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THE KERBIN ESCAPE:THE JOURNEY TO SPACE COLONIZATION Introduction Over an year since the original idea, and five months since I wrote the first lines, the first chapter is finished. Escaping Kerbin will follow an organized effort to colonize space in the KSP universe. The story is intended to cover the many factors, trials, tribulations, and outcomes of the space colonization, before a backdrop of a world slowly tumbling into chaos. The story will rely on modern technology at the beginning, with gradual technological advancements becoming available. In the context of this series, space colonization and settlement refers to Kerbals living permanently off Kerbin—this report seeks to go further than small, scattered habitats, and instead hopes to go one step bigger to structures such as rotating space stations, and extensive mining bases by the end of the series. A few notes: A motivation that will warrant space settlement is very much lacking in our universe, but I hope that this series will find one that can justify the effort. While I will be playing a career mode save, The Kerbin Escape will likely rely on... Other sources of income to begin. The Kerbin Escape will use a slowly increasing amount of mods, of which I will make a list of below. The Kerbin Escape borrows certain elements of the world from the Asteroid Sentinels but it is intended to be a stand-alone. Feedback is greatly appreciated. I hope to use it in order to improve your reading experience. Enjoy! INDEX Chapter One: The Journey to Space Colonization The Space Settlement Drive (SSD) Act Chapter Two: "The Kerbal Space Program is the Past." A thousand kilometers away, the thunderstorms of wasteland and war began their creep across the ochre dust clouds that now smothered the Kertoussa Highlands. Yet at the Kerbal Space Center, the waves of the Sea of Serenity lapped at the peninsula as usual. The harsh light of an equatorial Kerbol shined as it always did, but with a faint reddish glow, on the day when the tree to the stars were planted, and the day when Kerbalkind was one no longer. Bill and Valentina A red flash darted across Bill’s news panel, his rounding eyes chasing the bold, highlighted words that flickered by. His shoulders sank as the sound of defeat seemed to escape out of his mouth. “Never in a thousand years would I have ever expected this to happen.” Bill’s head sank. Sitting on the chair across from Bill, Valentina was staring into the seventh edition of What Could’ve Been, the same way one would look down into the supposed Mohole. She set the book aside and directed a scowl at Bill. “What?” “The googly-eyed missile kerbs! They’ve actually done it. The leader of that ironically-named Real Deal Front over in Kertoussa has just gone rogue, and is attacking Kerbal Union bases!” Valentina’s head cocked forward. “What?!” “I know, right! This world just seems to get more and more chaotic. First the freaking asteroid blows down the coastline of Kertoussa, Jebediah Kerman disappears into the night with no known quote-on-quote ‘foul play’ involved, every little province out there is hammering at the knees of the KU and on top of all that… the KU being a typical KU, fails to address the kerbanitarian crisis in Terketia—” Valentina cut him off sharply, saying, “Bill, the world is degenerating into chaos each day, but it won’t change much to complain about it. In the meantime, there’s this ‘super surprise’ at the administration building in 10 minutes, and they brought a lot of aerospace executives, so we should get going.” “Oh. That’s what the security is about?” “Bill, how did you not know about it?” “I don’t read the daily dispatch, Val.” “Of course you don’t,” Valentina muttered. “It’s not shocking, I admit. So what’s the super surprise part of this meeting?” “I haven’t been able to figure out. Any ideas?” “The security seems more than the typical waiting-to-bash-some-RDF-hitmen tight, more Secgen of the KU is coming tight—” Bill grinned. “Ah-ha! That might be it. Maybe the Secgen is coming! That’s the apparent surprise!” The Administration Building in the Kerbal Space Center that now lay before Valentina reminded her of the appearance of an old Spark I rocket—a few pre-constructed components hastily bolted together, and built to the standards of those 60’s era Kertoussa housing complexes, which is to say, usually stable. Gus insisted that it was a phoenix rising from the ashes, but while it sure shared the similarity of having its old form turned to ash, the hatchling that replaced it was hardly impressive. It had been the opposite, of course—a clean-cut lawn, a superpool, and a helipad fit for a Secgen once adorned a sharp, sleek building with not one, not two, but three press rooms! It was a shame that on the fateful night of the Announcement—the same night the RDF was truly born, it blazed like bombed K-42s. Valentina and Bill cut their way through the dense mass of fellow astronauts and KUBS, AR, and INA reporters that had coalesced around the entry door. “...I apologize, but we just don’t have the seating in there! You’ll have to ask questions through the KSP Reporter’s virtual site!” shouted Mortimer, grizzly and uptight as usual. Valentina and Bill finally broke through the crowd, repeatedly exclaiming “Sorry," and “I apologize for the inconvenience,” along the way. “There you are!” Mort called out, singling them out with a jab of his finger. “You two are late! Passes?” Valentina flipped through her categorized tabs on the terminal and out popped up her Astronaut ID card, still marked by the picture of a haunted young pilot returning from the bombing runs on her own homeland. “Here you go.” With the tenth defeated sigh of the day, Bill sluggishly threw up the ID of a naive engineer with a devious grin. “Have a look, Mort.” “Of course. Enjoy your time in the shack,” Mortimer grumbled, waving them off. The crowd behind them seemed to get more than a little upset at their entry, but the sound was drowned out as the protester and reporter-proof door slammed shut with a hiss, replaced with the waft of fried safut. “Ah...If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, it’s the food,” Bill said, pulling a strip of safut and popping it into his mouth. Valentina’s boots made a consistent clop as they struck the runway-like floor. Consistent, until they stepped into the din of the austere press room and trampled onto a fellow astronaut’s boot. “Oops!” Valentina looked up. “Oh! Hi Bob!” Bob stretched a forced grin. “Hiya?” Valentina spun her head around the room. “The chairs are filled up, so do you want to stand with us?” “I mean, we can’t exactly sit,” Bob said. “True.” The trio squeezed along the wall to make way for some rather large executives from the C7 Kerbodyne Aerospace Company. “Isn’t the speech or whatever supposed to begin in a minute? Kind of strange they haven’t started. I always miss these by a bit, since they always seem to start five minutes early—” At precisely noon, the stage bloomed into a light like a sunrise, and only a silhouette—that of Secgen of the Kerbal Union Hudcas himself. Well, I guess this building has a second thing going for it—a light show, of all things, thought Bill, as the beaming Secgen stepped out onto the stage, and the lights dimmed… Secgen Hudcas The Secgen swept his gaze across the room, packed with Kerbals sitting on haphazardly arranged chairs that looked vaguely like the ones from the school he visited earlier in the morning. With a grin as far as Kerbally possible, the Secgen bellowed out, as always, “Helloooooooo fellow Kerbals!” Only this time, the sound system was unable to take the sound, and a horrific whine projected across the room. “Ah! Sorry, everyone! I suppose I won’t be using this little thing today,” tossing the microphone towards the backstage at some poor intern. “So where was I?” He shifted his eyes every so slightly at the glossy teleprompter, which shouted in bright yellow text, “GET TO THE POINT! WHY WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT AND ALL!” “You may wonder what this security and all is about. I know I would.” He cleared his throat. “My fellow kerbals, it is all to reveal a bright hope in what has seemed like our Union’s darkest hour. This bright hope shines like the South Star above us!” He paused. So far, so good. “This hope is the dream. The dream that will be Kerbalkind’s greatest leap yet. A leap to the stars, and you, all of you! You are here for a reason! To build that trampoline that’ll send Kebralkind sky-high!” The Secgen breathed a sigh of relief, as he heard a few chuckles from the audience. Not the most cringe-worthy thing a Secgen has ever said, considering what Halski said last Munth, thought Hudcas. “I have a vision for the Kerbol system, a thousand years from now. In this vision, there is Kerbin, flourishing from unbroken peace and from the resources of distant worlds, where hundreds of millions of Kerbals live. In this brave new Kerbol System, we will not see others as Terketians or Tacakrans, as Dunans or Laythians, but as Kerbals, united in peace and prosperity! And who will have gotten them there? All of you, in this room, sitting or standing right now. We begin the journey to the stars, and the journey to elevate Kerbalkind to a higher state.” Cheers rippled forth from the audience. I never exactly got to why we were here, but the crowd is excited, thought the Secgen. Bill, Bob, and Val At the back of the room, Bill, Bob, and Val were doing their best to dodge the clapping hands of suit-cladded executives. “Peculiar. He didn’t exactly tell us why we were here, did he?” Bill asked Bob. “Seems like the Secgen is talking about some kind of space settlement program!” Bob shouted over the din of the room. Bill paused for a few seconds before saying, “Well, now that I think about it, that sounds about right. This new Secgen has promise.” Bill beamed at Bob. “A real forward-thinker, the Kerbal Union could use a lot more of them. A real shame he came at the worst time to be forward thinking.” They turned back to the stage as the applause died down. “As the new Secgen of the Kerbal Union, it has been in the interest of the whole KU for me to review the issues and changes of our deeply interconnected world—” Bill shifted back towards Bob. “When I said forward-thinker, I didn’t also request a guy who underplays the urgency of the current situation. If he’s no idiot, he has to see the KU as peeling open at the kerpato bag!” “Well, I’m sure he’s no idiot, Bill. He’s probably just trying to keep the upbeat mood around here.” The Secgen continued, “In my review, I recognized one part of the Kerbal Union we were overlooking. The space industry. Here, for 60 years, the freshest and bravest minds on Kerbin have been hammering away at a way to sail the stars, but they’ve only gotten kerbs as far as Minmus! And of course, there was the asteroid that—” This was quite the sore spot for the audience, whose groans rippled through the room. “Anyway, Kerbals have the unique capability to get back up and fight harder than they did before. Today, I announce the Kerbal Union’s pledge to make sure that never again will asteroids threaten Kerbalkind, for sentinels will stand guard. Today, I announce the true beginning of the quest to send Kerbalkind into the Final Frontier. Today, I announce to you all the groundbreaking of the road to space!” The crowd thundered with applause, and the Secgen basked in the light of camera flashes. “In order to kickstart this journey, we will provide a one time grant of 20 million funds to develop space in a profitable manner that’ll encourage space colonization! Not just that, we plan on further awards, provided select milestones are achieved. In order to lead this endeavor, the Kerbal Union will be creating a new organization that’ll provide long-term leadership for the best results!” “Hang on a sec—a new organization?” Bob thought out loud, “What happens to the KSP and everyone already there?” “Can’t say I know, Bob,” Valentina conceded. “At the very worst, this might be the end of the KSP as we know it.” "And at best?" Bob asked. "I don't know. We'll have to wait and see till we know more." Until next time... End of Chapter One

A thread for discussing various matters related to the idea of people living in space. There has been a Mars colonization thread in the past, but there hasn't been a thread about space settlement in general, which would be quite useful to have given the differing directions of where and how space colonization should occur.

http://www.popsci.com/mammal-embryos-can-develop-normally-in-space Looks like it might be possible for us to have children in space and continuing our species migration to the stars!

This particular link looks at the various aspects of colonizing the moon, solutions and problems with each. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151218-how-to-survive-the-freezing-lunar-night