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Kerbfleet: A Jool Odyssey-CHAPTER 22 pg 2: Yet >another< narrative device!


Mister Dilsby

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6 minutes ago, Flow said:

The Kerbiverse isn't actually physically accurate (from a RL point of view) in a lot of things, including relativistic time delay, n-body problems or the size of planets and stars. What if the kerbal laws of nature are such that Kuzzter's story is completely plausible?

Well, I do not expect that the same laws of physics apply in Kerbfleet universe than in our own ( a long, long rant about the KSP issues that does not belong here would follow if I go that way ), but, to avoid the Unfortunate Implications , you need to be especially careful when you start introducing new physics laws or stuff that implies you have new laws ;)

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8 minutes ago, Flow said:

The Kerbiverse isn't actually physically accurate (from a RL point of view) in a lot of things, including relativistic time delay, n-body problems or the size of planets and stars. What if the kerbal laws of nature are such that Kuzzter's story is completely plausible?

Based on various experiments and testing, the Kerbals would have to conclude that an object is only affected by the gravity of one other object at a given time. So unless Kerbulus came close enough to another planet that it entered its SOI (When Worlds Collide?) it wouldn't have any effect on the rest of the solar system. The various planets and moons could be visibly observed to be 'on rails' by observations of Jool's moons. So I think it's safe to say that n-body problems don't occur in the Kerbal universe.

Given too that several of the bodies in Kerbol's system were initially dismissed as a grain of sand on the lens, it's easy to see how Kerbulus (and conversely, Kerbin) would go unnoticed :)

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31 minutes ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

Yeesh, calm down. You should very well know that I honestly read Kuzzter's comics really for fun,and don't really try to ruin surprises for me. ;)

I apologize.  And I have calmed down.

Happy landings!

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By any chance would...what'sitsface...Kerbulus, have anything to do with @Just Jim's comic "Ekimo Station?" Because I've seen you comment on it, and who knows (probably you,) you two may have exchanged messages...oh [Golly me!] I sound like a conspiracy theorist! BTW little reference to your comic over there. :wink:

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6 minutes ago, TopHeavy11 said:

By any chance would...what'sitsface...Kerbulus, have anything to do with @Just Jim's comic "Ekimo Station?" Because I've seen you comment on it, and who knows (probably you,) you two may have exchanged messages...oh [Golly me!] I sound like a conspiracy theorist! BTW little reference to your comic over there. :wink:

hehe, no.....  any similarities are purely coincidence..... :wink:

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45 minutes ago, r_rolo1 said:

Well, I do not expect that the same laws of physics apply in Kerbfleet universe than in our own ( a long, long rant about the KSP issues that does not belong here would follow if I go that way ), but, to avoid the Unfortunate Implications , you need to be especially careful when you start introducing new physics laws or stuff that implies you have new laws ;)

Look, I'm just playing the stock game, OK? I don't know what kind of mods you've installed that give you gravitational lensing and n-body physics, but I don't have them. :)

This story has always existed within the rules of the game as I play the game. That's why Bill can edit persistence files (because I sometimes do) and why we see things like, "Hey Mission Control you have to be looking at us when we cross an SOI or we might disappear from the universe!" (i.e. NaN Kraken) If you're looking for hard sci fi based on Kerbals, sorry that's not what I write.

Now that's out of the way, let's introduce something else for my Esteemed Readers to completely misinterpret:

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So yeah, I forgot I never sent anyone to get Kurt and Melgee out of the lab. Oopsie! It was actually pretty funny, when I played through the Minmus landing I really did say "Ooh! there's my old Minmus lab! I think I'll roll up and check it out!", thinking that it was in fact abandoned. Then when I switched active vessels to get a better camera angle on the Quadhammer and saw poor Kurt and Melgee staring out at me--AAAAHHH!!!!

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

let's introduce something else for my Esteemed Readers to completely misinterpret:

*GASP*

Oh No! The kerbulans have dimmed the sun! dun Dun DUN!!

 

 

 

Sorry.

Poor Kurt & Melgee. At least you found them before you installed Life Support!

Edited by lukethecoder64
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9 minutes ago, lukethecoder64 said:

Poor Kurt & Melgee. At least you found them before you installed Life Support!

And that's exactly why "Mort" gave the order for everyone to come in. Well, what can I say? I was more occupied with making comics out of my game than I was with checking everything in it! I guess now's as good a time as any to go through the roster in the Astronaut Complex and see if I missed any-- oh, crap.

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Hum, stranded Kerbonauts don't collect paychecks, right ? I can definitely see Mort doing that :D

On the quoted part: 

Kuzzter, it is not a question of hardcore scifi. It is just a matter of in-story coherence ;) Sure, it is not your fault that KSP has a incoherent set of physics rules ( you can't have nuclear engines and not have gravitational lensing , or have Keplerian orbits in a context where conservation of energy is only respected at times ), but the incoherence of those rules will port to your story ( and you should be ready to adress those issues ) ... unless Bill is not the lunatic everyone thinks he is and we will discover in the end that their whole world is just a flawed and incoherent at seams simulation used to write a story by a Lookie :D 

BTW , and as you ( didn't ) asked, there is a n-body physics mod and a ( sort of ) gravitational lensing mod for KSP :D

Edited by r_rolo1
Grammar, oh grammar ... many woes you give to me :/
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3 minutes ago, r_rolo1 said:

( and you should be ready to adress those ) 

Well I'm not gonna, except to say this: My story exists entirely within the observable universe of the KSP game, as I play it. I will no longer be responding to comments about SQUAD's choices for modeling or not modeling the real world, or my choice to try to write a fun story about my missions within the confines of (mostly) stock KSP.

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59 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Look, I'm just playing the stock game, OK? I don't know what kind of mods you've installed that give you gravitational lensing and n-body physics, but I don't have them. :)

,,,,,,,,

So yeah, I forgot I never sent anyone to get Kurt and Melgee out of the lab. Oopsie! It was actually pretty funny, when I played through the Minmus landing I really did say "Ooh! there's my old Minmus lab! I think I'll roll up and check it out!", thinking that it was in fact abandoned. Then when I switched active vessels to get a better camera angle on the Quadhammer and saw poor Kurt and Melgee staring out at me--AAAAHHH!!!!

(reply to 1st part)  Ah well, see, due to the 2001 theme in the 1st issue of this comic, and your incurable penchant for tropes, I was thinking that somehow the anomalies in the Jool system would cause a "transporter malfunction" and cause folks from "this" universe to get swapped with folks from "that" universe, as was in Star Trek a few times, but especially one time where "that" universe was all militaristic and had an emblem of the planet with a sword stuck through it, and the Spock in "that" universe had a goatee, but was instrumental in fixing things up :D

(reply to 2nd part)  It's a good thing your Kerbals don't get all "kissy-face" or you'd have a herd of Kurtgees by now :D

 

 

 

 

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37 minutes ago, astrokerb said:

If Kurt and Melgee were there for.... Three or four years, why didn't they try to contact Kerbin? Or do kerbals just go mad extremely quickly? 

I suppose they must have been in hibe for much of the time; without an alarm set on their craft to wake them up or Mission Control calling them, they could have overslept their way to madness. Or else Kerbals cannot truly live without attention from the unseen, non-green, ten-fingered entities that some say truly control their destinies. In any case, if they tried to call in I never heard them, 'cause I completely forgot they existed until I landed next to the lab and made it the active vessel. 

Besides, I needed something like SPACE MADNESS to explain what happens... next. :cool: 

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10 hours ago, r_rolo1 said:

...you can't have nuclear engines and not have gravitational lensing

That's an unusual line of reasoning you have there, @r_rolo1. Stock KSP clearly DOES have nuclear engines but no gravitational lensing. Stock KSP demonstratably does not have n-body physics, nor do Kerbals have breakable bones or realistic amounts of fuel in their EVA packs. In KSP there is no Oort cloud, radiation isn't dangerous, there are no comets and asteroids mysteriously only appear around a few selected bodies. Surely it's obvious that in the Kerbfleet universe, all of this is just how the universe works? 

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Ooooh noooo!  Poor Kurt and Melgee.

I hope they have (or develop) some good counselling methods at Kerbfleet.  Those two may need some help for a while.

I know this can happen, though.  In my career game, I left four scientists in a MRL in orbit around the Mun for years after it had been considered obsolete.  I then started a process of recovering Kerbals and positioning infrastructure so that there is some way for every stationed Kerbal to return to Kerbin.  I've taken care of all but one.  One of these days, I really must send out a return vehicle to get her home.

Happy Concerned landings!

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3 hours ago, Deddly said:

That's an unusual line of reasoning you have there, @r_rolo1. Stock KSP clearly DOES have nuclear engines but no gravitational lensing. Stock KSP demonstratably does not have n-body physics, nor do Kerbals have breakable bones or realistic amounts of fuel in their EVA packs. In KSP there is no Oort cloud, radiation isn't dangerous, there are no comets and asteroids mysteriously only appear around a few selected bodies. Surely it's obvious that in the Kerbfleet universe, all of this is just how the universe works? 

Kerbal scientists are still looking for that grand unified theory that explains how everything fits together.

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9 hours ago, Deddly said:

That's an unusual line of reasoning you have there, @r_rolo1. Stock KSP clearly DOES have nuclear engines but no gravitational lensing. Stock KSP demonstratably does not have n-body physics, nor do Kerbals have breakable bones or realistic amounts of fuel in their EVA packs. In KSP there is no Oort cloud, radiation isn't dangerous, there are no comets and asteroids mysteriously only appear around a few selected bodies. Surely it's obvious that in the Kerbfleet universe, all of this is just how the universe works? 

Ok, I'll drop my awnser in a spoiler to not derail the thread , as Kuzzter already stated his opinion on this:

Spoiler

Well, first of all some of the things you say are false or atleast unproven. Kerbals have atleast a partial skeleton ( their teeth, so they at worst are similar to RL squids ) , it is canon that radiation has phisiological effects on kerbals, because radiation makes kerbals glow ;) and asteroids could be there before detection as far as we know ( good ol' Russell teapot issue :D ). The ammount of thrust in their EVA packs it is surely above charts. but does not break laws of physics and planetary formation AFAIK does not ensure the formation of a Oort cloud or the existance of comets in all scenarios. But let's leave that aside and go to the real issues ...

Let's start by the gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing is a direct consequence of relativity, so , if you live in the universe that has no gravitational lensing, nothing that involves relativistic phenomena should exist as well. That is a issue for anything radioactive, that is another consequence  of relativity. OFC that you can say that the Kerbal universe you can have diferent physics rules, but then you need to get a set of physics rules that gives both radioactive phenomena and no gravitational lensing that also doesn't give other abnormal results ( say, like light having no energy ;) ), and I assure you that is not exactly easy ( there is a reason for the fact that gravitational lensing was the first empirical proof that relativity works ( mostly :D ) in our world ).or atleast assume there is a issue in hands ( say like our RL issue that quantum mechanics and general relativity don't play very well with eachother :D ).

That aside, there is the issue ( better said, a lot of separate issues that give similar results: fuel transfer, lack of n-body physics ... ) that conservation of energy is not respected at times in KSP ( and as a consequence, everywhere that uses KSP as their universe ). This brings a lot of issues, like the fact that, if you can't assure conservation of energy, Keplerian orbits are not assured as well :D or the more general issue that if you can summon non existant energy to reality at will ( and Kerbals can ), you can go anywhere without spending any kind of fuel and you can summon anything you want to existance ( suposing that relativity appies :D ), with all the physical, mental and social consequences you can take from that ( say, if I can summon anything at will, why have money or work for a living ? ( another Starfleet had that same exact issue at hand ;) ) Or, if all I need to get thurst is to move fuel around in synch with the ship rotation ( Scott Manley has a very good video on this ), why the hell would I burn fuel to go anywhere? ). But those with some creativity can be brushed aside well enough ( they never really go away, though ;) )

While Kerbfleet it self is not hardcore scifi ( so it is OK to put this issues in the backburner as long as they don't affect the main narrative ) ,in this case a major plot point IMHO hinges on top of a team of kerbonauts ( that surely know the sky enough to notice a odd very bright star that shouldn't be there, even if from their long forgotten classes of astronomical navigation :D ) fails to notice a bright object that moves against the backround ( OK, maybe Jeb canonically has seen it and mistakenly thought it was Kerbin... but about Clauselle? Or our favourite overconcerned scientist ( that surely had not much more to do in Eve besides looking at the night sky :D ? Or Tedus? Or, TBH everyone else that was in Eve or even in Duna ? )  and more, that relies on the non existance of  phenomena that according with the known in-universe rules should exist but somehow it doesn't ( and that somehow does not bother the top scientists of the leading space exploration program of a whole planet )... well, I was just pointing out to Kuzzter that it forced me to open my special reserve of suspension of disbelief ( that is the issue with scifi: in other genres the author can always make a wizard do it ...scifi is far less forgiving :D ). Kuzzter OFC can do whatever he wants with his story, but really did not wanted to drink too much of that special reserve :D if that could be avoided ...

P.S. As always in this kind of issues your mileage may vary;)

 

Edited by r_rolo1
Addede P.S.
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