Whispers of the Kraken (Epilogue: Revelations of the Kraken)

[CatastrophicFailure]

49 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

No, that's not how this works. Shadows was the Good End, and Whispers was the Bad End. Next, because a Better End would be boring, we'll get the Worse End.

Well, once you've had the Good and the Bad, the Ugly can't be far away  All worlds must break, all Towers must fall, all Heroes... must surely fade away. 

more witty commentary to follow. 

[CatastrophicFailure]

Whew... now that I have a few minutes in this very Kerbal day...

There will, of course, be another work in the pipes... figured that shifty fellow at the end made it obvious.  But not right away. I'm going to take a few weeks off before I start anything else. Firstly I need to un-derp Shadows of the Kraken (Remastered Special Extended Special Edition! ), then I'm going to take some time to just read, which I haven't done in forever.

Beyond the forum, another pass through Steven King's The Gunslinger is high on the list, what with the upcoming... sigh... movie. I'm behind on the last couple of Pratchetts, James Rollins. And of course, the Revelation to John, Ezekiel, a bit of Daniel, and maybe some Bhagavad Gita and old Norse stuff. Because research. 

 

 

5 hours ago, KSK said:

Seconded without reservation. As with most of @CatastrophicFailure's work, I'm reading it thinking 'dammit - I wish I could write like this.'

Funny, I'm always thinking I wish I could write like KSK... and @Ten Key... and @Just Jim... etc... etc.... 

 

4 hours ago, vsully said:

modern day Ussari miners find the Krakensbane...

... you may have already met him 

 

[KSK]

18 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

... you may have already met him 

I think so. Quiet fella, prefers cold weather, not afraid of his own company. Can't catch flagpoles for toffee though - managed to stick one right through his hand last time he tried.

 

[Vaporo]

Well, you've finally gone and finished it. I'll be expecting that novel soon, now.

[lodger]

As the lights come up, the people in the movie theatre head for the exit. A few minutes later the big room is empty except  for one guy still sitting in his seat, amazed at the fine movie that he just saw. "If there will be a sequel, I'll have to see it", lodger Kerman thinks to himself ...

 

P.S.: Thank you very much, CatastrophicFailure!

Edited May 11, 2017 by lodger

[Brent Kerman]

14 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

[Snip]And of course, the Revelation to John, Ezekiel, a bit of Daniel, [Snip] Because research.

Is this supposed to be a allegory? Reading some of it again I can see a bit of allegorical points.

[Ten Key]

On 5/10/2017 at 3:11 PM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Funny, I'm always thinking I wish I could write like KSK... and @Ten Key... and @Just Jim... etc... etc.... 

Let's be honest here. . .if you wrote like me, Edgas and friends would still be honking around on the Mun and it would have been the better part of a year since the last update. 

 

On 5/10/2017 at 1:55 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Many, many, many thanks to @Ten Key for all his editing help. The better lines are probably his. Except the bit about the cold, wet frog. I still claim that.

Stop being so modest. You have a gift for humor that I would be hard pressed to match, even on my better days.  

It has been my distinct privilege to be able to sit in the editing room and watch this story come together from behind the scenes. I have a fairly scattergun approach to plot development, and that sometimes results in a signal-to-noise ratio low enough to cause problems. You have enough confidence as a writer to ignore me when I'm too far off in the weeds, and it has been wonderful being able to come at a scene or a subplot from three or four different directions without having to worry about scuffing up the final product. 

I'll be here when and if you want to talk over part three. And I am also looking forward to reading that book I'm sure you'll kick out someday.

[Just Jim]

On 5/10/2017 at 5:11 PM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Funny, I'm always thinking I wish I could write like KSK... and @Ten Key... and @Just Jim... etc... etc.... 

 

Seriously? I was thinking the same about you!  You've got a wonderfully dark side I can't help but love... Your chase scenes are worthy of Tom Clancy, and you're super funny... I'm still in awe of the goat and the chicken bit!!!  Seriously... that was such a brilliantly offbeat way to set the mood!

You have a real gift, and I hope you keep it up.

[CatastrophicFailure]

On 5/10/2017 at 6:24 PM, Vaporo said:

Well, you've finally gone and finished it. I'll be expecting that novel soon, now.

I think I've technically written one. 

Just finished copying + pasting another 40 chapters into my big, disorganized backup file, and the final tally is in: (via WordCounter.net)

209,422 words
465 pages
Reading time 12 hours, 41 minutes
Handwriting time: Just.. no...

That's about on par with Moby Dick, longer than any one of the Harry Potter series, not even close to any of the Wheel of Time books ('cept the prequel), and based on a recent, ahem, revelation, also far eclipsed by @KSK's First Flight ().

16 hours ago, Brent Kerman said:

Is this supposed to be a allegory? Reading some of it again I can see a bit of allegorical points.

There are certainly some allegorical elements, I may even be aware of some of them.  Books have been written on, well, books that have been written, pondering on exactly what had been written, with the author saying, "wait, I wrote that?"

 

4 hours ago, Ten Key said:

Let's be honest here. . .if you wrote like me, Edgas and friends would still be honking around on the Mun and it would have been the better part of a year since the last update. 

4 hours ago, Ten Key said:

Stop being so modest. You have a gift for humor that I would be hard pressed to match, even on my better days.  

It has been my distinct privilege to be able to sit in the editing room and watch this story come together from behind the scenes. I have a fairly scattergun approach to plot development, and that sometimes results in a signal-to-noise ratio low enough to cause problems. You have enough confidence as a writer to ignore me when I'm too far off in the weeds, and it has been wonderful being able to come at a scene or a subplot from three or four different directions without having to worry about scuffing up the final product. 

I'll be here when and if you want to talk over part three. 

 

D'awww, shucks. 

Which brings me to some proper acknowledgements:

Thanks, first off, to my readers, for joining me on yet another long (really long!) strange trip. When I first started putting words down in June 2015 I had only the vaguest idea where things were going and no solid ending in mind. The words weave as the words will, I suppose. I had plenty of internal moments of "Why do you people read this drivel?! It's crap! A liquored-up monkey farting on a keyboard could write better than this!" Fortunately, I listened to y'all and not myself. 

Also thanks to @vsully, @Alpha 360, KSK and others I'm no doubt missing for supplying crucial bits right when they were needed.

And a very special thanks to Ten Key for sticking with me and dumping Kerm knows how much of his own time (that could have been spent on his own story ) into making mine so much better. The snippets below can't begin to do justice to his own storytelling ability (which really needs to be brought to the main forum more, hinthint), just ask him about the "bag of cat crap" icecapades. 

 

4 hours ago, Ten Key said:

And I am also looking forward to reading that book I'm sure you'll kick out someday.

Eh, I think that would take all the fun out of it and make it entirely too much like work. Of course, a big pile of money from a publisher would go a long way towards assuaging that.  (But fanfiction writers are very rarely privy to big piles of money from anyone.)

Tho it's funny how this thing bites you. For about 30 seconds after posting the epilogue I had this feeling of great relief and now I can just relax...

...then I thought, "well, maybe I can start putting down a few words to the prologue for Revelations of the Kraken... just... a couple... three maybe... I've got it mostly figured out in my head... just like, six...I don't have a problem! I can quit any time I want!" 

 

 

And now for some actual entertainment. 

The soundtrack has been updated with the final few songs, tho I never could find a version of that, ahem, traditional Gednalnan hymn that I liked. You'll have to use your imagination.

Also, as his his style, Ten Key often demonstrates how he might write a certain thing. Below are a couple examples picked out from the stacks of messages I rooted through.

 

From around Chapter 28...
-- As mentioned, this whole scene feels very "NASA", and just doesn't work for me. I would go dark with this, maybe have the engineers grasping for a solution, and then have the political officer appear, with the sad, fake smile. It is fortunate that Dibella did not die in space, for that would embarrass the Imperium! No, Dibella has returned safely after a successful mission, and has chosen to retire to a place of solitude, where she might be free from the attention of the foreign media! Any one who talks, dies. Some of you may die anyways, that is the way of things. Papers please.
...
So the political officer shows up, Darkwing Duck style, and scares the heck out of Bald spot and friends, and slams the door on Dibilla's life. And Valentina tears him apart with her bare hands. There would need to be some careful writing here, not unlike when Edgas killed Edmund on the beach in Shadows. But this time, Valentina wrests control from the darkness. And that also is going to take careful writing, the darkness at first exulting and then, suddenly the sense of victory becomes one of fear.

And then, do the flash of light thing through the window, the engineers, stunned, starting at her. And she points out of the window.

"You see that?" She pulls a slip of paper from the dead Kommissar. "We have the launch codes for that."

No weakness here, no turning back. And at the end, have someone come in, a technician (faceless NPC time, maybe see if you can pull one of those faceless techs from the last chapter) steps through the door and sees the Kommissar's broken, mangled body. "Oh my God! What happened?!"

And Valentina sets her jaw, again the feral smile, steps over the bloodied corpse and heads for the door.

"He slipped on his tea."

And where are we going with this? Where does it end? With Valentina victorious, but with a broken mind, and in an Imperium asylum. But perhaps she escapes, and somehow makes her way back to her broken home, where what's left of her spends its days prowling the forests like an animal, and its nights talking to her departed deda. And it is sad, and it is heart rending.

And she is so happy....

 

***

...So, let's say the ship is meant to use an N2/O2 mix, but the life support system isn't fully integrated/tested/whatever. The quick and easy junkyard fix is to swap the N2 tanks with Helium. It's much safer, and far more tolerant of gas imbalances. And it has the hilarious side effect of making everyone sound like Mickey Mouse....
In a similar vein, you had mentioned Dibilla had been sick from space food in an earlier chapter. If their suits are connected, and if Dibilla is still having gastrointestinal issues, well, you can't go wrong with a good fart joke.
 

(I may have to steal this one later...)

 

***

From Chapter 74...

There's a belching joke in there somewhere.

    -Was there EVER. I think that pretty much made the chapter.

 

***

 

From Chapter 96:
[Raw Scene]

Dibella stands in the <Memorial Square> in the dead of Ussari Winter. She huddles in her coat against the cold, emotionally drained. General descriptions of the cold stone, the barren earth, the stark government buildings. 

She stands alone in front of two graves, the markers indicating high ranking members of the Party. They are her parents. 

She ruminates on the futility of standing against "forces". She can see, in the corner of her vision, dark, cloaked figures entering the cemetery, but she does not take her eyes off the graves. The wind cuts through her coat and she knows her time is short.

The figures surround her, and now she does lift her eyes, not to the intruders, but to the window of the Kommisar's office in one of the nearby buildings. Her parents had gone all the way to the Kommisar for help, but in the end, it hadn't been enough to save them.

They had, after all, gotten in her way.

"The Kommisar takes his lunch alone in one hour. I have arranged for that wing of the building to be empty. See that it is done."

One of the cloaked figures bows, sharpened teeth briefly visible under the hood, and then they depart.

Dibella lights a rat tail, regards her parents graves for a few final moments. There could be no loose ends. She turns and moves to leave, eyes moving now to Valentina's grave marker. 

No, no loose ends.

[End Scene]
 

BrÜtal. Just brÜtal. With a capital umlaut. I love it!

 

***

And my personal favorite:

[Keep the tone dark.] 

I would end with P. Kerman arriving at 42 Wallaby Way. This scene is longer. It is happy. He enters his home, moves from sunlit room to sunlit room, finds his wife standing next to a large piano, her back turned. He starts to apologize, to explain, and she hunches, hugs herself, still turned away.

"Please Meg, I promise. . .I need you."

And she turns to him then, raises a pistol, points it at his head. Her face is the same hollow mask he had worn earlier. 

"But we do not need you." And she pulls the trigger.

The End

Then you tack this onto the end of your music play list and start working on Part III.  

 

Wow. 

Nice going, Meg.

[Alpha 360]

WOW! I can't believe how awesome you have made this story. You have been my favorite author on the KSP forums ever since I stumbled upon your story. I remember reading chapters 1-71 in an afternoon, it was awesome!

This is my thoughts, and what I hope to happen so don't take tips since I'm not the best writer. /Also, I side with the group saying Val's not dead. Because she isn't. Just for that reason. Also, Jeb Jr. (Yes I know what you are up to) is going to be the new main character, as the KrakensBane? you really thought you could fool us? NO. Remember, her ship is on a trajectory which will make the capsule hit Kerbin's atmosphere in twelve years, or is it several minutes..... I know you trick there. The lifesupport goes off just as she begins to enter the atmosphere. IVAN as a survival instinct(at least I think) and will keep the ship alive and therefore keep Val alive and while in reentry, something happens to let the air leak in so that she can breathe. Then IVAN will revive her. Then Jeb Jr. will find her in the capsule and then she will teach him how to combat the Kraken. Then the story continues./ 

Anyway. My mind is boggled at how much more awesome Revelations of the Kraken will be!!!!!

Edited May 12, 2017 by Alpha 360
"Kouston, we have several problems, but that doesn't matter so we want to continue on with the mission."

[lodger]

Combining dark, blood thirsty horror and humor isn't an easy thing to do, I guess. And it fits, the horror and the laughter - keeps us, the readers, in balance. And that is something that is done very well in "Shadows" and "Whispers". Whatever bad may happen, you can be sure that there will be a good joke, some wordplay or funny reference to pop culture in the next paragraph. Especially in "Whispers" you can sometimes sense the growing confidence the author gains in his writing and storytelling - and I think it's very high profile. Maybe not Shakespeare but definitely high profile. 

Edited May 12, 2017 by lodger

[vsully]

Good God @Ten Key! You want Meg to dispose of poor old P. Kerman, Dibella to have been behind Val's death, or Val to go knuts? Jeez man!

 

@CatastrophicFailure, you are definitely my favorite KSP fanfic author. Thanks for writing this stuff, and hope to see Revelations of the Kraken Soon™!

Edited May 12, 2017 by vsully

[Ten Key]

1 hour ago, vsully said:

Good God @Ten Key! You want Meg to dispose of poor old P. Kerman, Dibella to have been behind Val's death, or Val to go knuts? Jeez man!

All right, now, in my defense. . .

. . .the thing with Val losing her mind happened all the way back in chapter 28, when I had no idea what was coming or how long the story was going to be. That was me fishing around for a bittersweet ending similar to the one found in Shadows. 

. . .the bit with Dibella stems from the scene where Dibella's pod is crippled in orbit and the Kraken tempts Val with the power to save her friend. Val resists that temptation. . .but what if Dibella had then been made the same offer? That didn't end up working for a few reasons, but like I said. . .scattergun.  

. . .as for Meg, well, the reality of that scene is actually much worse than you're making it out to be.  I had envisioned that ending starting with the Dibella scene, and then rapidly escalating through a series of increasing dark mini-scenes that set up the next part of the story. Meg's scene was meant as the capstone, a sudden shift in tone that starts out very light and joyous. . .the sliver of a happy ending. Perhaps Val didn't save the world, but at least she saved this one poor soul. . .

And then we see very suddenly that, perhaps during an attempt to locate her wayward beau, Meg has herself been ensnared by the Kraken. Meg doesn't dispose of P. Kerman-- the Kraken uses her as a meat puppet to silence its former thrall. P. Kerman's freedom results in his death and the eternal enslavement of his loving wife. 

I am. . .not necessarily a fan of happy endings.  

Edited May 13, 2017 by Ten Key

[CatastrophicFailure]

 

Well, here it is, as these things usually go, 1:30 in the morning and after an unexpected burst of inspiration the first chapter to Revelations is now complete.     I can hear @Ten Key groaning from here  

Well, it's not really the first chapter, it goes somewhere in the middle. I'm not even sure quite where, so it won't see the light of day for many and many-a'. Nevertheless, it marks the beginning... of the end. 

Spoiler

The tale of Ivan Kinslayer and the [blank] of [blank.]

 

[KSK]

On ‎03‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 9:47 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

 

Well, here it is, as these things usually go, 1:30 in the morning and after an unexpected burst of inspiration the first chapter to Revelations is now complete.     I can hear @Ten Key groaning from here  

Well, it's not really the first chapter, it goes somewhere in the middle. I'm not even sure quite where, so it won't see the light of day for many and many-a'. Nevertheless, it marks the beginning... of the end. 

 

...and the Espresso Machine of Doom?

I like the updated signature file by the way - you inspired me to spruce mine up a bit too.

[Just Jim]

8 minutes ago, KSK said:

...and the Espresso Machine of Doom?

I'll take a double apocalypse fudge latte please... 

 

[KSK]

6 hours ago, Just Jim said:

I'll take a double apocalypse fudge latte please... 

 

I like my kerbal villains like I like my coffee: short, rich, strong and blacker than black (hearted).

Fortunately, @CatastrophicFailure has me covered.

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

4 hours ago, KSK said:

I like my kerbal villains like I like my coffee: short, rich, strong and blacker than black (hearted).

Hah hah, just you wait. 

 note to self: ditch the pale, lanky hobo 

 Words are once again flowing to (digital) paper, in the right order, even. Hopefully I'll have something a bit more interesting soon™.

[CatastrophicFailure]

As promised, the story continues here. 

[michal.don]

So, part two of three of my rep-swarm is finished, and I have to admit - I enjoyed this even more than the previous one

I don't think I've ever read anything that was this funny/frightening/intense all at once. Thank you for several hours of sheer enjoyment, and expect the final wawe of "likes" at Revelations soon  

Michal.don

[CatastrophicFailure]

Glad you enjoyed it.  These are the kind of comments that just make my day. 

The story is not yet at an end... but the end is nigh... 

and moving at a crawl lately. Should probably get to writing...

[roboslacker]

I really enjoyed how Kerbal Whispers felt.

[Raptor42]

I don't know how you do it, but it is awesome. Pack so many references into as few sentences as possible... and it doesn't feel unnatural. Love your writing style. Can't wait how this story ends (I'm on chapter 40). You should really make book out of this story. Continue doing this amazing work.

I have feeling that I'll copy each and every chapter of this story and print it as book, so I can read it when I'm not on computer

Edited July 26, 2018 by Raptor42

[CatastrophicFailure]

14 hours ago, Raptor42 said:

I don't know how you do it, but it is awesome. Pack so many references into as few sentences as possible... and it doesn't feel unnatural. Love your writing style. Can't wait how this story ends (I'm on chapter 40). You should really make book out of this story. Continue doing this amazing work.

I have feeling that I'll copy each and every chapter of this story and print it as book, so I can read it when I'm not on computer

@qzgy has done just this (link on the OP), and by now is probably wondering why the flarp he's got so many notifications just now. 

Likely the closest I'll ever get to an actual book (Because reality), but it does give me a bit of the chills leafing thru.