KSK

I like that idea - I like it a lot! To be fair, I can see how some of the science experiments would help with mission planning (gravimetric scans around planets to check for mascons for example) but that's kind of a roleplaying concern only at the moment. Probably going to stay that way too which makes sense - too much micromanaging otherwise.

Completely respect your opinion but (so far), I think the contracts system is about right. It includes a mix of 'big picture' missions (go to Mun, get science, we don't care how) as well as the hoop-jumping ones that you don't like. I'm fine with that - there's no harm in taking the mundane jobs to pay the bills for aspirational explore and discover missions. The equipment test missions also make sense to me. When testing a new aircraft, the first job is to make sure it gets off the runway at all! Then test to make sure it flies 'in the middle of the envelope'. Then start pushing the envelope - will it fly at this angle of attack, at this speed? Can it take such and such a maneuver? I picture the equipment test contracts coming at the end of that process - the company hiring you already knows that their gear works in the lab or under normal conditions. Now they want you to push the envelope for them. In terms of gameplay, personally I'm enjoying having to design new rockets or figure out a particular ascent profile, in order to meet the contract. It's really nice to have a reason to putter around with sub-orbital flights a bit longer, and do more early game Kerbin orbital flights than the obligatory one or two 'grab all the science' missions. Just my opinion of course. One person's hoop jumping tedium is another person's fun.

I did something similar last night. Test the LV-T45 on the ground (not hard) and then a very similar SRB test. Figured I may as well go for the 33,000m altitude test too. So I built a rocket with an LV-T45 powered lower stage, two strap on RT-10s (to get up to speed for the SRB test) and an RT-10 upper stage. Turns out I should have picked up the 'escape from the atmosphere' contract too... Bob ended up doing an 800km+ suborbital hop and probably had enough delta-V to get to orbit (but no way of getting back down). Poor guy pegged the g-meter on the way back down but was still smiling when he climbed out of his capsule. Took the time to collect a bag of sand for science too - Bob's dedicated like that.

Yup. Easy enough to do, just stick two command pods together. You can either put them nose to nose, or stack them using a decoupler. Top pod gets one parachute, lower pod gets two radial chutes. Land them together as one ship or fire the decoupler and land them separately.

You've sold me already - on the names! With all due respect to the folks that do use 'em, it's good to see 'non-K' names.

Unless there are any copyright terms and conditions attached to forum use, I'd go with MiniMatt's interpretation. That looks about right since the logo contributors don't appear to have explicitly assigned copyright in their work to Squad, instead it seems that they've effectively granted Squad permission to use their work royalty free.

Cool. Good job fixing the paragraphs too!

Needs moar paragraphs - it would make it much easier to read. Other than that, it would be good to know what happens next!

I normally assume that the lack of surface population is simply an Act of Squad. The world awaits the much rumoured age known as Developer Time, when all will be made clear and yea verily, the surface of Kerbin will teem with life. I liked your explanation though. Makes sense.

Incidentally, if you haven't already read Angel-125's 'Wired for Kraken' story, I can recommend it. Very nice writing and an intriguing start. Hopefully he/she will have the time to add more - I know I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes!

Heh. Not quite a cast of thousands yet but I was still a little startled when I counted them up. Thanks Sabastian! Next couple of chapters are a bit scene-setting but I hope you like what they're setting up...

Heh that was great - really put a smile on my face.

Enjoying this - keep it up!

I just don't have the time to knock out that many words per day sadly, of whatever quality. Best of luck to everyone going for it though! Anyone doing anything KSP inspired? Oh - and I totally agree with the importance of writing every day. I don't get to do that as often as I'd like either but it makes a huge difference when I do. It's so much easier to pick up something you were working on yesterday and get back into the groove, than it is to pick up something you were working on last week, or month.

Definitely got my interest!

Depends - metals are technically crystalline too. Polycrystalline if you want to be picky. Great job putting all this together though GregroxMun - the anatomy and evolutions sections were especially good!

Voted for Dark Days since I'm a sucker for origin / alternative history stories. My second vote, if I had it, would go to Athena Base.

Cool - glad it helped. Flying the missions first, getting the screenshots and then putting the words around the screenshots does sound easier. No hurry with the new chapter - it'll be done when its done.

Open Office should be fine for writing. I'm using NeoOffice (Mac port of OpenOffice) and it works for me. It definitely has a spellchecker, not sure about a grammar checker. Then again, if Dreadthrone plans to write most of this as a script, grammar checking isn't so useful anyway. If I could ask for one thing though - please could you lose the signature? I like pugs myself but it's distracting having that animation running on every second or third post!

Thanks everyone! Patupi, Ortwin - glad the last chapter worked. It was definitely one of the hardest ones to write so far. Mstachowsky - welcome to the thread. Glad you're enjoying the story - thanks for reading and thanks for stopping by to comment! Working on the next part as we speak, although I've taken a bit of time out to update the Cast and Crew list (helps me keep track of which character does what). The whole thing runs to about 85 names at the moment, including a few new ones that I'm going to need for the next few chapters...

Next chapter is up. Dewdrops <Warmth. Sweetness flowing down. Water flowing in, flowing up, keeping damp, staying good. Many many tastes, some new. Some too weak, some too strong. Some... missing. Not right, not right. Some smells missing. Some still there. Not right, not right.> <Voice gone. Gone where? Sense fear. Hard to think with fear, hard to make tastes go right, smells go right. Want voice, voice help think?> Dawn. The warmth on my leaves opens them and brings them to life. I taste the new sugars building, gathering, slowly trickling from leaf to stem to branch to trunk. I sense the cool moist soil around my roots, taste the tang of water and salts as I draw them in. The water brings other tastes with it, spiky acidity, smooth musty currents, tiny droplets of a thousand varieties of sweetness scatted through the soil. Streaks and whorls of salt criss-crossing a filigree of root fibres, the patterns an imperfectly sensed part of a greater latticework. The latticework frays. Here a ragged break in the salt traces. There a missing cluster of droplets. Elsewhere stagnant globules of...wrongness. I have no words for those but they jar, breaking the pattern like fine cracks in a pane of glass. And like the glass, the pattern will break if not tended to. The smells are the same. Not as rich or as varied as the many-taste soil but each one a vital part of the whole. Each one has its tale to tell for those that can read it. But now the story is jumbled. These smells do not belong together. True, that one is fading but it should not be there at all. Elsewhere, other smells are missing. My kerbal remembers the dawn. The joy of light on face, breeze in hair, smell of leaves, smell of cinnamon, smell of other kerbals. Where are the other kerbals? One tall, one small, two old; many dawns since they left. We showed the first old one many memories, we scared it although we did not mean to. We were more careful with the other old one; showed her less. Then she asked questions, too many questions, frightened by our answers. Memories of all my kerbals. Memories of all the dawns. Memories of the lattice and how to repair it. We did not share those with the old ones, how could we make them understand? I cannot find the memories. Not on my own, not without my kerbal. We tried after the second old one left. My kerbal was sad - I wanted to make it happy again. I thought that memories of other kerbals, of other sunrises would make it happy. I was wrong. My kerbal is quiet now. Quiet, sad and frightened. It doesn't talk with me anymore, it can't help me to remember. How many dawns since the tall one left, carrying the small one? The small one was very angry; it attacked me with its branches. I think my kerbal had a special name for it. Maybe if I could remember... remember its name. “Joenie! She is called Joenie! And I am not my kerbal, I am Jonton!" Sparks exploded in front of Jonton's eyes and branches scraped across the side of his face, narrowly missing one eye. The air reeked of cinnamon. He drew his hand through the maze of twigs and gingerly patted the rapidly swelling lump on the back of his head. Doesn't seem to be bleeding anyway. That's something. Wish Gerselle would come back; the same damn view from the same damn window and nothing but the perpetual stink of cinnamon in my nose is driving me crazy. She needs to tend to her Kerm of course and I'm hardly the greatest company these days. Donman and Burvis both said that the other Pillars would be visiting. The company would be welcome but the thought of having to show them what I showed Donman scares me rigid. I dare not consciously remember anything now; even a simple thing like a sunrise triggers a flood of other memories. Memories of thousands of other sunrises seen through the eyes of hundreds of other kerbals. The thought of deliberately reaching out to the Kerm terrifies me. That's the problem I guess. If you're told not to think of purple luffas then purple luffas are all you can think of. It's the constant trying, of being forced to remember nothing and live in the moment all the time that tires me out. So I sleep. And dream. And bit by bit the flood washes me away. The flood feels wrong somehow. Nothing I can put my finger on, nothing I can sense directly. Like trying to spot the flaws in a mosaic that you can only glimpse out of the corner of your eye. I think the Kerm could show me what's wrong - and how to put it right again. But I don't want to go there. I can't go there... ------------- The hoe bit into the rich crumbly soil, narrowly missing the prickleberry bush stem. Ferry worked the blade around an especially large clump of ragleaf; flicking the uprooted weed into the waiting basket. He chopped viciously at a patch of knotweed, breaking up the stringy green mat and burying it. He chivvied the soil around unenthusiastically with the hoe blade until it was more or less level and moved on to the next bush. The neighbouring row was mostly hidden by dense foliage but Ferry could hear the regular scrape-scraping of hoe against soil interspersed with the thud of weed hitting basket and the clinking of steel on stone. Fredlorf's steady mutter provided a pungent running commentary on the possible ancestry of assorted plants and the lack of suitable tools for dealing with them. Ferry burst out laughing at one particularly heartfelt request for a flamethrower. “Seared prickleberry wouldn't taste so good, Fred." “Just as well there aint any damn berries to sear then," said Fredlorf. “I'm serious, Ferry; if we're going to be diggin' up weeds all summer, I'm gonna borrow one of those rocket contraptions. Get me a nice big one and I figure it should blow fire clear down one of these rows." Ferry laughed. Fred's right though. Bushes have been flowering for weeks - berries should be coming out by now. He gently pulled the nearest branch towards him, inspecting the large cup-shaped flowers drooping from their stems. Cautiously he tugged one of the translucent yellow petals. Seems healthy enough. The flower bobbed when he let it go, scattering a fine mist of pollen over his hand. Startled, Ferry lifted it up to peer inside. The sweetly musty scent from the nectaries tickled the back of his throat and the heavily laden stamen peered back at him like rows of tiny eyes. Huh - that explains it. No silverlace, no fruit. Hmmm, wonder if we could do the pollination by hand? He stared at the rows of flower laden bushes. Yeah, Fred's going to love that idea. Ferry reached the end of his row. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes, lugged his basket over to Fredlorf's tractor and dumped the weeds onto the larger pile heaped up on the trailer bed. He squatted, back braced against the trailer wheel and rolled his shoulders to relieve their stiffness. Fredlorf stumbled towards him, carrying his own basket of weeds. “Reckon I've found the problem, Fred." “You an' me both then. Pollen?" “That's about what I figured. You think we could shift it by hand?" “Probably," grunted Fredlorf, “once we get done with the damn weeding. We could get Gerselle or Meleny to take a look too." Ferry nodded. “Prickleberry bushes aren't much like sapwoods but yeah - may as well get what help we can." He looked at his friend. “What's happening to this place, Fred? First there was all the business with the sunfruits, now the silverlace are late too." “Beats me," said Fredlorf heavily, “Least the prickleberry bushes haven't rotted away on us too." He shuddered. “Don't ever want to see a field like that again." “Me neither," said Ferry. “That's a thought, Fred - I should check on Jonton, make sure he's all right. He looked downright awful before the sunfruit harvest; like he hadn't slept for about a week." Fredlorf scratched his head. “Come to think of it - have you actually seen Jonton recently?" “Nope. Seen Gerselle out and about with her wee one but never a sign of Jonton." “Probably best if you have a word with Gerselle first," said Fredlorf, “She'll know what's happened to him." “I think I will," said Ferry, “I think I'll do just that." He picked up his basket. “Day's a-wasting, Fred - time to get back to the weeding." -------------- The sleep room door creaked open and Gerselle padded in bearing a laden tray. Jonton sighed contentedly at the smell of savoury mushroom pie, white bean stew and a peppery greenleaf and mixed herb salad. “That smells wonderful, love," he said, “Thank you." Gerselle smiled and began setting out the food onto two plates. Jonton smiled back. “Better not tell Joenie that Daddy has borrowed her favourite plate." “It was her idea," said Gerselle, “I told her that Daddy wasn't feeling well and couldn't eat very much. She went straight over to the cupboard and brought it out for you." Jonton swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. “She's a good girl," he said at last. He scooped up a forkful of beans and chewed them silently. Gerselle cut herself a slice of pie. “The Grove is doing well," she said brightly, “I think everyone's getting bored of digging in clover but you wouldn't believe the improvement to the soil. According to the Archives we should be able to start planting whitebean in a couple of months." Jonton nodded and reached for the salad bowl. “How's your Kerm doing?" he asked. “No more blue spots I'm guessing?" “Not a single one," said Gerselle, “It's doing very well actually. Still watching you but it doesn't seem to be scared any more, just alert." “Oh that's good," said Jonton, “Maybe it will..." He shook his head. “No; it won't forget but it sounds like the memory is already losing some of its potency." He speared a stray mushroom with his fork. “I wonder how it will react to the whitebean after dealing with nothing but clover for so long?" “I don't know," said Gerselle thoughtfully, “I don't really understand what happens when we start planting crops either. I've been reading through the older Records but they're confusing." She snapped her fingers. “Speaking of crops, Ferry was asking after you. He and Fredlorf were hoeing the prickleberry bushes the other day and noticed..." “Hoeing?" said Jonton. “That's what I thought too," said Gerselle. She saw a flicker in Jonton's eyes. “It can wait till after supper," she added. The Kerm leaves rustled as Jonton leaned forward. “Hmm, yes," he said, “Especially since supper includes a Gerselle Kermol special berry posset." He looked up at her through moistened eyes. “I really appreciate this love - I know I haven't been very good company lately." Gerselle put a finger to her lips. “Hush, Jonton Kermol," she said, “That can wait till after supper too." The two kerbals spent the rest of the meal in companionable silence. Jonton cleaned every last scrap of posset out of his bowl before pushing it away with a rueful smile. “I wish I could eat more of that," he said “but I'm full.†Gerselle put her own spoon down.“You will be all right with solid food, won't you?" she asked. Jonton nodded. “This much will be fine," he said, “and it's such a treat to taste anything, let alone a meal like that!" I'll probably suffer for it later on but right now I don't care. He stifled a belch. “Now, what were you saying about Ferry and Fredlorf hoeing the prickleberry fields?" “They were keeping the weeds down apparently," said Gerselle. “Which I didn't understand to start with. Then Ferry told me that the bushes were still flowering, which I didn't understand either. They should have been pollinated and fruiting by now." Jonton closed his eyes. “I was afraid of something like this," he said. “I think the Kerm has been trying to warn me for a while now but I haven't been able to talk to it." “I'm not surprised," said Gerselle gently,"It's a miracle that it can even warn you, let alone talk to you." “Oh, it can talk," Jonton said sadly. “The problem is me." He paused to gather his thoughts. “Do you remember what I said about the shards melting?" Gerselle nodded uneasily. Jonton wrung his hands, hunting for the right words. “It's like the edges between me and the Kerm are blurring. As soon as I think of anything for more than a few seconds, I get thousands of...echoes, of the same thing seen by hundreds of other kerbals. It gets harder and harder to tell which thoughts are mine and which are just an echo from another long dead Keeper." His voice cracked. “It's starting to drive me crazy, Gerselle. The effort of not thinking about anything all day, tires me out. Then I go to sleep and I can't stop them! They're washing me away. Bit by bit they're washing me away." Gerselle's eyes widened. “What can..." “I do?" said Jonton. He sagged against the vines wrapped around his waist. “I think there's only one thing I can do, love. Stop trying to keep the shards intact and just let them melt. Put all the pieces back together, give the Kerm its voice and let it concentrate on mending the Grove. Gerselle's eyes filled with tears. “Pestilence take the Grove, Jonton! What happens to you?" Jonton wilted. “I don't know, love," he said, “but fighting it isn't helping. If I let go now, maybe there'll be enough of me left after the melting that..." His voice tailed away. “Enough of me left that I can still remember Joenie... still be her father." He lifted his head. “And be there for her birthday." He clenched his jaw. “Whatever happens, I swear I'll be there to watch her with her birthday presents!"He forced a smile. “I've just thought of something else to give her. Promise me, love. Promise that you'll both be in the garden before sunrise on her birthday. Gerselle burrowed through the Kerm leaves surrounding her husband and wrapped her arms around him. “I will," she said through her tears. “I will." --------------- The metallic chattering of the alarm clock rang in her ear. Gerselle groaned, reached out and slapped the off button. Silvery, pre-dawn light crept around the gaps in the curtains, throwing pale streaks across the floor. She rubbed her eyes and yawned, smiling despite herself at the sudden excited babble from the next room. The door burst open and Joenie hurtled across the room. “Party, Mummy, party!" Gerselle climbed out of bed and pulled on a poncho. “Not yet, sweetheart, no party yet. Why don't you come out into the garden with Mummy and see your special present from Daddy?" Gerselle opened the back door, stepped out onto the porch and froze. Every single Kerm branch was draped in a softly sparkling gauzy fabric. The morning light shone through it, sending thousands of tiny rainbows dancing over each twig and shimmering fluidly over every leaf. Joenie's eyes lit up. “Butterfies, Mummy. Butterfies!" She let go of Gerselle's hand and scampered across the grass. Gerselle's eyes misted over. They're beautiful Jonton. I don't know how you did this but thank you. From my window I watch Joenie darting from branch to branch, pointing at the silverlace and dragging Gerselle along behind her. Her mouth moves but from this distance I can't hear a sound. No matter; the look in her eyes tells me all I need to know. Gerselle too; she looks happy for the first time in far too many weeks. Joenie reaches out to touch one of the silverlace. The butterfly trembles on its leaf but does not flee. I see Gerselle talking, no doubt telling Joenie to be gentle. Both of them wide eyed as the silverlace hops onto Joenie's outstretched finger, spreading its wings towards the morning sun. Odd - I wasn't expecting that. Gerselle turns to me and smiles. I sense the first stirrings of warmth on my leaves. I cannot hold them much longer - they are creatures of the dawn, of cool air and dew, too delicate for the rising sun. I smile back at Gerselle, lifting my hand, palm up, to the ceiling. She nods, takes Joenie by the hand and steps back. I let the silverlace go. Floating on the breeze like a sparkling cloud of iridescent dewdrops, soaring up into the shell-blue morning sky. Twisting and swirling, the cloud breaks apart into pale rainbow streamers of glimmering gauzy wings that swirl away towards the prickleberry fields. Joenie dances on the damp grass, waving at the silverlace until, at last, they disappear; their translucent wings too distant to catch the first rays of sunlight shining through the treetops. I feel... content; at ease with myself for the first time in weeks. Fresh air, light, faces smiling because of something that I did. Perhaps Joenie and Gerselle will come to see me in a minute - I would enjoy that. Most of all, I'm free from the constant struggle. I have accepted that which I am, even if I do not yet fully understand it. Neither Kerm nor kerbal but a fusion of the two, I am something new upon this world. I am an-Kerm. << Chapter 34: Chapter 36>>

My ARM pack save is called Rock-et Science.