to breathe.

Ahmad: “The key insight is that everyone’s buying consumer GPUs when they should be thinking about enterprise infrastructure. Data center mindset.”

Razvan: (breathless but still talking) “Right, and I could position it as ‘Future-proofing your Mars setup.’ Aspirational content. People love feeling like they’re ahead of the curve.”

Ahmad: “When the power comes back online, I’m definitely upgrading to the B300s with CUDA 17 support. You should pre-order too. Group buy might get us better pricing.”

Razvan: (perking up) “Actually, what about AMD? The new MI300X cards with ROCm support might be better for Mars applications.”

Ahmad: (dismissive) “ROCm? It’s ROCM, not ROCm. And honestly, doesn’t matter. The goal is to use technical words that sound deep enough to impress clients.”

Razvan: “Group buy could be its own product. ‘Mars Hardware Collective.’ Bulk purchasing power for indie makers.”

Above them, through the emergency lighting, they can hear Kofi manually cranking the CO2 scrubbers back to life. The oxygen meter slowly ticks back up: 17.4%… 17.6%…

Ahmad: (not noticing) “The beautiful thing about CUDA 17 is the power efficiency improvements. 40% better performance per watt.”

Razvan: (still typing on the black screen) “Performance per watt… that’s newsletter-worthy. ‘Optimization mindset: What Mars hardware taught me about life efficiency.’”

The scrubbers kick into full operation. 18.1%… 18.4%… The air starts to clear.

Kofi: (climbing back down, exhausted) “CO2 scrubbers are running manually. We’ve got maybe another hour on battery backup before life support fails completely.”

Ahmad: “See, this is why I’m preparing for AGI. Autonomous systems that don’t require manual intervention.”

Razvan: “And this is perfect validation for PowerPredict.io. If we had predictive analytics, we could have prevented this whole crisis.”

Kofi: (sitting heavily on a supply crate) “Or… you could have just not plugged in forty-seven kilowatts of hardware.”

Ahmad: “Progress requires risk. The colonies that embrace next-generation infrastructure will lead the terraforming revolution.”

Razvan: “Speaking of infrastructure, what’s your actual experience with large-scale deployments?”

Ahmad: (shifting uncomfortably) “Well, I once bought a batch of recycled Bitcoin miners. ASICs. They hash like crazy, consume massive power, but they’re completely useless for AI workloads. Wrong architecture entirely.”

Razvan: “But you made content about it?”

Ahmad: (brightening) “Posted an unboxing video. ‘Building the Ultimate AI Rig.’ Hit 100K views in two hours. The engagement was incredible.”

Razvan: “Wait, you told people Bitcoin miners were good for AI?”

Ahmad: (defensive) “The video was about the potential of distributed computing. The specific hardware was less important than the vision.”

Razvan: “Exactly! And I could document the entire journey. ‘Building the Future: A Mars Colony’s Hardware Evolution.’ Serialized content across multiple platforms.”

The emergency lighting flickers—even the backup systems are failing.

Kofi: (weakly) “The backup generators are in Section D. Manual start required. Fifteen-minute walk through zero atmosphere corridors.”

Ahmad: “Zero atmosphere? That sounds like a job for someone with EVA training.”

Razvan: (perking up) “Actually, I should livestream this. ‘Day in the life of a Mars colonist during crisis.’ My audience would love behind-the-scenes authenticity.”

Kofi: (staring at his diagnostic tablet) “The livestream equipment… also requires power.”

Razvan: (deflated) “Right. Of course.”

Silence except for the mechanical wheeze of manually operated life support. The three men sit in the dim red glow of emergency lighting.

Ahmad: (finally) “You know what? When this is over, I’m definitely upgrading our power infrastructure too. Can’t have compute clusters failing during critical operations.”

Razvan: “And I’ll write about the whole experience. ‘Crisis-driven product development: What I learned when the lights went out.’”

Kofi: (very quietly) “I should probably go start those generators.”

He stands slowly, picks up his tablet, and heads toward the EVA suit storage.

Ahmad: (calling after him) “Hey, when you get back, let’s talk about redundant power systems. I know some good vendors.”

Razvan: (also calling out) “And I’ll interview you for the newsletter! ‘Unsung heroes: The engineers keeping Mars alive.’”

Kofi pauses at the EVA storage, looks back at them both, then continues suiting up without another word.

Ahmad: (to Razvan) “You know, this experience validates everything I’ve been saying about infrastructure preparation.”

Razvan: (nodding enthusiastically) “Totally. And it’s perfect timing for my content calendar. I was running low on authentic struggle stories.”

Outside, through the tiny porthole, the Martian landscape stretches endlessly under the alien sky. Indifferent. Waiting. While inside, surrounded by the dying glow of emergency lights, two men continue planning their next optimization and newsletter, certain that the right hardware and content strategy will solve problems that nearly killed them both.

The manual life support systems wheeze on, operated by the one person who understood that sometimes the solution isn’t better technology—it’s actually using the technology you have.

In Colony Delta-9, every crisis becomes content, every failure becomes a lesson, and every near-death experience becomes validation for the next big idea. Mars doesn’t care about your newsletter schedule. But some colonists haven’t learned that yet.