Forgotten Space Program

[Commander Zoom]

14 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

I do wonder if you could parallelize a person's work like you can a computer's. Wouldn't help much if 30 Wernhers were sitting around a table coming up with the same 30 "A ha!" solutions to the same problem. "I just had a great idea!" "Me too!" "Oh, not again...."

I've always taken after my mother a lot.  On the one hand, it meant I could always find a sympathetic ear; on the other, I'd often come to her with a problem and have her nod and say, "Yup, that's a tough one.  If you ever figure out a solution, let me know."

[Numberyellow]

10 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

That's nice; this isn't real life and I'm not terribly concerned with being exactly correct with whatever semi-canonical name it has. (Likewise for Baikobananaramanour.) 

The salt is strong with this one...

 

The_Cat_In_Space  - Apply cold water directly to the burn.

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by Numberyellow

[Chel]

On ‎10‎/‎05‎/‎2016 at 3:29 PM, Cydonian Monk said:

All Mardi could think was "We're all going to die." 

I nearly spilt my morning koffee as I was laughing so hard. "Eh, what' you think I am. An Engineer?" "We're all going to die".   

[Chel]

On ‎17‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 0:21 AM, Numberyellow said:

The salt is strong with this one...

 

The_Cat_In_Space  - Apply cold water directly to the burn.

 

I know right!

[Chel]

I'M SO EXCITED! CAN'T WAIT FOR THE JUMBLE OF PARTS TO REACH JOOL! "Where no Kerbals have gone before!"

[KAL 9000]

21 minutes ago, The_Cat_In_Space said:

I'M SO EXCITED! CAN'T WAIT FOR THE JUMBLE OF PARTS TO REACH JOOL! "Where no Kerbals have gone before!"

Umm... Been there, done that. Jumble's crew is at Vallhenge...

[Chel]

3 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

Umm... Been there, done that. Jumble's crew is at Vallhenge...

I only started to follow the series about two weeks ago, so I'm not up to where you are at the moment. Thanks for the spoiler...

[Chel]

What the Jebediah is happening to this story?! Firstly they lost radio contact, then it's like North Korean space program, then a nuclear war or something, then some giant Kerbal-eating bugs, so what has happened to the story??? I need to make sense of this madness! Why is this happening! Why can't we just go back to the version of 1.0.5? What happened to the space program! Why is there a Kerbalized version of North Korea or something????? Why has Kerbin destroyed itself?!!??!!

On ‎17‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 0:21 AM, Numberyellow said:

The salt is strong with this one...

 

The_Cat_In_Space  - Apply cold water directly to the burn.

 

Just to let you know, your signature with the Kerbal and the 'ayy lmao' is very funny

[Cydonian Monk]

14 minutes ago, The_Cat_In_Space said:

... then some giant Kerbal-eating bugs...

KSP development circa v1.1 in a nutshell. My frustration with the game bugs kind of bled through into the story, and I've been trying to wriggle my way back out of it ever since. 

Soon (tm). 

Edited May 18, 2017 by Cydonian Monk

[Chel]

1 minute ago, Cydonian Monk said:

KSP development circa v1.1 in a nutshell. My frustration with the game bugs kind of bled through into the story, and I've been trying to wriggle my way back out of it ever since. 

Soon (tm). 

Ok. And what has happened to the story after 1.0.5 to 1.1.2? Why was it like North Korean Space Program or something? Why did the Kerbals destroy themselves? Why is Sieta dead or something? Why did Kelgee station break apart or something?!

[Cydonian Monk]

Just now, The_Cat_In_Space said:

Why did Kelgee station break apart or something?!

Oooo! I can answer that one!

Bugs!!

(Actual, honest, low-salt answer there.) 

[Numberyellow]

On 5/18/2017 at 7:21 PM, The_Cat_In_Space said:

Just to let you know, your signature with the Kerbal and the 'ayy lmao' is very funny

 

Which would be why i made it. because i am a hopeless KSP nerd.

 

On 5/18/2017 at 7:40 PM, Cydonian Monk said:

Oooo! I can answer that one!

Bugs!!

(Actual, honest, low-salt answer there.) 

"Sodium-free monk. Coming soon, to a theater near you."

[Chel]

On ‎28‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 4:28 PM, Cydonian Monk said:

"Where are my manners. I'm Jebediah Kerman and this is Edge of Infinity Station."

JEB'S BACK! YAY! JEBEDIAH KERMAN IS BACK!! THE badS=True HAS ARRIVED!

[ElJugador]

I've never been too concerned about the transporter thing since awhile ago. It's not because I stopped believing in continuity identity, but I eventually realized that the kill-and-clone method is clearly not how ST writers want us to interpret the transporter working, even if it's the only way we can see it functioning.

[Chel]

I love the series so far, except I am distracted by two things: the first one is that I really want to build craft that look like yours, and the second one is the visuals. How do you get the clouds on Laythe? How do the planets look way better??? Is it a mod?

[Cydonian Monk]

4 hours ago, The_Cat_In_Space said:

How do you get the clouds on Laythe? How do the planets look way better??? Is it a mod?

Scatterer and EVE.... Scatterer and EVE.... Both work wonders for this game, even if they murder framerates. 

[Chel]

I see that the 'meeting building'/'hall of 7 Kerbals' or whatever is made out of wing boards and steel beams... and that the table is an adapter.

14 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Scatterer and EVE.... Scatterer and EVE.... Both work wonders for this game, even if they murder framerates. 

Ok, thanks for letting me know! Also, what settings does your career mode have on? Normal, Easy, Hard? And is all of the 'World-firsts Record Keeping Society' things edited in? Like the 'Recent accomplishments have attracted spnsorships from various organizations!' message edited in?

[Cydonian Monk]

Crazy Talk

Jonbald didn't notice her at first. One moment he glanced up, and there was nothing. The next? She was standing there, blocking the doorway. He wondered how long she had watched him work. Didn't matter. He greeted her, continued with the design he was engrossed in and did not look up at her a second time. "Rosuki. I suppose you're ready to have our little chat now?"

"What game are you playing? Which side are you on?"

"Nonsense, there's no game." He swiped the design aside and cleared his desk. "Please, have a seat," he said with a motion towards the chair opposing him. "And there are no sides, only us versus our eventual demise."

She grunted unbelievingly, but sat down anyway. "Why did you block transmission from the Jool mission?"

"Ah, yes, that. Have I ever told you the story of my trip to the Mün?"

"What does that have to do with...?"  

He interrupted her and continued. "You see, we thought we were the first. Or the second, rather, as Jebediah, was the first. They sent poor Jeb to the surface in the Cuairt 1 twice. He came back safely both times, so they figured it was safe enough to send more. They loaded Bill and two other kerbals into the Fios 2, shot them skywards, and then... boom. They survived, of course, their launch escape system doing its job, but were quite shaken by the ordeal. Gene decided to fly their backup crew for the Fios 3: Geofsy, Harler, and myself."

"Harler? From the...?"

"One and the same. He was an astronaut such as you and I before he tried to put us out of business. Anyway, I was to land on the what we might think of as the limb of the Mün, that strip on the prograde face from where you can barely see Kerbin. During my descent I picked up strange transmission, a kerbal's voice, and it was nearby based on the strength. I reported it back to The Cape, but they wrote it off as a fluke and instructed me not to investigate. So after my landing I returned to my friends in orbit and home we came. Afterwards I set about building Baile Speir while the others focused on the Mün.

"Sometime later a kerbal called Kerbin and tried to order a pizza. It was strange, we thought, for someone to ring up the CCHR's space center for a delivery. I was the one who intercepted the call for our side, operating out of our new listening post on Baile Speir, and I recognized the voice immediately. The reds, they laughed it off as a joke (who calls to have a pizza delivered to the Mün?), but I knew the truth of it. And I made sure our side would pick up this rogue kerbal before the enemy got the chance to."

Jonbald picked up a picture frame from his desk and handed it to Rosuki. There was a smiling kerbal, behind him a very small lander and a large rover.

"Hudwin, that was his name. You see, Hudwin had been sent to the Mün by a shadow agency, much as our own, to test the very first Mün lander. Ot at least the first we've learned of. And it succeeded, mostly, though it stranded him on the Mün. This shadow agency then made some tweaks, built a new lander, and sent another kerbal to visit Hudwin: Ronton. Instead of sending an empty lander up to rescue Hudwin, they instead sent a rover or two for him and his new friend to test. And a third kerbal, Lobree, who tragically met his end on the far side of the Mün. At no point did this shadow group attempt to rescue any of these. No, no. To them kerbals were disposable. Eventually Ronton returned home on his own, stranding poor Hudwin.

"So Jeb and Harler rescued our stray kerbal from the Mün and brought him back to Kerbin. I was tasked with extracting any information I could, particularly who stranded him so far from home and why. At first he didn't remember anything, only that he woke up in the capsule of his spacecraft perched atop the launchpad, ready for liftoff. After some time I extracted a name from him, a name that turned out to be that of his former employer: Orbital Test Sciences. And so I set out to find them.

"As it so happened this OTS group had been secretly using our facilities to launch test missions, and the agency was fully complacent in the coverup. I had embedded myself in their ranks rather successfully, and was about to blow the whole conspiracy wide-open when the world descended into chaos. First it was war with the CCHR, then it was nothingness and blackness. Afterwards I awoke in a strange house on the other side of the planet, and no one knew anything about kerbals going to space. No one except my contacts in the OTS."

"What does any of this have to do with the Jool mission?" Rosuki had been listening to him, but she was obviously displeased with the story.

"Nothing at all, but it has delayed you long enough for the orderlies to arrive." Rosuki jumped up and spun towards the door just as two normal-sized and not at all burly kerbals stepped into the room and stopped her. She spun back towards Jonbald who was now standing with raised hands, pleading for calm. "Relax, my dear, they won't hurt you. We're going to get the best treatment we can. We've known for quite some time, you see."

"Known what?" she spat back.

"Known about your space madness, of course." He smiled and lowered his hands. "It was quite unsettling when you started talking about dark governments and kerb-eating bugs, but you have proven yourself time and again and we willing to entertain your eccentricities. Even that story about the kerbal they sent to kill you."

"The Party Boss." She pointed upwards angrily. "My crews are holding him prisoner now, if you need proof."

"Of course they are my dear." He continued to smile at Rosuki, which only upset her more. "Did you think you were the first of the forgotten to start their own pet space program? With only one exception all who tried have ended up like this, spouting nonsense about imagined threats, aliens, about the end of the world. Always offering proof that is just so conveniently in some other place. You were merely the next in the long line of very confused kerbals, each of which wanted nothing more than answers. Well, my dear, there are no answers."

"I didn't want answers, I wanted the truth."

Jonbald laughed, the first time he could remember having done so in some time. "Truth? What is truth? If I tell you the Mün is green, and you believe it, is that not truth? No, I'm sorry, we don't have time for this now." He glanced at the two orderlies. "Please make sure she's comfortable. We'll need to keep her safe until the next flight to Dres. Goodbye, my dear Rosuki, and thank you for your service."

She started screaming back obscenities and other expected outbursts. Enemy this, madness that, always demanding answers. No doubt in time she would find some sort of answer; perhaps during her recovery, perhaps not; that was not for Jonbald to say. All he knew for certain was there was work to do, and not a minute to lose.

The Boss had left the building.

--

Manganese Station

With Gene and Wernher in space, the next piece of business was to start relocating the science department to orbit. After some debate it was decided the best avenue for such was to launch and outfit a new station instead of attempting to retrofit one of the Things already there. (This was the original intent with the Manganese module presently in place at the Transfer station.) Jonbald based the design for the station core on one of the many designs recovered from the safe box on the Mün, and had the VAB crews prepare it for launch.

In a first for the program, the Flight Director, Gene, commanded Mission Control from one of the consoles located in Transfer One. It was perhaps less immersive than being in MC himself, but the majority of their work was done through the headset anyway. And if Jonbald's plan was to be believed, much of the remainder of MC would soon be in orbit with him. (Only the launch controllers would remain at The Cape.) Once the go/no-go checks from the crews on the ground we clear, he gave the order to launch and sat back and watched his new team work.

Despite the ascent being slightly shallower than normal, the launch went perfectly according to plan. The first stage burned out around 35km (exploding once decoupled), and the fairings burst away from the craft like confetti somewhere above 55km. The station continued its climb into its 152km orbit from there, and would remain parked until the assembly crew arrived.

And that assembly crew came in the form of Tetris and Enwise, the prisoner and former Party Boss. Tetris at first considered it a strange request to take him along, and even debated the request with Gene and Jonbald, but ultimately agreed that continuing with the debate was less trouble than taking him along. Besides, once they had the station assembled, everyone presently at Transfer One would transfer up to it and begin assisting with their new science labs.

They would need a craft with a smaller docking port for the station assembly, which the Nickel 1 just so happened to have. The downside of that? They would both need to EVA over to the Nickel, much as Gene and Wernher had needed to EVA into the station. It was the first time in years Enwise had been outside on EVA, and there was no knowing if he would take the opportunity to run. Sure, he had been cooperating with them as-of late, but Tetris didn't trust him any further than she could throw him.

Nothing came of her fears and they made it to the Nickel without incident. As soon as they were all settled in, Tetris decoupled from the auxiliary port of the old, defunct shuttlecraft and set up their burn. Their node for the ascent burn was about half an orbit away, well into the shadow of Kerbin.

On the other end of the transfer was the Manganese 4, soon to become Manganese Station. As is seemingly standard for stations around Kerbin, this module was a "single-launch station, some assembly required." That assembly being the solar array armatures. Launched moored to the habitation module, the two solar array armatures would need to be moved to their respective permanent moorings near the module's midsection.

One of the solar panels and one of the radiators had been temporarily deployed after the module arrived at its permanent orbit, just in case the assembly crew took too long to reach the station. There was no need for the batteries to run dry before the station was in service.

The assembly took almost an entire orbit to complete. Tetris docked the Nickel 1 up to the first of the arrays, stowed the extended radiator and solar panel, extracted the array, and then set about moving it into place. The most difficult part of the process was aligning the docking node so that the array was correctly angled. Of by too much and the solar panels would foul the docking lane for other ships.

The sun had slipped behind Kerbin before the first arm was in place, so they waited another half orbit before they continued. It was awkward for such a small craft to move the armature around, but nothing Tetris couldn't handle. The second arm went in much faster than the first, though the alignment took just as much time and care. Definitely something they could improve on in the future.

With the task done she moved the Nickel to dock up with one of the station's small and kerbal-passable docking ports. The nose of the Nickel was built in such a way that a kerbal, without their helmet, could squeeze between the parachutes, reaction wheels, batteries, and other small bits and bobs that the capsule's designers had forced into the nose. 

Enwise's mood had changed after they finished, and his face now had a determined look. That same look he had when Tetris first met him on Kelgee Station. When she broke his left arm with her space wrench. He unlatched his helmet and turned to her.

"You should let me go. You don't need me here anymore."

"Let you go? After what you did to The Boss? No way." She motioned for him to move through the airlock. He took the hint, slipped past his helmet and into the station. "Somehow I just knew you'd try something after we left Transfer One. The decision isn't mine anyway. Until The Boss says otherwise you're staying here. There's no telling what you'd try to pull if we cut you loose."

"I won't 'try' anything. I'll just slip out, find my ship, and return to Kerbin. Simple as that."

"Mmm-hmm. Sure. Nope, and that's final. You're here until they send you somewhere else."

"Where else could they send me?"

"Oh, I don't now. Maybe Dres. I hear it's nice this time of year."

Enwise stopped, sneered at Tetris, and then continued into the station. "If you don't let me go the First Citizen will send someone to recover me. And when he does, you will regret having kept me from my duties. Kerbin belongs to The Party, not to any one individual."

"Whatever, chief." she waved towards the far compartment of the station. "Just go down there and take a nap while I get this thing up and running. You sound like you need it."

—

The next step in preparing their new science station was to move the Manganese Module (with the science lab) up from Transfer One. As with the Manganese 4, the orbital propulsion stage of the Manganese 1 was still attached. This meant the crew would need to undock it from the Transfer Station's docking armature before they could then move the Iron to the module's main docking port and shove it into a higher orbit.

Once everyone had all of their things packed up and transferred into the Iron or the science lab, decouple from the station is exactly what they did. The module was allowed to float free for a few minutes while the Iron maneuvered around behind it. They had no pilots aboard, though Gene could of course pilot a spacecraft in a pinch, but one of the greatest engineers in history was aboard. That was more than enough to punch their maneuver into the Iron's flight computer and sit back and relax.

They arrived at the new Manganese Station just as the Sun slipped behind Kerbin, as is only right and proper. The Iron was undocked from the head of the laboratory module and left to float while Tetris brought the lab in to dock remotely. It wasn't easy maneuvering such a large craft in the dark, flying exclusively by instruments, but she managed. In the end it snapped in place, docking port automatically aligning, and that was that.

She moved the Iron in to dock at the main docking node before she called it a day.

The next order of business is to resupply the science lab, and to send up a sample return capsule. Yet that will have to wait until next time.

--

Navigation: Next Post

Edited May 9, 2019 by Cydonian Monk

[Pretorian28715]

WHAT IS JONBALD UP TO??????????

Someone who had as least a clue what was going on, and he has them 'removed'.

Unless....   ok, he obviously knows more than he is letting on.

[cubinator]

2 hours ago, Pretorian28715 said:

WHAT IS JONBALD UP TO??????????

Someone who had as least a clue what was going on, and he has them 'removed'.

Unless....   ok, he obviously knows more than he is letting on.

Maybe he's assembling all the Kerbals who have survived a reset, under a facade of imprisoning them because of the secret organization staring over his shoulder, in order to get them all working together to figure out what's going on.

[LtMcMuffin]

4 hours ago, cubinator said:

Maybe he's assembling all the Kerbals who have survived a reset, under a facade of imprisoning them because of the secret organization staring over his shoulder, in order to get them all working together to figure out what's going on.

Or/And planing for the next reset. It would be faster to get a new space program running if most of your infrastructure and personnel are in orbit.

Keep up the good work Cydonian 

Spoiler

Spoiler

Also spoilerception 

Spoiler

INCEPTION BWAAAAA!

 

I just found out you can put spoiler warnings in a spoiler warning.

 

Edited May 24, 2017 by LtMcMuffin

[AviosAdku]

OK, my brain hurts (again) trying to keep track of all the factions and who did what. Not saying that that's a bad thing just, I think I need a summary (and possibly a chart) to keep track of all these factions, shadow groups and conspiracies. As well as the complex history of it all.

Again, not a bad thing, just a complicated world with a lot of history and an unfolding story.

AviosAdku

Edited May 25, 2017 by AviosAdku
Refining statements

[Pretorian28715]

22 hours ago, cubinator said:

Maybe he's assembling all the Kerbals who have survived a reset, under a facade of imprisoning them because of the secret organization staring over his shoulder, in order to get them all working together to figure out what's going on.

But... But, he could just ask????

No I think there is something insidious going on here. And @Cydonian Monk has plans within plans [Wait, where have I heard that before].

[superstrijder15]

14 minutes ago, Pretorian28715 said:

[Wait, where have I heard that before].

On a thread of another sriter on this forum? Maybe Kuzzter, or Just Jim, or someone else who has a lot of plot in the stories

[Just Jim]

18 minutes ago, Pretorian28715 said:

But... But, he could just ask????

No I think there is something insidious going on here. And @Cydonian Monk has plans within plans [Wait, where have I heard that before].

 

3 minutes ago, superstrijder15 said:

On a thread of another sriter on this forum? Maybe Kuzzter, or Just Jim, or someone else who has a lot of plot in the stories

Plans within plans... That would be me... I've said that quote a few times now. It comes from Frank Herbert's "Dune" Series.