The Outer Planets Traveling Circus Episode 28: Superheroes (The End)

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, Kuzzter said:

Whaaaa? If I posted a picture of my face right now I'd have to put--I dunno, blobs or big red pi-symbols or something over my eyes to properly express the confusomancy that has taken charge of my person. I knew i shouldn't have started doing my taxes right before reading this...

ETA: *clink* and a re-read. Orbles! Yay Orbles! But oh, the cost... have been reading a new Doctor Strange comic recently, which really plays with the concept of magic having a cost someone must pay--and Very Bad Things happen when this is not done, and a big bill comes due. Will the kraken come calling? I'd leave the ladders extended just in case.

I'll help make "confusomancy" virial if you kick in for "niblings"    But I'm just one of the last Boomers (as in date of birth) trying to stay connected so maybe Neuromancer has evolved into Confusomancer without me noticing?  No matter, it's still a great addition to English whether it's yours or not 

And *clink* back hatcha (sorry, very bad Choctaw pun based on my locality).  "When 3 or 4 or gathered together, a fifth shall be in the midst of them", or some such   Orbles might have won this battle but the war is far from over.

[Geschosskopf]

First off, thanks to the readers for 11,000 views.

OK, here we go.  First, clearing up some of the confusion caused by the last episode.

HOPELESS:  Sanny died from excessive exposure to hard radiation close to Sarnus in pursuit of her "Energy".   The next-senior Kerbal, Coxs'n LIsula, couldn't care less so command of this crew devolved upon Jaysef, who is effectively blind due to chronic hallucinations.  HOPELESS is parked in Orvok orbit awaiting developments.

Tekto Crew:  Gergas has been dead since arrival in the Sarnus system.  Elite has suffered from a permanent, severe hangover ever since she woke up from cryosleep and recently chose suicide over other alternatives.  Her death was the tipping point that caused the forgotten gods of the Kerbals to intervene in a new part of space created by the Kraken (just mythology, no offense meant to the OPM crew).  Midi has been passed out on a Chill (Glycerol) binge since landing on Tekto.

Eeloo Crew:  Truiki's soul was snagged by the Kraken en route to Sarnus so her physical body reverted to sprouthood.  The Kraken also made Munmy his ardent disciple.  Meanwhile, Orbles become a woefully underpowered shaman.  A showdown between Orbles and Munmy over the fate of Truiki's soul was inevitable and Orbles won by managing to freeze Munmy in CRACKHEAD and then return Truiki's soul to her body (thanks to divine intervention) via ecstatic travel through the Spirit World.  Truiki is now the only crew chief functional so is now NCOIC of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition but is behind the times and trying desperately to catch up, prompted by Orbles.

So, on with the show.

EPISODE 26: Bits and Pieces

Spoiler

 

While these epic events were playing out, back on Tekto, the source of Orbles' opportunity, things were not going well...   Midi awoke from riding her Chill dragon to a nightmare made flesh.  Needless to say, the Fear took hold of her.

 

 

As Gergas had discovered before her, TRASHCAN-1 was exceedingly easy for a non-pile-it to fly.  In fact, a true pilot would probably have gone into coniption fits over this example of his utter redundancy.  Grievances were immediately filed by the Pilot's Union, which were just as quickly tossed out by the Adjudication Panel of the Travelling Circus.  But of course Midi was hours ahead of events on Kerbin so she continued her panicked flight.

TRASHCAN-1 managed to reach about 13k at 240n/s on its nuclear thermal jet, after which its LANTERN nuke rockets took over. Even in Tekto's thick air, they gave TRASHCAN-1 a TWR > 1 and a very healthy Isp so it changed to a 45^ climb.

Once in orbit, Midi told TRASHCAN-1 to rendezvous with COPROLITE, to which she immediately transferred and shoved off.

In a few minutes, COPROLITE was heading back on a week-long trip to TOEJAM at Eeloo.

Meanwhile, back on the surface of Tekto, Midi's sudden departure didn't faze Gergas and Elite.

Meanwhile, back at TOEJAM, in Eeloo orbit, newly revived Truiki was having to make serious command decisions based on inadequate data and some deliberate deception provided by Orbles.

But then Midi chimed in...

Orbles shrugged all this off and Truiki, having nowhere else to turn, went with it, so COPROLITE was allowed to continue towards Eeloo.

But long before COPROLITE got anywhere near TOEJAM, HOPELESS had shoved off from Orvok.

 

 

And so all surviving members of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition were either mustered at TOEJAM or en route thereto.  And with CRACKHEAD ready to go (apart from its dubious cryopods), things are beginning to wind down.

Tune in next time for that winding down

 

 

Edited April 2, 2016 by Geschosskopf
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[DMSP]

Yes, another chapter!

I think we have some little problems around Sarnus...

Nothing much, just a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!

[KAL 9000]

Get the heck out of there! Set course for Kerbin and go at full speed! It's too creepy to stay!

[Geschosskopf]

13 hours ago, DMSP said:

Yes, another chapter!

Thanks for your enthusiastic support.

13 hours ago, DMSP said:

I think we have some little problems around Sarnus...

Nothing much, just a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!

 

6 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

Get the heck out of there! Set course for Kerbin and go at full speed! It's too creepy to stay!

Yes, they will be leaving quite soon.  They have to get home before I can switch to 1.1, which I desperately want to do

 

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 27: I Feel Like Going Home

Spoiler

 

In the few hours before HOPELESS docked with TOEJAM, Orbles and Triuki had a heart-to-heart discussion about recent events.

 

 

About this time, HOPELESS docked with TOEJAM.  Absurdly existential Lizula wasted no time hitting her cryopod.  She didn't care that the interior lights weren't working again.

Triuki was powerless to stop this because she and Orbles were helping hallucination-blinded Jaysef into FLAKEE's Hitchhker pod.  There they began to compare notes.  And thus they passed the time for the better part of a week until Midi arrived from Tekto in COPROLITE

As this is the end of the mission, your humble narrator took the time to take a few last glamour shots of Sarnus from fairly close.

 

Like Lizula before her, but for totally different reasons, Midi went straight to one of CRACKHEAD's cryopods and immediately froze herself.   Triuki was by now thinking this was a bit disrespectful.

 

With all surviving members of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition back at TOEJAM, and with CRACKHEAD all fueled up, there was no reason to hang around at Eeloo.  The window for going home was fast approaching and these highly trained and experienced Kerbals were by now quite aware of that.  So Truiki and Obles helped blind Jaysef into a cryopod then scooped up all the Science! the various crews had picked up.  Most of which came from HOPELESS because Truiki's condition had kept Orbles and Munmy from doing much exploring and, as mentioned, Midi had in her panic totally forgotten to take the Science! stored in TRASHCAN-1 with her.  But there were still 48 experiments (much less than the Scientists had intended) to take home, and this was only possible at all due to a ModuleManager hack of DeepFreeze orchestrated by Triuki (it normally doesn't store Science!)..

This accomplished, CRACKHEAD shoved off from TOEJAM and got into a Sarnus orbit just outside interference with Orvok's miniscule SOI.  There it waited only a few days before raising anchor for home.  If these Kerbals had had to raise their metaphorical anchor with a capstan, they'd have done doubletime at its bars.  But because raw LF refined from Eeloo did all the pushing, the few members of SE-2 still awake just toasted their departure burn with grog rations saved up over the mission to date.

 

Once the departure burn was done, Truiki thought it was time for reflection.  Fortunately, she had Orbles and Jaysef to cheer her up.

 

 

And so 63 of the 66 days to the edge of Sarnus' SOI passed easily in an atmosphere of camaraderie bonded by shared hardship and stashed booze . But at this point, the Boffins and Scientists back at Mission Control had analyzed the pitiful few blocks of data that had come back to them and had reached certain conclusions.  And by this point in time, Kerbin had finally gotten out from behind the sun so they finally, now that it was too late, had a clear shot at CRACKHEAD.

So the very jolly crew of CRACKHEAD turned the radio off and continued for another couple of carefree days prior to freezing themselves.  By this time, after all, they were beginning to run short of saved grog and they knew their supplies wouldn't quite last the trip.

But all the way out to the edge of Sarnus' SOI, Orbles had had a growing feeling that he still had work to do, nudged occasionally by "the voices" which he'd come to accept as real after comparing notes with Triuki.  So with just a few hours left before SOI transition, Orbles gave the last of his grog to the others, excused himself on the pretext of wanting one last look at Sarnus, and did the Ladder Trick again.

Things had by now calmed down a little in the Spirit World although the Kraken was still giving vigorous and prolonged resistance as the Spirit Guides had foretold.  Still, Orbles' Guides were glad to see him.  In their way.

Orbles now had to fulfill his duty as the tribe's psychopomp and guide the spirits of the dead to the afterlife.  His Guides soon led him to where the souls of Gergas and Elite were hiding the the metaphorical bushes.

And after many adventures, the Guides did lead Orbles, who led Gergas and Elite, to the Promised Land.  The lost souls were not totally enthusiastic about it.

It was then time to deal with Sanny.  She was in a totally secular part of Limbo, trapped between the Worlds by her own choice.  Things did not go well.

So, reluctantly, Orbles returned to here-and-now just in the nick of time.

And so to this day the ghost of Sanny haunts the Orvok Monolith long after her bones have turned to dust.  Orbles had to be content that two outta three ain't bad as there were now no more unpopped zombies infesting Tekto.

And so CRACKHEAD crossed out of the Sarnus SOI and headed home,  It had about 5300m/s left in the tanks, which hopefully would be enough to capture at Kerbin.

Back in Episode 15, CRACKHEAD had entered the Sarnus SOI on Y15 D346, at 05:33:49 in the evening KSC time, and it left on Y16 D356 at 02:25:35 in the morning, spending not quite 1 year and 10 days in the system.

And so in about 4.5 years, CRACKHEAD will be home (much to Midi's eventual disappointment).  By then, the 2 Plock-Karon probes will have done their burns but will still be decades away from getting there, and not even the NE-1, by now in transit for about 12 years, will have gotten to its destination.  It's a long, long way to Planet Sarnus, but it's nowhere near as far as the other things out there in OPM.

Tune in next time for the triumphant return of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition.

 

 

Edited April 2, 2016 by Geschosskopf
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[insert_name]

I ran out of rep

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 28: Superheroes

The next thing that happened after CRACKHEAD started home was that the UE-1/PE-2 SCANsat probe left Urlum on a long, indirect trip to Plock-Karen.  Its path would take it down to the orbit of Duna before heading back out to the far reaches of the system.

So here's the status at this point, with both Plock probes and the Neidon probe still with far, far to go, and CRACKHEAD just starting its trip home.  The really far-out Outer Planets are really out there, compared to Sarnus.

The mid-course burn of the PE-1 Science Probe consumed the last of its transfer stage so the Boffins had one more gratuitous explosion before Kigma-11 goes supernova.

While waiting for CRACKHEAD to return, Mission Control amused itself looking at various asteroids being found by the Sarnus SENTINEL (as it was busy making about $1.7 million).  The most interesting one they found was ZIF-897, which they nicknamed "Bobfred" after a long-lost Kerbal from very ancient times, who ended up in a similar orbit.  "Bobfred"'s Pe is down by Sarnus and it's Ap is out twce as far as Plock-Karen ever gets.

So things went along for about 4.5 years.  At this point, still about 3 days out from Kerbin's SOI, Truiki, Orbles, and Jaysef woke up.  They'd set their own alarms for this instead of letting Mission Control wake them up due to trust issues.  Truiki didn't still didn't trust Munmy so decided not to wake him yet, and figured Lizula and Midi would probably want to sleep as long as possible.

In fact, the return trip had been a lot less traumatic than they were expecting from the trip out.  They had been expecting to have their brains squeezed dry of all knowledge just as they'd been pumped full on the way out, especially because they'd been ignoring Mission Control since before they'd left Sarnus.  But while Truiki had had a stress-free trip, Orbles had been doing some shamanizing.  After all, he was stuck in the Spirit World for the duration, so had been doing what he could to heal his shipmates.

 

And so it was that on Y21 D184 at 02:50:03, CRACKHEAD was finally back in Kerbin's SOI.  They left the radio off, not that it mattered, because they'd hit Pe at Kerbin in only about 1 day.

The plan was to capture into a 400km orbit then ease down to the ancient, so-far unused Kerbin Station (now over 20 years old) at 150km to await transport to the surface.  The capture burn turned out to require only 3055.7m/s, well within CRACKHEAD's ample capacity.

The burn took about 6 minutes at a bit less than 1 G.  Towards the end of it, the sun came up over the limb of Kerbin and CRACKHEAD's crew toasted it with some of their grog ration saved up during the trip home.

After this, it was no trouble rendezvousing with Kerbin Station, although docking proved just as bothersome here as it had back at TOEJAM.

Then there was nothing for it but to wake up the rest of the crew, turn on the radio, and face the inevitable retribution.  Truiki took the mic and spoke the fateful words:

"CRACKHEAD to KSC.  We're ready for pick-up."

"Roger that." said a unrecognizable, young-sounding voice, probably an intern who hadn't even been sprouted when the 2nd Sarnus Expedition had left.  After this, the radio remained ominously silent and the shock collars they all wore didn't even tingle.

Rather than thinking about and dreading the form of their destructor, the crew began discussing their experiences.  Orbles had managed to patch up Lizula's and Munmy's minds/souls fairly well but Midi would need serious rehab and probably organ replacements.

But things were indeed happening down on Kerbin.  A sleek shape was towed out to the runway and powered up.  Aboard were two top-level VIPs.

 

Yes, just as CRACKHEAD-COPROLITE had been lifted on a massive SSTO booster on a special occasion, now an SSTO spaceplane was heading up to bring home the crew.  It had enough seats to carry a substantial goon squad to subdue any resisting astronauts.

But those seats were empty.  Instead..

Yes, Jeb, 1st, Duke of Mun and Minmus, and Val, 1st Duchess of Duna and Ike, had come up alone.  Of all the nobs, these two were dearest to the lower deck as they had, alone amongst the privileged, actually gone into space themselves and shared the risks with pressees.  The crew of CRACKHEAD instinctively began tugging their forelocks and shouting "Huzzah!", and soon had all moved over to the spaceplane with their cases of Sarnus science.

Jeb and Val had a celebratory tot of grog with the crew, then shoved off and set up the landing.  During the descent, Jeb and Val began filling in the SE-2 crew on various important changes in Circus procedures.  After all, a lot can happen in 15 years.

The SE-2 crew was rather too shell-shocked to be back home to register all the details of the many changes Jeb and Val reeled off as the ship burned through the air.  But the gist of it was, some of the brutal discipline was gone, pressees were treated a bit more like regular Kerbals than total social parasites, and minds would no longer be prodded during cryosleep.  Still, what most of the crew was thinking about was having 15 years of backpay in the bank, and the binge they'd have with it.

Then the plane (simply called the Type 4) got low enough for the returnees to start recognizing familiar features, then began final approach.

 

Out of all the things the crew imagined happening to them upon their return, being apologized to by a nob was definitely not on the list.  Perhaps there really was something to all this "kinder, gentler Circus".

Then they were on the ground.  They taxied to the SPH and all got out on top of the plane for a group photo.

Then a goon squad absolutely did not arrive in black marias and use cattleprods to herd the crew into the debriefing-dissection room as had previously been standard procedure.  Instead, there was a massive party in the empty SPH.  Meanwhile, groundcrew recovered the Type 4 and the centavo-keepers began totting up the results.

 

 

And here ends the tale of the Outer Planets Travelling Circus in the Age of the Supernova of '105.  Thanks to all for reading!

 

=======================================================

EPILOGUE::

Mere days after the return of SE-2, Kigma-11 went supernova and once again destroyed everything built by Kerbals on the surface (except, oddly, the Pyramids) and in space.  Everybody was safe underground by then, however.  And while this might make the whole exercise seem futile, all that was really wasted were the probes that hadn't yet reached their destinations.

The Emperor was quite pleased.  Not counting his own investments, he'd still made about $20 million for the Kerbal economy out of it, and a stockpile of over 56000 Science Points would make immense, unimaginable improvements in the lives of the common kerbs.  Some of this would ultimately go to making the next Travelling Circus bigger, better, and with more gratuitous explosions.

The surviving members of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition had varied fates after the mission:

• Truiki:  Refused ever to fly again for fear of a vengeful Kraken.  Founded a successful (and legit) bionics company.
• Munmy:  Joined a monastery and spent decades in religious contemplation, ultimately becoming a leading philosopher on the subject.  He even became literate and published a number of works that would remain standards for millennia.
• Orbles:  Remained in the space program as head of the new spiritual medicine section of the Travelling Circus.
• Lizula:  Stayed in the astronaut program in both operational and training roles for lack of anything better to do.
• Jaysef: Became a famous and influential artist, combing the real wonder's he'd seen with memories of some of his wilder hallucinations and flights of sheer fancy.  The Emperor Himself bought one of Jaysef's space-scapes.
• Midi:  Was just tempermentally unsuited to succeed in life.  Despite beating her Glycerol addiction (mostly because it wasn't available on the street), she squandered both her backpay and then her pension on frivolous purchases and extravagant parties.  After starring in a short-lived reality TV show, she died in a DWI-related sports car crash.

Tune in after the dust settles on 1.1 for some new adventure.

Edited July 28, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[RocketSquid]

So, what next?

[KAL 9000]

Why, our brave heroes will return for an Urlum mission in 1.1, of course! As Yoda would say, "Not the end of the Traveling Circus, this is, but the beginning."

[UnusualAttitude]

Hail Gergas, Sanny and Elite! I shall raise my glass in honour of their ultimate sacrifice.

Their tragic loss due to unforeseen circumstances does not diminish this well-planned and well-executed mission to Sarnus. 

The Travelling Circus is awesome. :-D 

[Geschosskopf]

26 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

So, what next?

Kraken knows...  I'm just so glad to get this done just before the update axe falls.  Which, BTW, I'm now playing with so no more 1.0.5 stuff.  Of course, the whole OPTC game has already been cloned and backed up in a non-Steam folder and works just fine there, so there's nothing really stopping me from continuing this.  Except, as always, the lure of new game features.  That's why I tried to do an epilogue this time, to forestall any desire to keep going with it.

Speaking of the Epilogue, I forgot to mention that the Travelling Circus has instituted a new medal, the top-tier thing for only the highest examples of bravery and perseverance.  It's called the "Gergas Starburst" because he was faithful even beyond death.  And the whole debriefing was as kind and gentle as it was thanks to everything inside the ship being recorded and beamed back over the trip home so Mission Control was only interested in why certain decisions were made, and not many of those because most were obvious.  In fact, this had been possible for many,. many incarnations of the universe but the debriefing-dissections continued as independent verification and because the Scientists enjoyed doing them.  Of course, they stitched the kerbs back together afterwards and life went on, but the evil reputation of this process directly contributed to some of the problems of SE-2.  Thus, it was one of the main things changed.

Anyway, as to future plans, my thoughts at present run as follows....

• The Outer Planets Travelling Circus finally achieved the Emperor's ultimate dream of NOT having to start from scratch again after each supernova, thanks to having over 56 THOUSAND lovely points of Science! safely stored underground.  This affected a massive and permanent change in Kerbal society.  So no more career mode games.
• With all that Science!, the Kerbals will from now on start with warp drive.  The 2nd Sarnus Expedition will be as famous as opening the path to the stars.  Perhaps some interstellar stuff would be in order.
• With the change to Unity 5 and multiple console releases, the stars around Kerbin will probably stabilize for a while.  This will tempt Kerbals to the surface so expect all sorts of KerbalKonstructs things.  In fact, future stories might revolve around finally exploring the surface (and oceans) of Kerbin instead of distant planets.

So basically, anything goes.  But it will definitely look better.  No more limited texture sizes.  EVE and such things.  Yay!

[Geschosskopf]

12 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

Why, our brave heroes will return for an Urlum mission in 1.1, of course! As Yoda would say, "Not the end of the Traveling Circus, this is, but the beginning."

The Circus has been around since 0.21 or thereabouts, continually rejuvenating after each supernova.  Mostly because I can't be bothered to think up a new name and mythos

12 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Hail Gergas, Sanny and Elite! I shall raise my glass in honour of their ultimate sacrifice.

Their tragic loss due to unforeseen circumstances does not diminish this well-planned and well-executed mission to Sarnus. 

The Travelling Circus is awesome. :-D 

Yes, I drink to the shades of Gergas, Elite, and Sanny.  As mentioned, Gergas has been immortalized and through him, the others will be remembered.  But hopefully nobody ever is in a situation where earning the Gergas Starburst is the result.

And thanks for the props on mission design.  While I've spammed much larger invasion flotillas, the 2nd Sarnus Expedition was definitely the most complex thing overall I've ever tried, and it came up from a career game (even though with very easy settings).  I'm rather proud of it.  I've even considered doing at least 1 ship from it with Eucl3D but the only ones that are printer-friendly had rather bit parts and none of them are very pretty.

Anyway, thanks to all for their support.

[Mikki]

Thank you very much for this ...errm ...uncommon Journeyreport, it was sometimes very weird and unusual to witness...

It had all important storyelements... from action, comedy, thrill and horror over to emotion, transcendence and destiny, all in!
(You might be a an interesting subject for psychological studys btw...)

In memory of the lost crewmembers, greetings Mikki
 

[Just Jim]

I loved this!!!!  I hope there's a second expedition!

Oh, and you are seriously inspiring me to check out the outer planets mod after 1.1 settles down!  

[Geschosskopf]

35 minutes ago, Mikki said:

Thank you very much for this ...errm ...uncommon Journeyreport, it was sometimes very weird and unusual to witness...

It had all important storyelements... from action, comedy, thrill and horror over to emotion, transcendence and destiny, all in!
(You might be a an interesting subject for psychological studys btw...)

In memory of the lost crewmembers, greetings Mikki

Thanks for repping this all along and I'm glad you enjoyed it.  I'm not a writer but I seen enough real writing to be able to fake it a little once in a while

And yes, I do visit the shrinks periodically.  In fact, I have an appointment tomorrow.  I don't mind saying so because it's only natural to have PTSD after several decades of hard service.  Every so often, I just need to recalibrate my mental controls over it.

30 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

I loved this!!!!  I hope there's a second expedition!

Oh, and you are seriously inspiring me to check out the outer planets mod after 1.1 settles down!  

OPM is a great mod, both for the variety of destinations and their production values.  Understand, however, that the huge travel times to these places force you to make some major decisions about your playing style.  IOW, OPM isn't something you should install on a whim into a game already in progress, because it will change the nature of that game in major ways.  Rather, you should carefully consider the various implications before starting and then design the whole new game with these factors in mind.

In a nutshell, the travel times with conventional rocketry are such that you can only get to and do stuff at the Outer Planets if you have essentially nothing else going on in your game.  The long-distance ships will make no perceptible progress while you're mucking about with stuff closer to home.  You are forced to warp ahead for multiple years at a pop, which tends to break the continuity of plotlines centered on the "inner" solar system.  Entire generations of Kerbals will grow up and pass away, governments will rise and fall, scientific progress will continue at home, and all this must be totally off-camera or your ships will never get to the Outer Planets.

Or alternatively, you can have warp drive.  Then trips to the Outer Planets take only a few days at most.  If that's the case, then you can have as much stuff going on elsewhere as you want.  However, the existence of warp drive necessarily changes the whole timeline position and mental outlook of the game.  We normally play with a "build it all from scratch", "Age of Exploration" mindset placed on a timeline only a few decades +/- from our own today.  However, if you have warp drive, then internal consistency pretty much demands the game be set way in the future compared to us.  From at least Jool inwards, the Age of Exploration is long since over and done with---the game should start with permanent colonies on several planets.  Many high-tech things besides warp drive should be in daily use and society should be either highly Convergent or even post-Singularity.  And instead of flags and footprints, visits to the Outer Planets would largely skip exploration and go straight into industrial-scale exploitation from the get-go.

[Andem]

2 hours ago, Just Jim said:

I loved this!!!!  I hope there's a second expedition!

Oh, and you are seriously inspiring me to check out the outer planets mod after 1.1 settles down!  

Please do, It's one of my two mandatory mods, with USI LS being the other.

[Kekkie]

Please don't stick to Kerbin! C'mon! Go to Urlum and beyond for the next Circus!

 

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, Kekkie said:

Please don't stick to Kerbin! C'mon! Go to Urlum and beyond for the next Circus!

Well, on a philosophical level, what puts the "alien" in "alien world"?  Is it merely the distance away or is it the intrinsic differences of the environment and/or its inhabitants?  We know more about Mars than we do our own oceans and I've seen totally alien human cultures not just across those oceans but right around the corner from my own house.  I therefore view distance as irrelevant to "alien".  What matters is the new and strange, not the trip to get there.  Anybody who has ever driven all day and seen nothing but identical scenery (be it drab desert or verdant agriculture) despite travelling 500 miles can verify this.  So why not take the time to explore the unseen regions of Kerbin?

On the practical level, I've already seen Sarnus (most of this story), Urlum (episodes 13-15), and even Neidon (testing for the story probe that never got there).  That leaves only Plock-Karen and I'm not going there until OPM incorporates more New Horizons data, such as all the small moons.  And due to the efforts of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition, any future Circus missions will have warp drive, highly Converged cyborg Kerbals (as in @Angel-125's "Super Kerbal" mod as standard equipment), and shamanic mission specialists keeping everybody's mind on an even keel.  So just playing any sort of game with the Circus, no matter where it goes, will be totally "alien" to everybody alive today, except maybe the newest babies.  My own niblings are all 20 +/- a decade and I expect them all to be immortal thanks to the Singularity happening within their lifetimes.  And if not them, then certainly their children.  So why not go there with KSP?  How is having cyborgs exploring the bottom of Kerbin's oceans any different than having normal Kerbals exploring distant planets?  It's all alien to we of the last generation or 2 that will actually die.

[Sigma88]

[Geschosskopf]

14 minutes ago, Sigma88 said:

(snip)

I wish I had that guy's job.  I think I could do it better.  I'm actually crazy while he just fakes it.  And just wait until I regrow my winter coat then my hair will look even worse than his, too.  Are there any other prerequisites for his job?  I'm calling the tragically misnamed "History Channel" right now, so let me know ASAP!

 

 

[KAL 9000]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

Well, on a philosophical level, what puts the "alien" in "alien world"?  Is it merely the distance away or is it the intrinsic differences of the environment and/or its inhabitants?  We know more about Mars than we do our own oceans and I've seen totally alien human cultures not just across those oceans but right around the corner from my own house.  I therefore view distance as irrelevant to "alien".  What matters is the new and strange, not the trip to get there.  Anybody who has ever driven all day and seen nothing but identical scenery (be it drab desert or verdant agriculture) despite travelling 500 miles can verify this.  So why not take the time to explore the unseen regions of Kerbin?

On the practical level, I've already seen Sarnus (most of this story), Urlum (episodes 13-15), and even Neidon (testing for the story probe that never got there).  That leaves only Plock-Karen and I'm not going there until OPM incorporates more New Horizons data, such as all the small moons.  And due to the efforts of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition, any future Circus missions will have warp drive, highly Converged cyborg Kerbals (as in @Angel-125's "Super Kerbal" mod as standard equipment), and shamanic mission specialists keeping everybody's mind on an even keel.  So just playing any sort of game with the Circus, no matter where it goes, will be totally "alien" to everybody alive today, except maybe the newest babies.  My own niblings are all 20 +/- a decade and I expect them all to be immortal thanks to the Singularity happening within their lifetimes.  And if not them, then certainly their children.  So why not go there with KSP?  How is having cyborgs exploring the bottom of Kerbin's oceans any different than having normal Kerbals exploring distant planets?  It's all alien to we of the last generation or 2 that will actually die.

Ok...

You have to do a post-singularity Circus on an interstellar mission!

[Kekkie]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

Well, on a philosophical level, what puts the "alien" in "alien world"?  Is it merely the distance away or is it the intrinsic differences of the environment and/or its inhabitants?  We know more about Mars than we do our own oceans and I've seen totally alien human cultures not just across those oceans but right around the corner from my own house.  I therefore view distance as irrelevant to "alien".  What matters is the new and strange, not the trip to get there.  Anybody who has ever driven all day and seen nothing but identical scenery (be it drab desert or verdant agriculture) despite travelling 500 miles can verify this.  So why not take the time to explore the unseen regions of Kerbin?

On the practical level, I've already seen Sarnus (most of this story), Urlum (episodes 13-15), and even Neidon (testing for the story probe that never got there).  That leaves only Plock-Karen and I'm not going there until OPM incorporates more New Horizons data, such as all the small moons.  And due to the efforts of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition, any future Circus missions will have warp drive, highly Converged cyborg Kerbals (as in @Angel-125's "Super Kerbal" mod as standard equipment), and shamanic mission specialists keeping everybody's mind on an even keel.  So just playing any sort of game with the Circus, no matter where it goes, will be totally "alien" to everybody alive today, except maybe the newest babies.  My own niblings are all 20 +/- a decade and I expect them all to be immortal thanks to the Singularity happening within their lifetimes.  And if not them, then certainly their children.  So why not go there with KSP?  How is having cyborgs exploring the bottom of Kerbin's oceans any different than having normal Kerbals exploring distant planets?  It's all alien to we of the last generation or 2 that will actually die.

Well, the theme has always to explore far alien worlds...

Because I'm excited to see new planets and environments. 

[Geschosskopf]

6 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

You have to do a post-singularity Circus on an interstellar mission!

Within the realm of possibility?  Certainly.  Even desirable.  Within the realm of certainty?  No.  It all depends on what emerges from the current madness that is the 1.1 pre-release.  You have to experience that, not just playing it but reading its forums and its bugtracker, to appreciate just how big an explosion the crashing Hype Train will make.  Not saying it will be a failure.  In many ways it's already a great success.  But until you immerse yourself in the scene, you can't appreciate how many different things 1.1 is to so many different people, and how hard a job Squad will have sorting all their diverse impressions out,

We could well be in for another barrage of quick fixes such as seen in 1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.3, 1.0.4, and 1.0.5, all of which introduce radical changes not only to pre-1.1 stuff but also last week's hotfix.  And mods will come and go along the way.  How many excellent mods died in the 1.0-1.0.5 flummox simply from their devs getting sick of having to do major updates every few days?  How many totally new mods have sprouted from those ashes?

So bottom line, there's no telling what the post-1.1 world of KSP will look like from either the stock or modded perspective.  Until that settles out, there's no telling what the future will hold.

3 minutes ago, Kekkie said:

Well, the theme has always to explore far alien worlds...

Because I'm excited to see new planets and environments. 

Exactly   Although you might not have to go far to meet the alien....

[Mister Dilsby]

Awww, I was so looking forward to a dissection. I know you could do some great images of it, after seeing the shamanistic disassembly/reassembly scene. Oh well--fantastic mission and great report anyway, I really enjoyed both the gameplay and storytelling aspects of it.