The Kerbal Space Program: The tale of Kerbin...

[RA3236]

Hi! This is basically a write up of my KSP Career, This is a story based on Kerbin, describing its history and future.... it will be updated once every day.

No pictures, just a long written story  . So he goes:

Introduction

Spoiler

Gene stared at his monitor, slumped back in his chair and slapped his forehead. The construction of the KSC was almost done; however, they were almost out of funds and they needed to get something to space within the year. Thinking, he picked up his phone and dialled the almost-completed Testing Sector of the Research & Development department. The second he heard the voice from the phone he knew he had done the right thing.
“Wernher Von Kerman,” the voice answered.
“This is Gene. I need to meet you at the Development Complex.”
Two weeks later, Jebediah Kerman stared at the object on the launchpad.
The Craft was a tiny little thing, with a Mk-1 Command Pod on top of a RT-5 “Flea”. The parachute and Mystery Goo Containment Units were big for the craft, and the fins seemed too small.
“What is it?” Jeb asked Wernher.
“It's your first rocket that you will fly. I'll bet you will love it!” Wernher replied happily.
As Jeb clambered into the pod, he found a relatively simple control stick and throttle. He sat down and buckled himself up as the launch controllers checked all systems.
“SAS?” “Check!”
“Engine?” “Check!”
“Parachute? “Check!”
“Ingnitor?” “Check!”
“Prepare for countdown. 10.”
Jeb wriggled to ease his back. As he felt the engine rumble behind his back, he felt sick as he realised what was about to happen.
“2. 1. Liftoff!”
The engine roared to life, and Jeb was pushed back against almost 10gs of acceleration. His eyes almost flattened, and his chest was barely rising to let in some air.
He screamed, but in exhilaration, and he found his heart beating almost unnaturally.
But the excitement was, unfortunately, short lived and the last of the solid fuel was burned out. The sudden drop in acceleration caused Jeb to be thrown forward, and the parachute deployed the second the speed dropped to 230m/s.
Back at Mission Control, Gene told the reporters the estimated landing landing site. Most kerbals were still celebrating the initial ignition with the exception of Bobak Kerman, who was frantically trying to fix a major problem with the radar altimeter and so manually deployed the parachute from remote.
Jeb felt the deployment as a huge heave of his body, something he couldn't compare to his last skydive from Mount Kraken. He quickly adjusted and checked his speed and altitude. He deployed the Mystery Goo Containment Unit, and found that it boasted a good ten science. The crew report was similar. 
At the landing site, which strangely was the Launch Pad, reporters poured in to see the craft float gracefully down. Jeb felt the sudden deceleration and immediately turned the hatch handle, opening the pod for the reporters to see. And nothing was better than his famous line:

“This is the KSC. This… is our home!!!”

Any suggestions are welcome

Mods: (so you know what parts are from where)

GravityTurn after first rendezvous 

Kerbal Construction Time

Kerbal Joint Reinforcement

MechJeb 2

Remote tech 2

Ship Manifest

SlingShotter

TextureReplacer

Universal Storage after Minmus landing

Vens Stock Revamp.

 

Edited January 21, 2016 by RA3236
Title.

[RA3236]

Now for Chapter One - Part 1!

Spoiler

Five years later...

"Jeb, focus on the mission, not the snacks!!!!"

Jeb spun the lander sideways, dropping horizontal speed and forcing the cockpit to face towards the ground. The icy surface already looked melted, and Jeb planned to land the Kerbal X on the ground near the black object. The "Poodle" hummed softly as the X touched the ground with a nasty thud.

"Mission Control, this is Kerbal X 122. We have touchdown!" Jeb said through the microphone.

As he expected, the reply didn't come within two seconds: first because of the signal delay, and the sigh of relief that was heard from the speaker.

"Bob, this is Gene. What can you see?"

Bob had already gone EVA the second the ship touched the ground.

"It's black, with 'SQUAD' written on it and a furry creature pictured on it..."

"Use all scientific studies you've got on that thing. We need to know what it is!"

"Already on it!"

Bob grabbed the science module from the side of the ship, and planted it on the object.

"First readings from Temperature Scan... 'You record your observations of the situation,'" Bob said.

"Can confirm. Nil Science coming from scan of space just above Minmus's Slopes." Jeb said.

"Don't bother with the science then. Anything else?"

Bill noticed a red flashing light on the dashboard, and when he did a diagnosis on the warning, he said through the radio, "Mission Control, the object is messing up our systems with an EMP pulse of some kind... Main systems shut down, cannot get them back online. Life support is the only system available."

"Copy that, the ship sent a report before the navigation computer went offline."

Bob went to touch the object. It seemed so... Solid....

And his body passed right through.

 

[RA3236]

I was getting pretty bored, so for those people who want more (where are the posts in this thread?) here's more:

Chapter 1 Part Two.

Spoiler

The asteroid was nearing.

A full E-Class asteroid weighing more than 4500t and measuring 100m in diameter had just got a gravity assist from Duna and was now heading towards Kerbin at almost ten kilometres per second.

 

 

Bobak frantically pushed buttons on the orbit computer, hoping that it would determine if the asteroid would hit Kerbin. The initial calculations showed clean; however, Gene happened to be walking past during his tests.

"Bobak, what's up?" Gene asked.

"We only just detected an E-Class heading our way. It seems to be clear of us, but I'm checking the computer because it intersects Minmus's orbit in thirty minutes," Bobak answered worriedly.

The navicomputer then blinked, and beeped as the results came in.

"Bobak, that isn't..." Gene stopped.

"Yes it is. Kerbal X 122, this is Mission Control. You have an E-class on a 10km/s collision course with Minmus. Please standby to liftoff!"

The signal delay seemed to worry the other controllers, but the reply came quickly.

"Mission Control, this is Jeb. We have a situation here. Bob has found the object to be not solid, and our navicomputer is offline. Engine.... Check."

Jeb powered up the engine, engaged SAS and yelled through the microphone, "Bob, Bill! Pack up, we have a bogey on a colision course. E-Class! Get in here now, we are lifting off!"

"But...." Bob protested.

"I don't care, we need to lift off now!"

Bob and Bill jet packed to the ship with Bob immediately checking course and speed of the asteroid.

"Oh... Krap" Bob shouted as the rocket lifted off.

"What!!!???" Jeb asked.

"That asteroid... Has enough energy to destroy Minmus!!!"

 

"We have the results. Approximately half an hour after liftoff, the asteroid collided with Minmus, and with the low gravity and high energy of the two, Minmus broke apart in orbit, with quite a few large chunks coming close to the Mün."

"Bob, you know what this means, right?" Wernher asked cautiously.

With almost twenty reporters in the room and almost fifty scientists, along with Jeb and Gene, the situation had immediately appeared serious from the start.

"Yes, I do, Wernher, and it looks as if the results are not pretty." Bob answered.

Everyone looked at Bob, expecting something like, "No more ice cream?"

"Within one decade, Kerbin will be nothing but a superheated blue Eve.

 

[RA3236]

Request for this thread to be moved to Fan works rather than Mission reports. This probably won't happen but anyway....

[Greenhornet553]

This would be better with pictures since im more of a visual guy.

Also..

Quote

1. I just did, and I'm thinking I'm a bad writer

It's a bit hard to process because as I said, no pictures , by that I meant that the events in the story are a bit unclear because the transitions between places and such are not obvious. And you are not a bad writer, the story is good, it just needs more "refining" <--- I despise this word a bit because our school principal keeps repeating this whenever we make too much noise during an assembly and it gets really annoying.

[chicobaptista]

I, for one, am enjoying this.

Although I agree that it could use a bit more....not refining precisely I would say, but tinkering. I don't think, for example, that the jumps are necessarily bad for the history, but it creates gaps.

For example, did Bob go right through the Monolith? With all the excitement from the Crossoverload of Plan Kappa and KerbFleet I was sure that that was a multiverse shenanigan. But on the next update, it was as if nothing happened, unless of course the asteroid prevented them of discussing the issue and it will be addressed in a new update.

Mind you, I'm not a great writer myself, and my Mission Report has exactly 0 replies from other people, but I enjoy reading and analysing other stories, so I hope that was constructive enough.

As for the images issue, I do think that writtent text can be just as powerful, if not more, than a purely visual medium. I'm a firm believer in the words "a great storyteller shows, he doesn't tell." Which means (I think) letting the reader fill in the blanks as he invests himself in the story, creating a shared work.

 

Aaaanyways, keep up writing!

[RA3236]

1 hour ago, Greenhornet553 said:

This would be better with pictures since im more of a visual guy.

Also..

It's a bit hard to process because as I said, no pictures , by that I meant that the events in the story are a bit unclear because the transitions between places and such are not obvious. And you are not a bad writer, the story is good, it just needs more "refining" <--- I despise this word a bit because our school principal keeps repeating this whenever we make too much noise during an assembly and it gets really annoying.

 

25 minutes ago, chicobaptista said:

I, for one, am enjoying this.

Although I agree that it could use a bit more....not refining precisely I would say, but tinkering. I don't think, for example, that the jumps are necessarily bad for the history, but it creates gaps.

For example, did Bob go right through the Monolith? With all the excitement from the Crossoverload of Plan Kappa and KerbFleet I was sure that that was a multiverse shenanigan. But on the next update, it was as if nothing happened, unless of course the asteroid prevented them of discussing the issue and it will be addressed in a new update.

Mind you, I'm not a great writer myself, and my Mission Report has exactly 0 replies from other people, but I enjoy reading and analysing other stories, so I hope that was constructive enough.

As for the images issue, I do think that writtent text can be just as powerful, if not more, than a purely visual medium. I'm a firm believer in the words "a great storyteller shows, he doesn't tell." Which means (I think) letting the reader fill in the blanks as he invests himself in the story, creating a shared work.

 

Aaaanyways, keep up writing!

I'm getting to where the monolith comes in, and if you read some other people's stories you'll find a lot of them are written with no pics  in this case no pics more word  .

Im planning on coming on going into the crossover part soon, it has something to do with WARNING: CLASSIFIED INFO but here's something: the monolith survived!!!!

Edited January 21, 2016 by RA3236

[KSK]

Intriguing start!

I have a fondness for written word only, so I'm happy with the lack of pictures. They can be a good thing (witness the many excellent graphic novel style stories in this forum) but they can also be a bit restrictive, especially if you're using screenshots. I've seen some amazing scenes put together with KSP parts (most notably @Just Jim's scaffolding around a busted Tracking Centre) but they do have limits.

With that said - your story, your rules! If you decide that pictures would help, then go for it.

Couple of possible suggestions about the writing (again - your story, your rules, so feel free to ignore any and all of this). You did make some very large jumps between an out-of-funds KSC, to Jeb's suborbital flight to a fully fledged, Minmus capable spacecraft. I appreciate that you were just setting up the main story but a bit more detail would have been nice.

Also, you could probably ease off on the numbers a bit, unless they're really important. Using your asteroid as an example, telling us it's mass is fine because that instantly tells us that it's a big one and that our characters could be in trouble. Telling us that it's 100m in diameter and moving at 10 m/s doesn't really add to that - we already know that it's heading towards Kerbin and that it's going to make a mess when it gets there!

But those are fairly minor points. It's going well so far - you keep writing and we'll keep reading!

[RA3236]

Sorry guys, I don't think I'll get anything done today  Real Life strikes again!!!

[KSK]

Don't sweat it. Real life does that - we'll still be here when you get back! Your plan for daily updates sounds pretty ambitious - seriously don't worry if you don't manage one every day.

[Just Jim]

8 hours ago, KSK said:

I have a fondness for written word only, so I'm happy with the lack of pictures. They can be a good thing (witness the many excellent graphic novel style stories in this forum) but they can also be a bit restrictive, especially if you're using screenshots. I've seen some amazing scenes put together with KSP parts (most notably @Just Jim's scaffolding around a busted Tracking Centre) but they do have limits.

Did I hear my name mentioned? 
I agree it's your call whether you do pictures or not.  But since he brought up the scaffolding, I can tell you that was a lot of fun to build and try and make look right.
I'm finding building some of these models and stuff to use for screenshots a whole new aspect to the game.  You may want to consider it.

3 hours ago, RA3236 said:

Sorry guys, I don't think I'll get anything done today  Real Life strikes again!!!

No worries, I'm only putting out a chapter every few days.  Reality often gets in the way of my game time. 

[RA3236]

9 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Did I hear my name mentioned? 
I agree it's your call whether you do pictures or not.  But since he brought up the scaffolding, I can tell you that was a lot of fun to build and try and make look right.
I'm finding building some of these models and stuff to use for screenshots a whole new aspect to the game.  You may want to consider it.

No worries, I'm only putting out a chapter every few days.  Reality often gets in the way of my game time. 

Cool man, I have time to write but I need some Kopernicus Time since I'm planning a pack for myself.

[RA3236]

4 hours ago, Mods_o_joy said:

Cool, although screenshots would be nice

I've already said no.

[RA3236]

Chapter 1 Part 3

Spoiler

The room filled with questions,  quite a lot that had nothing to do with the situation. Snacks and ice cream were the main topic of all of them.

"SHUT UP!!!!" Gene yelled.

The room fell silent, except for a massive explosion test at the launchpad.

"Our lives our at stake. If you want to live, you need to listen." Bob said.

"Now. We have about half a year before the first rock hits us. We need a way to stop it."

"What about destroying it?"

Everyone turned and stared. The speaker was a young scientist by the name of Harok. He was new but he had already shown his skills in inventing the space telescope.

"You, sir, have missed one thing. There is no possible way of shifting an object that size to a stable orbit. We need to destroy it with... A bomb?" Harok said.

"You have a point. Wernher, how's our atomic research coming on?" Bob asked.

Wernher immediately understood the question. "It will be ready in a few hours."

"Bill, modify the Kerbal X to be able to take another thirty tons. Gene, prepare for evacuation in case this fails. The rest of you..." Bob paused.

The scientists leaned in closer.

"Calculate the point where the bomb will shift it the most in case the Rock is not destroyed."

Six hours later

"Navigation?"

"Check! T minus... 10... 9"

 The Kerbal X had been fitted with a rather strange little device, a fifteen ton bomb on one side, and a fuel tank on the other. 

"2... 1... Ignition."

Jeb felt that same feeling all over again as the Kerbal X was released and roared into the sky. The bomb only took away MechJeb, so there was a different ascent guidance.

"GravityTurn initialised. Beginning turn."

Up the X went, ditching all six boosters within ten thousand meters. The "Mainsail" RE-M3 blasted fuel below it, and it seemed as if the bomb and balance did nothing to the engine.

"Apoapsis is met, coasting to manoeuvre burn."

The engine suddenly stopped, and Jeb was thrown so far forward it wasn't funny. Bill and Bob above could see a large piece of icy rock only kilometers away.

"Burn complete. Firing missile."

The bomb soared away, the rocket propelling it turning and firing towards the target.

Nothing happened.

"Target has been hit, and no... Oh wait, hold on ..." The radio suddenly was disconnected as a huge fireball erupted near the target, the magnetic shockwave blasting the X and annihilating the Rock. And the fire ball hit the Kerbal X.

 

[Sanic]

23 hours ago, Just Jim said:

No worries, I'm only putting out a chapter every few days.  Reality often gets in the way of my game time. 

I agree completely.

Now I have to hunt for my thread on the second page of death  

[RA3236]

1 hour ago, Mods_o_joy said:

Okay jeez no need to be so hostile

Sorry I meant that I already had said no pics.

And... Chapter 1 Part 4: The death of the Original Three.

Spoiler

The memorial service went on for days.

All take offs were forbidden during this time; the Rock had disintegrated in the upper atmosphere and had been destroyed off the coast of the desert. There was another piece in orbit that prevented all ships from leaving the atmosphere. 

Jeb, Bob, Bill. They would be remembered for eternity, as the most BadS people in the world.

Val cried for days. She had always said that she hated Jeb; however the prospect of losing him was to great for her. She now realised how much see enjoyed having him around. But yet something told her something was wrong. And she was right...

In Space just above Eeloo

Jeb opened his eyes.

For a second, he didn't recognise the planet below him however he quickly realised it was Eeloo. 

"How the..." He thought.

"Jeb! You're awake!"

Jeb turned and saw Bill and Bob. His face grew into a smile as he initiated his jet pack and fired the thrusters towards them. He collided with Bill, throwing his arms around him.

"Jeb! You deorbited us!"

And promptly Bill fired his pack  back towards Bob. Jeb followed him, and spoke too instantly. "How did we get here?" He asked.

"No idea," Bob answered, "but I've sent a distress signal to Kerbin. We should get a reply in..."

And they were promptly teleported to the Mun.

Jeb, Bill, Bob.

"Who is that?"

Turn around, Jeb.

Jeb turned, and saw the most unusual thing he had ever seen.

"Guys, I found our monolith."

No, you haven't. The one you found is currently burning up in Kerbins atmosphere.

"Ohhhh..."

There is something I need to show you.

"What?"

The destruction of the multiverse.

 

[Just Jim]

OK..... this just took a weird turn....  nice.

[RA3236]

Just now, Just Jim said:

OK..... this just took a weird turn....  nice.

What??? I like nukes. (Oh you're talking about the monolith...)

[Just Jim]

7 minutes ago, RA3236 said:

What??? I like nukes. (Oh you're talking about the monolith...)

where they were.... that was unexpected. I'm curious to see where this is eventually going

Edited January 23, 2016 by Just Jim

[KSK]

Yeah - me too!

Just a thought - space travel by monolith would be cool. No need to muck around with all those dangerously explosive boosters! Or would that just weaken the essential kerbal character?

[RA3236]

1 minute ago, KSK said:

Yeah - me too!

Just a thought - space travel by monolith would be cool. No need to muck around with all those dangerously explosive boosters! Or would that just weaken the essential kerbal character?

You sir gave me an excellent idea that won't be used until warp drive technology is invented  

[Just Jim]

One thing I would ask..... and this is meant as just a constructive criticism.... I like what your doing, but it feels a little rushed.  Can you slow the pace down just a little and maybe add some more detail?  

[RA3236]

8 hours ago, Just Jim said:

One thing I would ask..... and this is meant as just a constructive criticism.... I like what your doing, but it feels a little rushed.  Can you slow the pace down just a little and maybe add some more detail?  

Yeah, I realised this at the last chapter.

[Just Jim]

7 minutes ago, RA3236 said:

Yeah, I realised this at the last chapter.

yeah, I do it too....  I can get so eager to get to the good stuff, I sometimes forget to add some detail along the way. 

[RA3236]

3 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

yeah, I do it too....  I can get so eager to get to the good stuff, I sometimes forget to add some detail along the way. 

I think you did that at the start.