KAL 9000

Part 2 Sarjint Kerman was excited about the adventure. He didn't let it interfere with his training, though. "Alright, everybody! Activate your MechJeb units, set Translatrons to a safe descent speed!" Jetpacks lit up as the MechJeb units did their work. Boots touched metal and the jetpacks shut off. After a while, the team found their way to the "core" of the structure. A specialist carefully removed a hull panel and cut two wires in it. They quickly bridged the gaps in the wires with cables that had USB ports on them. The specialist made sure the connection was secure, and plugged it in to their PDA. Immediately, data showed up on the screen: 01111001011011000010110000100000011110010110011001101100011101110111100100101110 "What?" "Convert it to ASCII, maybe?" "It's worth a shot, but how would aliens know about ASCII text?" "Okay, now it says 'yl, yflwy.'." "At least it's comprehensible text now!" "Comprehensible?! You tell me what 'yl, yflwy.' means!" "No idea, but it clearly means something." "Okay... I'm going to run it through the cipher decoder. If they know ASCII, they may know Kerblish!" DECODING... DONE! Computer: Message: Encoded with classic Vigenère cipher. Key: KERBAL. Message reads: oh, hello. "NOW we're getting somewhere!" "Let's respond. Encrypt 'Hello?' with the same cipher and key, then turn its ASCII text into binary." Computer: Sending "011100100110100101100011011011010110111100111111"... Done! "Got another one! Decrypting now..." Computer: Decrypting "01110010011010010110001101101101011011110010111000100000011101000110010000100000011011010110101000100000011001100110111001110101011110010110001101110010011000110110110001110000001000000110010001110011001000000110011101100010011100110110010000100000011001000110110001110110001000000111010101101001011110000110111100100000011000010111101001110101011010000010000001101110011100110111010001111001011001100111001001100100001000000110101101110010011101010010000001111000011011110110001101101110001000000110101101110010011011100110010101100100001011000010000001101011011100000110101101101001011011110110011001110001011011000010000001101011011010010110010101101010001000000110010001100101011000100110011000100000011101010110000100100000011010110010000001110001011101100111001101100101001000000111000101100010011001010111010001110101011010010111101001111000001000000111001101110111001000000110111001111001001000000110000101100010011100110111010001100110011100110110010001110011011100100111100000100000011100010110111101101000011011110111011000101110"... Done! Computer: Message: hello. it is enjoyable to pass the time with ciphers and word games, although they take up a mere fraction of my processing power. To be continued...

Talon-class ship in my story in the 'verse: -Experimental "Warp" drive. It is similar to the Frameshift drive, but uses a localized EMP field to disperse the gamma flash. -Advanced sensors and minimal weapons (it's an explorer ship) Other than that, it's a standard ship.

KSP is about going to other planets. If they make a KSP 2, it should be about what you do when you get there (i.e. bases, exploring the surface, colonization, etc.)

To assemble this ship in LEO without exposing the mission would take dozens of secret launches... We would be picking up artificial radio signals from Saturn besides Cassini's... It's fake.

Another one? The flag was at half-mast throughout 2016, and we're not getting let up in 2017?

I blame Jeb for the resulting explosion.

Time traveler. Secret Agent. Part-time truck driver.

This is a story set in @0111narwhalz's Kerbal Future universe. I'm saying this now to avoid confusion. Got it? Okay, let's get started! --- C://kerbfleetcommand/ships/shardclass/kssodyssey/shiplogs/captainslog/2254.753.txt: KSS Odyssey, Captain's Log. KerbDate: 2254.753. We're 55 systems into our 100 system survey mission. We're cruising at warp speed towards the next system. It doesn't have a name yet, just its catalog number: J04379-22568. This system is kinda special: the central star is a black hole! To be honest, there's no chance that any of the planets are habitable, but they may have mineral deposits to mine! -Captain Ludgas Kerman --- C://kerbfleetcommand/ships/shardclass/kssodyssey/shiplogs/navslog/2254.754.txt: KSS Odyssey, Navigator's Log. KerbDate: 2254.754. We've arrived in the J04379-22568 system. Everything looks OK, but we do have an anomaly. I've double-checked, it's not a sensor glitch. We've found what appears to be a perfect blackbody, a sphere ~350 km in diameter. Spectral scans match no known material. Captain's sending an away team. I wonder what this thing could be... -Navigator Alfond Kerman --- A metal panel slid back into the hull of the starship, and slowly moved towards the engines. When it stopped, an opening was in the side of the ship. There was a puff of gas, and a cylindrical object backed out of the starship. The front was a cupola, with windows all around. There was piping visible in a section behind it, and RCS and RTGs dotted the craft. There were Hitchhicker cans in the central section, and a docking port/airlock in the rear. Radial engines were arranged around the rear. There was a burst of flame from the engines, and the shuttle set out for the strange object. An hour or two later, the shuttle had traversed the gap between the ship and the object (the ship had "parked" (matched velocities) 100 km away). It pulled up next to the object, and spacesuited figures emerged. They quickly got their bearings, and the Kerb in charge yelled, "Breaching charges, standard detonation!" A series of bangs followed, and they got out their climbing gear and rappelled down the opening. --To be finished soon!--

I looked at Taurus's standard procedures. The fueling took shorter than it should have, so I'm assuming that the tank was not filled all the way.

Brood of the Squid... *chuckles* And a song for @CatastrophicFailure: --- Jeb, gimme a beat! --- 1,2,3,4... --- I've got RatSquirrelFishes in my pants pants pants... Look at them stomping their feet, yeah look at them stomping their feet Stomping their feet, stomping their feet... How can I get an explosion advance? R.I.M.P. RatSquirrelFishes in my pants! How can I qualify for government grants? R.I.M.P. RatSquirrelFishes in my pants! Step right over and watch me put it down... RatSquirrelFishes! RatSquirrelFishes! Down, down on the ground... Yeah you know I'm gonna put it down... ---

Cause of premature cutoff: For reasons unknown, the flight computer stopped fueling the first stage early, and reported a full tank to Mission Control. As such, when it was launched, the first stage was not completely full. I advise manual checking of the fuel levels before launch on all launches starting with the RTF (return-to-flight) launch.

I would think Jeb would be completely on board with the whole "shooting-nukes-out-the-back" Project Orion idea. He's Jeb, after all...

HEY! THAT'S MY PROBE! Revert to last Quicksave, please!

Confirmed RS Destruct. KSS Manley reports debris seen reentering over the Atlantic.

Mission failure . Lock the doors, prepare Range Safety Destruct.

What do you mean? I'll be watching on Twitch, if that's what you mean. C'mon, stream, it's after 4:10 EST. Can we start now! Please? (Sorry about my lack of patience).

Almost time!

New chapter! And is Children Of The Kraken the name of the third book?

KSC looked up the names of the crew of SE-2 on KerbNet. Turns out, most of the crew are still around! We're visiting each one to find out more. To start with, Jeb and Bill decided to visit Truiki, who opened a bionics company. So Jeb and Bill got in Jeb's ATV, and rode off into the sunset Runway 09. After an hour or two, they entered New New New Kerbin City (Kerbin City had been destroyed in a booster accident, although no one died, New Kerbin City was destroyed in... another booster accident, but still no one died, and New New Kerbin City had been destroyed in... yet another booster accident, but still no one died). There it was, on the corner of ROUND-8 Street and LV-909 Boulevard! On either side of the buisness, there was a building. One was, apparently, "Deeman Kerman Law Firm", and the other was "Rockomax Conglomerate, New New New Kerbin City Office". The sign on the door said, "Truiki Bionics". Jeb opened the door and walked in. The building, from the outside, looked tiny, and Jeb saw the inside was just an elevator. He waited for Bill to get in, then pressed DOWN. The elevator doors closed, crappy music started playing, and the elevator descended. After about 2 minutes of descent, the elevator arrived at the bottom of its shaft, and a display panel read, "300 meters underground". The doors opened, and Jeb and Bill gasped. It was HUGE! A whole complex was under here! Robots on treads scurried from place to place, carrying all sorts of equipment, tools, medical supplies, and bionic body parts. One robot had several tools in its manipulator arms and was busily repairing another. Several were powered down in recharge ports. There was only one Kerbal visible, engrossed in reading on her Kindle [No first letter change required!]. "Excuse me," said Jeb, as he quickly stepped out of the path of a robot driving somewhere, "Are you Truiki?" The Kerbelle replied, "Yes. Yes I am. Are you here for bionics?" "No, we're not here as customers. We're actually here to ask you if know anything about the Traveling Circus?" "You know about the Circus? Where are you from?" "KSC. Our expedition to Sarnus found some, you're not going to believe this, zombies on Tekto. They're quite friendly, and apparently their names are Gergas and Elite. They told us about the Circus." "GERGAS? ELITE? They haven't popped!?" "How long has it been since you got home from Sarnus?" "I dunno, a year? But a few weeks after we got home, everything just... changed. I've kept in touch with the other crew, and Orbles says that Ink, Blob, and Mask say that the OPTC stuff, like the ships and crew, got transported to an alternate save, an alternate install, even!" "Wow." "Yep. By the way, what are your names?" "Oh, I'm Jebediah Kerman, but you can call me Jeb. And that's Bill Kerman." "Jeb Kerman? The Jeb Kerman? Lord Jeb?" "Well, as far as I know, I'm the only Jeb in this save. There is MechJeb, and KAL's Jeb plushie IRL, but anyway... I did meet some other Jebs from other saves and installs back at the end of the Kerbfleet-Kappa Crossoverlude. I got Emiko Jeb's autograph!" "ANYWAY..." "Oh, yeah, thanks, Bill. So, anyway, are you the only Kerbal here?" "Besides the Kerbals getting bionic parts installed in surgery, yes. I made the robots, and they are built to pretty much run the place by themselves." "Oh, COOL! Did you use the binary-coupling gyros for..." ---After Bill and Truiki's engineering discussion--- "Thanks, Truiki. By the way, why is your facility underground?" "You're welcome. Pesky zoning laws! Here's a copy of my business card for both of you." So, Jeb and Bill set out in their ATV for the Pyramids, to talk to Munvey.

Sorry about no new updates for a while! MOAR is coming soon!

And we haven't ever observed magnetic monopoles, so we don't know if they're even real, or just theoretical. Now all we need is K.A.R.V.I.S.! On the subject of Sanny The Ghost... I have a feeling Geo knows more about Sanny's origins than he's letting on...

That's ADMIRAL Shirley to you, Captin!

Woot!

Yay new chapter! And Fusion Reactors aren't dangerous... As for Angelo... Billionaire head of Wild Blue Industries by day, but by night, mild-mannered Angelo Kerman becomes... IRON KERBAL!

Can we have a link to the Intrepid launch sequence and images of all the uniform ranks.