KSK

So in effect you're telling me that this book will positively affect my writing? Sounds good.

It's amazing where that research can go. I never expected to need to read up on lumberjacking when writing a story about small green aliens and their space obsession.

Yeah - it's not like Armstrong was a naturally excitable type. The man bailed out of an out-of-control 'flying bedstead' lunar landing trainer and then goes right back to the office like it was no big deal. Even the other astronauts thought that was a bit frosty.

Some of my headcanon on kerbal architecture starts a few paragraphs in. Basically very organic looking, lots of curves, lots of trees and green space. Traditional materials, at least for cladding, a bit more modern under the surface.

But whatever you do, please don't forget to run a properly charge-modulated baryon sweep on the pastium plate first. As well as being intrinsically hazardous at extreme velocities, baryons will attract the negative gravioli particles you seek to repel, thus rendering the entire device perfectly anti-cromulent.

Depends if you count space opera as sci-fi I guess. Interesting article but I disagree with Fredinno's interpretation of it. It comes up with a thought experiment device that still isn't quite like a lightsaber and still requires some handwavium to make it work i.e. a forcefield that blocks infra-red but not visible light. I don't think that counts as 'barely possible'.

Overpopulation and climate change leading to inadequate food and water security, followed by warfare to secure what resources are left, followed by some suitably desperate nation kicking things off with a nuke. Probably wouldn't kill off all of humanity but living in whatever's left wouldn't be a lot of fun. Edit: In a probably vain attempt to keep this on track, I refuse to speculate on the root causes of said climate change.

It's cop-out time. Anything and everything that you alluded to in Heavy is the Head, I would love to hear more about! Especially about the Empress (may she rule forever). Oh - and on a completely different note, somebody please feed Edgas a nice nourishing bowl of mush. Put some spine into the lad, or at least bung him up so solidly that ruining Val's shoes is no longer an option. Because foamy hurk should not be a thing!

Sure! I use a modified version of this one. Young Kolus is of course, Wakira, named to go with the ocean it borders. Old Kolus is simply Kolus. The border between Firesvar, Kolus and Wakira is slightly different, such that there is a point where both borders meet - which is where Val is currrently commanding the Kolus air border patrols. The yellow peninsula doesn't exist as a separate regionality but is part of Kolus. There are probably a couple of other discrepancies too but those are the main ones. Thanks for the guesses - I'm flattered by CatastrophicFailure's suggestion - that sounds pretty deep! Bev, all of those things will come to pass - but not quite in the next couple of chapters. Edit: First draft of Shrinking the Ellipse is done although it still needs a readthrough and polish. Moving on to Children of Kerbin.

Sweeet! Thanks for the shout-out.

Consider it done! Who am I to refuse the legendary Dr Heywood Kerman.

Working on it. I got a bit stuck with the next part so I did my usual unblocking trick and skipped ahead a chapter. That one is going OK so far and I plan to spend most of this afternoon on it. Soooo - probably going to be a while before the next update but it'll be a double-bill! In the meantime, the next two chapters are called (in order): Children of Kerbin Shrinking the Ellipse Free internet points to anyone who guesses the general theme for either.

Difficult to say without having read the story so far but is there any way you can mix-and-match those options a bit? Chapter X: First half describes characters looking for clues, segues into a second half written from Jeb's point-of-view. Chapter X+1: Clue-finding mission finishes. Armed with new knowledge, a team heads back to space to find out what the antagonist is doing. Something like that?

Don't forget to get yourself a nice trench broom to sweep up with once you're done...

Cool! Looking forward to it.

I know that nuclear weapons can fizzle if designed poorly but I'm genuinely curious as to how an antimatter weapon would ever fizzle. Keeping the thing from exploding at full yield if you look at it cross-eyed would be the main problem I would have thought! Edit: More generally, the big problems with sci-fi weapons are size and energy requirements. Can we build a laser powered death ray? Probably - see SargeRho's post. Can we build a sidearm sized version of that death ray? Not a hope without some serious advances in battery technology and even then, probably not. Can we attach the whole thing to a shark? Yes - but seabass are easier to handle, even the ill tempered mutant ones.

It's never wrong to question, although sometimes it's best to question in the privacy of your own head. Being critical without being aware of all the relevant facts (as we're almost certainly doing here) isn't wrong but it is a) largely pointless and b) dumb.

Or possibly a Robert Jordan fan. The dress was blue and she smoothed the front of it meaningfully whilst muttering oft-repeated implications about men.

Ahh dangit, you beat me to it, RocketSquid! It doesn't riff on the original as well as your version but here's my slightly self-indulgent take on that classic. Ground Control to Kerbal 1, Ground Control to Kerbal 1, Finish those snacks and put your helmets on. 9…8…7… Ground Control to Kerbal 1, Commencing countdown, engine on. 5…4…3… Light the Trashcans and may strength of Kerm be with you… This is Ground Control to Kerbal 1! Tell us, are you guys OK? Telemetry died, thought you’d had your day! And did Bill pack his camera by the way? This is Kerbal 1 to Ground Control! We’re wedged into our seats, Not floating in any particular way! But the stars look very different today… For here we are, sitting in a tin can... High above the world. Planet Kerbin’s blue and we wish you were here too. Though we’ve only passed ‘bout twenty miles, We’re falling through the sky, And we’re hoping that the parachutes will open. Tell the team, they did their best, we know... Ground Control to Kerbal 1, We see your chutes; you’re comin’ home! Hang in there, Kerbal 1. Hang in there, Kerbal 1. Hang in there, Kerbal 1. Hang in there… For there you were, Sitting in a tin can, Long, long way to the Mün… But planet Kerbin’s blue, and we’re gonna see it too.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with this. That first section worked quite well for me. It sets the scene (bad stuff just happened), leaves the reader with a question (did that station survive?) and leaves the door open for exploring all the ifs, buts and wherefors in flashback. If the story had been building up to that point then yes - more detail required, perhaps written through Bob's POV as you suggest. As it is, it's just a hook to catch the reader's attention and give him/her the salient details asap. The second part with Bill - that's the important bit. That starts to set expectations for the story and, as Ten Key, described, there's a lot of potential mileage there in letting Bill be the reader's proxy for coming to terms with the end of the world. All in all, good start but I'd just echo the comments from everyone else - planning is going to be important. Assuming that there are going to be survivors from the Atomic Crisis, having them survive whilst keeping the story self-consistent is going to be the real trick I think.

It's theoretically possible. From Wikipedia: "On August 7, 1980 Viking 1 Orbiter was running low on attitude control gas and its orbit was raised from 357 × 33943 km to 320 × 56000 km to prevent impact with Mars and possible contamination until the year 2019. Operations were terminated on August 17, 1980 after 1485 orbits." Plane changes at 56,000 km shouldn't require much delta-V. I haven't looked at this in too much detail but both Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter inserted into a highly eccentric orbit (minimum amount of delta-V expended to achieve capture) and then gradually aerobraked down to a lower, circular orbit. I wouldn't have thought they have the delta-V for any significant plane changes, although I don't know what sort of adjustments would be required in The Martian.

But only 10 kinds of people understand base 2...

And they're all fully baked. Nothing half-baked here!

You're more than welcome - and your chemists still make me laugh.

Agreed - thanks for keeping it civil.