Cydonian Monk

I hate that feeling. Put it down for awhile, read something else, then go back over it. Probably won't help. It's not creator's block, so to say, but your unconcious self warning you that something is off. I used to feel that way over most of the software I'd create.... Now I just accept that I'll miss something minor and have to fix it in revision. Harder to do that with prose.

This is what I've been telling myself about Star Wars movies for.... (checks watch).... 17 years, 7 months and 20 days now. Maybe longer. I pretty much agree with your take on it, and I really felt the "archive footage" BS from Red and Blue squadrons was badly done. Too many ghosts. Likewise the two (four?) CGI characters just weren't "right", though I was rather more comfortable with the fake Peter Cushing than I was the fake Carrie. (Which I suspect is in part due to Cushing's long and storied career in arguably terrible movies.) Of the "fan service" bits, only Vader's much-loathed aspirations line felt like it was in character. And yet.... Lava castle? Awesome. Nice to finally see on screen. Not new. And Krennic's visit felt rather completely out of place to me. My takeaway: This movie was a strange and expensive fanfic that desperately needed an editor.... Someone to go back and cut out the parts that weren't relevant to the story.

Sounds like 30 to me.

I'm curious how the Buran tile feels. Is it lite, lighter than it should be for a block of (let's say sandstone) of the same size? Or is it heavier? Is it as smooth as it looks, or does it have a fine-sandpaper-y feel to it? The shuttle tiles always felt strange to me. I think it's удобно (convenient(-ly?)). Fits the sentence implication.

Bravo. Well deserved. Jolly good. I do wonder if this means Emiko will stay stickied until the next Thread of the Year...? For some reason my mind inserted the Nausicaä Requiem here. La, la lalala la la.....

It's the holidays, I'm on "vacation" (staycation?), and even though I had planned to do absolutely nothing I've so far been super busy. Or super sick, thanks to our lovely 80 ºF / 29 ºF / 70 ºF / 34 ºF / 65 ºF weather patterns. Yay, silly season. I at least got in a bit of Dwarf Fortress streaming on Saturday before I succumbed to my sinuses and broken sleep cycles again..... Oh, and my gaming desktop now sports 32GBs of sweet, sweet RAM. Anyway, a short update. I discovered the source of my "let's accidentally send a Minmus probe to Duna" issue. If you stage and then change focus away from a ship during the middle of a planned burn, the ∆v of the maneuver resets back to what it was at the start of the burn. I'm not sure how long this bug has been there, but I'm 100% certain it didn't work that way in 1.0.5. Explains why my first Minmus relay ended up about 600m/s over its target velocity - that happens to be just how much was left in the second stage of the launch vehicle before it relit in Kerbin orbit. How this happened: The LV-10 Concerto launcher has a guidance unit in it, a bit of a holdover from my RSS/RO habits. (Needs sufficient avionics for the tonnage, etc.) So, to avoid creating "debris" that's marked as a probe, I was switching back to the just-expended second stage, marking it as actual debris, and then switching back to the satellite. Doing that is what tripped me up, as it "reset" and added another ~600m/s or so to the burn that I didn't notice until it was too late. (I blame Jonbald.) Spoiler Warning (for as of yet unreported missions). And another Spoiler Warning (for Network stuff that is and isn't a plot point but might help you out if you're scratching your head over an old save). In closing I'd like to wish a Happy Holidays to all of you, regardless of what (if any) special day you celebrate in the next few weeks. Cheers.

It's "the question" that kerbal parents everywhere never expect to get and never know how to answer. How on Kerbin do you explain it to such a young and inexperienced little [spore|hatchling|kindren]? "How do kerbals get to space?"

That will probably help. Some observations on the air temperatures at Laythe: Observations were recorded out of time warp after allowing the wacko-warped-thermo to "settle." Max time warp of x6 between observations, x4 appeared closest to actual, resting measurements. Observation platform was allowed 1 day to cool down to ambient temperature after each move. At my Laythe landing site, altitude of 176m, 5°N of the equator: The typical temperature was ~277K. Coldest nighttime observation was 265K. The coldest observed overall was while in Jool's shadow, just after "sunrise" at 263K. Highest observed was 283K. The temperature varied as much as 5K at any time of the day: showing evidence of random weather patterns. (Static air pressure disputes that.) I then moved the Aluminium remote measurement platform to sea level (in water, with instrument above water) and repeated the observations. Highest observation was 287K at mid day, lowest nighttime was 280K. No more than 2-3K variation at sea level. Air pressures at sea level reported 60.7 mystery units at all times of day. Remote measurement platform was then relocated to 30°N latitude, sea-level altitude. Highest observation was 287K, lowest nighttime observaton was 271K. Typical observation was above 273K, closer to 277K. More variation observed here, as much as 5-7K. Air pressure was constant 60.7 mystery units. Temperature observations using an older instrument at an elevation of 900m and near equatorial were never above 273K, showing a max of 272K at mid day and minimum of 259K just before sunset. Summary: Sea-level near-equatorial observations indicate air temperature is typically above freezing point of water for majority of Laythe's day. Daytime temperature is measurably higher than nighttime. Conclusion: Equatorial sea level atmospheric temperatures support liquid water. Recommendation: A more detailed observation using a data exporter to build a spreadsheet is recommended, with observations collected at a variety of latitudes and altitudes.

I think KSP is doing much better than the last several software releases I've received from Apple for any of their products. I would still consider KSP to be a completed product, and don't personally expect anything more. I've seen entirely too many games with known bugs that have known fixes never receive a final patch because [money/time/resources] weren't available. So each bugfix I get is a welcome sight. (Provided it doesn't break more things.)

Unless there's some impossibly alien form of alcohol that doesn't involve bonding hydroxyl to saturated Carbon, then yes. Yes it is. Alcohols can be formed through non-biological processes though, so don't assume its presence implies life. I ran a quick check, but I don't have any screenshots showing the exact temperatures where I landed on Laythe. I'm curious enough to go check the probes and planes now when I get home. (FWIW, the DMagic surface hydrogen scan experiment also suggests the presence of ammonia and alcohol, though that's obviously not Squad-canon.)

Bingo. Sort of. We'll get into them a bit more as things progress, but not too much. Some questions don't have answers. I'm also going to put together a "who the heck are these kerbals" type of recap here soon. At least for the major players. (I obviously have my own notes, but those are filled with spoilers....) It'll do me good to reread some of the older bits to see what parts haven't been as obvious as I thought they were. (And I might need to tweak with a word or three, and fix some known typos.) It's been a year since the start with a fairly sparse Late-Summer/Autumn post count, so a recap might do well. One of the downsides to writing this sort of iterative found fiction is you don't get to see the whole thing until it's done. That makes it difficult to keep the pacing good and the relevant points prominent. You don't get the chance to go back and remove the parts that aren't the story, especially when this is 60% mission report and 40% story. For anyone that goes back and rereads - or is just stumbling into this - I've added "Next Post" links to the end of all of the posts except the last two. You basically had it. The Boss was in orbit during the bugpocalypse that was KSP v1.1.1. I then skipped over KSP v1.1.2, because it was just more of the same - bugs. The Boss was at Baile Speir, captured by Sieta & Hallock, while the remainder of her team was at Kelgee. Arguably it's been the Continuum [Space] Program for three years now. Since.... KSP v0.22, if not earlier. It exists somewhat in parallel with the Forgotten Space Program... perhaps with a different end goal. Yes. Space. Suborbital counts. Because reasons.

They have their ways.

I'm late to this conversation, as usual. As for inner voice - I absolutely have this.... some of the time. It all drills down to how our brains are wired - I'm in one of those visual/spatial mathematician type brains, so usually thoughts express themselves more like Jim's daydreams than actual words... ... Except when I'm writing or reading "direct" quotes. In those cases this "visual" part manifests itself as an audible voice and sometimes a mental image of the character speaking or the scene being played out. If I've been crawling through computer code all day that part of my brain seems to die a bit, or perhaps it becomes beep beep boop beep. Beep. (Part of the reason I post more on Sundays than during the week.) Both of which are applicable to kerbal spaceflight. Absolutely. And slog is the appropriate word for this. A good translator could really clean it up, given the chance. Probably easier to learn Italian and just read the original. Ed Harris is John Glenn in my mind, no matter how many times he's served as CapCom or Flight Director. He's so much John Glenn (and Frank Hummel) that when I think of ANY Marine it's Ed Harris' voice I hear. (And Harris isn't even a Marine....) Gene to me just sounds like Gene. Wernher sounds like John Banner. Dennis Quaid. 100% Dennis Quaid. (And, ok, occasionally Randy Quaid.) 99.9% Dennis Quaid, but still the best pilot you've ever seen.

There is only one order. The Jedi Order.

That is the intent of the Off-Worlding, yes. That, and to build a giant space station.....

== Begin Kerbal Space Program version 1.2.2 == Chrome Plated Mission Control was a cold place, especially without the familiar face of Gene Kerman. It was still very early in the morning, before sunrise, but Rosuki knew Gene wouldn't show up today. No matter how much she wanted him too. No, Gene Kerman had no idea they existed. They had just gotten back on their feet from the last cycle when another hit. One day your friends and coworkers are there, the next they're gone. Their new Gene was still out there somewhere. Maybe they'd find him, maybe he'd find them. Hard to say. Besides, Rosuki had other business to attend to. Somebody had to take charge. Their new "boss," Cartina, had backed down from her self-appointed bosshood. It was one thing to try to run your own program, an entirely different thing when kerbals who have done it many times before turn up out of the blue. Now Cartina was just there to help with the public outreach. The easy tasks. And she was still on this council of Jonbald's. Continuum. A council reduced to four members, having recently lost their chief designer, their first astronaut, and their flight director. As usual their first act in the new cycle was for Jonbald to get the tracking station working. He had the network lit up in no time at all. Still no word from her crews at Jool, same as before. (Still no word form the others, either. Eve? Duna? Who knows. Rosuki could only hope they were all ok.) The records in the box recovered from the Mün was still there, and those were the first bits they downloaded. They had hard-wired the memory in those boxes. Burned the data directly into the gates that stored it. Read-Only. Permanent. Rosuki wondered why nobody had tried it before. And then she realized. Someone had. Her thoughts were interrupted by the task at hand. Chromium 1. "T-minus two minutes," some kerbal from another trench called out. That was her cue. Rosuki. The Boss. The Flight Director. Wake up and do some work. She quickly ran through the Go/No-Go checks and gave the clearance for flight. It was all automated after that. What had she been thinking about? Cold. This was a new building, this refrigerator on the coast. They had built it and the other new space center buildings using plans the monks had brought them. Same plans as before, just somehow preserved. As usual the buildings were financed with the Funds delivered by the Kerbin World First Record Keeping Society. Record Keeping. Regular as clockwork, that lot. Always showing up with snacks and money just when they'd reached some new high. Orbit Moho. Land on Eeloo. Dock in Laythe Orbit. How did they know? Many times the representative would show up within moments of them bringing the tracking station online. Arriving out of nowhere. Seemingly instant travel. Just like the monks. It was no great surprise then when Munlin greeted Orsby, their World's First representative, just as he'd greeted Jonbald: With a bow and a smile. The World Firsters seemed to know everything about everything. How could they know there were spacecraft around Laythe? Even the network failed to pick them up. No, these monks really seemed to know everything. Most of them were in a space program at one time or another. Even Archibald had been to the Mün with Rosuki and a couple others. He'd claimed to have been a spacekerb in the distant past, too. It made sense to her now. It was only natural the monks, these space veterans, would set up a records organization to both finance and reward future endeavors. Run by their order. With access to all of their records. Records that went back who knows how long. Records that somehow persisted. She considered calling up Archibald to ask how when the Chromium 1 pulled her attention away once more. Time for first stage burnout and second stage ignition. They had been forced to use a new launch vehicle for this flight, the LV-10 Concerto. Rosuki wanted to resurrect the older Sonata or Cantata launcher, but the local fab shops were both unable and unwilling to build the parts they needed. So they started over. This new rocket was a simple design, inspired by a mid-sized "home grown" booster Munlin had described to them. The worker kerbs had called it Titan. A titan that was now screaming its concerto as it raced towards the heavens. The Sonata parts hadn't been the only things the local factories refused to build. NERVAs also landed on the "no can do" list. Rosuki had a design for the Jool return ship stuck in her head. Something she'd worked out with Wernher. Her Wernher. The old Wernher. And it needed NERVAs. A few of them, at least. The nuclear materials for which had been rejected immediately. The shop foreman hadn't minced words about it either. "The RTGs, yeah, we can do that. Simple. Any numbskull can shove blutonium into a tube. But these here fuel rods? Highly enriched blutonium? Ya can't just whip that up overnight. That'll take time. And money." Money they didn't exactly have. So they were a bit stuck. A few contract later, and perhaps. By then it might be too late though, so Rosuki gave the go-ahead to start the refining process. She still wanted her crews back, even if the Continuum as a whole was only concerned with its two big issues: Communications and Off-Worlding. And then the second stage was done. Mission Control erupted into applause as the telemetry showed the craft had entered a safe parking orbit. 245km by 130km. It took a few moments for Rosuki to realize this was the first time any of the kerbals had launched a rocket, let alone placed something into orbit. This type of over-the-top celebration was something she'd almost forgotten after such tasks became routine. Best to let these new kerbals celebrate. They'd earned it. Afterwards the Cr-1 burned its way into Keosynchronous transfer. Inefficient, entering a parking orbit like this, so Rosuki made a mental note to change the ascent of the rest of the satellites. Direct ascent to KTO. At least the second stage had been programmed to deorbit itself with the fuel left over, but that could be accounted for without the waste. A few hours later and the first of the Chromiums was in its intended orbit, looking down at them judgmentally. They launched two more Chromiums over the next several days, each placed roughly 120 degrees behind the previous. These small satellites used their four omnidirectional Communicatron 16s for uplink and cross-talk, while their two mid-sized relay dishes handled downlink or communications with other ships. They didn't add much network capacity, but the older Neons still worked quite well. The new Chromiums were just insurance. The second and third used the revised launch profile. Instead of a parking orbit, the Concerto launcher placed them directly into Keosynchronous transfer. The second stage would fall back into Kerbin's atmosphere while the satellite would burn into whatever orbit it needed. The same was used by the Chromium Heavies. The Chromium Heavies, decked out with the largest dish they could find, would allow them to talk to the Argon and other satellites in deep orbits. To make room for the large dish, they had to move the two smaller relays to the bottom pf the craft and double the satellite's fuel reserves. This added mass also required more fuel in the launch vehicle, accomplished by just adding a larger tank to the second stage. Simple. And just like that, Chromium Heavy 4, 5, and 6 were also overhead, though not looking quite as judgmental. Probably because their large dish would almost always be pointed away from Kerbin. They went with a similar design for the Mün and Minmus. No need for the uber-long-range dish, but the would need the extra fuel. So the design reverted back to using the two mid-sized relays on the top of the satellite, and added two more smaller relays to the side. Three of these were planed for both of the larger moons. All launched by the versatile LV-10 Concerto. The first of the Mun launches, Chromium Mun 7, blasted skyward in the dark of night. This was also a direct ascent, not entering a parking orbit and instead burning directly Münward. And then, two days later, the first of the Chromium Münsats was in its 1500km orbit. It must have seemed surreal to the crews in this new space agency, to reach the Mün after only seven launches. It wasn't like they'd tried to keep the existence of their old space program a secret from them. Quite the opposite. They knew going into this that there was a crew orbiting the Mün. Kerbals, in space. It was still quite the accomplishment for these mostly unexperienced kerbals to be able to build and direct such a complex device to the Mün. They spent the next two munths placing the Chromium 8 and Chromium 9 into their orbits that were 120 degree out-of-phase with the others. And then the Mün had good satellite coverage for the first time in many, many years. -- Missing Minmus Mishap "Wait, that's not right." Never good words to hear in Mission Control. The launch had gone perfectly so far, the Chromium Minmus 10 launching to an azimuth of 84 degrees. They had timed the launch so it would be aligned with Minmus' orbit. The Cr-10 had waited in a parking orbit for the window to open. The second stage had relit, burned out, been discarded, and then the satellite had burned its way to its new home. Or so they had thought. "We overburned." Rosuki was out of her trench and at the telemetry station before anybody else could speak up. The operator looked back at her sheepishly, obviously worried about what was their first apparent failure. Rosuki leaned into the console to look at the predicted orbit path and the numbers. "By how much?" Asking the question only resulted in rapid pecking at the terminal from the telemetry kerbal. "Several hundred meters per second." More hurried button smashing. "It's.... It's on its way to Duna. Or just beyond Duna. Nowhere near Minmus." The room was silent, deathly silent. Everyone waiting to see how The Boss responded to such obvious incompetence. They were all relieved when Rosuki sighed, returned to her station, and then announced that they'd now launched their first deep-space relay. And that they'd have to program in the circularization burn now, as there was no guarantee they'd be able to communicate with the Cr-10 once it was at its perch high above Duna's orbit. How did this happen? She was certain she'd checked the transfer burn numbers before they wired the burn program up to the Chromium 10. How did it overburn by several hundred meters per second? It didn't seem possible. Unless.... He wouldn't, would he? She finished with the launch, debriefed the staff about what went wrong, what went right, took notes. And then went for a walk. Jonbald had chosen one of the most remote parts of the facility for his office. It was a strange spot for an office, buried deep within the lesser-used parts of the Spaceplane Hanger. A quiet spot, if also a bit dark. It would be a much busier place soon, assuming they reopened the Titanium program, but for now it was the quietest place on campus. Jonbald greeted her without looking up from his desk. "It's remarkable, really, the amount of work one can get done when they're removed from society. The North Pole was cathartic in a way, a return to my older life. A hermit's life." A large model project was spread out on his desk. His early design for the off-world station where they would move the program administration. It was Rosuki's idea, at least at first, but one which Jonbald had embraced fully. A plan which he had made his own. The New Plan. "Why do I get the suspicion this wasn't an accident?" The aged kerbal looked up from his work and smiled. "I've found the noise of civilization to be, disconcerting. Yes. Disconcerting. We are a noisy people, Ros. And this is a quiet place. It's no accident that I find myself here." "I'm not talking about the office, I'm talking...." "... About the Chromium 10. Yes, I know. It had a small computer glitch. Struck out on its own, you might say. Surely it won't be missed? I've already ordered a replacement for Minmus." Jonbald Kerman, back to his meddling ways. Something had told her that Jonbald had been responsible, some hunch. It was Jonbald, afterall, that had worked to hide the Forgotten all those years ago. Taking personal control over the communications system and erasing all the mystery blips. No need to let the uninitiated in on their little secret now, was there? "How?" "Oh, we have our ways. Was there anything else?" "Why?" "A lady of few words. Not at all like you, Rosuki. Answers in time, time in riddles. The usual." One last smile and he returned to his models. An aircraft of some sort, with more seating than the usual small research jets they operated. He dismissed her without even looking up again. "If that's all I'd like to get back to my work." She knew Jonbald well enough to know she'd get no more out of him today. She turned to leave and was almost through the door when he spoke up again, his soft old voice little more than a whisper. "Oh, one last thing. I trust you'll keep this matter between us." He looked up and smiled an all too disturbing smile. "Yes?" What else could she do but agree? This was Jonbald's game now, and only he knew the rules. -- Navigation: Next Post

I'm late to the convo here.... Now that you've set it above the default, go into the settings.cfg file, find the MAX_VESSELS_BUDGET field and change it to -1. That sets debris persistence to unlimited. (Something I kinda need.) You used to be able to set this from the settings menu, but whoever rewrote it for Unity 5 seems to have missed it or deliberately set the minimum to 0. Just don't touch the slider again in settings after you do this or it'll bottom out at 0.

1.2.2.2.2.2.2.2...... Yep, the slightly larger pinkish creatures have once again slapped us with a new version, much to the chagrin of our little green dudes. Some things seem to have been fixed (the CommNet network no long throbs like a beating heart that's hopped up on caffeine), some things have been broken (how do you screw up the collision mesh for struts?), and the game crashes more than it used to. Lots more. And it doesn't bother to dump the logs like it used to when it crashes, so no idea what's up. Probably some slightly out of date mod or the fact that I'm using a 50MB save file. (Except it crashes when I'm using 100% 1.2.2 stock, so.....) Since we're already here I see no reason to not push forward in 1.2.2. I copied the save over this morning, copied the strut part up from 1.2.1 (seriously, how do you screw up struts in a game that's 99.999% about struts and boosters?), updated as many mods as needed it, and jumped in left foot first. One of the things I wanted to mention with the 1.2.1 update was how I handled the tech tree. The Engineering Tech Tree nodes and many of the parts have moved between when I last launched a vessel (1.0.5) and now (1.2.2). Instead of trying to figure out or clean up that mess I did the next best thing: I added up all the science from the 1.0.5 save, started a "new" save and awarded myself that much science. I then tried to unlock all of the nodes I knew I had used prior to when the Jool mission launched, and was... mostly...?... successful. There was one specific case that will be worked into the next update. After that I copied the new unlocked nodes over to the Forgotten save and we were rolling. Here's my tree as it looks today, not counting one node that's way off in left field. I know this doesn't tell you much without being able to see the nodes...... Sorry. One last image: This was the comms network around Kerbin and the Moon before I did the things that we'll cover in the next update. Not hard to imagine why this was causing the potentially seizure-triggering flashing I was seeing in 1.2.1. Expect that next update in the next 30 hours or so. The Forgotten Space Program is finally back in business. (Or should I say the Continuum Space Program?) Cheers.

Yay! Welcome back.

Congrats. More than I can claim.... I still need to smack Tylo around a bit.

Based on how bad the strut bases look I would guess the collider work has taken a step backwards. Or sideways.

.... which basically describes Dwarf Fortress as well. It was a bit of an overloaded reference.

Which sadly won't fit in 384 bytes of memory... but a guy can dream, right?

It was weird. I did a head count using the little portrait scroller thing. 10 kerbals. Did a head count in the info panel in the Map View. 10 kerbals. I went through the ship, transferred the two pilots to the two cockpits. Then I emptied the other parts of the station, which had 8 kerbals in them. 10 total. I was in a bit of a hurry myself, as I wasn't sure how bad things were going to get. Then, after everything was away, I switched back to the station only to find there was still a portrait. Still a kerbal onboard. Barbara was hard at work in the science lab, mainly because I had completely forgotten about the lab. And because I had moved 10 kerbals. There should have only been 10 kerbals. Didn't think much more about it and I just EVA'd her out, taking all the science too. Then today, when I was trying to see who was where, I discovered Tetris is in two different seats on the Transfer station. I checked a quicksave from just before the evac and found there were indeed two Tetrii aboard Kelgee. There is only one Tetris in the crew roster entry. I have no idea where the second came from. I went back and checked the logs, and her last three flights were pretty clear: Brought Titanium 3 up, took Titanium 2 down, brought Titanium 4 up. There should not be two Tetrices. Ghosts. Moral of this story: Don't name stations after dead kerbals. We'll find out. At present they can't even talk to Minmus. (Or rather things at Minmus can't talk to the network.)

== Begin Kerbal Space Program version 1.2.1 == Forgotten Space Program It's happened again. Those well meaning kerbals ran off and completely forgot about their space program. Not much was happening, and they all lost focus. Or maybe they went on vacation and forgot to come back. Or perhaps the game kept updating and they couldn't keep up with the mod changes. Unfortunately nobody remembers exactly what went wrong because nobody that was there to see it go south still remembers. Munths pass. Eventually a group of kerbals stumble on the ruins of the long-forgotten space program. Trailers. Sheds. Run-down labs. A dirt runway. Factories scattered here and there in the nearby countryside. Exploding barrels of fleas. Sharp metal bits. Gumball machines. Nuclear waste. The usual rust of a long forgotten industry. A tiny jet parked near the monolith. The giant monolith. A few quick phone calls and the Continuum Council was picking up the pieces and moving forward once more. And that's when the fun begins. -- The Bosses "I don't understand where they went." Cartina, The New Boss, was pacing back and forth in the run down tracking station, prattling on while the others watched as Jonbald worked to bring the radio system back online. "One minute we were talking about the new buildings, and then they were gone. Gene, Wernher, that new astronaut... whatever her name was." Rosuki smiled a painful smile. "Zeldrien." "Right." The New Boss almost tripped over a set of cables in the dimly lit radio shack. "Does it ever get easier? These disappearances?" "No. Especially not for your type, the tourists. The randoms. Usually they just snap. Ever see a crazy kerbal in the gutter, screaming about aliens? The end of the world?" Cartina nodded back. "Of course." "That's what usually happens. Once we realized how bad the tourists had it, we stopped..." Just then the lights came n full-strength in the tracking station and the building groaned. Jonbald popped up from underneath the operator's station and sat back into the control seat. "Ok, now let's see if we can't find somebody to talk to." There weren't many contacts in orbit that were talking to them at first, just the Neon relays. Soon other contacts lit up, and the space around Kerbin was filled with little dots. They tried a few of the stations, Baile Speir, Kelgee, the transfer stations, but there just wasn't anybody there to talk to. The silence at Kelgee was particularly strange, and Jonbald kept trying. And then he started scanning for contacts around Kelgee. -- Ghost Attack It had been a quiet day on Kelgee Station so far. The usual routine of waking up, trying to call their friends on the ground, then going about doing not much of anything. Only the scientists were busy, always devising some experiments to keep themselves busy in the lab. Right now Barbara was deep into some strange genetics experiment involving a Mystery Goo and some cheese doodles. It wasn't one of Rozor's experiments, and he wasn't sure he really wanted to know where she got the idea. All he wanted right now was kaffeine. Koffee. Khokolate. Anything to give him that kick. Maybe he could work something up in the lab? No, best not. It had been years since their last resupply. So far the important supplies had held out, the snacks and water, but they were seriously lacking in the luxuries department. Rosuki had left many munths ago, promising to make contact with some of her friends on the ground. Arrange for a new supply launch, or perhaps even a rescue. None of them had heard much from her since. Just promises that disappeared into nothing. Over the last year or so their prisoner, The Party Boss, had fully integrated into the crew. At first they had kept him confined to one of the broken Nitrogen orbital modules. That proved to be more trouble than it was worth, so they agreed to let him join them in the station if he promised not to steal a ship or kill them in their sleep. This approach worked better than munths of interrogation, and he soon opened up to his new crew mates. The Party Boss turned out to be an ok kerbal. He had once been a simple tourist, Enwise Kerman, husband of Kaigh. They had both taken an orbital vacation aboard the Exploration 13 O3. It was a simple flight; their craft rendezvoused with another couple aboard the Exploration 14 O3 and then returned to Kerbin. And yet sometime later, long after they landed, everything went horribly wrong. In the chaos Kaigh had been killed, and Enwise was taken with anger. They kept him locked away in an asylum, only to be released by The First Citizen himself. That was many cycles ago. Now he was just another Forgotten Kerbal. Rozor spent most of the morning staring out at the stars, hoping a tin of koffee would float past. He wasn't sure at first, but he thought the stars were moving. They were always moving, he guessed, but now they weren't moving like they should. Or was it the ship? He tried not to look at Kerbin, tried to avoid that feeling of vertigo. Too late. One glance and his stomach turned. He snapped his head back up at the stars, hoping the feeling would subside. And that's when he noticed the solar arrays were waving at him. Oh dear. The next few minutes were a blur. An alarm sounded as one of the station's seals broke. The atmosphere was holding, mostly, but the vibrations were tossing kerbals around violently. After one particularly hard hit Rozor decided to pull the plug and issue the evac order. "Abandon ship or abandon hope!" Or perhaps both at the same time. There were ten of them including Enwise, leaving only one empty seat between the Sulphur and the Titanium. Five in each. Rozor didn't grab anything except a helmet. How could he? It was a minefield of small debris inside the station now, and anything he wanted would've been impossible to find. By the time they were moving down the tube to the Titanium 4 the station was shifting so much that anything they tried to grab was in a different place by the time their hands reached it. The only good news was the whole ordeal had made Rozor forget his vertigo. He crawled into the Titanium to find Tetris bringing the ship online. Two other kerbals followed him in: Mardi and their prisoner, Enwise. Edsel called from the Sulphur, reporting they had five and were at capacity. Rondous, Steve, Verly and Elkin were with him. Rozor gave him the order to undock and strapped himself into the Titanium's cabin. Still missing one kerbal. Rozor heard a strange hissing sound just moments before Edsel reported the Sulphur was clear. He radioed back the acknowledgement, then unlatched himself and turned to check the hatch. The lights blinked, casting the station into darkness. A dark shape appeared as he looked into the docking tube, working its way down towards them. Barbara. Had to be. A screech filled his headset as he reached up and pulled her in. Once the tube was clear he closed the hatch." "All aboard and accounted for. Get us out of here Tetris." "Don't have to ask me twice!" The docking arm the Titanium was docked to acted as a strong lever arm, and they were instantly sent spinning when Tetris unlatched the docking port. It took a few moments for her to get the ship under control. The station's writing and roiling only worsened as they backed away from it. Perhaps Sieta had been right about her ghosts. Kelgee was either haunted or cursed. Best to leave it behind and find saner lands. He didn't think it was possible, but the further from the station they got, the worse it deformed. No sane force could be responsible for such. Edsel called them up to report he had worked out a rendezvous, and would dock with them before they passed the terminator. Once docked back up they could decide where to seek shelter. Most likely they'd need to go to the transfer station where the Titanium 3 was waiting. Assuming it hadn't disappeared over the last couple years. "Hey! Where's the ship!?" It was Barbara, voice coming across the ship to ship radio. Rozor glanced around the cabin doing a quick head count. Tetris was in the cockpit; Mardi and Enwise were across the aisle. He unstrapped to look at the kerbal seated behind him, and was surprised to find Tetris looking back at him. Terror filled her face. He turned around and looked at the cockpit again, where Tetris was looking back with her hand raised up as if to ask "what the hell?" Another glance to the seat behind him and it was empty. "She," Rozor pointed at the empty seat, "She was JUST HERE!" Oh dear, oh dear. Now what? "Jump for it Barb," Rozor heard Tetris say, "We'll be back around to pick you up." Rozor held onto the back of his seat, staring dumbfounded at the empty seat. He was sure it was Barbara when he pulled her into the ship. Dark hair, just like... just like Tetris. And Barbara. He was sure it was Tetris just moments ago. Before she disappeared. Before. Before. Before. The ship turned as Tetris moved to pick up their wayward scientist, only to be waved off by the same. "Nevermind. I'm outside now, I'll come to you." Rozor was sure of what he'd seen. Absolutely. There had been a kerbal in that chair. He had held her hand as he pulled her aboard. He didn't move from his position. Not when the Sulphur docked up. Not even when Barbara slipped into their airlock, hands full with her Cheesy Puff Goo abomination experiment. She strapped into the seat Rozor was staring at, tried to break his focus. "Hey boss, for a scientist you're not terribly observant." He heard her, or at least he thought he did. He slumped down into his seat, stared at his mittened hands. A noise from the cockpit caught his attention, and he looked up to see Tetris working the radio. And another Tetris in the copilot seat next to her. Looking back at him. Grinning. And that's how Rozor lost his mind. -- Data Recovery Services Verly knew she'd have to go back after those boxes eventually. The whole point of leaving them on the Mün was so somebody could go back and get them. And somehow when she left them, she just knew she'd be the one going back after them. Except the way she'd figured it, they(d have all been back on Kerbin by now, and it would be many years later. Not this soon. Some new kerbal named Jonbald, The Boss, and some other new boss lady had called them just shortly after they docked up with the Titanium. They weren't as concerned about the insanity at Kelgee as Verly thought they should have been, but what did she know? She was just a lowly engineer. Sure enough, some unknown crisis had hit Kerbin, and everybody had lost everything. It was now up to them to go fetch their records from the Mün while Jonbald and Rosuki went looking for Gene and Wernher. And that's exactly where they were going. The however many kerbals aboard the Titanium 5 were to meet up with the Transfer Station in low orbit, while the five in the Sulphur were to head to the Mün at the first opportunity. That first opportunity would have to wait until they'd refueled though, as at present they didn't have enough to even leave LKO. And so they made their way to the Chlorine stack. Verly pulled out her HP 32S and started playing games to kill time. It was hard to write games for such a small screen, but her and a few others back in school had managed. She'd kept as many of them as would fit in the tiny calculator's memory ever since. Many of them were likely the last copies in existence. Simple games, mostly math puzzles, but it was enough to keep one form going crazy. Before she knew it they were approaching the dark mass of recycled metal that was the Chlorine fleet. In the dark. As was only right and proper. There wasn't as much fuel left as they thought there would be, at least until they remembered the pirates. Of course Hallock and Sieta had been siphoning fuel off from the Chlorines. Where else would they get it from? It's not like you could make fuel from empty space or the bits of rubble that populate it. No, it was much easier to just take somebody else's. No matter, they were fueled up now and on their way to the Mün. They received word from Tetris just after they'd completed the transfer burn. The Titanium was safely docked up with the Transfer Station. In the dark. As was only right and proper. As always. The six hours between Kerbin and the Mün passed faster than Verly thought possible. She'd spent most of it playing some game one of her friends had written. It was a text-based game, about little green creatures trying to build a fortress underground. These slightly larger pinkish creatures would occasionally invade, trying to steal all their metals and gems. Somehow it worked on the tiny calculator, for reasons she had never understood. It was addictive, despite the lack of a user interface. It was also impossible to win. No matter what you tried, the pinkish creatures would always get the best of the green ones. The only way to have fun was to enjoy losing. The plan was to drop their three passengers at Pequoni 2. There was a lab there, which would hopefully entertain Elkin. They would also refuel at Pq-2 before dropping down to Pequoni 1. With luck, the lander at Pequoni 1 would still have all of their data in its memory banks. The first part went off without a hitch. Pequoni 2 wasn't far off of their capture orbit, and Edsel had them there in no time. They transferred their friends into the station, made sure they were all settled in, topped off the tanks and then made a break for it. If anything went wrong there was another, fully working Sulphur lander at the station. And if that failed, the three of them could always EVA down to them at the Pq-1. The second part didn't go as well as Verly had hoped. Mostly because she didn't want to land on the Mün again just now. The station was still there, in the same shape they'd left it. The dead Sulphur was there, its cockpit still stripped of all its electronics. The old lander was there as well, still docked exactly where they'd left it. Except its memory was empty. No notes, no designs, no science results. Nothing. What now? Nothing to do but go to the surface. Edsel seemed eager, but Verly wasn't so sure. Why bother? If the mystery shuttle had lost its mind, then what hope would their little memory boxes have? It didn't make sense to her, but she had to admit she'd only been through a couple of these events so far. Whatever they were. What made that lander special? Why did it have data then but not now? There had to be some answer. She was lost in thought over this new problem while Edsel was busy landing them on the Mün. This should be simple, really. All the pieces were in play, but when she tried to put them together something came along and scattered them again. Almost as though her own mind didn't want her to solve it. And there was something. Something strange. Something she couldn't place. She just shrugged and played more games on her calculator while they came in for the landing. And then there they were, on the Mün. She still didn't have an answer. They least they had the data they were looking for. All of it. Verly had to hardwire the small box into the ship's computer to read it (why oh why hadn't they used some standard plug?). As luck and fate would have it there data was there. Somehow. For some reason. What made this little square box important? Surely it wasn't the small plot of land it rested on. What could their dead Mün possible have to do with anything? And they had a good radio link back to Kerbin. Somehow Jonbald had managed to wrangle all the various communications satellites into his corral in just the last day. Verly was impressed, and she guessed Macfred would be impressed too. It was no easy feat to convince some far distant lump of metal and silicon to do your biding, especially when it doesn't want to talk to you in the first place. She started streaming the data back to Jonbald. She could almost hear his smile through the radio. Even with his soft, scratchy, ghost-like voice. The Agency was officially back in business. Just as soon as they found a chief engineer. And a flight director. And somebody to run the gift shop. And a cook. You know, the important jobs. Maybe they could even find some koffee for Rozor. He sure sounded like he needed it. Navigation: Next Post