UnusualAttitude

Very useful. Still only male names, unfortunately. On the other hand, I noticed that you can use the tool to mix Kerbal prefixes and Viking/Mongol/Celtic endings. How cool is that? I now want to write the saga of Thompskar and Billy-Bobgardr, fearless raiders of the monasteries of Northern England... Or the history of Jebchu-Khan and how he carved a mighty Empire at the head of his army of horse-archers...

"All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." (Romans 3:12). You have to admit it though, Bartdon did do just about everything he could to annoy them. Tune in next time to see if there are some pieces to pick up. That will teach you not to open Word when your computer is busy doing more interesting stuff.

YEAR 12, DAY 54. BARTDON. Mitzon and I stood facing each other on the roof of our rover. In stunned silence, we listened to the First Mate's message looping through our headsets. Out there on the northern Martian highlands, a thousand kilometres from our nearest crewmates and three hundred million kilometres from the rest of our kind, we were blasted by the cold, impersonal voice repeating a potential death sentence for our species. It was like some kind of morbid mantra, chanted over and over again. I must insist on the importance of this request and the urgency with which you must work in order to comply. Something within me snapped. In attempting to carry out the instructions that the Board had given me, I had chosen to investigate this site. This was my fault. I threw myself over the side of the rover and slid down the ladder, hitting the surface in a cloud of red dust. Should you fail to do so, we will be have to consider your species as being a potential threat to our Creators. I stormed over to the base plate that we had set up in the shadow of the monstrous Kerbal sculpture, and ripped out the power line that connected it to the rover's instruments and radio. My headset fell silent instantly. But what I had just heard could not be forgotten, and the message continued to echo through my mind. Our instructions oblige us to take steps to neutralise any such threat. I looked up at the Face, rising as a sheer wall in front of me. It had been left here to mock us, a twisted portrait of our primitive ancestors. “I am the Principal Investigator,” I snarled and, ignoring the pain that now shot through the broken middle finger of my right hand with vengeance, I began to climb. I can assure you that we possess the means to cause catastrophic environmental damage to your home planet. In places, the polished surface of the Face had been weathered and roughened by centuries of dust carried on the Martian wind. This provided me with small handholds that allowed me to haul myself slowly but surely up the steep slope that constituted the sculpture's cheek. “I am the Principal Investigator...” I muttered as I climbed doggedly. Such an intervention would almost certainly lead to the extinction of your species. I crawled out onto the Face's right eyeball. Consider this wisely, Kerbals of Earth, and come to meet us with all possible haste. “What the hell do you want from us?!” I bellowed at the endless sea of Martian dunes. “What... do... you... want?” But of course, no answer came. Only the short echo of my own voice inside my helmet as it bounced off this thin, transparent plexiglass that kept me alive in this impossibly hostile environment. Do not attempt to respond. I am the Principal Investigator. I got us into this mess. So damn me if I don't get us out of it. Mitzon was waiting for me at the base of the rock sculpture when I finally clambered back down to meet him. His carefree smile was gone, and right then it looked like it was for good. This was hardly surprising, as I sure as hell didn't see us having anything to grin about in the immediate future. “PI, we must call Laroque. We have to inform Mission Control...” “We tell them nothing,” I snapped, “I need to think about this damned carefully first.” “But, Bartdon, did you hear what he said? We have to warn them. This is not cool, dude. Not cool at all...” I shoved Mitzon roughly against the rock wall and slammed my faceplate up against his. “Don't be a fool, boy! They've already heard too much. Do you have any idea what will happen if the Board realises that they are the only organisation on Earth capable of preventing doomsday? What do you think life will be like then? Martial law, resource rationing, and business as usual for the Company, but at three times the damned normal price because, after all, they are saving the world for everyone. And that's the best-case scenario, believe me.” Mitzon breathed heavily but said nothing. “Just let me deal with this,” I grated. “I know how the Board works. We go back to Quissac now. I need to find a way to get through to Froemone without the whole damned planet listening in.” I winced. My hand was beginning to hurt like hell. “What do you think it meant by catastrophic environmental damage, PI?” asked Mitzon, hesitantly. I glared at him for a moment before answering, “You tell me! You're the damned space engineer, boy. But if they have an interstellar propulsion system and a Solar System full of rocks to play with, then finding a way to kill our planet shouldn't tax their imagination too much.” YEAR 12, DAY 62. BARTDON. We had returned to our shuttle, driving across Lunae Planum at a relentless pace and stopping only for nightfall. Mitzon had faked an overload of the rover's power system and then promptly repaired the damage he had himself caused. This restored communications with our crewmates and with Mission Control. Yes, we had heard the First Mate's message. Yes, the message had been cut off for some reason before it had reached its conclusion. That was absolutely what had happened. I knew that the Board wouldn't buy it. But there's not a damn thing they can do about it for the moment. Go on, then. Sue me! I happen to be many millions of miles from the nearest courtroom right now. I gave orders for Desfal and Munvey to be ready to start packing up as soon as we got back. The moment Areocambal pulled up alongside Quissac, I put Mitzon and the boys to work. They dismantled our ISRU rig and solar farm, and stored it all away in the cargo pallets that we pulled out of our shuttle's belly and attached to the back of the rover. If ever they were needed in the future, they would be ready and mobile on the surface. I took a moment to bid my ride across Mars farewell. She had served us faithfully, keeping Mitzon and I alive for more than three months, and carrying us swiftly but safely across many leagues of alien ground. This humble solar-powered camping van had enabled what was, by far, the most important scientific mission in Kerbal history. But now, it was time for us to part ways. “Goodnight, old horse,” I muttered with a lump in my throat. Dammit, Bartdon. You're getting sentimental with your wheels, now. Get a grip, old boy. The launch window that would enable us to rendez-vous with Laroque was just after dawn this morning. It was Mitzon who had the privilege of making the final EVA to make sure that everything was stowed and that the rovers were parked at a safe distance from Quissac. Munvey was already down in the cockpit flicking switches and powering up the systems that would hopefully allow us to enjoy dinner up in orbit on board our mothership. In the end, Quissac performed almost flawlessly. We were driven into our seats with her vicious thrust during the vertical take-off. The shuttle pushed skywards for a few moments before rapidly pitching over with a hum of rotating machinery. She settled into a shallow ascent path that had us skimming over the Martian surface at startling speed as we gradually gained height. Eight minutes later, the kick of her four small motors cut out and we were drifting towards the summit of our suborbital arc. A small push at apoareon, and we had officially left Mars behind for good. Despite his best efforts, Munvey hadn't quite managed to get us up to Laroque's altitude, however. As a result, Lisabeth and Karanda had to drop their orbit a little using the ship's attitude thrusters to meet us. A slightly disappointing end to an otherwise stellar performance, but any launch that gets you into orbit is a good one, I suppose. Laroque loomed forwards out of the darkness as the sun broke the Red Planet's horizon. Lisabeth made sure we were lined up and nudged the large interplanetary vessel in to dock, as our fuel was exhausted at this point. Karanda was waiting to greet us at the airlock with her arms spread wide and coarse words of congratulations in her native tongue. Thus, one hundred and eight days after leaving them, we were reunited with our crewmates who had been monitoring our progress on the surface and watching over us all this time. The atmosphere was jubilant, but only superficially. Celebration was only natural, considering the stunning technical and scientific success of our mission. But when I looked into the eyes of my crew members, deep down, I could see apprehension and fear. No-one dared to admit it, but I could see that my crew was anxious. This would not do. We were in this together, whatever happened. And our mission was far from over. As soon as we had shared a meal together, I called a meeting in the lab. There, with my crew floating around me, I revealed the end of the First Mate's message. I told them what would happen if the news of this direct threat to Earth made its way to our planet before we had a proper plan to counter it. My account was met with a flurry of reactions from my companions. Defiance and scepticism from Karanda: “That is cocky coming from a million year-old robot, no? If this message is from another age, we don't even know if they are still.... alive out there. How can we be sure that they have the means to carry out their threat?” Compassionate concern from Lisabeth: “We cannot be certain of anything, but we must do what it takes to protect our planet...” Diplomatic curiosity from Desfal: “I would be wary of us Kerbals if I was in their position. But we must take this seriously. We must investigate. Fontanes One and Three are already on the way to Saturn and Jupiter, respectively...” He was right. We already had probes on the way to both of the hydrogen giants. Jupiter had already been visited by Martel One and we had spotted a structure similar to the Lunar rock arch on Ganymede. The Fontanes class of probes would allow a much more detailed inspection of these systems, but they were not designed to land or interact with alien robots on the surface of planetary bodies. “The probes will be insufficient,” I said. “We need to get out there ourselves, and that will be one hell of a challenge. We need our engineering team to get to work on this right now, and make Froemone understand that he must deliver on those damned propulsion systems sooner rather than later. They would also give us a fighting chance to defend our turf if it comes to that. Karanda: has there been any word from the Board while we were on our way up?” “No, PI. The Board has not yet released an official statement on the Martian Transmission. Mission Control has so far managed to keep the First Mate's message a secret. We might yet be able to contain this.” “And hell might damned well freeze over,” I shot back, “but we cannot count on it. Karanda, you engineers have an encryption code for confidential designs, am I correct?” “Uh... how do you know...?” she looked flustered. “It happens to be my job to know things. I need to send a message that only Froemone can read. I would also like you to translate it into your blasted dialect. The Board may decipher it and understand what we're driving at in the end, but it might buy us some time.” “But how will Froemone understand it if it's in patois?” “He'll get his pen-pal to translate it, of course. And I'm pretty sure we can trust Camwise to find a way to get the message back to him discreetly. Now, we carry on as planned. I believe we have another damned space potato to visit before we can go home.” The transfer window to return to Earth was still more than a hundred days away, and our original plans had included a trip to Deimos, which would be the ideal one-stop refueling station for anyone passing by Mars. If, of course, we found ice there. “We rendez-vous with Cadrieu as soon as possible and continue our mission.” I made to crack my knuckles but then I remembered that one of my fingers was still broken. “Chins up, boys and girls! Karanda, I need you to stay on Laroque and make sure Froemone gets that message. Mitzon will come with us, and Lisabeth...” “PI?” cut in Munvey, suddenly. “Yes?” “I wish to fly Cadrieu to Deimos in place of SP Lisabeth.” “Why, CTP?” Munvey held my gaze for a long moment, before finally speaking. “I have a bad feeling about this one, PI.” YEAR 12, DAY 71. BARTDON. Deimos was just as we had expected: tiny. A one klick per second burn had kicked us away from Laroque a week ago, now. Our mothership was beginning to look like a parking lot as we stringed our Martian hardware together in low orbit. But now, only Quissac remained, still docked to her nose, and attached to the only tug we had that still contained any fuel, albeit a tiny amount that probably wouldn't be of any further use. At the top of our elliptical orbit, Deimos loomed up out of no-where, startling me as I gazed out of the crew cabin porthole. It took another seven hundred metres per second to allow Cadrieu to be captured and begin our descent onto the smallest body we had ever landed on. Deimos was ten to fifteen kilometres in diameter, depending along which axis you measured it. The terrain was much smoother than that of Phobos, and most of the small craters had been partially filled with deep drifts of powdery regolith. The landscape looked significantly more ancient than anything we had seen so far. Deimos really did look like a crumbling relic from the dawn of ages. Mars was a crescent lurking near the horizon, casting a baleful red glow a cross the slopes and mounds of dust as we drifted down towards the chaotic surface below. There wan't even a proper word to describe the shape of such a moon, at least none which I know of. When we finally reached the surface, it took our little lander minutes on end to settle and allow me to EVA and start gathering samples. Planting a damned flag without punting myself onto an escape trajectory was almost beyond my ability. We hopped across Deimos and landed in three different places, ending our short excursion close to the moon's South pole. The readings we gathered confirmed what we had suspected all along: that more ice was down there, and that it would probably be even easier to access than on Phobos. The big challenge of such a tiny world was it's almost non-existent gravity. Any kind of mining operation would have to assume almost complete weightlessness. We didn't stay on Deimos for long. The Board had finally broken its ominous silence and, ignoring the matter of the Martian Transmission for the time being, had requested we return to Laroque via Phobos to collect yet more readings there. Much of the geological research we had carried out on Mars had been of only minor interest to the Company. Our attempts to understand the history of the Red Planet's climate and hydrosphere were at best a distraction. And as far as they were concerned, the discovery of life (even if it was now extinct) would be nothing but a hindrance for their plans to exploit the resources of this new world. As Froemone had predicted from the start, the Martian moons would be one of the keys to the eventual colonisation of our system, with their abundant supply of resources on the edge of Mars' gravity well, and neighbouring the asteroid belt. The resource companies wanted to be damned sure they would have all they would need here when the first ship full of colonists arrived. We were to probe and prod the slopes and grooves of Phobos one last time before we turned for home. Cadrieu touched down on the rim of Skyresh crater this morning. Mitzon and I unloaded the drilling equipment and, once more, we hit water ice at less than twenty metres below the surface, despite being at a much higher elevation than our previous drilling location inside Flimnap. Our tanks were now slowly filling up, and we were looking forward to the prospect of a swift, powered transfer back to our mothership, without the added complication of aerobraking in Mars' upper atmosphere. The Board would be rubbing their little hands together by now, as the new data we had sent to them suggested that the Phobian water reserves were far more extensive than we had initially suspected. I could almost hear the old cronies back in the Boardroom popping corks and congratulating themselves from here. What I didn't expect, however, was a personal message from the Chairman of the Board. It was relayed via Laroque twenty minutes ago. Just like all my previous dealings with this gentlekerb – who I'd only ever met in person twice – it was slick and smooth on the surface, but brutally short and to the point if you knew how to read between the lines. Dear Principal Investigator Bartdon, I would like to congratulate you on behalf of the Board and the Trans Pacific Resource Company for your inspirational leadership of the first truly successful spaceflight to another planet. The work that you and your crew have accomplished on Mars and its moons has opened up an entirely new dimension to our activity. We look forward to investing in the infrastructure that will enable Kerbalkind to reach beyond our home planet and conquer the Solar System. However, we cannot help but notice the increasing discrepancies between Company priorities and your own personal approach to planetary exploration. As a result, The Board believes that it will be increasingly difficult to reconcile your methods with our future goals. The Board therefore expects to receive your terms of resignation within the next 48 hours. This resignation will become effective upon your return to Earth, in order to provide a smooth transition between you and your successor. Yours faithfully, The Chairman of the Board. Personally, I would have preferred the short version. For interplanetary communications, saving bandwidth is essential. He could have just said: You're fired. I looked out of the capsule window across the desolate grey wasteland at the bloated red disk that dominated the view, and exhaled slowly. It was over, despite my best efforts to walk the fine line between the Company's demands and my desperate attempts to protect our homeworld. Goodbye, Bartdon. Just like that. Hold on. Something else was wrong here. The Board was informing me of my dismissal whilst I was still out in deep space. Why would they do that? If my successor was to take over once I returned to Earth, why tell me now? The realisation hit me like a tonne of lead ballast. They didn't need samples of Martian sedimentary rocks that may or may not contain traces of microbial life that died out a billion years ago. They didn't need pretty pictures of Martian canyons and volcanoes. And they certainly didn't need a cranky old Principal Investigator getting in the way of their plans to dominate the Solar System. There would be no smooth transition. The definitive proof of water on Mars and its moons. Confirmation that the Crew was waiting for them out there, perhaps with more gifts of technology. They had everything they needed. My crew and I had just become very, very expendable. I threw myself across the capsule to the comms console and grabbed the headset. “Laroque, this is PI Bartdon in Cadrieu. Come in, dammit..!” … “PI Bartdon, this is CE Karanda.” “Listen to me carefully. Shut down the uplink from Earth now. Do you hear me? Shut it d-”

I'm most flattered that some of my readers think that it would be worthy of actually being published. Thank you, Per. However, this matter has already been discussed many times on various fan-fiction threads before: no-one can independently publish anything to do with Kerbals or Kerbal Space Program without permission from Squad, and they are not likely to grant it. And to be honest, I'm not sure I'd want to. I see The Camwise Logs as "practice" for the day I come up with an awesome idea for a sci-fi novel in a universe of my own creation. If that day ever comes, you guys will be the first to know, of course. Update: the next part is slowly and painfully taking shape. Hang on in there. I will try and surprise you very soon.

Exactly. Also, I believe I'm making significant savings on my heating bill at the moment by running KSP.

Yes, I'm lucky enough to own what I believe must be one of the most amazing gaming rigs ever manufactured. Its performance literally blows my mind at times. I will put its specs in spoiler tags below so that less fortunate individuals don't quit my thread in a fit of jealousy. I also have 126 TB of PatienceTM.

Why, certainly. As I've already mentioned, there are quite a few personal config file modifications of my own, to make off-world ISRU, engine re-starts and spaceplanes possible.

I've been called on this sort of thing before and my solution so far has been... to not care. Expressions such as "raise eyebrows" and "being bit on the nose by something" are often used figuratively anyway. It all depends on whether you want to draw attention to the kerbal nature of your universe (Cat's "eye... bulge" does this), or whether you just want to make your point and get on with your story.

Thank you very much. On re-reading my last comment, it does seem self-deprecating, but we Brits do that all the time. Just to be serious for a moment, I'm actually quite happy with what I have accomplished with The Camwise Logs, and have been very pleasently surprised by the amount of interest something like this has generated. This remains, at its heart, an illustrated mission report of an RSS game. I novelised it because I've always wanted to have a bash at writing and publishing some sort of sci-fi story. As a stand-alone novel it would suffer from many shortcomings. Some of these are due to its nature (interesting gameplay makes for a pretty clunky plot sometimes, and it has far too much technical descrpition for even the hardest hardcore sci-fi...). Others are due to my inexperience as a writer (to name a few that spring to mind: the screenshots allow me to get by with a lot of uninspiring descriptions, and my secondary characters are seriously under-developed, I ramble a lot...). It's also exceedingly awkward to publish any type of story piece-by-piece, especially when you don't even have a precise picture of where your future chapters will end up. But I'll just stop criticising my own work now. If you find it reads like a novel, then that's awesome, 'cause it's exactly what I'm trying to achieve.

Emiko, when will you rage? Sorry, 1990s tabletop RPG reference... I'll show myself out.

Don't be. Rant over. Bad day, just as it was for a few hundred million other people around the world.

Look, pal. I'm the author of one of the most long-winded, slow-paced mission reports on these forums. I play RSS, and write using almost none of the usual Kerbal canon. It takes me so long to produce each new episode that it must almost feel like the story is taking place in real-time for you guys. And my writing is... passable, with the occasional stroke of inspiration. So, please allow me the occasional gratuitous cliffhanger to keep my readers coming back...

Nah, Bartdon is made of sterner stuff than your average Lovecraft character. However, he judiciously wants to avoid mass hysteria.

You don't want to know, please believe me.

YEAR 12, DAY 15. BARTDON. We pulled up alongside Quissac sometime before noon. Our exploration rover Areocambal was still running perfectly well, but the miles were now beginning to show. Scratches and dents dulled her previously shiny white bodywork, and a thin veneer of rust-coloured grime covered most of her exposed parts. But she had got us home. For now, at least. It had taken us another two weeks to make the long trek back to base from Pavonis Mons and complete the first part of our Tour de Mars. As a precaution, we had already started to ration our supplies way back in Valles Marineris. Despite our best efforts to make them last, anything resembling proper solid food ran out less than halfway through this last leg across the highlands. We kept going by taking hourly doses of the rover's seemingly endless supply of expresso coffee. We sweetened it far more than was reasonable and used it to bolt back vitamin tablets, as well as dunking small cinnamon flavoured biscuits that some thoughtful nutritionist had included in an inexplicably large quantity. But even the cinnamon biscuits ran out eventually. We travelled from morning, setting off as soon as our batteries were charged, and stopping only an hour or so before dusk to allow them to top up before nightfall. Empty bellies growling, Engineer Mitzon and I had motored back across the rolling ochre dunes, kept awake through the long hours of driving by a permanent caffeine buzz, two vicious tempers and a couple of splitting headaches. I happened to be driving when we broke the crest of the last dune and our shuttle was there waiting for us in the next hollow. It took a full minute for the information to register. Another minute for me to be convinced that it wasn't a caffeine-induced hallucination. A wave of exhaustion hit me as I pulled the rover's parking break and grabbed my suit for the short EVA over to Quissac. I had put the damned thing on so many times in the past two months that it had become second nature. I could feel the crushing weight of every single day of my considerably long existence as I clambered painfully down the rover's ladder and, following Mitzon blindly, crawled across the small gap that separated us from our first decent meal in days. But, despite the discomfort I felt at that particular moment, I realised that it had been worth every single minute of pain, hardship and privation. I had accomplished the greatest field trip in the history of science. The observations I had made and the samples we had gathered would keep Earth's entire scientific community busy for decades. Would we find clues of climates and environments buried deep in the Red Planet's past that had been suitable for life? Would we even find the tell-tale traces of biological activity hidden in the clays and minerals that were strewn across the landscape? The biologists could pore over the samples for as long as they liked, as far as I was concerned. It no longer felt all that important. I had visited places that a whole generation of planetary investigators had only dreamt of ever seeing. I had gazed on vistas of indescribable beauty, the memory of which would remain with me until I drew my final breath. And it was not over yet. So far, everything had gone according to plan. Refueling operations had been successful and Quissac's tanks were already full. Mission Control had approved an extended stay on the surface. After resting for a couple of days we would continue our exploration far into the northern hemisphere. And I fully intended to reach those blasted ice caps. Ah... Martian gravity. Real food, none of that damned flavoured paste squeezed out of a tube. It occurred to me that I wasn't looking forward to going back to orbit. After eating what felt like my own weight in beans and tetra fish-paste, I somehow managed to reach my bunk and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. YEAR 12, DAY 43. BARTDON. We made it. This afternoon we broke the final crest that separated us from the southernmost limit of the polar region. A thin coating of ice draped the landscape along the northern horizon, glittering in the low sun that hadn't set for weeks at these latitudes. We had chosen to visit at the height of the boreal summer. To get here, we had journeyed through the planet's northern reaches for another month. First of all, we had made a beeline to the northeast across Lunae Planum, then we had trundled down into the open plains of Acidalia Planitia. The Planitia was a dark region so vast that it could be spotted through Earth-based telescopes. All of the major outflow channels in the region including Valles Marineris, as well as Ares and Shalbatana Valles had once emptied into the Chryse and Acidalia basins. We had expected to find easier terrain to drive through but as it turned out, that illusion did not last for long. Despite the absence of large canyons or volcanoes, the land remained extremely rugged. Aeons of harsh winds sweeping across these open plains had blown away many of the finer sediments that had smoothed out the slopes and craters in the highlands. We ducked and weaved our way across mile after mile of cracked, bedrock strewn landscapes. After many days of following a tortuous path across Acidalia we came to one of the sites that had been requested by the folks back home. Stopping to take some pictures, I thought about this latest craze back on Earth that consisted of writing fictional stories about Kerbals in space. Despite the obvious influence of our real endeavours to explore our system, most of these stories seemed to be complete nonsense. Take that book about the crew of a Martian mission called Ares 3, for example. Mitzon attempted to explain the plot to me, as he'd read it to kill time during the long transfer from Earth. However, I utterly failed to understand why a crew of Kerbals would make a two-year trip to another planet just to grow some potatoes, and how they could be incompetent enough to take-off for home without all of their damned crewmates on board. Blasted nonsense, I say, but if it improves awareness of what we're trying to do here, who am I to complain? After that, we kept pushing eastwards to a hilly region on the borders of Arabia Terra called Cydonia. This was a place of immense interest to the planetary investigators, as it had probably once been a coastal region and presented many fascinating and poorly understood features such as oddly shaped hills and pyramid-like structures. We did not however find any clear trace of alien presence there. We took more pictures and samples and moved on, this time due North. Ahead of us lay the expanse of the vast Boreal plains, and as we travelled onwards the days grew longer, until eventually the sun no longer dipped beneath the horizon at all. These extended periods of daylight allowed our solar rover to cover more and more ground each day. Our long journey to the edge of the ice caps was punctuated only by the few large craters that broke the monotony of this frigid landscape. In places that lay in the long shadows of gullies and boulders, patches of frost began to appear. But the ice cap itself had made its seasonal retreat well beyond 80° North, and it wasn't until today that we spotted the blanket on the northern horizon. We stopped once more to gaze at these alien surroundings: a sight far more bleak and hostile than any arctic scenery on Earth. The track marks left by our rover revealed the sparkle of water-ice frost that lay just below the surface. Ahead of us lay the strange contrast of deep red Martian regolith and carbon and water ice of the purest white, untouched by the the presence of sentient beings, possibly since the beginning of time. It occurred to me that my insistence on reaching the ice caps was just another excuse to delay the inevitable. We would have to go and examine the anomaly near Tharsis Tholus eventually. Give in and comply with the urgent demands of the Board, who by know were probably furious at my blatant disregard for their mission priorities. I began to realise that I was afraid of what we might find, but we could put it off no longer. Tomorrow we return South, and face whatever awaits us there. YEAR 12, DAY 53. BARTDON. Last night we parked just a few kilometres away from our final objective. Time had flown since we left the poles, and the journey back southwards through the long, repetitive days of driving had gone by too swiftly. I couldn't sleep. Our mission to Mars had so far been a resounding success. Couldn't we just leave it at that and return home triumphantly, with years and millions of funds worth of scientific data to go on? Couldn't we drive past the anomaly? Fake some sort of emergency or failure, and make our way back to our shuttle? Who would be any wiser? Stop this dithering, Bartdon. You came here for a reason, and you're going to damn well face up to this challenge. I took the wheel. The ancient terrain of the eastern limits of Tharsis had been blasted by the wind until it was relatively smooth, but many low hills and ridges still impeded our view of the surroundings. As a result, we didn't spot the anomaly until we were almost on top of it. From our first glance, any hopes of it being just an oddly shaped hill were dashed. Its dark burgundy hue made it stand out from the much paler surroundings like a sore thumb. If it it had been created from material that was native to Mars, then this material had been submitted to some sort of chemical or thermal process in the not-too-distant past. We cut across the floor of a small valley and up the slope beyond so that we could approach the feature from slightly higher ground; the primitive instinct of a cautious animal investigating something beyond its comprehension. The artefact lay partially buried in dust near the top of a fairly steep slope, and as we cleared the ridge, we finally realised what we were actually looking at. The bulging forehead. The protruding eyes. The thin slit of a closed mouth. It was a face. A Kerbal face. Subtly different from our own, with perhaps a slight exaggeration in the size of the crown and of the eyeballs, and a narrower chin. Or maybe that was just how it looked to me here from the ground? It was unmistakably Kerbal nevertheless. Mitzon, unable to see it back in the passenger cabin, was going crazy. “What is it, PI? What have we discovered, boss?” His voice drew me from my stupor, and I pulled the parking brake. “I think we have found your great-great-grandfather, SE.” After we were both suited up in record time, we vented the rover and made our way out onto the surface. We approached the face cautiously in tense silence. Up close, it was remarkably smooth with an almost polished finish, and its dark surface was slightly mottled like some sort of marble. It was utterly unlike any other rock formation we had seen on Mars. It reminded me of the standing stones that had been discovered out on the surface of my island back on Earth. A mysterious circle of monoliths that had been hewn from rock mined hundreds of kilometres away and dragged across the landscape by some herculean feat of primitive engineering, far back in Kerbal prehistory. Except this rock didn't even look as if it was from the planet we now stood on. Nothing happened as I walked right up to the sheer wall at the base of the sculpture's chin. I resisted the urge to touch it, remembering what had happened to Camwise back on Luna. But this seemed different: the face was not a vessel of any kind. It stared up sightlessly at the pale red sky, as it had done for countless millennia before we had disturbed it. It seemed to be some sort of monument or beacon. Inanimate, but clearly left here to attract attention. Our attention. “What do we do now, boss?” said Mitzon, breaking the silence at last. “We do what we did back on the Moon. We plug in the seismometer and find out if this thing talks.” I went back to the rover and backed it carefully into position to allow Mitzon to get to work. Within minutes he had the ground base set up and connected a power socket into the back of the rover. Any seismic activity would now be picked up by Areocambal's instruments, and could be deciphered as audio or imagery using the codes we were now familiar with. “How long do we wait?” “As long as it takes. Or until we run out of damned food,” I snapped impatiently. YEAR 12, DAY 54. BARTDON. We reported back to Earth via the uplink to Laroque and prepared to spend another sleepless night in the shadow of the mysterious Face. I lay awake on my bunk, gazing upwards at the brilliant night sky through the small skylights in the rover's roof. A view of the heavens that was not blurred by a thick atmosphere, as it was on Earth. As Mars spun through his short summer night, stars, Sol's planets and the great luminous belt of the galaxy scudded across my small, trapeze-shaped window on the universe. Somewhere out there was a star called Beta Hydri, and the beings who had sent these enigmatic constructs. And somewhere on one of those planets, their creations still waited for us to find them. Was this Face just the latest in a series of clues? A breadcrumb trail that would eventually lead us to their Captain, perhaps even to their ship? It was a deadly spin on the game of hide-and-seek, and a damned expensive one if you were paying for the space programme that was required to play it. Perhaps it would be possible to date this clearly ancient sculpture, although judging by what we already knew, that would be a foregone conclusion. One thing was now chillingly clear, however: the Crew had known of our existence. They had walked among Kerbals, our ancestors on planet Earth, and had remained active for long enough to create this evidence of our meeting. The more I thought about it, the more this seemed absolutely terrifying. Nevertheless, there was hope in the fact that we were still here. As Angun had already stated, any civilisation sufficiently advanced to cross the gulf between the stars could have eliminated us when we were still a primitive species. Clearly, they had been waiting for something. What did they want from us? The strident chirp of an alarm and a red glow from the cockpit broke my train of thought. Mitzon, who had also been unable to sleep, was up in a flash and made his way over to the console immediately. He peered at the gauges through bleary eyes and after a few moments, announced his diagnostic. “Something is drawing power.” There was a click and a hum as the fuel cell kicked in to make up for the lack of solar energy. “How much?” I asked hurriedly. Loss of power during the cold Martian night could mean a swift end for us both. Mitzon did a few mental calculations. “It's significant, but nothing the fuel cells can't compensate for. We should be OK until dawn. Do we report this?” The Face was apparently getting ready to speak. “No, SE. Advise Laroque of a routine power-saving procedure and close that antenna. We want to save every little bit of juice we can.” Mitzon and I spent the rest of the night in an uneasy silence, each immersed in our own thoughts and trying not to think about what sort of message we would be given. When dawn broke at last, we made a short EVA to inspect the rover and the baseplate. Nothing had moved. Mitzon wanted to check underneath it. I told him not to touch anything. The power drainage increased proportionally to the output of our solar panels as the pale sun climbed overhead, but still the seismometer remained mute. Laroque – and therefore Mission Control – would be getting seriously concerned by our radio silence by now. To hell with them, I had to see this through. And, if possible, avoid broadcasting it to the entire planet in the process. It happened when we returned to the crew cabin after our second EVA of the day, and were in the process of removing our suits. It started with another chime from the rover's console. “The uplink... the antenna is deploying,” said Mitzon, staring at the instrument panel in front of him in disbelief. My worst fears were confirmed by the quiet hum from above as the short range omni extended from the rover's roof. “Maybe this is a forced remote command from Laroque...” “SE, close that link down, now!” I barked. But it was too late, and the voice began to blare from the rover's intercom, over our radio and up to the areostationary network. From there it would be beamed across space to Laroque, and then automatically relayed back to Mission Control. Once it got there, twenty minutes later, it would be heard by every single member of the Board within minutes. And, of course, potentially every single Kerbal on Earth. “Kerbals of Earth,” rang the emotionless voice in a reasonable but firm tone. “Please pay attention to the following communication. It is of vital importance to the future of your species, and of your planet.” “The uplink...!?” I seethed at Mitzon. He hammered on the consoles switches in futility. “I can't switch it off...” Hell, do it your damned self, Bartdon. And with a sledgehammer, if need be... I thought, pulling on the helmet of my EVA suit and nodding at Mitzon to do the same so that I could vent the cabin. “Kerbals of Earth. This is a pre-programmed message translated into your dominant language for your convenience. Do not attempt to respond. I am the First Mate of the Transmare, Second-in-Command of the Crew of Colonisation Mission Seven, sent by our Creators to explore your worlds.” With my helmet now firmly in place, I could hear the voice loud and clear through my headset. I fumbled with the depressurisation lever and yanked it into the Emergency Vent position. A thin mist of water vapour condensed as the pressure dropped, and was swiftly swept out of the rover's hull into the near-vacuum beyond. “This message was left here many Earth years ago, and if you are receiving it then you have evolved from the state of cave-dwelling savages to that of a true space-faring civilisation. I congratulate you for these accomplishments.” I managed to rip the hatch open and began to haul myself through the small space onto the rover's roof. “It is time for us to meet face-to-face and share each other's knowledge and resources. Due to unfortunate technical issues, my Captain, my Crew and I were forced to withdraw into the outer reaches of your system.” I crawled out on top of the rover and turned to force the antenna to close physically. If it wasn't extended, I was pretty sure the signal could not reach our orbital network. I tried to depress the catch at the base of the antenna to release it, but it would not budge. Through a combination of wear and Martian dust and grit, it had jammed. I looked around wildly for something to hit it with. “However, you will find members of our Crew present on the natural satellites of the gas giant planets. They will direct you to the location of our Captain, or to myself.” “Mitzon, pass me your power-tool. Quick, dammit!” “By our estimation of your present level of technology, I understand that it may take you some time to reach these worlds...” I grabbed the tool from Mitzon's outstretched hand and grasped it by the chuck. I then used the grip as an improvised hammer and began raining desperate blows down onto the catch in an attempt to release it. Once... twice... it didn't budge. “...but I shall expect new developments on your behalf within ten Earth years, such as a crewed mission with ambassadors from your planet, or at least a probe that can provide a reliable uplink for negotiations.” A third time. Urgently. Harder. Something cracked and gave way inside my glove as the grip glanced off the catch and my hand smashed against the rover's bodywork, but I felt no pain. I hit harder still. “I must insist on the importance of this request and the urgency with which you must work in order to comply. Should you fail to do so, we will have to consider your species as being a potential threat to our Creators. Our instructions would then oblige us to-” The catch finally released under my repeated hammering, and with a single tug, I snapped the retractable antenna shut, cutting off the uplink. Mitzon and I alone heard the terrifying conclusion to the First Mate's message.

Ooh. Now I want to try your spicy alligator fritters. A quick search of the Internet tells me that this is sadly pas possible in France, although there is a rumour about a Belgian company attempting to get an authorisation to import frozen crocodile. Dammit. Well spotted indeed. Just to be clear, these are nothing to do with the actual story. Just a bit of fun. And they are all based on real Martian anomalies spotted in pictures taken by probes on the surface.

Awesome to see you back, @Geschosskopf. And a most timely return, too. Your expertise would have been sorely missed in the next few episodes, had you remained absent... Vague, ominous hints aside, I wonder what the Martian canyons were "marinated" in to get that lovely rich, red colour? A fine Châteauneuf du Pape, perhaps. Or my personal (biased) favourite, the strong, dark reds of Cahors. Just imagining a catastrophic flood of millions of cubic metres of Clos Triguedina is enough to make my mouth water. Hehe, that would be Mutch Crater. I have hidden some surprises in the panoramic views, but no-one has spotted them, yet. Or if they have, they are not telling. Next part almost finished. I will try and post it tonight.

(Goes back and looks...) Oh yes... That happens to be exactly the sort of thing I need for my next generation of landers. You could tell RealFuels to use Hydrazine. I assume that would mean lower ISP and higher thrust?

...you have an Arcjet? Where does that one come from, and what are its characteristics?

Yup, I can imagine this page is getting painful to load for some. I'll throw some spoiler tags in there. Next update will see a return to our usual wordy format.

KSP + writing about KSP can be such a damned time sink! I'm sure everyone here understands, so don't be sorry. Thank you for sharing these adventures with us. Get the important stuff done first, then who knows? Maybe a fresh start some day...

I had a look at that thread and there are some impressive designs, such as Winged's Single Stage to Martian Flyby rocket. But that thread is for people using real life engines simulated in KSP. This is why I only showcase Carderie when people ask. I made up the engine config myself, and the real SABRE hasn't flown yet... I've studied quite a lot of things at various points in my life... general physics, geology and environmental science, and aviation history.

This is SCIENCE fiction.... Because.. CH4 + 2 O2 → CO2 + 2 H2O ...and the molecular mass of CH4 is 16 whereas that of O2 is 32. So you will need much more oxidiser (by mass) to burn that methane fuel, despite the fact that most rocket engines are run fuel-rich, and that Carderie does not require oxidiser for the open-cycle part of the ascent. That's why a true dual cycle engine would be such a big deal for rocket performance: you save a lot of mass because of the airbreathing phase. The difference is even greater for other fuels: the Space Shuttle external tank carried about 100 tonnes of liquid hydrogen, but well over 600 tonnes of liquid oxygen. So would I, but KSP 1.1 killed it. Unless there is a fork or a new version I missed?

We don't do Mechjeb. KER flight data and FAR data will have to do, but here you go. Just to be clear, this is science fiction. There are a lot of fluffs and workarounds I had to resort to to get this flying (using methane rather than hydrogen, large wings to allow it to re-enter, doing away with AJE and intake air entirely because I kept getting negative thrust values, etc....) Feel free to send a PM if you have any questions. I don't want to clutter up your craft thread any more...

I'm not equipped for video capture, but if you like (and if I have time tomorrow) I could post a screenshot album of a full flight with flight data.