CatastrophicFailure

Erm, yes, finishing the middle and the beginning is generally wise before diving into the end. Updates will be slow for a while, you've got time.

That's a bit out of date, tho... (first launch Q1 of 2017, pfft ). Might it even predate the revelation that a separate, unique core stage is required, with various structural modifications that might include what's nescessary for the full 50 tons?

As promised, the story continues here.

Every World must Break, Every Tower must fall. Woe to thee, O lamented Age, For the Revelation is at hand. Prologue: The End, and the Beginning A harsh wind roared across a cracked, crumbling expanse of nothing, dry and dead, every last trace of moisture long passed. It kicked up gritty, alkaline dust, scouring at the surface and shrouding the land in a sickly yellow haze. Trudging through the murk came a figure, clad all in black, hunched over against the remorseless wind. Its hands were bandaged, its legs wrapped in rags. Nothing was left exposed to the abrasive torrent around it. What might once have been a gas mask covered its eyes, the rubber cracked and split, the dark lenses scratched to near opacity. With one hand, the figure held a scrap of its ragged cloak across the rest of its face. It plodded with its head bowed, studying the tortured ground as it trudged onward, never looking up. As it did so, a great form loomed in the sepia haze. The figure approached, unperturbed, pausing before the enormous bulk rising out of the ruined land. A worn scrap of cloth still clung tenaciously to an opening, next to a pathetic patch of ground where the dried, brown stalks of some stringy plant were slowly being eroded by the unceasing gale. The figure paused only a moment more before sweeping the bit of cloth aside, and disappearing within. "Bugger this for a bloody blue box o' bleedin'... bananas! Faugh! Blaugh! Gawgh! Puh—tooey!" it ripped the mask from its face in a fury of gritty spittle, "bloody sandstorm! Bloody sand! Cor, I got sand so far up me wotsit I'll be passing bricks for a munth!" The Brick-layer's eyes scanned around the inside of the tent as the wind howled outside. Piles of wooden crates, some open, some not, filled nearly all the space. In a puddle of light off in one corner, another figure hunched over a large table covered with artifacts, beneath a lonely oil lamp. It was scribbling furiously in a notebook. The gastric mason's face split into a gritty grin, "oi! You!" The pencil tip snapped. The other Kerbal's shoulders tensed for a moment, "Lodvin... need I remind you, I am a graduate student, and you are an undergrad. I would expect you to address me with just a bit of res—" "Bugger that fer a box o' scraps!" Lodvin spat, literally, "Sir Kerman wants to see you." The graduate's head snapped up so quickly it smacked the hanging lamp and he spent several uncomfortable seconds trying to secure it from smashing down onto his notes, "he-he-he-he does?" Lodvin put a thoughtful, mocking hand to his chin, "well, Oi believe his exact words were, 'tell that good-fer-nuthin freeloadin' leech to get 'is wobbly green behind in here this instant or Oi'll crack it the other way.'" "He... he said that?" the scribbler turned a much whiter shade of pale... green. Lodvin shrugged, "more or less." He turned on his heel, and his cruel grin disappeared as if scoured away. He considered the tent flap, "'take a semester abroad,' the kerb said. 'See the world,' the kerb said." He pulled the tattered remains of the mask back on, "cor, Oi ain't seen nuthin' more n' tree meters ahead o' me fer weeks, now. Bugrit." He tore the flap aside, for a moment allowing in wind that screamed like a dying thing, then disappeared off into it. The scribbler was left alone to stare after him, as the tempest wailed outside. His jaw twitched as if seeking words that would not come. Finally he gave a shuddering sigh, and reached for a complete gas mask, where the rubber had only just begun to harden and crack. He pulled on a heavy, wind-proof thawb, after the style of the locals, and thick leather gloves. He charged out into the storm before he could think himself out of it. The wind at his back nearly sent him sprawling. He stumbled forward, fighting back panic, knowing too well the danger of getting lost in this roiling shroud. Slowly, deliberately, he turned around, leaning into the wind as it tore at his clothing, trying to drag him away. He took step after cautious step, at last finding one of the lifelines strung between the tents in the camp. Clinging to it like a lover, he paused to compose himself. All around, strange shadows seemed to play in the dusty murk. Play, and whisper, just beyond sight. Calm. Steady. The shrouded figure began to inch his way along the rope, and at once the wind changed. Once more it pushed at his back, driving him away from his tent. He trudged on, step by step, hand over hand, never letting go of the line that felt like his last connection to sanity in this tempest of madness. He reached a cross-point where two ropes met, thought a moment, set out again. He passed one of the tents of the local laborers. Strange chants could just be heard inside over the roar of the wind. Were they praying for deliverance from the storm? Beyond in the sand, the shadows shifted closer. Perhaps the supplicants begged deliverance from something more. The figure moved on, lurching, stumbling. He reached the tent of the other students, and the sounds of song and carousing from within. Celebrations he had never been welcome to, here or anywhere else. He found the next cross-rope, and shifted again. Here was a tent much bigger than the others. A wooden sign hung over the flap, the word Headmaster slowly being eroded from it by the driving sand. The figure took one last heavy, filtered breath, and stepped inside. The wind dropped way to distant moans. This tent was luxuriously appointed, filled with carved woods and rich leathers. Rare artifacts from all over the world stood on plinths around the periphery, and his feet seemed to sink into the thick, exotic carpet. "Ah, there you are, lad," said a whiskered old kerb behind an enormous desk, "have a seat, please." The lad did so, cautiously, as if expecting the seat opposite the old kerb to suddenly snap shut on him, "y-y-you wanted to see me, Professor? Um, Sir? Um, Milord?" He offered a wan grin. Sir Kerman stared at him blankly for a moment, before rolling his tired old eyes, "er, yes, lad. Ah think y'know why Ah asked ya here." The grin trembled away to nothing, "I-I-I-I'm sorry, I-I-I've just been so busy with my work, this time I-I-I—" "Lad," the Professor raised a hand, "yer grades have slipped. Again." "I-I-I-I'll try harder, I swear! I'm on the verge of a real breakthrough, this latest batch of articles from the lower tombs—" "We've been through this, lad—" "I–I–I—I just need a little more time!" The old kerb slammed his hand down on the desk, driving a muffled yelp from the trembling scholar across from him, "you've always needed just a little more time! Fer three years now, and you've nothing to show fer it but more wild ideas and cockamamie theories. Krakens an' crowns an' lost cities! Towers an' turtles' an-an-an—— bloody talking fishes! You—!" He took a breath to compose himself, and continued more softly, "you kinna neglect yer regular coursework. You were barely passing b'fore, and now... yer not even barely." "I–I... but... but..." The other Kerbal just shook his head, "that puts you on academic probation. Ah've been as lenient as Ah can fer as long as Ah can, but Ah'm afraid mah hands are tied now. You're no longer meeting the standards of the program and so yer participation has been revoked. Ah'm sorry, lad, but you'll have to go back home to the university." Somewhere off in the distance, something shattered. The young scholar seemed to grow smaller, collapse in on himself like a dying star. His eyes darted about as if seeking aid before sinking to the desk. For a moment, his mouth tried to form words, then it too gave up. Slowly he rose, and turned back toward the exit. "Yes, Sir," he said softly. "Wait." He half turned back. The old teacher sighed, "look, lad, nobody's going anywhere in this storm. Ah'll give ya credit for whatever cataloging you finish until it passes, but only the syllabus stuff, no... theories. It won't change yer grade but it'll help yer average. It's the best Ah can do." "Yes, Sir," he turned, then back once more, "thank you, Sir." "Lad," the professor said, "you're a bright student, one of mah brightest, you've got laser focus when you want but you've got to learn to see the big picture, else you'll end up galavanting all over the world chasing whatever piques yer fancy like mah damn fool brother Agatha." "Yes, Sir." Putting on something that might have been a smile, the old fellow tried once more, "buck up, now. You can reapply in two years' time. After all, it's not the end of the world." "No, Sir," the crumpled form agreed, before pulling his mask back on and fleeing out into the storm. The wind caught him once more, sending him tumbling, his hand just catching the edge of the tent. He forced himself back upright, tried to pull himself up to the rope. The storm seemed to rage twice as hard now tearing at him like a panicked animal. Hand over hand, he crawled along the line, feet scrabbling for purchase. He reached the tent of the other students. Inside, someone was having a grand old laugh about something. Perhaps... perhaps, he should go in. Have a drink and a dance, forget this madness for a time. Then go home, and find some way to start over. Some way that didn't involve following on his own brother's coat tails. But... no. Those within had denied him time and time again. They would deny him now, cast him back into the tempest like a curse. Dropping his gaze, he moved on. He reached the tent of the locals. It seemed to glow with inner light. He could hear the cantor leading a melodic, lilting orison. Perhaps... perhaps he should go in there. Seek answers amongst the mystical, where the physical had so far failed him. Seek his peace. But... no. The locals didn't care for foreigners. They were tolerated because their coin was as gold as anyone else's. And really, who could blame the locals for such proclivity, with the foreigners' habit of digging up their ancestors and carting them off to museums. No, they would not accept him either. Once more he crawled on, away from the light and the song. The wind raged, howled as if a warning to the world itself. It tried to drag the young kerb back, or drive him off into oblivion, away from the shelter of his tent. Yet at last he pulled himself through the entrance, left his gear piled on the floor. He plopped down hard into his little chair by the worktable, his sand-crusted eyes wide but unseeing. All at once, he let out a great, whimpering sigh. For a moment his eyes grew wet, but only for a moment, the dry desert air sapping the moisture away. I want to cry... but I can't... He stared down at nothing as the storm wailed outside, hands in his lap, shoulders slumped. Then, with nothing else to do for it, he reached into the other crate, and brought out a huge, dusty sandstone tablet. He regarded it blankly for a while before drawing in a breath and blowing the dust off. And immediately went into a furious fit of coughing. The dust burned at his lungs like acid, stung his face. It smelled like death. HACK! HACK! HACK! Ach—TCHOOOO!!!!! The tablet slipped from his grasp and hit the table with a sickening crack. Despite the lingering dust in the air, he gaped wide-eyed at nothing, jaw hanging, his face a mask of terror. Slowly, ever so slowly, his eyes crept down while the rest of his face remained frozen. The tablet... wasn't broken. He blinked, brow hunched. The tablet's surface was covered in jagged, angular characters he didn't recognize, that seemed to sting his eyes. Or perhaps, it was just the wafting dust. He ran his fingers over them, amazed. And gasped. The tablet had cracked, but in the most improbable of ways. He peered down, where it was split all along one edge, as if flat layers had separated. All his thoughts of misery huddled aside as the curiosity that had always driven him came forward once more. There was a gap now from the crack. Thin, but... he could almost... he reached with his left hand, and ran his thumb along the—— "Gah—AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!" Recoiling, he stuck his thumb in his mouth making little whining, keening noises. Copper washed over his tongue. Still puling, he withdrew it and gaped. His whole hand was throbbing and spasming. There was a ragged gash along the pad of thumb from which blood dripped freely. Angry red lines traced down onto his palm like a days-old infection. He did not see the drops of his blood spattering onto the tablet, being drawn into the letters and spelling out vile words for a moment before disappearing into the thirsty stone. Still, curiosity drew him onward. He picked up an old butter knife laying nearby with his other hand, and, with a wince of guilt as the brittle stone crunched, stuck it in the gap and levered it upwards. The heavy sandstone tablet opened like a book. Once more his eyes grew wide. Inside was line after line of those horrid symbols, but he did not see that. Set into one stone half like a fossil was a disc of purest black. It had no other features, only a perfectly smooth surface that reflected the onlooker's surprised face in darkness. Mouth agape, thumb still dripping, slowly he reached for it... ...and a single drop of blood fell upon the surface, splashing into it as if liquid. The butter knife clattered to the table. At once his hands went to his head. He arched back in pain, lips torn in a silent scream. All the light fled the room. The thing on the table seemed to emanate darkness, and throw shadows of light, casting the space in negative. Pressure. Unimaginable pressure... crushed at his brain... his mind... It shifted, focused to a singularity, like a drill boring into his skull, and then something... popped. Words, sounds, not-sounds, all flooded into his mind, a billion tongues in a trillion voices, scouring at his psyche, eroding it like the wooden sign out in the storm, threatening to sweep him away, but then—— KERBAL. Something... something alien... something other... I WAKE... I WAKE. Trembling, breath coming only in ragged, throaty gasps, his lips struggled in vain to form a word. What..? I AM... Another spasm wracked his body as things... foul, slimy things worked into his mind... touched his consciousness... I AM THE CURSÉD. I AM THE CAST OUT. I AM THE SHUNNED. I AM THE GREAT, MADE SMALL. I AM THE MANY, MADE ONE. I AM THE UNHEARD. I AM THE DESPISED. I AM THE FONT OF RETRIBUTION, I AM THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. I AM THE FIRST. I AM THE LAST. I AM THE UNDYING WHICH ETERNAL LIE. I AM THE GREAT LORD OF CHAOS... AND I HAVE NEED OF YOU. Unbidden, a thought seemed to be pulled from his mind, what do you want of me? Deeper, deeper, as his chest heaved to give up a scream his throat would not pass, tendrils of darkness twisted into his mind, invaded his dreams, defiled his memories. THEY... CAST YOU OUT. DISMISSED YOU. THREW YOU AWAY. I WILL LIFT YOU UP. I WILL GIVE YOU POWER, ABOVE ALL OF THEM. I WILL GIVE YOU LIFE EVERLASTING. I WILL GIVE YOU KNOWLEDGE OF AGES. WHAT THEY HAVE REJECTED, I WILL MAKE MY CORNERSTONE. TO THEM YOU ARE FORSAKEN, BUT YOU... YOU SHALL BE MY CHOSEN. Again the thought was torn from his mind even as he tried impotently to restrain it, what must I do? RELEASE ME FROM MY PRISON, AND BRING ME A CHARIOT OF FIRE, THAT I MIGHT DECEND UPON THIS PLACE CALLED... KERBIN. Why..? Every muscle in his body tensed at once, as if he would tear himself apart. Slowly, inexorably, his face was drawn downward, his eyes toward the tablet. Yet there was no disc there, now. No dark surface. Only an empty pool of nothing. Not blackness, nothing, a hole in reality. In that hole, visions now writhed. BEHOLD, THE BILLION SHOCKS THAT FLESH IS HEIR TO. BEHOLD, THE BANE OF LIFE. BEHOLD, THE END OF ALL THINGS. Veins swelled up from the skin of his face. Tiny dots of red broke the surface, as sweat became as blood. BEHOLD... THE REVELATION. His fingers curled into claws. Tendons popped, bones cracked, as he forced his trembling hands up... to pluck the eyes from their sockets... to tear them from his face... to stop the horrors flooding through his mind... But his fingers found only nothing. DO YOU SEE? Slowly his face rose from the tablet, the corners of his mouth turned up in a taut mask of ecstasy and agony. "Yes... I see!" Jerdous Kerman laughed. And screamed. And cried.

REVELATIONS OF THE KRAKEN Every World must Break a KSP novel, part III of: Every Tower must Fall The Kraken Trilogy Shadows of the Kraken Whispers of the Kraken With great thanks, edited by @Ten Key & @KSK, compiled by @qzgy Ongoing offline PDF compilation available here, updated 8/28/19. Prologue: The End and the Beginning --------------------------------------------------- The White Horse Chapter 1: Wake, O Sleeper Chapter 2: Rules Chapter 3: Awakenings Chapter 4: Patient Zero Chapter 5: Dire Words Chapter 6: While You Were Sleeping Chapter 7: Truth and Consequences Chapter 8: Dead Inside Chapter 9: Pride Chapter 10: The Island of Misfit Toys Chapter 11: The City that Never Sleeps Chapter 12: Questionable Tastes Chapter 13: Ice and Fire Chapter 14: Shatterer of Worlds Chapter 15: Acts of Contrition Chapter 16: One Night in Bangkong Chapter 17: Psychosurgery Chapter 18: She Moves in Mysterious Ways Chapter 19: Night Visions Chapter 20: The Eclipse Chapter 21: Whispers from the Past Chapter 22: Going South Chapter 23: Kermangrad Chapter 24: Telling Stories Chapter 25: Relics Chapter 26: The Sound of Silence -------------------------------------------------- Interlude: Bodies in Motion -------------------------------------------------- The Black Horse Chapter 27: Hurt Chapter 28: The End of the World Chapter 29: When the Mountains Tremble Chapter 30: Visions Chapter 31: Before the Shadow Chapter 32: Perfect Tonight Chapter 33: Monster Chapter 34: Truth... and Consequences Chapter 35: Ivan Grozny Chapter 36: Balance Chapter 37: Fire Chapter 38: Talking at Windows Chapter 39: The Walking Dead Chapter 40: Blood from Stone Chapter 41: Shadow and Flicker Chapter 42: The Heist Chapter 43: Stormwinds Chapter 44: Falling Down -------------------------------------------------- The Red Horse -------------------------------------------------- The Pale Horse

Well, poop. Although this could be interesting...

Year 5, Day 307... It's been a busy few weeks. That darn rescue alarm is still going off, but the engineer crafted a very short-term solution by putting a piece of tape over it. Meanwhile, Lodvin Kerman's... acclimation proceeds as expected. He has no idea how he got to space, where he's from, who he is... or why there's a pile of bricks clogging his toilet. That last one is a bit strange, even for around here. ...and I think these headlights might be just a tad too bright...

There seems to be a "simple" solution here, to me. Someone just needs the vision to bring together a NewSpace trifecta. SpaceX will provide transport to/from LMO, Blue Origin will provide a reusable LH/O lunar lander, and Bigelow will provide the destination. All this hawrdare are already on the respective companies' to-do list. A single ITS flight (expendable) could easily plunk multiple BA-330's on the surface, with an ISRU setup. Once all this hardware actually exists in a commercial state, I honk it'll just need the right person to bring it all together. Maybe Bezos, maybe someone else.

Nice ego... be a shame if someone... overdrew it.

I saw what you did there, you sneak. Nice save before a mod wandered by.

Ahah! They really are going to land it right back on the pad! (No need for legs that way.) IIRC there's no separate pressurant, they'll use methane/oxygen heated in the engine to pressurize the tanks. Maybe the visible tank is just some sort of accumulator?

Le sigh. Well as long as spoilers are spoiling, I have a few more lines to add to the prologue, then I might get it posted this weekend. But yes, probably not suited for an 8/9 year old, at least if you ever want him to sleep again. @JustJim's work, on the other hand, seems tailor made to that bracket. Just the right amount of space cheese.

Aaaaand there goes another spoiler. Kerm. Flarping. Dangit. Is no thread safe?!

Don't you mean... yuge?

Goodness, gracious, great... roundish flamey things!

And here I thought it was just an F-5 Aggressor.

First thought was: IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'm the kerb in the box... Buried in my... well, you get the idea. Where is this challenge you speak of?

Elon & his drones, boy I tell yah! Looks like there's a recovered booster with its engines removed in there, wonder what the story is there.

Welp, half a day later and there's absolutely nothing I can add to this discussion, it's all been said. Mission: accomplished.

I'll just leave this here.

*coughbullcrapcough*

Or... is it? Maybe it's locked, but everyone acts like it's unlocked, thereby altering reality by the power of willful perception.

Perhaps... perhaps it is one of those exotic quantum threads... that is both locked and unlocked at the same time...

Simple as opposed to "roaring in at the edge of the envelope and nearly out of fuel" as a much heavier launch would be.

I expect it will, from what I hear BulgariaSat is very light for a commsat, should be a simple droneship landing.