A peculiar Venusian idea of Earth, a semi-kerbal story.

[Whirligig Girl]

So the characters are Kerbals, but they exist on an alternate-universe Earthalike Venus.

"Hey Dad, look at this!" Bob gasped at his father, who was still trying to repair the window on the front porch.

"Alright, what is it." His father dryly responded, walking over to the telescope.

"I think Earth is a world!" said Bob.

"Don't be silly. Earth is a planet." said Dad. "It's just a wandering star."

"But no, look!" Bob cried.

His father looked into the telescope, seeing the blue dot focus into detail.

"See, it's a sphere! It has brown spots and green spots and blue spots!" Bob smiled at his father.

"Fascinating." His father said. "But that's not a sphere, it's just a disk."

Bob frowned. "No, I saw it yesterday night before I went to bed and after I woke up, and it rotated!"

His father then frowned. "Even if it is a sphere, what makes you think it's a world?"

"Our world, Venus, has blue seas, green plains, and brown deserts. And white clouds! There's all of those colors on Earth too!" Bob was getting frustrated.

"And look at that other speck." Bob suggested.

"It's a..." His father started.

"Another planet!" Bob said.

"I've been observing them for the past week, and the grey planet circles around Earth!"

"So you've discovered another planet then? Surely it's been cataloged by now." His father was starting to realize the discovery.

"I checked all the books in thew library, there's no chart of it yet. And it even explains the phenomenon where Earth gets slightly brighter and darker every few days." Bob was grinning enough to rip his face off.

"What are you going to name it?" His father asked, a tear of proudness rolling down his face.

"I'm going to call it Moon, after the satellite islands Mun and Minmus that exist near the eastern continent of Erith." Bob explained.

"Erith... that's a translation of New World." His father realized.

"Exactly. Earth is the new world, and Moon is it's satellite island." Bob skipped inside to bed, his father going back to attempt to fix the window. Jeb was going to pay for that window.

What do you think? I thought about this story when thinking about what would you choose as the landing site for a Kerbal Mission to Earth.

[ZodiaK]

rally great! very asimov/PKD-esque

[Yukon0009]

Niice. I would probably pick Antartica as a landing site, provided it's mostly flat (and spacesuits will fight the cold).

[Whirligig Girl]

Niice. I would probably pick Antartica as a landing site, provided it's mostly flat (and spacesuits will fight the cold).

But is it interesting enough?

You also have to imagine it this way, what would be the best vacation site on Earth.

[Yukon0009]

I assume aliens don't know about shopping, good food and that sort of things on Earth, so I guess, well, maybe the Himalayas. I dunno.

[Whirligig Girl]

Let's assume this is back when humans were just learning to use tools, so we have many modern species and humans aren't a big thing yet.

[Whirligig Girl]

The Venusians hadn't had a Moon to encourage space exploration, but they had something the Earthlings hadn't. The Space Department of Krakojass had their eyes on Earth. Something that held the possibility of being just like Venus.

But they never invented the radio. Every single space probe they ever launched was Kerballed. They started with a Moon landing, and the mapping effort found interesting debris. Upon returning to Venus, a full expedition was planned...