KSK

Thanks! Glad you're still enjoying it and thanks for dropping by to comment.

Just finished catching up with this! It appears that the moral of the story is never to put a writer in charge of an experimental spaceplane. Great work, Kuzzter - really looking forward to the rest of the story!

Hey Briansun! Good to have you back and yep - the story has grown a bit over the summer. List of names is here.

Like a bad penny. Next chapter is up. Sorry it took quite as long - after the last one, I had intended to start getting them out a bit quicker but life is getting in the way at the moment. Under Pressure For a long minute the gentle susurration of unfolding leaf clusters was the only sound in the room. Then, gradually, it was joined by the rustling of ponchos, the occasional popping joint and the creak and rattle of wooden bunk frames as their occupants clambered stiffly off their beds. Patbro watched kerbal after sombre kerbal retrieve their footwear, murmur their thanks to the figure by the Kerm trunk, and file quietly out of the room. "Could you do me a favour and open the drapes, Pat?" Pellucid light trickled through the window, doing little to disperse the gloom inside. Patbro watched the verandah doors rumble open, letting in a cleansing breeze. He ran his fingers through his hair, staring out at the grey afternoon sky, the crisp air refreshingly cold on his face and neck. A sudden splash of water on stone caught his attention; he turned round to see Jonton taking a deep draught from an earthenware mug, before wiping his lips with the back of his hand. "That's better - thanks. Got a spare mug here if you want one?" Wordlessly, Patbro studied his friend, noting the streaks of grey at his temples and the thinning skin pulled tight over newly prominent cheekbones. Deep nests of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and an oddly distant gaze, completed the picture. He nodded. "I could use one after all that. You've turned into a half-decent public speaker though, Jonton - how often have you told that story now?" Jonton handed him a mug of water. "I've lost count to be honest," he said, "Especially over the last month. People are still trickling in from Kallahat and Barkton, we're starting to see more and more from Foxham and last week we had a pair of Firesvarn turn up - Kerm only knows how they heard about it all." He rubbed his eyes. “That's one figure of speech I really need to lose." Patbro reached for the light switch. “Ker...Pillars but it's gloomy out there. Mind if I put these on?" “No, go on," said Jonton. He gave Patbro a lopsided grin.“That's one thing that this Kerm definitely does know - light is always good. Shame we can't migrate - I could just do with upping roots and heading somewhere sunny. Forseti maybe, or the Maldonians." Yellow-white light flooded the room, chasing away the drab view outside. Jonton's face seemed less drawn and haggard in the comforting brightness and Patbro swore he could see the an-Kerm straightening up slightly, head turning towards the bulbs. "Forseti would be nice," he agreed. “Even with their heatwave." He sat down on Jonton's bed, raising his eyebrows at the cartoon-covered pillows scattered under the Kerm leaves. “Didn't figure you for a Twelve Riders fan, Jonton." “Oh, those'll be Joenie's," said Jonton, “You were saying about a heatwave?" “There's quite a lot of pillows here, Jonton," said Patbro. “Well yes," said Jonton, “She's only little - her head can't reach the leaves without them." “That's what I was afraid you were going to say."Patbro said slowly. He laced his fingers together nervously behind his head and stared up the ceiling. “Sorry, Jonton - all this is taking some getting used to." He looked at his friend soberly. “I'd keep quiet about Joenie if I were you. Sharing your Kerm is bad enough but sharing it with a kerblet..." His voice trailed away. “I'm not sharing anything," said Jonton impatiently. “I am the Kerm. And communing with kerblets was old before the Age of Madness." “Yes," said Patbro. "Exactly." “Oh come on," said Jonton. “Communing with kerblets had nothing to do with it. A lot of mistakes were made but that wasn't one of them." He lifted his hands defensively. “Besides, I was careful. I only communed with Joenie after a lot of practice. She's still my daughter, Pat - I haven't changed that much." He stopped at the sudden crumpled expression on Patbro's face. “What is it, Pat?" “My daughter," said Patbro thickly, “And my Kerm. Tivie... she found it's seed. I..I heard the stories about you - came here to find out if what they're saying about the Blight is true." He cleared his throat. “S-sorry, Jonton. Was hoping you'd have a different story, or an answer or..." Patbro swiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “Or something." “Actually," said Jonton slowly, “I might." He looked at Patbro. “At least I hope I have. It could still be dangerous though - I'd understand if you didn't want to risk.." “She found it a week ago," said Patbro quietly. “First thing I did was go to Barkton and check the satellite maps - there aren't any single sites left for hundreds of kilometres, maybe further. Everywhere else has been zoned for overlapping Groves." Jonton nodded. “The nearest site used to overlap with my range," he said, “But not any more." Patbro's eyes widened as Jonton quickly described how he'd learned to watch over the land around his Grove and his struggle to relinquish control over even a small part of it. “We'll need to be careful, but the poppy line should be enough of a marker." “And there won't be any overlap?" said Patbro hoarsely. “No Blight, no sparks, no..." “No, “ said Jonton softly. “No sparks, no struggle. Tivie's new Kerm should have all the room it needs." ---------- “Upside-down?" Lodan looked disbelievingly at Dunney. “How the Kerm did they manage to install the blighted thing upside-down?!" Dunney dropped his creased and rumpled jacket on the seat of the chair and dropped himself on top of it. The smell of sweat and unwashed clothing clung to him like a miasma and the bags under his eyes spoke of far too many sleepless nights. “An infelicitous design choice compounded by too many late nights of adrenaline and coffee, multiplied by Kerm knows how many weeks of work without a day off," he said wearily. “We managed to catch the other slip-ups but one finally got through the post-assembly checks. Frankly, I'm astonished it's the first one that got through." “But..." “The instrument packages are modular. Power connectors on one end, data connectors on the other. Put them on a standard chassis and you can build whatever payload you need in short order. Testing and troubleshooting is nice and straightforward - just keep on swapping out modules until you find the duff one." Dunney sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Until you drop one in upside down and short the main power supply through the IO bus. That just gets you a bang, a couple of crispy circuit boards and about three weeks work straight down the Wak." “How..." “When we get a minute to breathe we'll redesign the connectors. For now we're just painting yellow warning stripes on the sparky end of each module. Before they're assembled I might add, to stop some sleep deprived engineer painting the wrong end of a finished one. Was there anything else, Director?" “I was just going to ask how long it's been since you got any sleep yourself?" Lodan said mildly. “What day is it?" “That's about what I thought, "Lodan poured a glass of iced water and slid it across his desk to Dunney. “I'd offer you coffee, but under the circumstances I don't think it would go down too well." Dunney grunted in agreement. Lodan looked at him thoughtfully, steepling his fingers over the bridge of his nose, before resting them on the edge of his desk. “I remember," he said carefully, “thinking long and hard before setting up Probodyne as a semi-autonomous KSA department. In the end I thought it was the right decision, and that putting yourself in charge of it was also the right decision." He looked directly at Dunney. “I still do." Dunney finished his glass of water in one swallow. “Well that's something at least. But would you get to the point. Celestial mechanics - least of all launch windows to Duna - wait for no kerbal." Lodan opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Very well," he said at last. “As of this minute, I am rescinding Probodyne's autonomy. I am closing down all Probodyne manufacturing facilities and suspending your staff pending two full nights of sleep and one compulsory day of rest and relaxation. Once I am satisfied that all members of staff are in a fit state to return to work, your autonomy will be reinstated. I trust my point is made clear, Professor." Dunney lunged to his feet, planting both hands squarely on Lodan's desk and leaning towards other kerbal. “Quite clear - Director! And don't you ever..." He pulled up short at the sight of Lodan's raised eyebrow. “Ah - reinstated you say?" Lodan just looked at him. Dunney sat down again and picked up his glass before noticing it was empty and putting it down. Quietly, Lodan refilled it and leaned back in his chair. “Point made, Lodan, point made." Dunney sighed. “We can make up the time. Rework the schedule, run extra night shifts..." “Or we can bring in some more staff," said Lodan, “I'm quite certain that Jebediah or Ademone will be able provide some help in that regard." He saw the look on Dunney's face and sighed. “I know it's not ideal, Dunney but I'm sure they can send you one or two kerbals capable of holding a soldering iron and following instructions. Rockomax do have a very large satellite team of their own and even the KIS managed to put a probe around the Mün." “Right - and we're going to be putting two in orbit around Duna." “I'm not proposing to put them in front of a console and help you fly them." said Lodan patiently. “Just to help you build them. I know as well as you do that we can't afford to miss the next launch window - and I can't afford to burn out my scouting party either." The corner of Dunney's mouth twitched. “ Plenty of time before the Eve launch window opens," he said, “Especially as I decided to skip the one before that." He lifted a finger warningly as Lodan opened his mouth. “I trust you'll agree that scouting out Eeloo is not an immediate priority?" “No," said Lodan, “No, you're right of course." He sighed. “Go on - go and tell your team to take tomorrow off. And if I catch anyone on the assembly floor tomorrow, you can let them know that they'll be suspended indefinitely." ---------- Wispy trails of ice crystals streaked the sky overhead, like a gauzy veil cast over the world. Far below, the grasslands and conifer forests of northern Kolus were gradually giving way to tundra. Even so, fingers of cultivated land still sprawled into the wilderness, in a patchwork of irregular fields, dotted with the inevitable Kerm Groves. On the western horizon, the very tallest peaks of the Northern Range shouldered their way through into the sky; their massive granite ramparts draped with folded bastions of dense white cloud. Val swallowed the last mouthful of pressed sunfruit bar, made a face at her water bottle and hooked her oxygen mask back over her face. The less time I spend in a wetsuit, the better. Though it might cushion this damn seat a little. The waypoint indicator chimed and clicked over from three to four. Val glanced at her kneeboard, nodded to herself, and eased the Cloudrunner into a gentle bank. Rolling her wings level, she pushed the control stick forward, nudging her aircraft into a shallow descent towards the distant mountains. According to the historical records, kerbals had inhabited Kenar Vale since the Age of Sail and probably long before that. Sheltered by the eastward curling tip of the Northern Range and watered by mountain streams, the valley was both fertile and well defended from the elements. Iskenar had begun as a small mountain community sheltering in the natural cave formations at the back of the valley. The city had long since outgrown its roots, although the original cave dwellings were still in use and a popular destination for the more adventurous kerbals from the southern reaches of Kolus. Some fifty kilometres outside the city and situated at the mouth of the valley, Iskenar airport had been deliberately built at a safe distance from mountains and the often turbulent winds around them. Built from local greystone like the city itself, the roofs of its sculptured buildings planted with plots of grass and wildflowers, it blended seamlessly into the surrounding landscape. From the air, only the surrounding network of roads and runways saved it from almost invisibility. The Cloudrunner swooped down the outermost runway, flared gracefully and touched down with the barest jolt. Partially deployed airbrakes folded all the way out as the nose wheel kissed the tarmac. The little aircraft braked rapidly, swung smoothly around and rolled back up the runway, brakes and flaps retracting into its wings. With a final, expertly judged tap on the wheel brakes, Val turned the Cloudrunner's nose into the wind and shut down the engine. There was a sudden, deafening silence. Val removed her flight helmet, scratched her head and stretched as best she could in the confined cockpit. Then she reached down and pulled the canopy release lever. A freezing wind swirled through the cockpit, cutting through her sweaty flight suit like a knife and plastering the suddenly icy fabric against her skin. Cursing, she jerked the canopy shut again, and twisted the cockpit heater up to full. She scowled through the fogged up plexiglass, shivering as the clammy suit moulded itself to her legs. A pair of headlights appeared at the far end of the runway, dazzlingly bright as they raced towards her. Val blinked as the olive green car screeched to a halt and a figure leapt out, barely recognisable as a kerbal under its greatcoat and furred cap. She braced herself, pulled the lever and threw herself out of the cockpit, grabbing her windcheater as she went. The metal ladder stuck unpleasantly to her gloves as she scrambled clear of her aircraft and ran for the car. Her escort thrust an armful of heavy woollen fabric at her before dashing over to the Cloudrunner. Val hastily pulled on the greatcoat and turned to see the stranger closing and locking the cockpit canopy before swinging easily to the ground. He jogged over the car and gestured at the door nearest to Val before jumping into the driver's seat and slamming his own door shut behind him. "Welcome to Iskenar, Commander. Good to have you here." Val snorted. "Wish I could say the same." There was a chuckle from beside her. "Even on this pleasant autumn day without any snow falling?" "Only because it's too damn cold," Val muttered, hunching down in her seat. "What's the weather report from the border?" "About the same, Commander. We've been lucky." "And the squadron?" "The last of them flew in yesterday. Mountain rescue pilots mainly and more used to choppers than fixed wings. Most of them do hold a dual license but they'll be out of practice and none of them have any..." "Combat experience," said Val bleakly. "No. Officially we're to be a reconnaissance team of course but if the situation does go Humilisian on us..." he shrugged. "That's why they asked for you, Commander." Val glanced at him, taking in his creased and weatherbeaten face and the insignia on his collar. "What's your take on it, Sergeant?" she said at last, staring out of the window. "Messy ma'am. The Wakirans have been pi... sorry - disappointed - with us ever since that idiot Keeper tried to take a shortcut through their mountains. Firesvar hasn't made any overt moves yet but we think it's only a matter of time." Val closed her eyes. "Great. Just great. Is the armaments and refitting team on site yet?" "Waiting for us in the hangar. I'll be flying them, and the last of their gear, out in the Airhog tomorrow." "It sounds like you have everything in hand, sergeant." "I try, ma'am. Fuel truck is on its way - you'll just about have time for a coffee and a - well it'll be hot, ma'am, that's about all I can promise - whilst you're waiting to get airborne again." ---------- Geneney stared into his empty cup, the Doreni Blue coffee sitting heavily in his stomach. "We're doing our best," he said at last. "Making the lander lighter and stronger hasn't been easy. And the last thing we need is a repeat of the Pioneer 2 result - or worse - in Munar orbit." "I know that - and for what it's worth, I agree." A flicker passed over Lodan's face."But without the inspiration of a Munar landing to prop it up, the colonisation program is going to look impossible. How long, Gene? If Pioneer 3 goes to plan, how long before Pioneer 4?" Geneney caught the pleading look in Lodan's eyes and bowed his head to hide his shock. "Six months at the earliest," he said. "Realistically, more like eight. The hardware shouldn't be a problem - booster assembly is going well, the capsule is almost ready for final outfitting, and Ademone is confident that KDS4 will be finished in the same timeframe." He looked up to see the KSA director's usual imperturbable expression firmly back in place. "The training and flight planning is another matter though. I've barely started roughing out the contingencies and aborts list, Nelton and I are starting to think that we'll need an actual trainer vehicle for the landing, rather than simulating it in the Whirligigs, and the trajectory team still haven't got a good handle on the mascon problem." He paused. "Sorry, mass..." Lodan's lips twitched. "Mass concentrations? I'm familiar with the term - the Probodyne team have made quite sure of that." He shook his head at Geneney's hopeful expression. "Not as far as I know, Gene but I'll check." "That would be helpful," said Geneney. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "To be honest though, it's a small problem compared to the rest." Lodan nodded. "Could you send me an outline?" he said. "A memo would do; I don't need the details, just something I can put in front of the Council to give them some idea of what's involved." "I can do that," said Geneney carefully, "but I can't promise them a landing for Pioneer 4. They do realise that, don't they?" Suddenly, the desk phone rang. Lodan reached out to pick it up. "Direct line," he said briefly, "I'd better take this." "Lodan." He paused. "Both separated and deployed? Excellent - please pass along my congratulations and thanks to the whole team. And Hope 1 and 2? Very good. Indeed but it's always reassuring when the universe decides to agree with us. Yes, he's with me as we speak, so if you wouldn't mind. Yes, I'll come over to Probodyne once we're finished. Thank you, Dunney." Lodan put the phone down and for the first time that afternoon, permitted himself a small smile. "Hope 3 and 4," he said. "Both completed their injection burns to Duna and separated from their boosters on schedule. My thanks to your team as well, Gene - having Bill to help made things considerably easier." “Glad we could help." Geneney looked at him soberly. “Between you and me, unless Duna turns out to be a complete disaster, it's going to be our best hope, whatever we get from the Laythe probes. But back to the Mün - the Council do understand that we can't guarantee a landing on the first attempt don't they?" “That's what they'd tell you if you asked them in public," said Lodan. “In private...well that's my problem not yours. Just promise me you'll give it your best shot, Gene?" Pleading and then a deep, deep weariness flickered briefly in Lodan's eyes. Geneney swallowed hard, biting back a pointed comment and doing his best to project a firm reassurance. “Of course, Director. You have my word - the Kerbin Interplanetary Society will not let you down." << Chapter 50: Chapter 52>>

Interesting - thanks. So there are two main problems - the sheer volume of papers submitted, some of which are of less than stellar quality anyway, and the fact that sometimes you just can't get a paper peer reviewed because scientists are people too and may refuse to referee a paper for many reasons. As a result, whilst it might be nice to use a 'common sense' approach to abbreviations and such, there is simply not enough time for the journal to do this and a lot of the review process is done 'by the book' because that's the only way to get it done a) in a reasonable timeframe and whilst maintaining a reasonable level of quality. Net result - it's best for authors to err on the side of caution. Even if it seems incredibly pedantic and unnceccesary to define a particular abbreviation, it's a good idea to do it because it makes it easier for your paper to get through the review. Does that sound about right? Please feel free to correct me if not!

Well I believe you and parts of it sound perfectly reasonable, such as not using Genbank codes alone without also defining the gene. I would have thought three letter amino acid codes are standard enough not to need explicit definition though. And likewise, I'm a bit puzzled about the last part. Where do you fit into this process? What is your particular role? Naively, I would have thought it was the referee's job to review the maths and check whether it makes sense or whether it needs to be bounced back to the author. I'm genuinely curious here because what you're telling me seems an odd way to do things - but I have no reason to doubt you either. Again, genuinely curious, but when can you assume an abbreviation is just part of the common parlance in the field (or outside it for that matter) and doesn't need to be defined. Something like DNA for example - surely you don't send that back to the author for failing to define it as deoxyribonucleic acid?

I'm not going to get into a discussion about the content but I really don't think PB666s comments about abbreviations and acronyms are relevant here. The tone and intended comment of the thread was clearly pointed out at the start - this was not a post that was intended to overlap several disciplines of science and in the one discipline under discussion, K^2's notation was entirely standard. The last time I studied any QM (and that at the most superficial level) was nearly twenty years ago and the last time I studied maths was a couple of years before that, but even then the notation just wasn't that difficult to follow. Putting in definitions for those symbols would have been akin to starting a thread on chemistry and beginning with definitions of C, H, N or O. At some point it is (or should be) acceptable to assume that your readers have some background knowledge, and as mentioned above, the required background knowledge for this thread was made clear from the outset.

OK, that makes sense. Especially since my 'shapes' are just an arbitrary isosurface which denote a certain percentage probability that the electron will be found within the volume enclosed by the surface. Thanks.

A little off-topic but I'm going to try an experiment here: invagi-nation Yeah that's what I hoped. I think it's sad when the 'profanity' filter blocks out the anatomically correct term as a 'rude' word and mangles any words including it. I guess we could call them in-front-bottom-inations.

For general rocket science, http://www.braeunig.us/space/orbmech.htm is good, especially if you dig down into the site. For example http://www.braeunig.us/apollo/saturnV.htm gives loads of useful information on the Saturn V launch trajectory, which is very useful for throwing some plausible numbers into a story.

È = wavefunction, ћ is h/2 pi, I presume k is just a constant of proportionality and x is the single co-ordinate needed to define the harmonic oscillator? The first two are standard notation and not unreasonable (IMO) to use without further explanation in a quantum mechanics thread. Likewise bra-ket notation ( | >) which (if I remember correctly) is an extremely condensed form of a page or so of algebra.

And if that fails, there's almost nothing that mush can't fix. On a serious note though, I liked your technobabble interplanetary drive in Shadows! - - - Updated - - - I've covered my Jeb already on this thread, so I won't bore folks with him again. My Bill and Bob are completely switched around from the canon versions. My excuse (and I'm sticking to it!) is that I've been writing about them for a while now, certainly before kerbonaut roles were added to the game. Bill is the scientist/electronics guru. He's a bit shy but a good friend, refined and fond of the good things in life when he can get them. If the rest of the team are in a bar sampling the latest beers, then Bill will be the one sipping a good wine, or whatever the kerbal equivalent of a gin and tonic is. Bob is the engineer and he's basically everykerbal. Drop Bob into a situation and he'll just roll with it. Heck with it - if you don't mind the blatant self-quoting, then this is Bob: Now Val on the other hand is a late entrant to the story and is showing no sign of becoming a kerbonaut. Although she was a hot-shot sky racer, now turned military pilot. Or rather, now figuring out from scratch what this 'military' thing is...

Definitely. I actually ran into it in a smaller way once I began thinking about moving beyond LKO. At one point I had the KIS launching Saturn class rockets from out the back of Jeb's junkyard, which seemed implausible, to put it mildly, at least in the context of the story I wanted to tell. Dramatic but implausible. Time for a rethink. But yeah, interplanetary travel really changes the dynamic. It's such a massive leap in everything - resources required, journey times, complexity of ship required, factors (like life support and radiation shielding) that can be waved away for a Mun shot but which suddenly need to be properly addressed one way or another. Even if you're not planning to delve too far into the technicalities, scaling up a space program to interplanetary missions throws that program, and the reasons for its existence, into very sharp relief indeed.

I have no practical experience of selling on Amazon but I do know a bit about intellectual property. Disclaimer - I am not an IP attorney (still less a US attorney) and would always recommend consulting one if you have any doubts or queries. With that said. Unless you're in the business of selling software, copyright probably isn't going to help you that much. However, if you are thinking of selling software or any other creative works (manuals, other printed material etc.), then he good news is that copyright is granted automatically at no charge and only needs to be registered if you plan to enforce it, i.e. sue third parties for infringement. The registration fee is $55 and can be as low as $35 under certain circumstances. The US Copyright Office has more information. Trademarks serve to identify the goods or services provided by a given company. They are a powerful tool for establishing branding and corporate identity and are likely to be your most valuable piece of IP. The US Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO) has a lot of useful information on their website to get you started and it may be possible (I haven't checked) to register your trademarks yourself without using an attorney. However, because your trademark is likely to be a significant company asset, I would definitely consult a professional trademark attorney - he/she will ensure that your mark is registered properly and generally fit for purpose. Utility patents. What most people think of when they hear the word 'patent' and used to protect the technical details of new inventions. Expensive, fairly complicated the first time around, and probably not something you need to be concerned about right now unless your PCs include some novel bit of tech. If the internals are all off-the-shelf components, then there may not be much (or anything) you can file a utility patent for. Design patents. See 'Apple's rounded corner' patents and all the internet angst that went with them. Equivalent to design rights or registered design rights in other parts of the world, a design patent will only protect the 'look and feel' or 'industrial design' of an article. These might be worth looking into in more detail (consult an attorney!), particularly if your PCs come in a particularly distinctive case or something. Hope this helps a bit and good luck!

Agreed. Although I'm still trying to wrap my head around: Blame it on my chemistry background but I'm having trouble picturing that gradual transition. I'm familiar with orbitals of course and I imagine them as having a discrete shape (and yeah that is a simplification... but chemistry texts) for a given energy. Change the energy and you change the shape. So in that visualisation, if the energy jumps then the shape does too. Which is obviously wrong from what you're trying to tell us, so I guess I need to think about this some more. Keeps the brain active anyway!

Maybe that depends on country and industry. As far as I know, in the UK, antennae are for insects but antennas are what you find in your mobile phone. Source - my partner, who used to design them (in various contexts) for a living.

Myself, I find it a bit harder to connect with very far-future kerbals, simply because it's a bit removed from how I play KSP. On the other hand that can be a definite plus - you're free to break with any and all memes from the game and just go your own way. I also loved Deadweasel's Kerbal Khronicles and they were pretty futuristic. JakeGrey's The Next Frontier was kind of futuristic too, with a very kerbal twist to the bits of higher technology such as warp drive! So yeah, far future is cool. You're right though, if you're starting off by assuming spacefaring kerbals you need to find another question to ask, something else to build the story around. About Kerbal Future - great start that sparked lots of questions in my mind and definitely left me wanting to find out more. I like the multithreaded approach and the opening chapter - wow that was a different take on the kerbals! The glass mining in the next chapter was a piece of wonderfully inspired grimness too. In general, the story is pretty easy to read but the text could do with more spacing between paragraphs and particularly between lines of conversation, to make it a little easier on the eyes. I have a couple of thoughts on general style too if you want them but those are just minor details based on one-guy-on-the-internet's opinion.

I'm sure there are other ways of doing it but I found that asking myself 'why?' was a good way of working things out. Starting out with the basic question 'why are the kerbals going to space?' and eventually drilling down to quite specific points about why their world works the way it does. My original answer for that first question was a bit vague: 'because it's there'. I wanted to write a story that took the 'parts found lying by the side of the road' meme seriously and tried to give a vaguely plausible backstory for the Kerbal Space Program that really did begin in Jeb's junkyard, and for no better reason than the fact that the founder members were all obsessed with space. There were a couple of problems with that. Firstly, after a certain point, the story ran the risk of just becoming a list of rocket launches - and there's only so many ways I figured I could write about a rocket launch! Secondly, taking Jeb and Co. beyond LKO was going to stretch my junkyard space program idea beyond any plausibility it might have had. So I needed another answer. The one I came up with wasn't particularly original - basically a Malthusian (overpopulation) crisis. However, that answer threw up another question - why is that crisis so bad that the kerbals need space travel to help solve it? The answers to that question turned out to be a bit more interesting, and threw up their own set of questions which helped to fill out the basic plot. That was helped by another unconnected question 'why are all kerbals called Kerman?' - and the answer to that question turned out to be the real kicker! After that, the story was driven by a combination of reluctance to pull plot twists out of thin air for no apparent reason and good old fashioned making things up as I went along. The first part was helpful in turning a basic plot into a series of chapters - 'OK, I want to write about X but for X to happen I need to show A, B and C first and at least hint (however vaguely) at D and E.' The second part kept things interesting - if the story veered away from my plan or went down a side alley that meant the plan had to be revised - well that was fine. A plan is good, sticking too rigidly to it is bad. But that's just my take. Other folks on this thread will probably tell you something completely different. Edit: Most importantly, this summary is a bit like a scientific paper, in that it presents a thought process in a series of logical steps. Just like real science, things weren't anywhere near as neat and premeditated in real life!

Completely up to you. If you want to add illustrations I'd love to see them but in my opinion your writing doesn't need them. If a picture says a thousand words then the opposite is also true - there are things you can express in writing that I doubt you ever could in pictures. I know they've been flagged up before but take your lines here for example: I have no idea how you could illustrate that.

That's a tricky one. In general I try not to be, just to keep people guessing a bit longer. Ideally, I'm hoping for comments that are nearly but not quite anticipating where I'm going or, if they're way off-target, do follow logically from what I've described thus far. I take that as a good sign that I'm striking the right balance between foreshadowing stuff (so that the story remains consistent) but not revealing too much in the process (so that I can still drop in the odd surprise). On the other hand, there's no sense in being pigheaded about it - if somebody guesses where the story is going then I won't go out of my way to change it 'just because'. And sometimes I do get some really good ideas from the comments, not necessarily ones that I can drop straight into the story but maybe a different angle on something that would be fun to explore in-story or simply improve it. For those cases, I'll normally post a quick acknowledgement as part of the story update. Hopping back to Sharkman's question - something else you could try is cross-posting to another fanfic forum if you want to get a few more eyes on your work. I don't have any suggestions for graphic novels / comics I'm afraid, although I'm betting that they're out there somewhere. I cross-post to the Spacebattles forums - don't tend to pick up many comments but I have got a reasonably consistent following that's been picking up lately.

Interesting start and I like your writing. Having spaceflight technology arise 'for science' and then being repurposed for military uses was a nice twist and one which seems much more kerbal to me. Two factions fighting is a bit of a cliched premise but it works. My first thought on reading your prologue was why? What happened to spark that initial disagreement? I can think of lots of possible reasons (I'm sure you could think of more) and all of them could make a good story in their own right. After that, what fanned the flames of war? How did the scuffles and skirmishes turn into a world war? This is good - plenty of background material and answers to interesting questions, that could potentially be drawn out and referred to in your main story, if that's how you wanted to do it! The premise is a cliche for a reason - a war offers so many opportunities for storytelling and can be described and lived through from so many perspectives. Looking forward to seeing your take on it.

Definitely. Don't get disheartened by the lack of comments. Over time, I've noticed that the ratio of page views to comments tends to be roughly the same for any given KSP fan work. Take Czokletmuss's Grand Tour for example. Epic story, over 470,000 page views and 'only' 2,490 comments in the thread including story updates and replies from the author. Writing anything KSP related is tough and I'm not saying that in a 'woe is me, the poor writer' sense. It sounds like it should be fairly easy - after all we have some awesome material to work with. The danger of early spaceflight, getting cutting edge technology to work, the mystery and wonder of leaving one's home planet for the first time, all the hard rocket science you could wish for, not to mention the interesting twist of viewing the whole thing through the eyes of an alien species. Lots of classic sci-fi stuff right there. The problem is... that's just KSP. Most of that awesome material will be 'just another career game' for our readers. So like Kuzzter said, you need a good hook, or rather another hook because the obvious ones have all been used. From personal experience, comments can also come straight out of left field. Major story events will get completely ignored in the comments and then some throwaway detail will spark off a page of them. It's a funny old world sometimes.

Interesting stuff and a decently written article. I didn't see any details about how they measured their photo-currents (I should go read the original paper) but presumably you need a connection (via your external circuit) between the positively charged substrate and the negatively charged nano-particles. Which doesn't sound too hard in itself - just place a metal foil over the top of your nanoparticle layer for example* - but building a working device which provides that electrical connection and allows sufficient water to actually get to your nanoparticles and allows the evolved hydrogen and oxygen to escape, is going to be a bit trickier. Not impossible I'm sure but a non-trivial piece of engineering. *Edit - although Indium Tin Oxide on glass would work better since you also need to get light to your nanoparticles. Doh.

Uh, a proton is a fermion too and proton-antiproton collisions are pretty messy. Lepton collisions, e.g. electron-positron, are simpler to analyse though, assuming you can build a practical accelerator around them. A neutrino-neutrino collider would be challenging to build. And with regard to conservation of momentum, any detected "differences from the expectation" would be extremely exciting - not because we'd broken conservation of momentum but because we'd (probably) found a new particle. The neutrino was originally postulated as a mechanism to conserve momentum in beta decay, and was only observed experimentally much later. Edit: Modern particle detectors are also pretty darn good and the statistics for claiming any sort of discovery in particle physics are pretty darn rigorous. Any undetected differences from expectations would need to be small indeed.

though I will admit that one part in shadows that really confused me was the Buford T Kerman part, I had no clue what was going on as you never explained who it actually was. The beginning of whispers kind of set me off a bit, I read the first part of the intro after I finished shadows and I just didn't want to read it, because I had no clue what was going on, though a while later I started reading it.Going off-topic a wee bit, so happy to take this to PMs but: Sure, that could be a red herring but if I remember correctly, Edgas removes his moustache at one point.