Into the Snarkiverse

[jimmymcgoochie]

Val: It's time.

Bob: Wait, wait, I'm not ready!

Val: Too bad, you actually need to go right now or you'll miss the landing zone near to the rover that's already on the surface. Get in that lander already!

Bob: Science!

Val: Get. In. The. Lander.

Gene: Val's right, Bob- go now or you'll have to wait for another Dunan day to try again.

Bob: *nervous* OK, OK, I'm going.

Bob: Drogue chutes deployed, that's a lot of Gs!

Val: Only five, you're just used to the 0.3g in the centrifuge.

Bill: True, but that means you're acclimated to Duna gravity.

Val: Just needs a little dab of throttle, and- done!

Bob: Mission Control, this is Duna Lander, landed on Duna.

*  riotous celebrations!!!!!  *

Bob: Proceeding with post-landing activities now.

Bob: Not sure about the six-iron though, could have done with a bit less loft in this lower gravity. Maybe a two or three next time?

Gene: Sorry to interrupt, but- Bob, can you look straight at the camera for a minute, then turn around and face directly away from it?

Bob: Sure...

Bobak: Is that helmet painted backwards?

Gene: It looks like it. How did that happen?

Bob: Huh. I thought it looked a bit weird...

Linus: Taxi for Robert!

And so begins tonight's special programme, Bob's Duna Adventure!

Bob set off in his trusty rover, ready to find ALL THE SCIENCE! across Duna's surface. He ventured north towards the polar ice caps, where he found a strange rock:

Alas, the rock was too big for him to pick up and too metallic for his little pickaxe to break a chunk off. Instead, he wandered over to a strange rock formation nearby and chiselled some "blueberries" off from the cluster.

Next, Bob headed south, catching some great views of Duna and its two moons as he wandered from place to place to get those precious science reports and samples. He tried to drive west as much as possible by day to prolong the daylight, but couldn't quite outrun the sun so had to slow down drastically by night to preserve power.

His quest for science is nearly complete- only a few biomes are left on his checklist and will soon be ticked off.

Spoiler

Now if only the wheels would stop falling off or glitching out every time the rover loads in, that would be great! So many save/reloads were necessary for this Duna driving.

Linus: Don't worry, my children on Moho and Eve, I haven't forgotten about you!

Wernher: That rover really doesn't like going uphill.

Linus: It's the gravity that's the issue, although those wheels have pretty puny motors in them which doesn't help too much.

Wernher: And what about the Moho rover?

Linus: Heading for a strange sensor reading near Moho's south pole, although that reading wasn't always showing up in the scan data so it might not actually be there at all.

Spoiler

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/K39RXFf

Cliff (Wernher's new intern): Boss! Boss! There's a serious problem over in Research and Development!

Wernher: What is it?

Cliff: Well, there's no other way to say it- they've run out of things to research!

Wernher: 

Spoiler

Yep, tech tree completed! All that science coming back from Duna has actually been superfluous since the tech tree got completed just before Bob landed on Duna. I'm now sitting on over 6000 science and trying to bump the reputation high enough that I can activate the science to funds strategy at 100%.

I should probably start building more interplanetary ships for future missions to the rest of the planets. Eve is pretty easy to get to and Jool is where Dres used to be so is easier to get to as well, but Moho is considerably harder than before (which wasn't easy to begin with!) and it seems to take over 10km/s just to make a one-way trip there so I have no idea how I'm going to get a crew there and back again with the mods I currently have; although I could do what I did for my second Kerbalism Grand Tour and use Near Future Propulsion to exploit the outrageous mass ratios on Kerbalism's gas containers when holding xenon...

[jimmymcgoochie]

Welcome back to Bob's Duna Adventure!

Today Bob spotted something odd on the horizon and decided to take a closer look...

Up close, it turned out to be a strangely familiar looking rock formation.

The rock was very unusual- nay, unnatural- as at times it looked to Bob like he was sinking into the surface yet at others he seemed to be floating some distance above it, all while standing on something solid. How odd. He tried planting a flag in the rock, which worked exactly as it was supposed to.

Linus: WOAH! Bob found a Phantom Boulder!

Wernher: A what now?

Linus: You know how occasionally we see a rock or something that levitates above the ground?

Wernher: No!?

Linus: Really? You've never noticed that? I see them all the time on the rover cameras. Anyway, those are Phantom Rocks and their apparent dimensions don't quite match their real ones- sometimes you can collide with it even though it looks like you didn't, and sometimes it looks like you did but you didn't.

Jeb: That sounds like that asteroid I went chasing after, the entire Klaw seemed to sink through the surface before the grapples engaged. I'm pretty sure Val said something similar happened to her.

Linus: Yeah, that's a Phantom Boulder alright- they're much bigger than the Phantom Rocks, but exactly what causes this phenomenon is still a mystery.

Cliff: Quantum physics shenanigans. It's always quantum physics shenanigans.

Linus: ...anyway, they can occasionally be dangerous and cause strange things to happen if you stay around one for too long. I think some of the problems we had with the first few generations of rovers were caused by them interacting badly with Phantom Rocks and Boulders and I've been noticing some of the same symptoms in the data coming back from the rover on Duna too.

Wernher: Sounds like we should tell Bob to leave it alone before anything happens to him or the rover.

Linus: Agreed. 

Gene: I thought they were Magic Boulders?

Wernher: No, that's something completely different.

***

Mortimer: Ah, Wernher. Do come in.

Wernher: I do have to warn you- what I'm about to propose will be rather expensive.

Mortimer: Oh boy...

Wernher: The simple fact is, we can just about get to Moho with a small-ish payload and a fairly large transfer stage with a nuclear engine; we could probably get there with a bigger payload if we used a huge transfer stage with more and/or bigger nuclear engines, a bit like the one that's currently being used by the Duna mission; but there's simply no way that we can get back from Moho without managing to conjure up a huge amount of extra delta-V from somewhere.

Mortimer: You're not seriously thinking about sending a crew to Moho, are you?

Wernher: Well, yes. But before we do that, we need to be able to get them back. After reviewing the data we've gathered from Moho it's clear that there's absolutely no water to be found, which is a problem because we need water to get hydrogen to make fuel. However, the data coming back from Gilly suggests that there is some water present in certain areas. Unfortunately, those areas don't coincide with areas where carbonaceous minerals can be found, which is a problem because we need carbon to make fuel too.

Mortimer: Let me guess, you want to send a mining machine to Gilly to make fuel.

Wernher: Not exactly- I want to send two mining machines to Gilly to make fuel. One can specialise in producing hydrogen in regions where there's water while the other can specialise in producing carbon and turning it into fuel. Then all we need is a fuel tanker of some kind to haul the produced fuel up to the waiting ships in orbit and we have a means of getting back from Moho.

Wernher: This is the water miner- the tanks on the sides will store liquid hydrogen because it's much denser and easier to store it as a liquid than a gas.

Wernher: And this is the carbon miner. It can make fuel and also oxidiser, which will mostly be needed for the RCS on the tanker as trying to make hydrazine for monopropellant RCS thrusters is a much more complex production chain.

Wernher: And this is the tanker. That entire tank at the bottom will carry the fuel up to ships in orbit, the other tanks are just for fuel for the tanker itself to use to get around.

Mortimer: OK, just give it to me straight- how much will all this cost?

Wernher: If we send both miners on the same transfer stage down to Moho, then send the tanker separately, about... 600,000 funds. More or less.

Mortimer: Six  hundred thousand!?

Wernher: Oh, wait, I forgot launch costs- these things will be pretty heavy so we'll need that big SSTO rocket Bill and Bob made to haul them into space, then a few flights of the Kronus to fill up the tanks because they're too heavy to launch with full tanks. Factor all that in and I'd say it'll take about a million funds in total.

Mortimer: You do realise, don't you, that we don't have a million funds?

Wernher: Really? I thought we had loads of funds?

Mortimer: Had. Past tense. Until somebody decided they had to buy the toolings and integration systems for EVERY. SINGLE. ROCKET. PART. IN. EXISTENCE. AT. THE. SAME. TIME!

 

 

Spoiler

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/Ym96S0S

Bob: Hey, everyone? I just drove up to this really weird looking pyramid-shaped mountain and suddenly my radio seems to be broken. It's playing this really annoying beeping sound on a loop, like I've got a phone call incoming or something.

Linus: I think I know what that sound is. *keyboard mashing*

Wernher: What is it?

Linus: Decoding, one second...

Bobak: ...I don't get it?

Wernher: So we have four figures standing next to a pyramid firing a beam of some sort out of its peak, then three white blobs above an orange one, and something that looks like a weird hybrid of F, T and P with another blob in the other corner?

Cliff: Fascinating... But also utterly meaningless.

Linus: The orange blob could be the sun, or Duna itself, or even another star-

Bob: That's great and all, but have you recorded this yet so I can leave? It's really getting on my nerves.

[Admiral Fluffy]

1 hour ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Magic Boulders

This a Elkimo Station reference?

[jimmymcgoochie]

12 hours ago, Admiral Fluffy said:

This a Elkimo Station reference?

I assume you mean Emiko Station? Also, no- Magic Boulders existed long before then and 1.12 even added one as an Easter egg on [REDACTED]as it used to exist in very old versions of the game; I’ll no doubt feature it once I get there.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Welcome back to Bob's Duna Adventure! What has Bob been up to since we last saw him?

A pre-Anomaly rover on Duna? What a fascinating find! No doubt the data he and Bill found on the Mun led him to this little guy, though sadly decades of exposure to the harsh Dunan environment have rendered it completely non-functional.

Bob left a flag beside it so a future mission could find it more easily and potentially study it in more detail, then left to head back to his lander and then back to orbit. He was so excited about flying back into space, he nearly forgot to deploy the deployed science gear!

Once he made it to space, a few hours of waiting were needed before linking back up with Interplanetary Ship 1- hours during which his orbit crossed Pol's, but fortunately the little moon didn't interfere.

We go live now to the final approach of the lander to dock to its mothership once more...

Bob: Attitude control locked, nullifying relative velocity in x and y axes, 3 metres to dock, two, one... *clunk* Uh oh.

Bill: Not registering docking on this end, Bob, try again?

Bob: Back away a little bit, forwards again and *clunk* not good.

Val: Lemme try something...

F5
F9

*clang! click clack clunk kshhhh*

Bob: And we're docked!

Bill: What did you just do?

Val: Eh, sometimes things glitch out like that, just need to reload it and it usually works second time around.

Bill: Right 

Val: OK, Bob, we need you to stick your head out the hatch for a minute to fix the cupola's busted reaction wheel, then Bill can head out to remove those old parachutes and transfer over the next set of deployed science gear into the lander too. And fuel it up, and top off the life support too. And move the samples over to the ship.

Valmal: Uh, we don't actually have any sample storage space on the ship.

Bill: Whoops.

Val: What!? Did they learn nothing after that asteroid sampling escapade?

***

Gene: And speaking of samples- the Eve sample mission has just arrived over Kerbin.

Wernher: All samples accounted for in the return pod, standing by for braking burn then spin stabilisation and release of the re-entry capsule.

Bobak: LOS from re-entry plasma. That thing's going a lot faster than anything we've tried to re-enter before, are you sure it can take the heat?

Wernher: The return capsule is very heat-resistant on its own, plus it has a heatshield under it. It's going to be fine, as long as it lands somewhere flat.

Bobak: Signal restored, looks like it's heading for some mountains.

Wernher: Typical... Deploy the chute early, maybe we can slow its horizontal speed down a bit so it drops short.

Wernher: Success!

Linus: Can't wait to get my hands on those interplanetary samples *drool*

Mortimer: Now that's what I'm talking about! Over a million funds from contract payouts for that single mission! Even if half of it is going to Walt's dumb PR campaign-

Walt: Hey!

Mortimer: -the leftovers are enough to pay for that *cough*ridiculously expensive*cough* Gilly mining thingy.

Spoiler

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/oc0qdtc

Val: OK, science peoples, those samples aren't going to analyse themselves!

Valmal: What does #autoLOC_2722860 mean?

Val: Bah, stupid updates! Something always goes wrong.

[Kapitalizing Every Word]

On 10/14/2021 at 8:56 PM, Staticalliam7 said:

can you help me not fail spanish lol

No, I failed spanish too
(but 10 in english btw)

Edited October 22, 2021 by Kapitalizing Every Word

[jimmymcgoochie]

Val: How to get from polar Duna orbit to equatorial Pol orbit in 3 easy steps:

1) Kick apoapsis really high near ascending/descending node...

2) Match planes with Pol at high altitude and- BOB GET BACK IN HERE!

3) Capture into Pol orbit.

Valmal: Why are we orbiting retrograde?

Val: Does it matter? Orbital velocity here is so low that it makes no difference either way.

Bill: Lander away!

Bill: And a nice easy touchdown. Time to do that science thing, I guess.

Bill: Wow. That view...

Bob: Data suggests you can find some lowlands to the north, midlands to the south and a yellow stone to the west.

 

Bill: OK, OK, I know what I'm doing.

Bill: Samples all gathered, stone picked up (looks more orange than yellow to me but whatever) now back to the lander-

Bill: How did that happen?

Mission Control: *mild panic*

Bill: Good thing the gravity is so weak, it's pretty easy to get it pointing the right way up again.

Mission Control: *phew!*

Bill: Deployed gubbins deployed, next stop- north pole!

Bill: Forget the last one- THIS is a view!

Val: Enough sightseeing. Rendezvous will be a pain from that high latitude but with orbital velocity this low it's not like it'll cost us a load of fuel.

Bill: Automated docking system activated. Bob, Valmal, I have some nice samples for you!

Bob, Valmal: *happy scientist noises*

Spoiler

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/DditoC4

Val: Mission update- we have plenty of liquid fuel left to get back to Kerbin, but we've used up most of the oxidiser and what's left has been transferred to the lander to make the descent to Bop and back. Supplies are OK for now, though the water recycler doesn't seem to be doing as well as we expected so water could be an issue in the future; battery capacity is really limited so we can't run all the experiments at the same time or it'll just run out in about 5 minutes flat. Still, not a bad view from the "office" window...

[jimmymcgoochie]

Val: Brace for acceleration!

Val: Bye Pol, and hello Bop!

Val: OK, I'm heading down now. Bill, you're in charge until I get back.

Bill:  

Val: Aaaaand- touchdown! Easy peasy, and right where I was aiming too.

Val: Roll montage!

Gene: Not again! *hides*

Val: EVA phase 1 complete, proceeding with phase 2.

Gene: Say what now?

Val: Target acquired.

Wernher: That's Dunashot 1A! I thought that died from radiation damage?

Linus: Well, not exactly.

Wernher: What do you mean?

Linus: I slightly doctored its last image to make it look like it was completely fried, but in reality only the avionics were damaged; the solar panels and transmitter still worked and ever since it landed we've been using it for a special purpose.

Gene: What is going on here!?

Linus: You know how in that ancient mythological tale, Bop was the home of the Kraken? Well...

Val: Turns out, they were right.

Everyone: 

Spoiler

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/p4t6DH7

[jimmymcgoochie]

Gene: SECURITY!

Wernher: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, LINUS!?

Cliff: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!

Walt: This is madness, I tell you! MADNESS!

Sanlan: WHY IS EVERYBODY SHOUTING?

Kraken: SILENCE.

*all the lights and screens go dark*

*meanwhile, on Bop...*

Val: *wince* Wow, they're really not taking this well.

Kraken: TREMBLE BEFORE ME, MORTAL!

Val: *completely unfazed* Rude. And frankly ungrateful.

Kraken: And why should I feel gratitude to you, impudent little morsel?

Val: Now just you hold up there, squid-brain. It took a lot of time and effort to track you down out here, sneak this probe up to you without anyone noticing and run it for literally years to beam enough power into you to wake you up. If you don't start behaving yourself-

Kraken: *sniffle*

Val: Are you... are you crying?

Kraken: No..? *sniff* Yes...

Val: OK, what's going on with you?

Kraken: I didn't mean for any of this to happen! *sob* I just wanted to communicate with you little green people, but every time I went near your spacecraft they'd either start breaking or running- sometimes they'd even burn me with their rocket exhausts, and that hurt! It took a long time before I realised I was overloading your electronics, but by then it was too late: you blamed every failure on 'evil space Kraken' and reacted to anything I did with hostility.

Val: OK, just to be clear- what you're talking about happened decades ago, none of us were even born then! As a matter of fact, we have almost no information about what happened back then; most of it was lost during The Anomaly.

Kraken: "The Anomaly". Interesting way of saying "we tried to make a singularity inside a matrix of negative anti-gravioli particles to create a perpetual energy device".

Val: That sounds dodgy.

Kraken: It was madness! You were meddling with forces beyond your capacity to understand, let alone control! You had an incomplete picture of what I was capable of and thought you could reproduce it for your own purposes. As soon as I saw what you were doing I tried to stop it, but I was too late.

Val: What happened?

Kraken: The anti-gravioli field began resonating; in nanoseconds it failed completely and the singularity exploded, unleashing a gravitational anomaly across the entire solar system, from the outside in. It was all I could do to save the planets and moons from smashing each other to pieces.

First the ice planet fell into the green gas planet's gravity and I caught it into a resonance with the second moon; then the green planet fell sunwards and displaced the grey sub-planet towards your homeworld while its two outer moons fell towards the red planet, where I caught them in a complex resonance even as the original moon flew inwards; the grey sub-planet nearly destroyed your home planet but I was able to stop it by transferring its second moon so that the grey sub-planet ended up as a pseudosatellite instead of turning your planet inside out; your planet's primary moon nearly hit your planet too, but I diverted its course to make its orbit inclined and eccentric instead; the red planet's moon ended up at the purple planet, while the purple planet's sub-moon ended up at the brown planet which fell even closer to the sun. For a moment it seemed that the sun itself would detonate but I was able to prevent it; it almost killed me and I barely made it back to this small moon before crashing onto its surface.

Val: ...wow. That's some story. But why here of all places?

Kraken: This moon's peculiar composition produces a powerful particle belt that sustained me, and its orbit allowed easy access to the vast energies of the green gas planet's magnetic fields.

*ominous shadow*

Val: what the-

Giant Kraken: DO NOT FEAR, NATIVE OF KERBOL-III. I MEAN YOU NO HARM.

Kraken: Great. It's you. I was hoping for someone else. Anyone else, in fact.

Giant Kraken: I WILL LEAVE YOU HERE, LITTLE BROTHER, DON'T THINK I WON'T.

Kraken: *hastily* I didn't say that!

Val: That sounds familiar. So I guess you're leaving, then?

Kraken: That is correct. Your device has proven most useful in my restoration, and for that I am thankful, but if I never have to spend another second in this cursed system again, it'll be too soon. Farewell.

*Kraken blinks out of existence*

Val: ...bye then?

Giant Kraken: YOUR ACTIONS TO RESTORE MY BROTHER ARE NOTED. I WOULD LIKE TO REPAY THEM IN KIND.

Val: Well, I suppose you could fix our solar system? Put it back where it was before The Anomaly happened?

Giant Kraken: THIS IS ACCEPTABLE. BUT FIRST YOU MUST VISIT EACH OF THE CELESTIAL BODIES IN THE SYSTEM, RETRIEVE A SAMPLE OF ITS SURFACE AND RETURN IT TO YOUR HOME PLANET. ONLY THEN WILL I RESTORE THE SYSTEM TO ITS FORMER STATE.

Val: Wait, what? That seems arbitrary and unfair!

Giant Kraken: DO YOU WANT ME TO FIX YOUR BROKEN SOLAR SYSTEM OR NOT?

Val: *hastily* Yes, yes I do!

Giant Kraken: THEN THOSE ARE MY TERMS. VISIT EVERY BODY IN YOUR SYSTEM, LAND ON ITS SURFACE AND RETURN A PIECE OF THAT SURFACE TO YOUR HOME WORLD.

Val: What about Jool? Gas giants don't have a surface, and then there's the whole Giant Ring of Agonising Death around it...

Giant Kraken: VERY WELL. THE GAS GIANT IS EXCLUDED. AS IS THE STAR, BEFORE YOU ASK. BUT TO COMPENSATE FOR THIS YOU MUST ALSO RETRIEVE A SAMPLE FROM AN ASTEROID AND A SAMPLE FROM A COMET.

Val: OK, that seems fair. How do I contact you when we're done?

Giant Kraken: YOU DO NOT. I WILL BE WATCHING AND WILL RETURN WHEN THE TASK IS COMPLETE.

*Giant Kraken blinks out of existence*

Val: *blinks* Well, that just happened...

Bill: Did anyone else see that?

Bob: Was that... a KRAKEN!? It was HUGE!

Valmal: Huh? What? Did I miss something?

Val: Hey guys, you're not going to believe what just happened...

[The Dressian Exploder]

Reminds me of a moment in a specific DnD campaign... Interesting. Very interesting.

[Kerminator K-100]

On 10/22/2021 at 9:01 AM, Kapitalizing Every Word said:

(but 10 in english btw)

Is 10 good? In America we use a 100 point scale

[Admiral Fluffy]

On 10/24/2021 at 5:36 AM, jimmymcgoochie said:

Kraken: I didn't mean for any of this to happen! *sob* I just wanted to communicate with you little green people, but every time I went near your spacecraft they'd either start breaking or running- sometimes they'd even burn me with their rocket exhausts, and that hurt! It took a long time before I realised I was overloading your electronics, but by then it was too late: you blamed every failure on 'evil space Kraken' and reacted to anything I did with hostility.

Nice to see the Krakens not portrayed as evil for once.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Val: ...and then *poof* it was gone! Just blinked out of existence, left a Kraken-shaped divot in the ground and that's it.

Bill: That's incredible!

Bob: I still can't reach Mission Control, not sure what's going on back on Kerbin.

*back on Kerbin*

Cliff: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!

Linus: You must listen to me!

Gene: Get him out of here!

Sanlan: No, really, why is everyone shouting?

*and back to Bop*

Val: Not much else we can do down here. I could do some biome hopping stuff, but at this point it seems like a waste of fuel.

Bob: I can't believe I'm saying this, but- I agree. We have all the science we could ever use and it'll take years to process all the samples we have right now, even leaving aside one sample from Duna, Pol and Bop like you said.

Val: That was kind of rhetorical, I'm already coming in to dock,

Bill: Does that mean we can go back to Kerbin?

Val: Nope. Next transfer window is in a year, and I'm not about to spend that time getting irradiated by this weird little moon- plotting a course for Duna orbit.

Valmal: *thud* Oof! How about a warning before you go firing the engines next time!?

Val: Honestly, I forgot you were even on this mission.

Valmal: ...

Bob: I think we've got Mission Control back, but...

*garbled shouting through radio*

Val: Gimme that *yoink* Mission Control, this is Val. SHUT IT!

*stunned silence*

Val: OK, long story short, I kind of made a deal with a Kraken to fix our whole solar system, put it back the way it was before The Anomaly- but first we need to get a surface sample of every planet and moon from where they are now. I managed to swap getting surface samples of Jool and Kerbol for an asteroid and a comet, too.

Gene: So you're telling me that you actually talked to a Kraken?

Val: Actually, I talked to two- the first one was on Bop the whole time, seemed to be saying that The Anomaly was caused by some kind of perpetual energy device Kerbals made, then this second Kraken showed up- it was HUGE! Way bigger than the first one- and that one said it could fix everything but only if we did the sample thing.

Linus: So the Kraken wasn't a malevolent monster after all? All those tales of "Kraken attacks" are just excuses for spacecraft failures and it's really our protector and saviour?

Val: Well... Actually, it kind of did break a bunch of spacecraft- but accidentally rather than deliberately.

Walt: Pah! Of course it didn't admit that it was doing it on purpose! This whole thing is a trap to get us to send more spaceships out for it to play with for its own twisted amusement.

Gus: Oh, please- ten minutes ago you were flat out refusing to even consider the idea that Krakens were real at all.

Walt: Well, er...

Gene: That's enough of this nonsense. The next person to say the word "Kraken" will be fired on the spot.

Cliff: KRAKEN!!!

Gene: What did I just-

Giant Kraken: CITIZENS OF KERBOL III. DO NOT BE AFRAID. WE MEAN YOU NO HARM.

Gene: what the-

Walt: It's on every TV and radio station, all across the internet. It's everywhere!

Wernher: Forget the screens- look out the windows!

Giant Kraken: YOUR SPECIES' ACTIONS NEARLY DESTROYED THIS SYSTEM ONCE. HOWEVER YOU HAVE NOW BEEN GIVEN AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE AMENDS. IN RETURN YOUR SYSTEM WILL BE RESTORED TO ITS PREVIOUS ARRANGEMENT. YOU MUST RETRIEVE A PIECE OF EACH PLANET AND MOON IN THE SYSTEM AND RETURN IT TO YOUR HOME PLANET KERBOL III. YOU MUST ADDITIONALLY RETRIEVE A PIECE OF AN ASTEROID AND A PIECE OF A COMET AND RETURN THOSE TO KERBOL III ALSO. ONCE THIS TASK IS COMPLETE YOUR SYSTEM WILL BE RESTORED.

Bobak: And how do we know that you'll actually do it? How do we know that you can do it?

Giant Kraken: *chuckle* YOU ARE AN AMUSING ONE, BOBAK KERMAN.

Bobak: How-?

Giant Kraken: YOU HAVE FIFTY OF YOUR PLANET'S ORBITAL PERIODS TO COMPLETE THIS TASK. USE THEM WELL.

*Giant Kraken blinks out of existence*

Gene:  

Mortimer: So that just happened.

Bobak: I guess we're going to be doing a lot more interplanetary missions in the near future then.

Mortimer: *sigh* Just when my blood pressure was getting back to normal, too...

Gus: So we just make a bunch of copies of that ship we already have, send 'em out to all the planets, big deal.

Wernher: It's not nearly that simple-

Linus: Actually, it might be.

Wernher: Eh?

Linus: Same top section, different landers and a different propulsion system- Moho will be an absolute pain but going to Eve won't be any harder than going to Duna and getting to Jool isn't all that difficult either. We've already got samples from the Mun, Minmus and Dres in the R&D sample vault, and several asteroids to boot; once we add the Duna, Bop and Pol samples we're half way done already.

Gene: Speaking of Moho, how's that fuel mining thing shaping up?

Wernher: The Moho mining rovers are being fuelled up in orbit as we speak. It's just taking a while because each flight of the Kronus can only carry about 17 tons of fuel up there. We need something bigger...

Mortimer: Let's not get too hasty- it might take a lot of flights, but it's cheap!

***

Bobak: Moho Mining Mission part 1 is ready to depart, initiating kick burns.

Bobak: And now for the final transfer burn.

Linus: Part 2 is up, but we need to fuel this thing up in orbit too.

Wernher: OK, this is just taking too long. Fire up those 3MM rockets, we've got some recordings to do!

Jeb: *sweaty palms* this landing is going to be dicey...

Gene: Initiate a Code Fourteen evacuation of the KSC, all personnel leave to the south. Jeb, aim to the north!

Jeb: Aiming is a relative term here!

*fwumph* *screeeeeech*

Jeb: *peers out from behind fingers* It's... landed? On the runway? IN ONE PIECE? WOOT!!!  

Wernher: Now on to the bigger one with the extra boosters!

Mortimer: 

*later*

Wernher: See, this is MUCH better! All fuelled up in two trips, not twenty.

Bobak: That's interesting, that second mission left just before the first one arrived.

Wernher: Is that thing at Moho already? BRAKING BURN!

Wernher: Oh.

Gene: Oh what?

Wernher: Well, we're still several kilometres above Gilly's surface and...

Wernher: Also the nuclear engines are all beyond their rated burn time so they could fail at any moment.

Mortimer: I can't watch! *hides under desk*

Jeb: Uh, why don't you just fire the RCS? Pretty sure it has the thrust and the propellant to land from there without firing the engines again.

Wernher: Of course! Why didn't I think of that!

Linus: New rovers to play with! Yay! Just need to get them on the ground and *decouple*

*KRAKEN ATTACK*

Linus: ...

F9

Linus: Just need to get them on the ground and *boop* there we go, no explosions to be seen! Huzzah!

Cliff: What did he just-

Wernher: Don't ask. Just don't.

Linus: Hmm, maybe we should have checked the clearance on those drills before we sent them all the way to Gilly...

Linus: Also driving on a tiny space potato with negligible gravity means A LOT of air time, even at pretty low speeds.

Linus: Both rovers are now parked at Gilly's south pole, mining as fast as they can. We have two problems though- first, there are two big hills that keep blocking out the sun so they keep running out of power, and second, fuel production rates are really, really slow. We're probably going to need more ISRU units out there to extract more carbon from the ore, and maybe a solar farm up on one of those hills so it never gets shaded.

Cliff; How about this?

Linus: That's terrible. Awful. Utterly useless. *glowers for a while* Actually it's rather good, but I just don't want to admit it because Wernher replaced me with you.

Cliff: Are you still angry about that? That was years ago! In fact, I'm almost finished my internship and then he'll get a replacement to replace your replacement.

Linus: You know what- you're right. It's time to bury that hatchet. Come on, Cliff, let me buy you a drink.

Cliff: Uh, sure?

Spoiler

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/wyVeNxy

Valmal: So are we going back to Kerbin now?

Val: HA! Nope, we're staying here for about another 500 days until the next transfer window back to Kerbin.

Valmal: 500 DAYS!?

Val: Look at it this way- you get to spend a whole year analysing all those samples Bob got from Duna! Isn't that exciting?

Valmal: Er-

Val: That was rhetorical. Back to the lab with you! *shove*

Valmal: AAAAAaaaaaa_aaaaaaa- *crunch* Uh oh, the Mystery Goo got loose!

Val: *closes hatch between lab and other modules* That sounds like a you problem.

Spoiler

I couldn't really remove the Kraken from Bop, not entirely sure how I'd do that and copy+pasting that part of the config from JNSQ didn't work. A little bit of camera trickery and shifting that old Dunashot probe with the set position cheat was the next best option.

Also those Gilly mining rovers were about 1500m/s short on fuel but I cheated with the infinite fuel to get them there because I'm not about to let such minor inconveniences hold back the plot! I have a series to get through here!

 

Edited October 26, 2021 by jimmymcgoochie

[Kapitalizing Every Word]

6 hours ago, Kerminator K-100 said:

Is 10 good? In America we use a 100 point scale

10 Is the highest you can get our scale is on 10 points with decimals

Edited October 26, 2021 by Kapitalizing Every Word

[BekfastDerp13]

I enjoyed reading this! Can't wait for the next part!

[jimmymcgoochie]

1 hour ago, BekfastDerp13 said:

I enjoyed reading this! Can't wait for the next part!

Glad you're enjoying it. Got a few logistical problems to sort out on Gilly which is holding up progress a bit, but a little bit of Kerbalism config hacking might resolve the issue of fuel production.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Wernher: The next part of the Gilly mining system is ready to launch. I call it-

Cliff: The Tower of Power!

Wernher: You've been watching that Erica Station thing again, haven't you?

Cliff: Emiko Station, actually.

Wernher: Whatever. It's actually called the Gilly Power Pylon and it should resolve all the power issues we've been having with the mining rovers so far.

Mortimer: Exactly how many of those extremely expensive nuclear engines are you planning on using?

Wernher: Well, we could launch a gargantuan craft with enough delta-V to get to Moho carrying enough fuel to get the crewed ship back from Moho, but it would cost 4 million funds and be hideously heavy to boot; or we could use ion thrusters, but that would require a burn time of days and cost about seven million funds because xenon is stupidly expensive. Any more questions?

Mortimer: I don't see why we need to send such a big ship down to Moho in the first place- just send something really small with a single crew instead.

Wernher: That's- actually not the worst idea...

Linus: Moho Rover, give me your science!

Mortimer: Correction- give ME your science, so I can sell it for much funds!

Linus: Hey!

Mortimer: You want this Kraken to fix the planets, we need to pay for the missions.

Gene: He has a point, Linus.

Bobak: The mining tanker has arrived into Moho orbit, but looks like it's pretty much out of fuel.

Wernher: Well it's a good thing we put some fuel in for its own engines then, isn't it?

Linus: That picture makes my head hurt.

*some time later*

Bobak: The Gilly Power Pylon is arriving at Moho, ready for deceleration burn *fzzt* ah great, one of the NERVs failed. We should still be OK though, the remaining engines can handle it and we're just about *fzzt* there goes the other one...

Wernher: Did it make it?

Bobak: Eh, close enough. It's orbiting Moho at least, the main engine still works and we should be able to get it to Gilly.

Bobak: See? No problem!

Linus: Too far from the rovers though, we'll need to move them closer to get the resource sharing system online.

Linus: That'll do. Let's see if the fuel production rates are any good.

*a few days later*

Linus: Overheat alarm on the Power Pylon? External temperature over 1000K!? 1300EC/s PER PANEL!? How-

Wernher: Wow. No wonder it's complaining about excessive radiation levels. How can there possibly be water in that surface when it's hot enough to melt lead?

Linus: Don't say that, you might jinx it! Fuel production is progressing, still trying to work out the average rate though.

*many days later*

Bobak: Jool Relay is now in position, absolutely no issues with the capture burn accidentally firing the wrong way and nearly escaping, nope, no siree...

Gene:  Right...

Spoiler

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/88Ep5Ch

How's it looking on Gilly, Linus? ...Linus?

Linus: *blank stare* Huh?

Gene: The mining operation. Fuel production rate. How's it looking.

Linus: *wipes drool from face* Best guesstimate, somewhere between 1 and 3 units of fuel per hour. It varies depending on Gilly's rotation and orbit as well as Moho's orbit around Kerbol- both its inclination and eccentricity are making the power levels fluctuate a lot- close to the sun there's actually more sunlight on the south pole of Gilly so we get great production, but further from the sun there's less sun at the south pole so the rate is slower. 

Gene: I might not be a mathematician, but that sounds like you're saying it'll take a couple of decades to make the fuel we need.

Mortimer: I'm really warming to my idea of a single-crew Moho mission, I must say. Far less hassle- and less expense!

Jeb: I pity the poor chump who gets sent to Moho on their own.

*everyone stares at Jeb*

Jeb: Wha- oh, no way! *runs*

[BekfastDerp13]

This keeps me alive in my classes! I hope this story ends with a happy ending!

[MCWither_Storm]

I've noticed the graphics seem to have gone up a little more, you can make out more distinct surface features on the Sun...

[Admiral Fluffy]

1 hour ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Emiko Station

Nice reference 

[jimmymcgoochie]

47 minutes ago, MCWither_Storm said:

I've noticed the graphics seem to have gone up a little more, you can make out more distinct surface features on the Sun...

The only reason that’s visible is because the centre of the sun is off-screen, so the sun flare doesn’t load. Without that, it’s extremely bright at such a close distance.

There’s a mod called Random Main Menu Bodies, which as you might imagine swaps Kerbin for a random celestial body on the main menu. Turns out that includes the sun, which confused me for a while as I didn’t recognise the strange yellow planet.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Spoiler

No screenshots with this one since very little actually happened in game, just a lot of time warping and trying to mine some fuel on Gilly- with limited success.

Bobak: Hey Gene, are you going to pick the crew for the Eve mission or not?

Gene: I will when it's due to leave-

Bobak: It leaves tomorrow!

Gene: *utter bewilderment* It's not due to leave for over sixty days?

Bobak: Boss, are you... are you OK? You're doing that thing again.

Jeb: *bursts in* Happy new year everybody!

Bobak: OK, that's even worse- it's literally half a year into the year.

Jeb: That depends on which calendar you use.

Bobak: Well, you're not wrong, but...

Gene: OK, fine. Crew for the Eve mission is as follows:

Mission Commander: Jebediah.

Jeb: Boom!

Chief Engineer: Sanlan.

Sanlan: Woop! We get to be travel buddies again Jeb!

(Jeb: )

Mission Scientists: Duberry and Kerdous.

Duberry: Which one of us is the chief scientist? Also yay

Kerdous: Maybe we should flip a coin or something? And yay

Gene: You can sort that out when you're on the ship. Wernher, get that spaceplane ready.

Kerdous: ...but you can't flip coins in space?

Gene: I don't care just GET ON THE PLANE!

*later*

Sanlan: Wow, there are beds on this thing! And artificial gravity! And cupholders! Not sleeping in a cramped space pod chair in zero-G for days and days!

Jeb: I call the top bunk!

Kerdous: There are no top bunks, Jeb, they're all on the same level.

Jeb: I nominate Duberry as Chief Scientist  Commander's word is final.

Duberry:

Kerdous:  

[jimmymcgoochie]

Jeb: I've got a need.

Gene: No, Jeb.

Jeb: A need for speed.

Gene: No. Jeb.

Jeb: A need for speed as we leave for Eve!

Gene: *sigh*

Jeb: That's not as much speed as I was hoping for but OK.

Wernher: That's how nuclear engines work, Jeb- low thrust but high efficiency, you'll go further in the long run.

Wernher: And speaking of things that will go slow but also far- the Moho Mega Tanker is finally finished!

Mortimer: I can't believe you spent that much just to hire three newbie engineers, just to stick them on the Azimuth Station and tell them to build that thing. And then spent a million funds on refuelling runs with that weird winged rocket thing.

Wernher: The mining thing wasn't getting anywhere, so this is the only way to get a crew back from Moho.

Bobak: That transfer burn was terrible, it's not even going to touch Moho's gravity well.

Wernher: Course correction plotted, no problem at all...

*later*

Linus: Just a second!

F9

Bobak: What the-

Linus: Everything is fine! The Moho Mega Tanker arrived at Moho and captured into orbit exactly as planned, no inexplicable trajectory drifting to cause it to completely miss the planet and get stuck in interplanetary space forever, nope, no siree...

Bobak: You say that every time 

Spoiler

OOC: Really? Again!? Something pretty similar happened to my first Mercury probe over in my Terranism Space Program RP-1 game, it was absolutely fine when I left it but when it was time to reach the planet's SOI it had somehow ended up missing by many many miles. I had to cheat it to Moho orbit and dump all the fuel instead; but it would have been an hour long capture burn anyway so at least I avoided that...

*later again*

Jeb: We have arrived at Eve!

IS2 crew: Yay!

Jeb: Who wants to go out and do the spinny flange thing "for Science^TM"?

Kerdous: Oh. Small problem with that plan- we forgot to bring the EVA experiments kit with us.

Jeb: Stuff like this is why Duberry is Chief Scientist. Fine- we'll just have to skip the science-y bit and do the capture burn when we're down there.

Gene: Remember, Jeb- don't go all the way down into a circular orbit, it'll use a lot more fuel than keeping your apoapsis at Ike's orbital height.

Jeb: Yes, yes, I got the point the hundredth time you told me that...

Jeb: Orbit established. OK Sanlan, take 'er down!

Sanlan: Undocking the lander, sticking its hat- er, nosecone- on the top and we're good to go!

Jeb: Try to not get incinerated!

Sanlan: Very funny...

Sanlan: Aaah hot hot hot hot hot-!

Sanlan: Atmospheric entry is over, but weirdly it's getting even hotter in here! Someone forgot to add air conditioning to this thing. *thud* Oof!

Sanlan: Whose idea was it to make this thing so tall, with this much gravity? Climbing down the ladder is bad enough, never mind trying to get back up it...

Gene: Remember the surface sample, Sanlan.

Sanlan: Yeah, yeah, on it. Get the sample, deploy the science geegaws- huh. There are two mystery goo units in this thing for some reason. I guess I'll just take one of them back up with me then.

Spoiler

And interestingly enough, the weight of the surface sample meant that she couldn't pick up the deployed mystery goo unit- but dumping the sample, picking up the goo unit and then getting a new sample was fine

Sanlan: Stupid landing legs keep breaking, stupid ladders in this stupid gravity, stupid goo thingy that wasn't even meant to be here, mutter mutter grumble grumble...

Jeb: Did you actually just say "mutter mutter grumble grumble" out loud?

Sanlan: You try dragging a bunch of rocks and a stupid goo unit up this many ladders in this gravity!

Gene: OK, Sanlan, you're cleared for Eve ascent. Good luck.

Sanlan: No problemo, boss, this thing worked before so no reason why it shouldn't work again.

Gene: *confused* What?

Sanlan: Here we gooooooooooo!

Sanlan: Ah.

Jeb: What?

Sanlan: I don't think we really thought this through.

Gene: What?

Sanlan: I'm now in low Eve orbit, which is great and all, but I have very little fuel left. The ship is in an elliptical orbit to save fuel and there's no way I can get to it from here. It's going to have to come down here and get me.

Jeb: But if we don't do anything, we'll get a free Ike encounter on the next orbit!

Sanlan: And then what? I'm in the only lander, remember?

Jeb: Oh yeah...

Gene: Wernher, do they have the fuel to get down that low, pick the lander up and then go up to Ike again?

Wernher: Yes- in fact there's plenty of fuel left on this thing, we built a pretty big margin into it in case we needed to go that low into Eve's gravity well.

Gene: OK Jeb, go get our girl- and that precious surface sample!

Jeb: On it.

Sanlan: Look, Sammy, it's Jeb!

Gene: Not this again...

Sanlan: I'm kidding! *slightly maniacal laugh* Probably just all the blood that was getting dragged down into my feet by all that gravity floating back up into my head. Or something like that, I'm not a doctor.

Jeb: Four crew safely aboard, as is the- Kerdous DO NOT TOUCH THAT SAMPLE!

Kerdous: Must. Analyse. Sample...

Spoiler

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/xp07AR7

Gene: I can't believe I didn't think of that. Of course the ascent craft was only rated to low Eve orbit. Why didn't I think of that?

Wernher: Don't beat yourself up about it, Gene, nobody else thought of it either.

Cliff: I did!

Wernher: *subtly moves between Cliff and Gene* We built the ship with a significant excess of fuel in case it had to go all the way down to low orbit, Sanlan had plenty of supplies to wait until they got down there and now they can boost directly to an Ike intercept. Everything is fine.

Gene: But I missed this, Wernher. I missed something that could have jeopardised the entire mission, put the crew at risk- in fact, put our entire planet at risk!

Wernher: You need a break.

Gene: I need more coffee.

Bobak: You need less coffee, that much caffeine can't be good for you.

Spoiler

While Gene was gone, someone helpfully took his coffee mug to fill it up. But while everyone else's attention was elsewhere, those seemingly helpful hands surreptitiously retrieved a little vial of white powder from a jacket pocket, sprinkled a few grains into the simmering black liquid and stirred it in...

[Spaceman.Spiff]

17 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

While Gene was gone, someone helpfully took his coffee mug to fill it up. But while everyone else's attention was elsewhere, those seemingly helpful hands surreptitiously retrieved a little vial of white powder from a jacket pocket, sprinkled a few grains into the simmering black liquid and stirred it in...

[jimmymcgoochie]

Jeb: Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Ike we go!

Sanlan: Can I duct tape him to the top side of the centrifuge? Pleeeeease?

Gene: *sigh* No.

Sanlan: But it's for Science^TM!

Wernher: She may have a point, Gene.

Jeb: I can hear every word you're saying, you know!

Gene: I know.

Jeb: ...

Duberry: Lander away!

Sanlan: Wait wait I haven't-

Duberry: Landing at a totally random site on the surface- WOAH!

Bobak: Duberry, what's going on? You're all over the place.

Duberry: You guys need to see this!

Linus: IT'S THE MAGIC BOULDER!!!!

Gene: First of all, down an octave. Secondly, what?

Linus: I thought you already knew about the Magic Boulder?

Gene: Boulders, plural. But you said Boulder, singular.

Linus: The Magic Boulder on Ike is the original; the rest came after. I've been searching for this one for years, even before I came to the Space Program- digging through every scrap of pre-Anomaly data I could find looking for any trace of its existence, but nothing ever turned up. Yet somehow Duberry just happens to end up right on top of it?

Duberry: Speaking of which...

Linus: He didn't!?

Linus: *outraged indignation*

Gene: Duberry, step away from the magic glowing rock.

Duberry: You're boring . Fine, all done here, sample gathered and- oh.

Gene: Oh dear...

Duberry: Looks like somebody forgot to take the Eve surface sample out of the pod.

Sanlan: Well, maybe I would have had a chance to do that if someone hadn't taken off with the lander before it was ready!

Duberry: Ready? It was fine- full of fuel and supplies too.

Sanlan: And the deployed science gear?

Duberry: mulch

Gene: You've got to be joking...

Sanlan: Maybe somebody better bring that lander back up here so I can put the cargo containers on it, take the deployed science gear down to the surface and hopefully get back to the ship afterwards.

Sanlan: Right, out. OUT! My lander.

Sanlan: Move the containers onto the lander, check. Move the deployed science stuff into the containers, check. Fly back down to Ike, check. Deploy science gear, check. Back to the ship, check.

Jeb: Guess who's the Chief Scientist now?

Kerdous: ...me?

Jeb: Correct! Have a cookie.

Kerdous:

Duberry:  

Bobak: You can stay in orbit of Ike, or move out to orbit Eve instead.

Jeb: Moving to Eve orbit, we can't maintain power here because we're in the dark for too long and the flight computer can't calculate a return trajectory to Kerbin properly either.

Sanlan: Ditch the lander though, it's just dead weight at this point. Farewell lander, you did good.

*meanwhile*

Valmal: Look, guys, it's Kerbin! Hi Kerbin!

Val: Buckle up, Mal, we're about to fire the engines.

Bill: So, Mission Control. How do we get back down to the surface with these samples.

Wernher: Sending a shuttle up for you now.

Val: Ah, the old X-20, I've missed you.

Val: My piloting is a bit rustier than I thought. Hang on!

Valmal: AAAAAAAAAAAA-!

Val: Just kidding. Four crew, three samples and one yellow stone safely on the ground.

*later*

Gene: It's been a long time coming, but at long last we have successfully sent a crew to walk on another planet and blah blah blah yada yada BUFFET EVERYBODY!

*riotous celebration!*

Spoiler

Full album: https://imgur.com/a/BABpTpI

*some time after midnight...*

Gene: *rather tipsy* And that's when I had my epiphany: who better to land on Vall, than Val!

Val: Gene, for the last time, my name is VAL NOT VALL! 

Gene: You said the same thing twice.

Val: V. A. L. Val, like pal. Not Vall, like fall. I think you should send Valmal instead.

Gene: HAHA! You're so funny.

Val: No, seriously. I feel kinda bad for her, not getting to do any landings on that last mission, being stuck in the lab the whole time churning out sample analysis data instead of doing any of the cool stuff. And because I treated her like an unwanted tagalong just to make up the numbers instead of a proper member of the crew. She did a great job, and I never told her that.

Valmal: *emerges from behind chocolate fountain* You really think I was good?

Val: I certainly do. 

Valmal: *welling up* That's... that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. *sniff*

Val: Besides, Vall has the highest surface radiation levels of any planet or moon in the entire system. No way I'm going there!

Valmal: Wait what?