Cydonian Monk

... Time in Riddles Bob and Bill were back at it, and this time there was nothing to interrupt. The library was full with the two of them, Val and several other of the Forgotten lining the walls while Macfred's crew were resting in the seats in the center of the room. Jeb was lounging in the corner, flipping through what appeared to be a graphic novel and ignoring Bob and Bill entirely. "The first thing we noticed was the density discrepancy. Our observations - soil samples, core samples and other such tests - showed Kerbin to have a nearly impossible mass for its size. The most widely accepted theory suggested the core was composed of hyper-dense materials the likes of which we'd not observed. Until we discovered Exorem." "The same stuff the monoliths are made from." "The what who now?" Thomlock was sure he'd never heard that term. Monolith? "Monoliths? The large, black objects scattered around Kerbin? And the Mün? And Minmus? And likely every other body in the system?" Bill's explanation was met with blank stares and shrugs as the crew traded glances. "There's one at the space center. Literally right outside the door. Near the beach. How could you not see it?" "Guess we never looked." "Say, Bob." Jeb hadn't even looked up from his reading material as he flipped a page while tossing out the question. "You don't think maybe their Kerbin didn't have monoliths?" "No Jeb, I don't. And you don't either." Bob took a drink from his water cup before continuing. "Anyway, the monoliths are made of a material that was impossible for us to cut or sample. Weird stuff. My team tried everything, lasers, plasma cutters, sharks, jigsaws, and absolutely nothing worked. Until one day a mysterious kerbal showed up and dropped a sliver of the stuff in my lap along with some cryptic notes Strange guy, that one, rather familiar looking, but he disappeared just as soon as he'd appeared so I didn't get any answers from him. Wernher and myself were still running tests on the Exorem sample when the space program took shape and distracted us. It wasn't dense enough anyway, not that it mattered for long." Bill nodded. "The hyper-dense material theory broke down." "Why?" "The Sun. The data we collected from our space probes showed the Sun suffered from the opposite density discrepancy as Kerbin, and nobody could explain how its fusion reactions could continue. Or why it was even capable of sustaining the reactions in the first place, given its low mass. Our entire model broke down, and none of it made sense until we discovered this station." "Still doesn't make sense to me." "Jeb, nothing makes sense to you, even when it does." "How does _that_ make sense?" Bob ignored him and continued. "This room held the answers we needed to make sense of it all. Notes. Experiment logs. Data. Histories long forgotten. Most were written before even Maclie and Kening arrived. Some other research team had obviously lived here, studied the problem, and found the answer to the density discrepancy years before we even realized it existed. And they possibly even found a way out." "So it wasn't this Exorem stuff?" "No. Black holes." "Lots of them." "Inside everything." Agake's hands shot up defensively. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. If there's black holes at the center of everything, then why do the planets still exist? Wouldn't they have collapsed in on themselves by now? Shouldn't we be observing time dilation? Why aren't there other signs to indicate this?" "We are observing time dilation. It's scant but measurable. Anyway, this is where the Monoliths come in. Our predecessors had gathered enough data to prove the Kerbol System was not a naturally occurring phenomenon, thanks largely to the density discrepancy. The only way the numbers could work, according to their observations, was if the entire system was one giant cluster of black holes." "Except the Sun, which is still kind of weird. And kind of unexplained." "Right. And if the entire system is a cluster of black holes, then these things we call planets and moons are either hollowed out by the black holes at their centers, or are artificial constructs built around said black holes. Either of which explains the density discrepancy. The outer shell is constructed of normal matter, explaining its normal density characteristics. Only problem was the theory is seemingly untestable." "Except it was testable, just not easily so." "Right again. Our predecessors decided to drill through the outer crust of one of these moons and observe its creamy and destructive interior directly. Based on their numbers they were able to estimate the event horizons of each black hole, and set up an experiment to test their hypothesis. So they needed to find the moon with the thinnest crust and punch through it to observe the results. Except they ultimately didn't need to." "Why?" "Kerbin collapsed while they were in orbit. Three kerbals witnessed it first hand and recorded their observations in exacting detail. Chunks of it fell into the blackness beyond, giant rectangles like tiles falling from a shower floor. And then, just as the last of their home disappeared into the impossible darkness, it apeared again. Seemingly untouched. Pristine Kerbin." "Except it wasn't. The three of them climbed into their capsule and returned to the surface, where they were promptly locked away in a mental institution. The space program had been completely forgotten, and these three were ranting and raving about things that couldn't be." "Apparently only crazy kerbals go to space." "And Jeb." "Same thing." "Hey!" "Except in time another space program was started, and suddenly those three weren't so crazy. Except the first astronauts recruited by this new space program were identical to the three locked away by the doctors. Even had the same names, Jebediah, Bill, and yes, Bob. So they stayed locked up and under observation for many munths." "At least until it happened again." Bill interjected. "The kerbals went and forgot about their space program. There was a global crisis. The great powers took notice. Kerbin once again collapsed in on itself, and suddenly the three crazy ones were suspended over the nothingness, held stationary by forces they couldn't see and couldn't explain." "And then they were back on Kerbin." "Pristine Kerbin. Untouched. And again the space program was completely unknown. Except now there were two of each of them. And somehow they stumbled into each other. The Bobs, my past equals, couldn't accept it at face value. Too weird. They had to have an answer, something solid to hang their fleeting sanity on. "So they set up an observation program. They tried to guide the development of Kerbin, to accelerate the space program, to reach further every time before Kerbin collapsed in on itself. To find explanations for why Kerbin came back every time. Eventually they collected more Bobs and Bills and Jebs than they knew knew what to do with, and so they came here." "Somehow." "Or maybe they built this place." "We don't know for sure. All we know is this is where they perfected the theory." "Theories." "Mostly." "Insane." Gletrix leaned forward in her seat, the look on her face one of pure exasperation. "You're all insane. This isn't a research station, it isn't even Thomlock's ghost ship. It's an asylum. This is where The Boss was sending Sieta. Not Dres. Here. No, no, no. You keep your hands down Macfred. These kerbals are all completely mad. Black holes? Collapsing planets? Multiple copies of themselves? If they're not mad then we are." Thomlock still wasn't sold, and he certainly didn't think these kerbals were all insane, but he had to admit none of the physics he'd learned in school made much sense either. "So, what now? These monoliths just rebuild Kerbin every time it collapses? Why does it collapse in the first place if the monoliths are building it?" Bob held up a sliver of very dark material. "Exorem. We think that when this piece was removed from one of Kerbin's monoliths it destabilized the construct. And so over time the planet seeps into the black hole until it reaches a breaking point." "Think of it like this," Bill offered. "These planets are more like an arch than a simple sphere. Each panel of the sphere supports those next to it, with two keystones at the poles to keep them all inline. So once one piece of the sphere breaks, the rest follow it in." Agake kept pressing. "So, what happens to the kerbals when it collapses?" Gletrix seemed exasperated. "C'mon, you're not all buying this load of crap, are you?" "Agake has a good question. When the planet collapses, near as we can tell every kerbal on it goes with it except those that have been beyond the control of the monoliths." "They die," said one of the other kerbals. Thomlock vaguely recalled her name rhyming with crazy. Grazy, was it? "Every kerbal you've ever known that wasn't in space is dead. All of them. Gone. Never to return." "For some reason we don't fully understand, any kerbal that has been to space is protected from these events. Most wake up never knowing it happened, aside from everything they know having disappeared. One of the previous Bobs suggested this was a deliberate action on the part of the monoliths to protect whoever originally built the system. Should they need to visit any of the planets or moons to make changes, to investigate, they wouldn't want to succumb to the monster that lives inside." "Dead." Macfred was just staring blankly at the wall. "All dead?" Agake was unfazed, ever the scientist. "So what are these monoliths anyway?" The others all traded glances before Bob answered. "We don't know. We don't know where they came from, we don't know how they got here, we don't know for sure this is their doing. All we know is what they're made of, and that they emit extensive radio noise when Kerbin collapses." "They sing." "They scream." "And then they whisper." "What's more," Bill continued, "is we're not even sure where the new Kerbin comes from. My preferred theory is that Kerbin is reconstructed by the monoliths from a previous version. A snapshot. Except none of us are sure where they get the matter to rebuild the planet." "Well, we have an idea, but that's where things get really weird." Gletrix, having long since slumped back into her chair, offered a retort. "Oh, so this is where things get weird." "No," Bob corrected, "this is where they get really weird. We think the monoliths have the ability to puncture the fabric of space and time. They pull in matter from another dimension to build a new Kerbin, or they pull in an entirely new Kerbin, already constructed in some other dimension. Which is my favorite theory - that the damage done at Kerbin is causing Kerbins from alternate universes to collapse into our own. This is our Omega Universe, the end point, and all those falling into it are from Alpha through N+1 Universes. If that's the case, we suspect something will eventually be done to plug the hole." "Well, we hope so. It's possible those that built this system have long forgotten about us." "Regardless, both of these theories explain the multiples of us, Werner, Gene and the others in the space agency. Either the duplicates are direct copies of us created by the monoliths, or they're dimensional alternates who started from a common point, pulled in as Kerbin collapses through time and space. There are of course many other theories, but these two are best supported by the data at hand. It even explains how we all know Thomlock." This grabbed his attention. "How?" "Either the snapshot was taken after your mission, or all of these alternate universes split from a common point that occurred after it." Jeb closed his book and tossed it on a nearby bookshelf. "You left one out. One of the theories. The best one." "Not that again, Jeb." "Look. It's no less crazy than all that other nonsense you've been spouting. Shorter and easier to wrap your head around too." Bob took another drink before continuing. "Jeb's theory..." "It's not my theory...." "... The theory developed by a previous Jebediah Kerman suggests that we're all living in an elaborate computer simulation. When the operator of the simulation grows bored or meets a challenge they don't know how to overcome they start a new simulation, discarding the previous to the garbage collectors. Except these now discarded simulations are still resident in the computer's memory, what we call the Omega Dimension, and their achievements are forgotten by all." "This," Jeb waved his arms around, "all of this is fantasy. We're just bits in some silicon dream." Thomlock huffed. This huff was followed by another that grew into a laugh. Not maniacal, or even concerning, more akin to a nervous laugh. An understanding laugh. A laugh that saw through the charade. The others could only smile at his laughter, clearly not in on the same joke as the hundred-plus-year-old kerbal. He paused between guffaws to explain himself. "So I'm right. This really is the afterlife, and you're all ghosts. We're all somebody's ghost. We may not be dead ourselves, but everybody else is. Their ghosts are ours." At that he rose, still laughing, and made his way out of the library. "Ghosts." The galley, that's the only place he could go. There was no amount of grog that could clear the madness that was reality from his memory, but he was willing to give it a go. Omega Universe, computer simulation, black holes, ghosts? Madness. Pure madness. Maybe Gletrix was right. -- Navigation: Next Post

BRB, gotta go check to see if there was ever a Tomy Kerman in my space programs..... That would be too perfect if it was true. There is a madness to the method.

Childhood movies that inspired you. Interesting distinction to make - Childhood, not Children's. I'm not sure I ever had a childhood, and if I did it was spent in the water or under the weather. And I'm not sure there are any children's movies that really had much of an influence on me as a child ("Snoopy, Come Home", perhaps?). Yet there's one film in particular that was hugely influential in my theoretical childhood and remains to be now, some three decade later. I oft quote various bits of it to folks who have no earthly idea what I'm talking about, which makes it all the more tragic and amusing. "Do you know what will happen to me if the bridge is not completed on time?" "Be happy in your work." "You!" "Frankly, the consensus of opinion is that it's impossible, but we'll certainly give it a go." (resignedly) "I have already given the order." (also resignedly) "What have I done?" And my all-time favorite quote from any film ever made: "Madness! Madness!" Yes, it was "Bridge on the River Kwai". It's probably the reason I got involved in model railroading, too. Good show. Jolly good. It's one of those rare films where I feel I can relate to every character in it. It's also an engineer's movie, and every large project I've worked on has gone almost exactly like Saito's bridge. Or was it Nicholson's bridge?

I tried it both with and without the Stock Bug fix, and then I poked at it with a stick. After that I just decided to roll with the problem. Not the first time that stack had issues, either - something similar yet weird was going on when I attached the KAS struts. Might be related, but I doubt it. The particular issue has been going on for years, where things stack-mounted to the Mk3 parts just come unglued. Thankfully those tanks have docking ports stuck to the sides.

Yes. I'm definitely landing on Laythe, thoygh I'm not going to go to Brotoro levels of exploration. Vall is also on the list, assuming nothing goes horribly wrong. Pol is also under consideration, depending on fuel reserves.

Answers in Time.... "Space adaptation syndrome, or rather de-adaptation. It can be pretty nasty the first few times, even for those who've lived out here for years." Thomlock took another sip of the warm mug of brown goo the kindly kerbal in the white jacket had handed him. Strange stuff, more a sludge than a drink, but supposedly it'd help steady his stomach. "I thought that only happened when first going to space." "So did we. Yet almost every one of us had a reaction like you when we first got here. Even me, which was weird considering how long I'd lived on the Mün." The other took off his white jacket and hung it on a wall hook. The room was small, obviously the station's clinic based on the jars of tongue depressors, boxes of gloves, and other hospital knick-knacks. Thomlock downed another swig of his sludge, already feeling better. "Anyway, you seem to be back to normal. We should rejoin the group. Bob will have better answers for your questions than I do." The other pushed through the door, revealing an equally sterile-looking hallway. Thomlock followed him, mug still in hand. Bob. Jeb. Both dead kerbals. And then there's this one.... "Who were you again?" "Lobo. Lobo Kerman. Closest thing to a doctor you'll find this side of Duna." He twisted around and jabbed a hand at Thomlock, forcing an awkward handshake. "Pleased to meet you." "Thomlock Kerman. Closest thing to a fossil you'll find anywhere." Lobo grinned. "Of course you are. A kerbal such as yourself needs no introduction." The end of the hallway met up with the bottom (or top?) of one of the spokes, with an arrangement similar to what they'd seen in the Library. "The others are just through here in the common room." The other door opened and, sure enough, everybody was gathered in what was obviously the station's cafeteria. Macfred, Gletrix, and Agake got up to greet him and make sure he was ok. They then introduced him to the others in the room: Jebediah, Bill, Bob, whom he already recognized, Valentina, Rama, Grazy, Shepcal, and Joekin. Macfred suggested a few others were on the station yet absent, either on-duty or returned to their beds. Thomlock pointed at Jeb, Bill and Bob. "You. I watched you three die. How are you here?" Jeb shrugged. "It wasn't us?" Bob shook his head. "He's not wrong, but he's not right." "I'm never right." "As it so happens we were just discussing your death, or rather lack there of. Lost in space, frozen in a capsule that would orbit the Sun indefinitely. Every schoolkerb had heard the story, though few believed it was true. The Famously Dead Thomlock Kerman." Val agreed. "You were the textbook example of why a kerbal shouldn't blindly follow somebody else's plan." "Glad I could be of service." He took another glug of the syrupy goo and sat down in the nearest chair. "Ok, so obviously I survived and eventually made it back to Kerbin. Doesn't explain how these three are still alive. And whatever happened to Nelsey and Albro?" Everybody looked up at the mention of the name. "Albro?" "What? You kids have legends about him too?" "No. Yes. Kind of." Bill looked to the others for agreement before he continued. "This station wasn't empty when we arrived, far from it. Until you got here we were the new kids. The oldest of the original residents, Maclie and Kening, were here on orders from an Albro Kerman. He was a slightly mad kerb who had fashioned himself as The Director. Claimed to have been the first kerbal to go to space and live to tell the tale." So he wasn't the only one. Thomlock had always wondered what happened to the rest of the Hawk Project crews. Jeb had died in spectacular fashion, Bob exploded mere meters above the launchpad, and Bill had simply disappeared, his capsule discovered safe yet lacking its pilot. Nelsey had scored a named moon like Thomlock, though he'd never heard exactly why. "So Albro's alive?" "Not anymore. He died several decades ago from what Maclie told us. He was already ancient before their first trip to Jool, and passed during their second. Just around the time they discovered this station." Bob continued with the story of how they came to be at Jool, with Bill and Jeb chiming in as they felt the need. The eight younger kerbals had been at the Edge of Infinity now for a little over thirteen years. The four guys, Jeb, Bill, Bob and Ribzor, had been working at Eve on the Onepake 1 when they lost all radio contact with Kerbin. They were originally going to return home when Jeb had a crazy idea and plotted a course for Jool. (None of them were in agreement as to whether he had done this before or after checking if they had enough fuel.) They were somewhat surprised when they arrived and discovered the girls, Val, Rama, Grazy and Lindra, had also set course for the jolly green giant. Those four had been wrapping up the exploration of Duna when they were tasked with the rescue of one Shepcal Kerman. Val took one of their landers out to Ike, discovering Shepcal's ship anything but disabled, which sparked a bit of a standoff. A short time later all contact with Kerbin ceased. Eventually Shepcal convinced them to ferry him to Jool, promising fuel for their return to Kerbin. None of them were quite certain how old the station was or how it came to reside at Laythe. Internally half of the torus was reserved for crops, mostly things that grew well in low-light. The remainder was taken up by storage, crew quarters, common spaces, and laboratories. Some of the heavy-duty labs which rivaled those on Kerbin. Bob then launched into an overly detailed explanation of his earliest research when an alarm chimed on the station's public address system. One of the other kerbals checked a nearby console and motioned towards Macfred and his crew. "Your ship is trying to reach you." "Time to get back to work folks. We'll pick this conversation up again later, ok?" -- More Pieces for the Jumble The work to get back to was the arrival of the Potassium 3. The ship had slipped into the Joolian system some days before, and was coming up on the first of its capture burns. The last of the three Potassium tugs was hauling most of their fuel reserves, a third comsat (Scandium 3), and a probe to investigate the ability of jets operating in the atmosphere of Laythe (Calcium 7). Aside from the Laythe landing, the Vall landing would constitute the single greatest expenditure of fuel during their trip, so one of the two fuel depots was to be placed into the orbit of that icy moon. The third Scandium commsat would also enter into a polar orbit of Vall, which would hopefully improve inner-system communications. As such, the K-3's capture was designed to place it into an immediate intercept with Vall. The first step was an eight minute burn to set up the intercept. Capture complete, the K-3 was indeed lined up for its rendezvous with Vall 5 days later. The Scandium 3 freed itself from the nose of the Calcium 7 (under Gletrix's direction, of course... the robots haven't taken over just yet), discarded the couplings that had secured it to the stack, and made its own burns to place itself into a polar intercept at Vall. [The actual burn escaped the screenshot key, but was just a short puff of fuel.] The crew spent the next several days resting up and becoming better acquainted with the others at the station. Most had arrived by accident or after taking a whispered suggestion, such as the eight members of Jeb's and Val's crews. Some of the others had fled here after Kerbin had gone silent, borrowing whatever craft they could get their hands on. There were a number of interplanetary ships in their fleet, most originally designed for missions to Jool, Duna or Dres and repurposed for whatever it was the Forgotten Space Program was doing. No other infrastructure was apparently present in the Joolian System, which left Macfred questioning how they fueled their adventures. The answer was simple - piracy. Mostly they had taken craft that had been prepared for a mission to Jool immediately before Kerbin went silent, and as such were abandoned. Kerbin going silent was a theme that ran through every conversation. Somewhat remarkably, four of the kerbals had been members of the Pioneer mission to the like-named base on the Mün: Lobo, Roemy, Burvin and Joekin. Their mission leader, Gregory, was off on assignment with some other kerbals and one of the program's borrowed ships, but they promised he was still very much alive. Thomlock grunted at them as they were recounting their tale. "More famously dead kerbals. I'm telling you, kids, this station isn't real. It's the afterlife. These four are dead and buried." "He's not wrong. We found your graves on the Mün," Macfred said, somewhat less confidently. "Flags and all. And some crazy old kerb who claimed he killed you himself." They laughed, except for Lobo who only grinned before offering an explanation. "Poor Hallock. We tried for days to convince him to come with us. Wouldn't go. Kept asking who would take care of his bananas. His münfruit. He suggested we draw straws to leave somebody behind, and we did. Except he kept rejecting the result, forcing us to remove whoever won and redraw. Eventually he was the last one with a straw. "Gregory never wanted to leave him behind. We were going to slip him sleeping pills and drag him to the shuttle while knocked out, but he got the jump on us and locked himself in the greenhouse wing. We were going to miss the transfer window to Jool if we stayed any longer, so we had no choice. We sent the shuttle back down to the surface hoping he'd take the hint, but that was the last we heard from him. Probably for the best, he had always wanted to go to Duna anyway." The Scandium 3 arrived at Vall first. Its approach brought it in over the moon's south pole, in an orbit that mirrored that of the Calcium 3 almost exactly. Unfortunate, as it meant two whole hemispheres would be without satellite coverage at any given time, but such are the vagaries of orbital mechanics. Once the initial capture was complete, Thomlock programmed in a second burn to place their newest communications satellite into a nearly 1800km orbit around Vall. This, when combined with the Scandium 1 and 2, gave much better coverage of the various craft operating at Jool. (Though Bop was still a bit spotty.) The circularization burn at apoapsis was completed without incident. Hot on the heels of the Sc-3 was the K-3, which had a somewhat longer burn to capture into a 150 degree inclined, 400km retrograde orbit of the moon. A four-minute burn that took place almost entirely on the dark, Jool-ward side of the moon. The plan here was simple - drain all but a select amount of liquid fuel from the forward fuel depot into the mostly depleted K-3, detach the Calcium 7 probe and the forward fuel depot, move said depot free of the stack, then dock the Calcium 7 back up with the still-full second depot and continue on to Laythe. Enough liquid fuel would be left at Vall to refill a Sulphur shuttle at least twice, and the depot would have full oxidizer tanks. (A later resupply mission will top it off.) Gletrix was handling the K-3 while Thomlock was assigned to the Sc-3, both working from one of the terminals in the Edge of Infinity. So far everything had gone according to plan, so she transferred the needed fuel into the K-3's rear tank, undocked the Calcium 7, and was preparing to release the forward fuel depot when the readout started to throw errors. "That's weird." "What?" "That." She pointed at the numbers scrolling past in the control console. "None of the docking ports are aligned anymore. It's like it all just came unglued. And now the forward fuel depot is showing a leak in the liquid fuel sys-... Oh." The explosion rocked the K-3 and its two pieces of cargo, sending all three tumbling into the void. The forward fuel depot received a kick of forward momentum, sending it spinning past the Ca-7 while the other two larger pieces tumbled away in the opposite direction. The two cameras on the Ca-7 were responding and sending data, and both Gletrix and Macfred watched as their precious fuel supplies drifted into the inky black. A few moments later the Potassium 3 came back online and started responding to commands. The tug was still in range of the two fuel depots, which both started broadcasting their telemetry data. Neither were responding to commands, though the second depot still showed full storage in its tanks. "Ok, so now what?" "Hmm." Macfred had to think it over. "Activate the SAS on the tug. We'll bring the Calcium 7 in to take a closer look." The closer look showed little to no damage to the rear of the K-3, but total loss of the forward docking assembly and the docking adapter. Meaning the only port remaining on the craft was at the rear, nestled between the eight radiation-spewing engines. Though radiation was the least of their worries. The Calcium 7 was considered an essential part of the exploration of Laythe. Originally intended to fulfill a contract, the small probe is also the proof-of-concept that jet engines will operate in Laythe's atmosphere. Without that proof, the Aluminium X-4B 10 LEA would not be cleared for use by a crew member. And since Gletrix was supposed to ride it down form orbit, they needed to get the Ca-7 to Laythe. Independently, the probe could make it to the moon on its own. Making it to Laythe would be all it could do, discarding the small space tug it was attached to and losing quite a bit of hardware in the process. It also wouldn't guarantee the atmospheric entry and flight would occur at a time when the Jumble of Parts (or the Edge of Infinity) were overhead to relay the signal back to Gletrix. So they needed the K-3 (or some other space tug) to get it there. After some consideration, it was decided docking the Ca-7 to the rear port of the K-3 would be "safe" provided they only used two of the engines during the tug's transfer and capture burns. As an added bonus, this would move the K-3 to Laythe, where they might be able to effect repairs or attach a spare docking port. Only problem is it might leave the little probe a bit "hot". The transfer to Laythe wouldn't happen for another five days though, leaving the crew some time to continue their conversation with Bob and the other members of the crew. Which is where we'll pick up next time [assuming I don't self combust in this Houston summer...]. Navigation: Next Post

Always err on the side of fun. Glad you're enjoying it - I've had a long running love/hate relationship with RemoteTech. Don't mind in the least. One of the reasons I share my craft (through photos and craft files) is in the hope that others will find them useful or improve upon them. I do have an update nearly ready. Work has gone wacko busy over the last three weeks and this neverending summer is leaving me drained. Perhaps tonight? Might split it in two as it's a bit word-dense. We're in the middle of heavy exposition.

I had, and that makes sense given the orbital alignment of NH. You can also run into similar lighting issues in the stock Kerbol system, though you obviously have a bit more control over which Münar orbit you launch into.

1 out of 3 ain't bad?

May 29th of 2013: IIRC the in-game screenshot function didn't work on OS-X for the demo, nor for 0.19.1 when I first bought the game. So my very first screenshot was taken using default Mac screenshot key - complete with the window frame and buttons and all. I don't appear to still have the original (or if I do it's in a zipped-up backup file), so here is the trimmed version: That was my first successful orbit in KSP.

Bagelon 5. Or, the people involved in the prevous study were somewhere near 1.0 on the Garn scale and not representative of humans as a whole. Pretty sure I'd be useless in a 5 meter spinning bagel though. We've had.... complications with the Jool mission. Seemingly unavoidable complications that I've just decided to play along with. Still, that delayed the mission somewhat while I was trying to find a resolution, a resolution which suggests use of a time machine and as such is not an option. Update perhaps tomorrow? Maybe Thursday. Life is busy and miserable at the moment, and I could use a quick trip to McMurdo to cool off and get out of the sunlight.

Thanks. It's mostly just the default EVE textures, but I've adjusted colors here and there and occasionally change which cloud texture Kerbin and/or Laythe are using. I'm also using a different texture for Jool that tweaks the base color a bit. I should upload the config at some point.... Just not right now. Scatterer is also in the mix.

I was wondering if you had hit your limit or not when I checked the forum this morning and saw 25 notifications. Thanks for the very kind words (and the magic internet points).

First, an updated version of the craft for 1.1.3. 100% stock. https://kerbalx.com/CydonianMonk/Aluminium-X-4C This aircraft is indeed insanely maneuverable. So much so that the X-4B design is no longer stable. I pulled the wings back by some centimeters to rebalance the center of lift against the center of mass, and adjusted the wheels accordingly. The ailerons have been set to 50% authority, which helps with the over-roll tendancies. I've not tested atmospheric (re)entry with the X-4C variant, but it handles well as an aircraft. The small landing gear this craft uses are at the very limits of their capabilities. Set the craft down gently or you will shred the rear landing gear and die. Action Group 4 is set to reverse the thrust of the engines. This will help complement the brakes, which behave more like ice skates. If you apply the brakes while going more than 100m/s on the surface, the craft will spin out of control (on the ground), and you will die. The craft will take off easilly around 60m/s. You may need to forcefully wobble it left and right to get the landing gear to break their attraction to the runway, but don't overdo it or you'll clip a wing or destroy a wheel and die. Generally this is a safe craft. Kerbal Engineer lies about the Δv that's available, so don't trust it. Enjoy!

Cool. I won't bother reporting my very nearly identical element sizing issue then.

It just seems natural to climb _into_ a ladder well like that, at least until you realize how terribly wrong you were and have to turn around. I don't recall that specific scenario from Rama (it's been 20 years and a few billion words since I read it), but I can imagine most spacenewbs doing it. Right. It's tough on us mucus-filled sacks of barely balanced instability. I do wonder if those of us that already have messed-up inner ears and little to no terrestrial sense of balance (in my case from endless ear/sinus infections...) would be better off or worse off in such anti-centripital "gravity". I've given some thought to Kerbal ears and Kerbal hearing, and have decided to leave it undecided. That was the Titanium. The Aluminium X-4B has a few dozen fewer ways to end up as kerbal paste.

I'll take a look at it tomorrow in 1.1.3 - there's a chance it's changed and is now insanely maneuverable. I'll also work up a stock-only version while doing so. (I need to spawn a new version of it in 1.1.3 anyway so I can copy the new wheel parts to the craft that's at Jool.) As for flying anything - I use a joystick. Logitech 3D Pro is a nice, cheap stick. So if you're trying to fly by keyboard, that might be one thing.

Thanks, though it's an ensemble effort, of course. It's taken 27 different main saves and I forget how many experimentals to get here. And, since I've only run 3 Jool missions in all of those saves (1 of them a 1-way double fly-by), only 15 or so years of it has been dead time spent in time warp. The overwhelming majority of those 100 years have been spent between Kerbin and the Mün, with a couple side trips to Eve and Duna. The 100 years doesn't include Ad Lunam, of course, which itself was a good decade or two (I think). Depending on ones definition of really weird, very likely. Nothing like what happened at Pioneer Mün Base... I wouldn't pull that twice. Perhaps some of the time.... It's hard to say whose whispers one hears on the wind. At least some of the whispers were Jonbald's. That would be a safe thing to say. Answers in time, time in riddles. Riddles tied up with ribbons that will soon be cut. Thanks. That was by far the easiest spinning dock I've done. Tools help. I didn't cut much from the video (just a bit of "gee dude, this is 8 minutes of boring here"), so what you see is what I was seeing. I found docking with the navball to be the way to go if your target isn't completely stationary, and having the DPAI readout helps to maintain orientation towards the port. As may or may not be obvious, any part of the approach where the Sulphur 3 was spinning was done without SAS. And yes, I did all of that in one take. Sort of.... That one crash I mentioned a few posts ago? Where KSP hit 12 GBs of RAM? That happened just after the Sulphur flipped over to face the Edge of Infinity station. I'd been playing KSP for most of the morning, and had done everything from ditching the debris into Laythe's atmosphere to rearranging the station to some off-camera work to get the science and mapping satellites doing what they needed to be doing. Between KSP and OBS recording KSP, Windows and its memory management routines had had enough and started throwing the youngest and the fattest things off the airplane, which just so happened to include KSP.

Shapeways sent out emails to those of us who were affected by the hack. So while there's nothing on the home page itself, they did at least take the first step of informing those directly affected. Myself included. I'd wager there's a post-mortem coming once they have all the details and have patched the holes.

Thank you both. I'm sure Thomlock'll be just fine. Crazy lucky, that one. I love the old kerbal animations, especially when they all start to chat or dance in unison, making it look lile they're singing and dancing together. I just hope they fix whatever it is that makes the female kerbals occasionally act like zombie statues.

One Hundred Years at the Edge of Infinity So maybe it wasn't much of a party. Four kerbals, trapped in a tin can, millions of kilometers from home. The only fireworks were a bunch of space trash melting in the Laythean atmosphere and a radioactive cloud of plasmatic hydrogen, both of which were taking place a full two days before the actual New Year. At least they had ample rations of fizzy drink to pass around, and the standard-issue zero-G corn chips and queso dip. Because you can't call it a party without at least three kerbals and two of those three things. As for the fireworks.... It took a bit of work to get the telescope (and the station it was attached to) aimed in the right direction, but in the end it all worked perfectly. They saw the first signs of the harness' entry just as they slipped to the night side of Laythe. They watched with rapt attention as that small speck of not much flared up and began streaking across the darkened sky. Brilliant reds and yellows trailed in its wake, and occasionally a larger explosion would send pieces tumbling into the atmosphere to burn up on their own. One final flash, and that was that. No more space trash. [Except that wasn't it, as a large piece of the structure survived not only atmospheric entry, but impact with the ocean surface. It came to rest some 2km below the unending waves of Laythe, where it remains to this day. Plotting. Planning. Scheming. One day it will have its revenge! Or, not, because it's just a dead probe core and a bunch of melted steel.] Meanwhile the Potassium 2 was rapidly approaching the station from the other direction. Its burn to decrease its apoapsis sent another bright red cloud streaking across the sky, yet it was the one bit of fireworks they had to try not to look at as it came with an unhealthy dose of radiation. Not much at their range, but every little bit counts. [This event somehow escaped the screenshot key....] The K-2 entered a slightly shallower orbit than the Jumble of Parts, and would catch up with the station after one orbit. A rendezvous in that dark, as is only fitting and proper. A quick check of the map showed, yes, more lines, but also that "in the dark" was about to become an extended event. One feature of orbiting a small body that is itself orbiting a large body that isn't the Sun is that said large body blocks sunlight for an extremely long period of time. Sure, there's not much of the blessed warmth of solar fusion all the way out at Jool, but when it's all you've got it's all you've got and you don't want to lose it. So the absence of that light for such an extended period of time is neither fitting nor proper. Thomlock ran the numbers and discovered that, yes, the rendezvous would occur moments after the Sun disappeared behind Jool, and, yes, the Sun wouldn't be visible until several hours later. "Hope you like being in the dark." "About what?" "What do you mean about what?" Macfred drifted to where Thomlock had been plugging away at the map terminal. "In the dark, about what?" "Being in the dark. Literally. In the dark. No phone, no lights, no motorcar. Not a single necessity. Primitive as can be." He pointed at the map. "See. Here in an hour or so the K-2 will blast a bit of luminous red plasma out of its backside, and after that we'll be completely in the dark until well after the year ball has risen." That garnered a quizzical look from everyone. "The what?!?" All he could do was shake his head. "Kids. If I hadn't been out here with you for the last several years I'd think you were a gang of uncultured mystery goo. Just believe you me, the lights are going to go out and it'll get dark." Very dark indeed, though not unexpectedly so. There was a reason they brought more RTGs than any healthy kerbal could use. Thankfully robots don't need sunlight to function (except they kind of do), and most of the various craft at Laythe have lots of spotlights to spare [which I forgot to use]. And it wasn't like they were in complete and total darkness. Not only did the stars cast a bit of (very dim and oft creepy) light, but the outer atmosphere of Jool was still scattering a good bit of the scant sunlight. So occasionally, one of the crew would glance out of their window and see a giant spacecraft floating past in the frighteningly dim green light. Good way to scare yourself, even if you expect it. Macfred set to work moving the Parts around the Jumble while the others watched. Gletrix was on deck and suited up in case an emergency EVA was needed during the task. Thomlock was in the shuttle cockpit in case they needed more power to wrangle the beasties into place. Agake was watching her science experiments cook and bubble, as always. First Macfred undocked the Aluminium X-4B aircraft and its small tug from the K-2, moving them to the docking port at the other end of the Sulphur Shuttle. It wasn't the smoothest of operations... conducted by himself, in the dark, using the remote docking cameras... but it was far from the most dangerous thing he'd attempted in his career. Still, had it not been for the docking tools, this was a task that would've waited for the Sun to rise again. Next he undocked the K-1 tug from the Jumble of Parts and moved to dock it with the K-2. From there both would consolidate their resources (moving as much fuel as possible into the K-1). Afterwards they would descend into a slightly lower orbit from that of the Jumble of Parts. The K-1 was to be their ride back to Kerbin, baring the arrival of an as-of-yet unplanned return craft, so best to have it fueled and ready should they need to make a hasty departure... in several hundred days time. This docking maneuver was a bit less challenging and yet a bit more unnerving, on account of the eight NERVAs the forward docking adapter of the K-1 had to miss. One misstep and who knows how many tons of radioactive fuel might be spread across Laythe orbit. Thankfully Macfred was able to thread the needle, and the two tugs were quickly made one. By now they were well inside Jool's shadow, and Laythe was in seemingly permanent darkness below. The fuel transfer between the K-2 and the K-1 was completed without issue. And then Jool moved aside and let the Sun shine through once more. Laythe started to glow once more, and the bright stars became ever so slightly dimmer. And with that particular non-crisis over it was time for the real party. -- Thomlock's New Year's Rocket Eve [Live from Laythe's Sphere] Five hours later and the show was on. No literal show, of course, though Macfred did try to raise Kerbin one last time. As they were still operating in the blind and unable to hear anything from Kerbin, Thomlock decided to host his own show. "Thomlock's New Year's Eve. Live, from Low Laythe Orbit." Or something along those lines. He pulled the snacks and the drinks out of the overhead bins and passed them around, calling every kerbal within earshot to join them in the main cabin. Meaning Agake, of course, as the other three were already on hand. Macfred continued fidgeting with the radio, trying to coax it into recording the party and broadcasting it to an unawares audience. Or an uncaring audience. Or to mysterious aliens that were waiting to eat their ship in one bite. Who knows. Thomlock pulled him away from the obstinate beast and started into a strange ritual. "This, kids, is this year's year ball." He raised his hand to the middle of the cabin and released a small red rubber ball. Someone had written '99' on the side with a black marker. "Now, back when I was a kid, back when New Year's was when it was supposed to be, some enterprising young kerbal decided to set up a big shiny ball atop the tallest building in Kerbin City." Gletrix looked up from her bag of corn chips. "Mün Tower?" "Mün what? Tower? Not on your life. That monstrosity is something your parents built, not mine. Anyway, about an hour before the zero second this other whackjob, this kerbal who might've had a bit too much to drink that night, went to the roof of that same building and started counting down. Had a megaphone and everything. As it went on the revelers in the streets gathered around the building and joined the chant. Age old tradition, really, just this time there was a big shiny ball dangling over everything." "What's this now? Start into a story without me?" Agake drifted into the cabin from the lower lab, several zip-bags filled with a mostly clear liquid in her hands. She tossed them at the other three and then passed out straws. "Here, try this out. A little something I've been cooking up over the last two years." "And here we thought you were doing science." "That _is_ science. And art. Tell me it isn't and you'll become a vacuum exposure test subject. Anyway, what's this about a big shiny ball?" Thomlock took a sip from the spacer equivalent of a mason jar and made a face that most would consider impossible for a kerbal. "Sharp stuff, that." Agake shrugged. "Didn't have much to work with. Enjoy it while it lasts." "Right." Another sip, not so bad a face. "So this loon is standing on the edge of the building next to this big disco ball, chanting to the crowd. Ten. With the crowd. Nine. He climbs out on top of the big shiny thing just as the moment nears. Eight. The Mün rises over the horizon. Seven. And he gets this idea. Six. That maybe he should go there. Five. To the Mün. Four. It wouldn't be hard, he thought. Three. If he dropped a giant rubber ball from the top of the tallest building.... Two. Surely the rebound would take him clear to the Mün. "One." He gave the ball a push towards the top of the cabin, watching as it spun away. "To this day I'm still not sure if the ball was supposed to drop, or if that idiot with the megaphone somehow broke the cable holding it up. But the fall was something else. Really, like something out of a dream. One of those crazy dreams. The city lights reflecting off of it as it fell. A kaleidoscope of colors. The crowd below moving in rapid slow-motion, running for their lives as quickly as they could. The spray of glass as the ball finally hit the ground. Colors, lights, everywhere. Amazing." The red ball bounced off of the upper hatch and rebounded towards him. He had to blink a couple times. For a moment it looked like more than one ball, but, no, just the one. That concoction of Agake's was strong stuff if his vision was already going double. "A couple days later when I woke up in the hospital they said I was lucky to be alive. Spent hours pulling glass shards out of places no glass shards have any business being. And they suggested I was perhaps crazy. Yes, crazy. And crazy lucky. The newsreels played video of that night for munths to follow, and just about every New Years Eve thereafter." "Waitsa second." Gletrix took another sip out of an already mostly-empty bag. "Why you were, were you, in the hopsital?" "It was my megaphone." He grabbed the rubber ball as it floated past, tumbling lightly downwards. "So the following year we tried again, just with a giant rubber ball instead of a giant glass one. Painted the year on the side if it." He held the ball up as an example. "Year ball." A quick toss and the ball disappeared into the lab. "Didn't make it to the Mün, and we don't talk about the following New Year's anymore. Wasn't pretty." The clock started beeping and soon it was ten seconds to zero time. Thomlock started the count as he had more than a hundred years before. "Nine, eight, seven," the others joined the chorus "six, four, no, five, three, two, none, none?, one. One." And a red rubber ball came bounding out of the lab and sailed past them, startling Thomlock as it grazed his face. Gletrix and Macfred both started giggling, the others too, and the laughter amplified into a cacophony of giddiness. New Year's Day, finally upon them. Another year spent way out in the black. "So," Macfred said some minutes later after catching his breath. "One hundred years." He was looking out of the window pensively, perhaps wondering what was happening on the blue speck next to the red speck near the Sun. "Yeah, but one hundred years since what?" Agake looked at Thomlock, expecting an answer. "Well, if you kids ran your numbers right, one hundred years since that Jeb kid blew himself up on the launchpad. Morbid thing to set a calendar to if you ask me." They sat in silence for some time, each reflecting on their own thoughts. Finally Macfred perked up and spoke directly to Thomlock. "Oh, I forgot to mention," he stabbed at the window with his straw, pointing at nothing in particular. "I had the computer compare the flare you reported to the dat from the map sats and our own radar data." "And?" "And you're right. Something's here with us. Something big. The Boss suggested we might find, uh, something, so maybe this is it. Maybe it isn't. Either way as soon as this little holiday is over and all our heads clear up we'll go check it out. Deal?" "Deal." -- Twenty four days later and they were ready to head out on their expedition. (That "science" left them all with an incredible headache the likes of which nothing would chase away except time.) The K-3 and the extra fuel was still some forty days out, so instead of sitting around dreaming about where they might land on Laythe, they all piled aboard the Sulphur shuttle and went on a short trip. (They first had to move the Aluminium X-4B out of the way, but that was a simple task.) Thomlock had labeled their destination as Thing L-1, the first Thing around Laythe. After running over the data several times, they calculated it to be in an equatorial, 200km orbit. Just a bit above them. With the observed flares and the radar blips they soon had the ephermeris down, and were able to catch another flare when and where it was expected. "That thing's huge." "Sure looks that way, Gletrix." "What is it, do you think?" Macfred interjected from the lower decks. "Probably a rock. Captured asteroid. Captured comet. The moons here play billiards with them, especially Tylo. Regular pool shark that one." "Only one way to find out for sure." Thomlock hit the locks and backed the shuttle away from the station. "We'll go see it in person." "Get comfortable, because it'll take us awhile to reach our target's orbit. I figure, two, maybe three burns total. We'll kick up into an orbit just above it, pull our peri up. Should be there in, oh, two orbits? Give or take." -- -- Infinity's Edge One last burn and the rendezvous was set. "You should come back here and take a look at it." Agake had her head shoved up into the canopy behind Thomlock's, something neither had room for. "Can't see anything from this angle. It's huge. Why can't I see it from here?" "I'm flying kiddo. I'll see it soon enough." Whatever it was. The blip on the radar was certainly very large, and the occasional glimpse he caught of it in the rear docking camera reinforced the radar's opinion. Huge. Round. Engineered. Just then Macfred pushed his way into the cockpit, somehow squeezing three kerbals into a space only meant for half of one. "You've got good eyes, you old geezer. I'm wrong. Certainly isn't some rock." The console blipped, and a faint pink dot showed up on the video overlay. "I'd say not," he pointed at the monitor showing the rear camera and its new symbol, "unless rocks have figured out how to broadcast docking instructions." The readout blipped again, showing they were closing at two meters per second. "Close enough." Thomlock switched off the main engines and brought the cold gas system online, slowing their relative velocity to near zero. "Monoprop from here on out. Let's take a better look at this thing." He gave the shuttle a nudge and they flipped over to face their destination. Huge was an understatement. The two kerbals wedged into the back of the cockpit both started speaking at the same time, and Gletrix was contributing to the commotion from the cabin behind. "It's spinning." "How did that get built?" "What's it doing here?" "Who says we built it?" "Are there kerbals onboard?" "Is it broadcasting anything else?" "Can we talk to them?" "What..." "How..." "Who..." "When..." "Why..." Noise. Noise. Noise. "Quiet!" Thomlock couldn't hear the beeps and blips of the console over the three of them. He gave the RCS another nudge and they were facing it, whatever it was. Relative velocity still zero. "Now, let's go see what that thing is." A push and they were on their way. A twist of the controls and they were spinning in time with it. Laythe swung up, then down, then up, Jool joining in on the dance. Spinning chaos. Macfred pushed off of Thomlock's back and moved into the rear cabin. "I'll try to hail them." The air in the cockpit quickly returned to its cold, fresh, well-circulated state. Docking with a spinning target wasn't the easiest task in the universe, and approaching the docking port while spinning was even more challenging, so Thomlock stopped their rotation and switched back to a more traditional approach. Best not chance things when approaching an unknown and unexpected station. "Fifty meters to go." "Can you see anybody in the windows?" "Sorry, trying to not look at them just now. It's a bit, well, disorienting." While spinning he had found it easier to focus on the station and ignore the rest of the sky. But now that they were stationary and the station was spinning? He almost didn't want to look at anything. "Thirty meters." The station was now large enough that it blocked Jool from view. Or perhaps formed a ring around Jool. Soon Jool was less than half the size of the ring. Then barely a third. "Twenty meters." The approach looked good and steady, so he gave the controls another twist. That brought their rotation up to match the station again. Jool shrank against the bulk of the station. "No response to hails" called Macfred from the cabin. No surprise, really. Most of the Things they'd found in space had been completely empty, and those that weren't were devoid of sanity. One was far more preferable to the other, but both likely to result in silence on the radio. "Ten meters." Yes, it was much easier to match the rotation of the station once the craft was aligned with its docking port. Attempting lateral movements while spinning only resulted in being 90 degrees out of phase... something the computer could adapt to, but required far more practice than Thomlock had ever had. Watching the navball helped. Kind of. Helped make it feel like the universe was spinning around them. "Five meters." Just drifting in softly, the occasional push to the left or right. He slowed their approach so as not to bump off of the station. "1 meter, magnets kicking in." He flipped the RCS switch and let the ports work their magic. A few moments later and the familiar sound of metal-on-metal rang through the ship. Teh universe snapped, and there it was. "Contact. Green lights. We're docked." Macfred bounced over to the forward airlock, pushing past Agake and into the now incredibly crowded cockpit once more. He activated the hard docking latch and checked the atmosphere on the other side. "The air looks good. A bit warm perhaps, but not uncomfortable. Flight suits should be safe enough." Thomlock turned off the docking aides and shut down the ship's other navigational systems while Macfred checked over their new anchor point through the tiny terminal. "Shall we see what's behind door number one?" No complaints so he pulled the hatch open. The outside was cold to the touch, having been exposed to the vacuum for who knows how many years. Ice crystals formed as the wet air of their ship became condensate, and then just as quickly melted away. The hatch to the station opened with a crank of the locking arm and a gentle nudge, and the slightly warmer air pushed past the four and into the Sulphur 3. They all slipped into the airlock and closed the shuttle behind them. The area immediately beyond the lock was empty and clean. A dozen suit lockers lined the edges of the room, and the center was best described as the unholy marriage of a hospital and a jungle gym. The room was clean, brightly lit, all in white, with a geometric latticework of pipes along the perimeter. Said latticework focused on eight doors, doors that led to the eight spokes radiating from the hub. At some three and a half meters across, the hub was the largest open area any of them had ever seen off-Kerbin. A similar suit locker was at the other end, where a small collection of smaller craft were apparently docked. "Wow." "Wow indeed, 'Trix. After 96 years in a tin can, this place feels like a palace." Agake pushed past them, scanning the room for... something. She didn't seem to be sure what herself. Finding nothing, she wrapped her legs in the latticework and shrugged. "It's empty. Ten doors, 24 suit lockers. nothing else. No science, no crew comforts, nothing. Why so empty?" "Form follows function, maybe? This could be a loading dock. Only reason to be here is if you're coming, going, or moving cargo." Macfred bounded over to a random door. "Let's go take a look at the ring." Thomlock wasn't sure haste was the safest approach, recalling their encounter on the Mün. Yet before he could say anything Macfred had checked the door for an atmosphere and was through the hatch. The other side was just a long tunnel, as one would expect from the outside. A ladder ran the length of it to another door at the top. Bottom. Other end. "This place is enough to make a top dizzy." The centripetal force at the hub had been minimal, only enough to suggest the walls were where they wanted to be. As they climbed up out of the hub, they felt like they were descending into a heavy pit. Halfway through they each realized they were going into it the wrong way, and flipped over carefully. The gravity helped more than they expected or wanted. After three years in the void, this "gravity" felt welcome yet disconcerting. On the ladder they were falling backwards. Upwards. Sideways. Downwards. That feeling of disorientation worsened as they reached the bottom. The top. The other end. Through the door and into another small room. A clean, white room with two more doors. Many doors. One in front, one behind, one overhead. Three doors. The room below them wasn't very large, and before all four could descend up sideways into the disorientation around them, Macfred needed to open a door and go through. He chose one at random, slid the hatch sideways and pushed through into a large, well lit room. Thomlock followed the other three in, closing the hatch behind himself. It was a large room, though not as large as the hub. It was warmer in decoration than the rest of the station, wood trim around the floors and the walls, lights a welcoming hue. The floor slanted down and away from their vantage point, the ceiling sloped down to match. Or did it? With the hatch closed the inside of the room felt perfectly rectangular, perfectly squared. On the far end a set of stairs led up to a door identical to the one they'd just opened. The confusion of the hub and its spokes faded the longer they were in the room, and after a few seconds the sense of falling itself fell away. They were in the library. Books and folders filled shelves and lined the walls, a set of high-backed flight chairs circled a table in the center. Small reading lights descended from the ceiling, positioned over each of the seats. The more Thomlock looked at the room the more wood trim he spotted. It was quiet, the eaves and shelves catching every sound. And nicely warm after their long, cold journey through the black. Macfred stumbled into the room, and Thomlock wondered if perhaps the others hadn't adapted to the gravity as well as himself. Sure enough Agake was dizzily leaning against the bulkhead wall and Gletrix was walking with her arms outstretched. Thomlock laughed at their suffering and walked confidently over to the nearest bookshelf. He grabbed a folder from the top of the stack and started reading. "A Study Into the Effects of Extreme Magnetic Fields on Exorem." Macfred and Agake looked on intently as he read the title page, Gletrix was still relearning how to walk. "Chief Researcher Bob Kerman, assisted by Lindra Kerman. 173rd Day of the 88th Known Year. Interesting." He flipped through the first few pages of notes, mostly hand written, before holding it towards Agake. "And many more where that came from." "Of course there are." They all four stopped cold in their tracks. It was a male voice. Unfamiliar. Thomlock looked at Macfred, who could only shrug. "That's all Bob does, write those silly reports that nobody will ever read." Yes, unfamiliar. Yet not. The voice seemingly came from everywhere at once yet nowhere at all. Each of them looked around nervously, trying to find the source. Macfred motioned towards the chairs in the center of the room just as one started to spin. In the chair sat a kerbal, not young but not ancient, his hair greying, his orange jumpsuit bright yet visibly worn. Unfamiliar, yet not. Not unfamiliar. Thomlock blinked when he saw the face and then gasped uncontrollably. That face. The face of a ghost. He'd seen it those many years ago, twisted and burned. It had etched itself into the forgotten halls of his memory. He barely heard what Macfred said next, and completely missed Agake and Gletrix as they moved to opposite sides of the room. Thomlock fumbled at his side for his spacewrench, only to find he'd left it in the shuttle. Fool. The sense of falling returned, the universe spinning around him as he fell endlessly towards the streets of Kerbin City. The lights flashed past, a kaleidoscope of chaos, the sound of the wind and the crowd ringing in his ears. He went down on one knee and dropped the folder. Macfred put a hand on his shoulder and waved a greeting to the ghost. "Hi, we're very sorry to have bothered you. I'm Macfred Kerman and this is the crew of the Jumble of Parts." The other kerbal stood and repeated the gesture. "Hello Macdude." The impossible other motioned towards Thomlock, and started walking towards them. It could still walk. "Is he going to be ok?" No, he was most definitely not going to be ok. He shook his head to regain his senses, but nothing could shake the falling. Spinning. His mind twisted in upon itself, and for some reason his head nodded in the affirmative. A faint yes leaked treasonously from his lips. "Sorry, we've been in microgravity for a very long time. I'm sure we'll all be fine once we adapt." No, they wouldn't. They couldn't. They were communing with the dead, they could never be ok. Ever again. Macfred kept speaking while the universe continued to spin. "Sorry, again, we're on a mission to study Laythe and Jool, and we just kind of stumbled on your station. Heh. Stumbled, in, your station. Where are we exactly?" The ghost laughed. "Where are my manners. I'm Jebediah Kerman and this is Edge of Infinity Station." It waved his arms around, mimicking the motion inside Thomlock's head. The tunnel vision returned and he fell once more towards the streets. The roar of the crowd increased, the rush of the wind took hold. The ghost spoke again as the ground rushed up to meet Thomlock. "Welcome to the Forgotten Space Program." And then the lights went out. ==== Navigation: Next Post

Given the "We're Hiring" ad at the top of the Forum, I seriously doubt Squad will abandon KSP to its bugs anytime soon. I can't speak as much for Linux support, which I'm in favor of, but can certainly understand why it might have more issues than the Windows version. Regardless, this thread really isn't the place to debate it.

Oh, I'm not saying it's all perfect, just that it doesn't crash much on me at all. Lots of EVA things are broken (lights, pacman, etc.), and kerbals are seemingly frictionless like the wheels. But so far the issues have been things I can live with. We'll see what 1.2 brings. Maybe it gets better, maybe the whole thing blows up.

GTX-770. It does well enough for what I need. Scatterer has been rock-steady for me in 1.1.3, though I had to turn off the god rays (for other reasons). I'm in 1.1.3. I don't remember if I'm using a version of EVE built by somebody else or by me.... But I think the most recent version on GitHub works just fine, despite being a 1.1.2(?) build. The only time 1.1.3 has crashed for me was when it was using 12GBs of RAM, which was apparently too much. Something has a memleak somewhere..., but that was also after many hours of gameplay on a Sunday morning.

It was almost completely lag-free. I think I was running at ~1.5 times normal speed at worst. Ditching the eight satellites helped tremendously, and losing the part-count-heavy harness they were all mounted to even more. We'll get into the exact details tomorrow. Most of my lag now comes from Scatterer and EVE, which is likely unavoidable given how many cloud layers they have to handle between Jool and Laythe.