KSK

About time I got round to following this - so consider it done.

You're welcome. And if Dres is supposed to be the in-game Ceres analogue.... *runs away grinning evilly*

Yo dawg?

From the abstract: "The combined presence on Ceres of ammonia-bearing hydrated minerals, water ice, carbonates, salts, and organic material indicates a very complex chemical environment, suggesting favorable environments to prebiotic chemistry." From the main text: "The pronounced difference in the 3.3- to 3.6-μm region between the surface around Ernunet crater and regions further away (Fig. 1) indicates the presence of additional absorbing species in the latter. These species are able to produce a distinctive absorption (at 3.4 μm) without appreciably affecting the remaining parts of the spectrum. The main candidates for this band are materials containing C–H bonds, including a variety of organic materials, such as hydrogenated amorphous carbon and complex residues produced by the irradiation of different ices (17–19). All these species are broadly described as “organics,” and we will use the term “organic-rich” (OR) to describe the spectrum and the area showing this band." "The identification of the precise nature of the organic material is challenging. The shape of the band and the lack of a clear 3.3-μm feature allow us to eliminate aromatic species as main carriers of the features on Ceres, whereas hydrogenated sp3 carbon can be identified from the antisymmetric and symmetric stretching modes of methyl and methylene functional groups. Thus, we can exclude organics with a high content of aromatic carbon (like anthraxolites) in favor of hydrocarbons rich in aliphatic carbon (like asphaltite and kerite). However, a further discrimination among different aliphatic-rich organics is difficult. Furthermore, we used a nonlinear mixing algorithm (24) and found a good match with an intimate mixture of ~4 to 9% of aliphatic hydrocarbons (table S1). The specific value of the abundance of organics depends on the spectral end-member, i.e., kerite or asphaltite (25), used in the fitting procedure. Although the best fit is achieved with 5% of kerite, asphaltite also provides a good result (Fig. 3). Therefore, we cannot clearly identify the specific aliphatic compound present on Ceres. In addition, IOM materials are very good spectral analogs of Ceres OR, but the available laboratory spectra of IOM lack absolute reflectance and thus cannot be used for the fitting procedure." IOM - Insoluble Organic Matter. As opposed to SOM for Soluble Organic Matter. SOM can be found in carbonaceous chondrites and can include biotically interesting compounds such as amino acids, nucleobases, sugars, and monocarboxylic acids. So yeah - organics on Ceres but more the stuff that you might pave roads with than build little green aliens with.

Agreed on all points, especially the Kerbal Space Coast Guard point. That just seems like poorly thought out gameplay or a case of unintended consequences, depending on how charitable you're feeling. I also dislike rescue contracts because for me they break any suspension of disbelief in Career Mode. Which probably sounds a bit ridiculous, but I can generally rationalize / roleplay away, the aspects of Career mode that I find a bit silly. Rescue missions though: "Help - we have a kerbal stranded in space. Generous reward offered for a rescue attempt - contract is urgent and must be signed within two days." *signs contract* "Hey - thanks for that. No hurry on the rescue by the way - any time in the next five years will be fine." Well that was a let down. Way to kill off any drama or tension in a rescue. Heck - I wonder if I could just tell the stranded fool to deorbit using his jetpack and then just make sure to land on his head after reentry. He might be a bit dizzy after that but I'm sure he'll walk away from the experience just fine. Personally, I'd just scrap the rescue contracts, replace them with satellite servicing contracts (basically the same idea - rendezvous with target, get kerbal within 5m of target to complete) and then retune the kerbal hiring costs to something a bit more reasonable.

You're not the only one pushing reasonable explanations. It's just that everybody else's reasonable explanations don't appear to fit your preconceptions. If that's what you were looking for, then I suggest posting a more specific question next time, rather than posting a fairly open-ended one and then loudly disagreeing with the answers you get. Unless we also know where the centre-of-mass is, then I don't see how we can decide whether moving the centre of lift back will improve stability or not. Then again, I'm only relying on what I've picked up from KSP, which is probably even more dangerous for aeronautical engineering than it is for rocket engineering.

And I look forward to seeing where it goes. Hard to say this without sounding biased but the quality of fanfiction on this forum is just rock solid. I've followed quite a few stories here over the years and I still find myself asking that hoary old question - how do you folks come up with this stuff? Where do you get the ideas from?

Nice writing! Although I'm currently trying to imagine a kerbal mosh pit - and failing badly.

KSK - short for Kerbin Shattering Kaboom. Made up shortly after my first decently sized rocket got off the pad and probably best read in your finest Marvin the Martian voice: "There was no kaboom. There was supposed to be a Kerbin shattering kaboom." As for my avatar - well I wrote a short story about Jeb, Bill and Bob's first flight aboard the Kerbal 1 - their last ditch attempt at a sub-orbital rocket. Another forum-goer made a mission patch for a - completely unrelated - Kerbal 1 and was kind enough to let me use it for my avatar.

Uh - I just watched that video from end to end. I didn't see or hear any admission from a NASA engineer that 'they can't get past the van-Allen belts'. I did hear him discuss the Belts and mention that Orion had sensors to measure conditions within the Belts as part of it's first test flight. Oh - and I did see a bunch of snarky comments added in subtitles, with absolutely no indication that those comments were linked to NASA. I'm not convinced by your evidence.

Hey folks, I thought I'd take the liberty of starting a companion thread for @MinimalMinmus's excellent Encyclopaedia Kerbalis. "Today, I decided to start a large project on Kerbal space program: writing encyclopedic definitions for every bodies of the Kerbolar system! The infos will be varied, from history of science to exogeology, as well as some kerbal culture. I will try as much as possible to keep the whole scientifically sound. If you see anything that could be improved on this part, be sure to tell me. Also, you can if you want create your own articles, based on a body of the Kerbolar system, or you could expand on some of the topics I mention here." Emphasis added. I thought it would be nice to keep the main thread as a repository of all the actual encyclopaedia articles, and have this thread as a place for comments and discussion! Cheers, KSK.

It would go so well with all the cheese. Might even fend off (or at least mask) the symptoms of Space Madness too.

Personal head-canon. Kerbal civilization started as a system of what were effectively city-states. Those states began to coalesce and were well on the way to becoming nations when a major global crisis struck. The first reaction of the proto-nations was to compete against each other, each trying to secure the resources and land necessary to overcome the crisis. It took a great and far-sighted leader to establish an effective Bill of Rights for all the inhabitants of Kerbin, together with a world government - the Council of Twelve Pillars - to enforce it. His name? Jebediah Kerman. Today, the nearest Kerbin has to nations are the six administrative units known as Regionalities. The Council of Twelve Pillars itself was founded on strict principles of honesty, integrity, transparency, and duty to one's fellow kerbal that have truly stood the test of time. For example, take this statement to the Council made by one Jerfun Kermol. For reference, Jerfun is a respected figure and a leader in his own right. “Do you, Jerfun Kermol, wish to place your petition on the public record?" “Madame President, I do." The twelve kerbals at the table sat up a little straighter. One or two of them exchanged brief looks. Up in the press gallery, Dondrin leaned forward intently. Burvis kept her face carefully impassive. “By order of this Council, a petition so placed shall be deemed accurate and inviolable. Any false statement made therein, whether purposeful or inadvertent, does constitute a betrayal of these Twelve Pillars, punishable consecutively, to the fullest extent possible by law, in each of the Six Regionalities of Kerbin." “Does now the Petitioner, in full and complete knowledge of the consequences of his actions, wish to place his petition on the public record?" Jerfun didn't hesitate. “Madame President, I do."

I'm thinking 'purple' will be the new swear word for your narrator. Another great chapter - thanks for sharing!

I speak English (native speaker), some French although I'm horribly out of practice, and a small smattering of German. I could probably order a beer, say thank you and apologize in a couple of other languages. Also, I know a couple of phrases (including Jeb is a badS) in Old Kerba.

A fair point but making direct observations eventually leads you to Mad (or at least increasingly implausible) Physics. Also, the kerbals live in a moddable malleable universe where entire planets can appear, disappear or inflate at will and even the stars themselves are not fixed. Kerbin can have clouds, trees, cacti, mysterious patches of light on the ground - but not for all observers. So I'm with Tex. Personal headcanon - the traditional kerbal dwelling is basically a large round hut built round a tree trunk. Modern kerbal architecture is fairly modular - and still based around that traditional hut. Bigger buildings are essentially a set of hut shapes smushed together, so tend to have a very curvy, scalloped, organic look to them. Outwardly, they'll be built from natural materials - stone, wood, maybe even fabrics, but with more modern materials under the surface. Kerbal cities are generally very green, pleasant places to live. with lots of trees and parks. Transportation relies heavily on electric vehicles or bicycle rickshaws called tik-tiks. (If anyone has been to Thailand, yes this is a blatant riff on the tuk-tuk. )

On the other hand, it seems that his memory of Meg is/was the last thing standing between him and the Shadow. That's gotta count for something somewhere, even if he hasn't got a hope of explaining it to her. And Val - pudgy? Better not tell a certain Nablyudatel that... Edit - oh, and fork-kicker? Sir Terry would have approved.

Yup - @superstrijder15 is doing a sterling job in pulling together all the Old Kerba we've discussed so far. I should also say he's doing an even better job in coming up with pointers and suggestions for building on what we've got so far! Verb forms, tenses, all that good stuff that a language needs. If anyone wants to join in the conversation, just drop me a private message. @DarkOwl57 - if you do have the time, the story really does make more sense if you start from the beginning. There's plenty of spaceflight and more recognizably KSP parts in there as well as all the stuff about the Kerm. I can't really give you a good answer to your question without including huge amounts of spoilers but then again, it's quite a long story now and if you just want to dip into it to read the parts about the war, that's cool too. So - crying 'spoiler' and unleashing the forum tags of hiding - here's a quick summary. Hope that helps a bit!

Yep - spot on with eb! I haven't given much thought to verbs yet but eb is short enough that it probably is irregular. And yes, minsatha-belda would be grammatically correct and that's a great translation! Probably used to express disappointment rather than anger or scorn, since the on (indicating dependence) marker isn't present. So minsatha-belda would imply a failure but with possibility for making amends (didn't do this small thing once) whereas belda-minsathona implies that the person can't be depended on at all. 'accomplisher of big deeds' (i.e. some kind of hero or respected person) is easily done. Either belda-sathmina (accomplisher of the not small deeds) or, if you wanted to be more emphatic belda-mansatha (accomplisher of the biggest deeds) Edit, so in Old Kerba: Jebediah eb belda-mansatha. Really enjoying this!

Reactor online... Sensors online... Weapons... online.

You're absolutely right - original post edited to include 1st and 3rd person plural inflections. Also - apologies for the incorrect 'homework'. The word should have been balda-sathona which puts a rather different slant on the translation. @0111narwhalz's translation of balda-sathana was pretty much spot on though and I very much liked @CSE's interpretation! All I can say in response is: KSK eb belda-minsathona.

Oh... Ohhhh! Now that gives me a great idea for a chunk of dialogue, if not for the next chapter then one further down the line. Provided that it fits of course. In the meantime, whilst we're on a roll with this, it occurs to me that we need some case inflections. So far we have bal as a case marker in its first person singular form, signifying 'the means by which I accomplish an action. So, keeping all digits firmly crossed that I'm not overreaching here, lets expand that: bal - 1st person singular - the means by which I accomplish an action. bala - 2nd person singular - the means by which you* accomplish an action. balr - 3rd person singular - the means by which he/she/it accomplishes an action. balad - 1st person plural - the means by which we accomplish an action. balda - 3rd person plural - the means by which they accomplish an action. * Kerbals are a relatively informal bunch so lets not have formal and informal versions of you as found in French (tu/vous) or German (du/Sie). Next, taking inspiration from the etymology of kerbal, lets have another case marker bel denoting a person by which an action is accomplished. Bel can also be inflected as shown above. In that case, your homework - should you choose to accept it - is to parse the following Old Kerba word into English and in doing so, identify the noun. balda-sathana If I've got this right, the exercise ought to be possible from the above discussion of Old Kerba grammar. Don't worry about the noun yet - the translation for that ties into that chunk of dialogue I mentioned before... Edit. Apologies - not directed just at @DarkOwl57 - if anyone else fancies taking a crack at this, please feel free. It's not at all important but I would be curious to see if anyone comes up with the same translation that I have.

S'cuse me. Anyone seen a jaw around here? Ahh, yes, that's the one. Thanks. Kerbal: n. contraction of Kerm-bal. Translates to 'thing by which the Kerm does not carry out an action.' Or in other words, a (very) ancient name given to themselves by a species who have declared that they will no longer be slaves to the Kerm. They haven't quite got a sense of identity yet either, since they are not declaring themselves 'persons by which the Kerm does not carry out an action', but that works too. After all, to all intents and purposes they don't have an identity at that point in history. Oh man - that fits. That fits! THAT FITS! I honestly wish I could claim it was premeditated but as @CatastrophicFailure would say - that moment when you realise your readers are making connections within your story that you never even realised. And that is one heck of a connection. Wow. You folks are the best! Thank you!

Thanks everyone! And now you've inspired me to think about this a bit more. About the only other Old Kerba we've come across in the story so far is Balcabar - explained by Hading as a contraction of Bal-cabara or 'homes on the sand'. Whoever told Hading that was correct but there's a bit more to it than that and kerbal linguists are still debating the precise etymology. bal in Old Kerba is a case marker (Old Kerba is a pretty case-heavy language as you may have noticed ) denoting the 'means by which I accomplish an action'. In that sense it's somewhat similar to the instrumental case in certain Terran languages. A great many nouns in Old Kerba are compound words of the form bal+infinitive. This is less common in Modern Kerba, but even so, bal is a common starting syllable for nouns, especially historically important ones, and usually indicates that the word is derived from Old Kerba. So for example: balskirn - spade. Contraction of bal-skirn, literally 'thing which I use to dig'. balskila - knife. Contraction of bal-skila, literally 'thing which I use to cut'. Cutting and digging of course are basic to Kerm husbandry, amongst other things. Bal-cabara is a rather poetic word. Depending on how you parse it, it has two possible meanings. Writing them out longhand with all the (normally omitted by convention) hyphens: 1. bal-cabara - bal = thing which I use; cabara is a verb meaning to shelter, so balcabara translates to 'thing which I use to shelter.' Now some scholars of Old Kerba believe that cabara is a very old compound word of ca-bar-a. Here ca = fear; bar is a case marker for possession but in it's suffix form so here it signifies dispossession; and finally a which simply denotes a plural. Put all that together and cabara translates to 'dispossession of fears' or 'freedom from fears'. 2. Contraction of bal-calab-bar-a. Calab is the word for sand, so bal-calabbara translates literally to 'thing which gives me freedom from sands'. Put both of those together and 'homes on the sand' isn't a bad translation.

Sure. In Old Kerba, an is a case marker indicating belonging or inclusion and, when used as a prefix, roughly translates to 'of the' or 'within the'. When used as a suffix (and this is quite a general feature of Old Kerba), it translates to the opposite, so. 'not of the' or 'outside of'. So a Kerm-an (or kerman for short) is somebody outside of, or apart from, the Kerm whereas an an-Kerm is somebody within or a part of, the Kerm. Similarly olia is a general term for fighting or disputing. When used as a prefix it translates to 'attacker of something', when used as a suffix it becomes 'defender of something'. That 'something' doesn't have to be a physical object in the same way that you can attack somebody's opinion in English. So an olia-Kerm is an attacker of the Kerm, conversely a Kerm-olia (or kermol for short) isa defender or protector of the Kerm. Expanding on this a little (fresh from the department of extemporaneous worldbuilding ), we can examine the word bar-katon (or Barkton for short) in more detail. Kat is the noun for 'forest', bar is a case marker that roughly translates to 'possession of' and on is (yet another marker) signifying dependence. So on-kat signifies some kind of dependence on the forest, whereas kat-on signifies independence from the same. Thus, bar-katon (by convention only the first hyphen is included) translates to 'possessing an independence from the forest', or more simply 'freedom from the forest'. Note that one might equally well write on-katbar, or literally 'not possessing a dependence on the forest.' Grammatically, that would be perfectly correct, although bar-katon is more emphatic. In English it would be the difference between 'CatastrophicFailure is not evil' and 'CatastrophicFailure is good'.