Kerbfleet: A Jool Odyssey-END OF CHAPTER 21! (and hopefully not so many talking heads in 22!)

[Laythe Squid]

1 hour ago, KAL 9000 said:

A tribute to the Battle of Kerbin: 

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in orbit, we shall fight on the Mun and Minmus, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in space, we shall defend our planet, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight at the KSC, we shall fight at Mount Whoopstooshort, we shall fight in the Van Kerman belts and at the Desert Monument, we shall fight in the Joolian system; we shall never surrender! Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if Kerbfleet and its crews last for a thousand years, kerbs will still say, “This was their finest hour!”

Perfect!

[Wardstone111]

21 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

A tribute to the Battle of Kerbin: 

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in orbit, we shall fight on the Mun and Minmus, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in space, we shall defend our planet, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight at the KSC, we shall fight at Mount Whoopstooshort, we shall fight in the Van Kerman belts and at the Desert Monument, we shall fight in the Joolian system; we shall never surrender! Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if Kerbfleet and its crews last for a thousand years, kerbs will still say, “This was their finest hour!”

Winston Kerman if my memory is still working.

[rlin]

On 5/28/2017 at 2:04 PM, Wardstone111 said:

Winston Kerman if my memory is still working.

Oh? Surely those words were said by the Admiral at the start of the battle.

[KAL 9000]

7 hours ago, rlin said:

Oh? Surely those words were said by the Admiral at the start of the battle.

That's Admiral Shirley to you!

[Laythe Squid]

On 5/27/2017 at 6:43 PM, KAL 9000 said:

A tribute to the Battle of Kerbin: 

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in orbit, we shall fight on the Mun and Minmus, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in space, we shall defend our planet, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight at the KSC, we shall fight at Mount Whoopstooshort, we shall fight in the Van Kerman belts and at the Desert Monument, we shall fight in the Joolian system; we shall never surrender! Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if Kerbfleet and its crews last for a thousand years, kerbs will still say, “This was their finest hour!”

Perfect!

2 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

That's Admiral Shirley to you!

Yes Sir!

[Wardstone111]

On 2017-5-30 at 5:16 AM, rlin said:

Oh? Surely those words were said by the Admiral at the start of the battle.

Both

[Zhetaan]

On 5/18/2017 at 2:31 PM, Dman979 said:

Anyway, Kuzter mentioned a bit ago that the point of good Sci-Fi was to examine our own condition through the lens of fantasy. I'm afraid I'll have to come down on the side that we're inherently bad.

Consider this: we have to teach children how to share, but not how to take from others. Obviously, sharing when you can is the right thing to do, no? So why do we find it hard to do the right thing? Why do we have have laws defining what is not OK to do?

This is not to say that the world is bad. Society has evolved to teach children the norms of behavior that allow it to continue. We can improve on our default states, sure, but without reminders we will return to them, a la Lord of the Flies.

What does this mean for the comic? Well, Kerbals don't seem to have the same default state as us, though they may have had it earlier (IIRC, there was a trade war or something like that). The Kerbulans, on the other hand, seem to be more like, well... us. This scares me, since we're well known to destroy and shape our environments to our liking despite the presence of other people.

 

On 5/19/2017 at 1:01 AM, Dman979 said:

I'm saying that, given the chance, each of us would be like the Kerbulans. We're a product of the society you're brought up in- to an extent- which might be why none of us can imagine being like that. But I'm sure that if society broke down, we'd end up like the Kerbulans- fighting for our own personal gain, but subjugated to the will of others. In fact, that's almost how we are now. The only thing that would change would be the methods.

 

Hmm.

*Pulls out the wit sharpener*

I've been thinking about how to reply to this for a solid three weeks and I will say to you right now that it has been difficult to find the right words--admittedly, this is not so much because they don't exist but rather because it wouldn't do to cross swords with a moderator and violate 2.2(b) in the process.  Discussions of human nature of themselves (as contrasted against discussions through the lens of the Kerbfleet story) may well come too close to being ideological in nature; I will endeavour to be as careful as possible to avoid falling on the wrong side of the line, first because I haven't received any warnings yet and, as I treasure my meagre offering of a reputation, would prefer to keep it that way, and second because if the opinion you gave is truly what you believe, then we disagree so deeply that I fear there can be no conciliation.  Nevertheless, if that Philmont patch in your signature means what I think it does, we do share a lot of the same values, including courtesy, so if it seems to you that I am attempting to particularly ruthlessly eviscerate your point, then please let me know and we can remove the discussion to another place, or drop it altogether.

Additionally, I began what I thought would be a quick retort and it turned into a term paper, so I put the bulk of it in spoiler tags to spare the eyes of the uninterested.

 

Point the first:

Spoiler

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Consider this: we have to teach children how to share, but not how to take from others.  Obviously, sharing when you can is the right thing to do, no?

Actually, no.  Putting aside the contradiction of asserting that something's rightness is obvious in one paragraph and then asserting that we would forget about it without reminders in the next, there is absolutely nothing about sharing when you can that strikes me as obviously right.  I will refrain from offering examples because, given your stated view, it would be too easy to ascribe them to my baser human nature, so instead I implore you to consider the logical realities of property possession:  what does it really mean for 'sharing when you can' to be the right thing to do?

To start, this does not imply that not sharing is necessarily wrong--I cannot assume that an action which has an ethical value necessitates that its logical opposite is also its ethical opposite.  In other words, an action that is ethically defined as right would have as its logical opposite one that is not right, but it is inappropriate for me to automatically assign not right the same value as wrong--there may be room for neutrally-valued or non-valued action.

To possess a thing carries with it a right to control the use of the thing:  this is the quintessence of ownership.  It may not be the legal definition, but I am not a lawyer, so please forgive me for my non-technical explanation.  Since sharing a thing with another means granting that other some measure of control over it, to share in the first place is to relinquish, even if temporarily, some of the right of ownership--or, in some cases, to relinquish ownership entirely and permanently--to another person.  But one cannot give up the right of ownership without first having the right of ownership, so it follows that it is impossible to share what one does not first possess.

If it is impossible to share what one does not first possess, then it also stands to reason that it is impossible to understand the full meaning of sharing without understanding the full meaning of possession.  After all, if I don't know what it means to have the right of ownership of a thing, then how could I be expected to grasp the meaning of not having part of that right?  But if that is true, then why would my lack of understanding be limited only to ownership of the things that are personally mine?  If I don't understand the concept of possession, then not only will I fail to understand the concept of sharing, I will also fail to understand the concept of anyone else's possession, which would naturally lead to a situation where taking something that rightfully belongs to another seems to be okay behaviour.

I will say that it is a leap to assert that the converse, that failure to understand sharing implies a failure to understand possession, is true.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that understanding possession in no way implies that sharing is also understood--instead, I will say that understanding possession only makes it possible to understand sharing, not inevitable.  However, you did contrast sharing against taking from others, and taking things that belong to others does demonstrate the failure  to understand possession well enough to additionally explain the failure to understand sharing.

All of this, I think, goes to show not that children are the morally bankrupt spawn of a morally degenerate species, but rather that they lack understanding.  Since lack of understanding is not only expected of, but part of what defines, a child, that in turn suggests that it is probably not a good idea to hold up a child as any kind of moral paragon, for good or evil

Point the second:

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So why do we find it hard to do the right thing?

I will admit that it is a possible explanation that people find it hard to do the right thing because people are inherently bad.  However, it is also possible that people find it hard to do the right thing because doing the right thing is hard!  Doing the right thing requires a minimum of action (even if it's a purely internal struggle to refrain from doing something), whereas doing nothing requires no action.  However, this is a narrow view that erroneously minimises the number of available courses of action to two.  Here, I will burden you with an example:  take the stereotypical case of a little old lady crossing the street.  The obvious choices are two:  I may choose to help the little old lady cross the street, or I may choose not to do so.  Choosing to help is fairly straightforward and, in the absence of some extreme other factor, generally recognised as being a right act.  Choosing not to help is not so straightforward.  It includes doing nothing, which you may define as wrong but I will only go so far as to say is not right per the assertions I made above, which is to say that I think it may have room to be neutrally-valued.  It also includes all of the other possibilities available.  For example, I could choose to hinder the little old lady from crossing the street.  I could choose to trip her up, or help her to the wrong side.  I could do worse than that.  But all of those things--which are certainly wrong--require additional effort, not to mention malice, over and above helping her to cross the street, and certainly over and above doing nothing at all.

What of doing nothing at all?  There may be room, as I said, for it to be neutrally-valued.  Whether it is neutral or wrong depends, in essence, on whether helping a little old lady to cross the street is morally obligatory or only morally praiseworthy.  That raises the question:  obligation to whom?  If, as I strongly suspect, we both also hold helping other people to be a core moral behaviour, then to whom do you make that oath and what of others who did not make it?  Do you grant to those other people the unequivocal right to make demands upon your time, or do you hold yourself accountable to charitably provide of it?  Depending on the answer to that question, does the choice to help constitute an act of generosity or an act of duty?  Keep in mind that the difference between a gift and a tax depends very much on the amount of choice afforded to the one paying, but if one's satisfaction in doing the deed has any bearing at all on the moral rightness of the otherwise identical outcome, then preference must be given to the course of allowing people to choose not to help.

Of course, it may have no bearing, but that is for others to ponder.

The important thing is that there are certainly choices that carry enough ethical weight to be a matter of morality, but there are also choices that are a matter of convenience.  That maximum convenience can win over maximum rightness may indicate that humanity is inherently lazy, but it is a stretch to say that it means we are inherently bad.

Point the third:

Spoiler

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Why do we have have laws defining what is not OK to do?

There are several answers to this question, but I will choose three and leave you to consider the rest.  None of them come from a recognised need to remind ourselves of those actions that are wrong so that we don't commit those actions.  Two come from the theory of law as a social contract between the individual and society, which is to say that an individual agrees to be bound by rules regarding obligations and prohibitions in order to be part of a society, membership in which carries benefit and protection over and above that which the individual can secure alone.  The third comes from a broader view of justice in the pure sense and how the law fits into the provision of that justice.

The first is that if one function of society is to protect its members from certain evils which may be inflicted upon them, then the specific list of evils from which society protects its may be found in the laws that criminalise them.

The second is that the laws serve as the means by which those who have rejected membership in the society may be identified.  In other words, I need no reminder from a law that it is not good to murder a person, but those who would do that evil can be readily identified by the law as murderers.

The third informs the second, and says that a just society must, in the interests of that justice, also be fair, even in its treatment of those who reject it.  Fairness is the principle served by treating like cases in like fashion, and the laws exist both to ensure that similar cases receive similar treatment and to identify those degrees of difference important enough to require different treatment.  An example of this would be the difference between first- and second-degree murder; the degrees are outright named as such.

Point the fourth:

Spoiler

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Society has evolved to teach children the norms of behavior that allow it to continue.

I will argue two things:

First, if society is sufficiently lifelike that it can evolve to ensure its own continuation, then these norms of behaviour result from natural selection and survival of the fittest, which implies that goodness is actually the most survivable moral trait...insofar as morality is a heritable trait.  Since (human) society can only exist as an outgrowth of human populations, then this lifelike evolution towards greater natural goodness needs must be found encoded alongside all the other intrinsic information that makes human beings human.

Second, if society is not actually lifelike but is a construction of humankind that only evolves because humans have tinkered with it over time, then from where do these norms come?  They have to have been built into it by the same humans who built and tinkered with the rest--and all the other humans have to have agreed to accept it.

Point the fifth:

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We can improve on our default states, sure, but without reminders we will return to them, a la Lord of the Flies.

Given that Lord of the Flies was about children, I am hesitant to hold them up a paragons of morality.  Also given that Lord of the Flies was in its essence a morality play about the folly and horror of war, I am suspicious that it gives itself over too much to hyperbole.  The point of good science fiction is to examine our own condition through the lens of fantasy, yes, but if I may belabour you with another example:

If you've ever done any kind of black-and-white film photography, there are things that you can do to enhance the quality of the final photograph.  For example, when you enlarge an exposure, you can insert these amazing reddish filters into the enlarger; they serve to enhance contrast and make the edges of the lines in the frame sharper.  By doing this, you can come to see things that you would not otherwise know were there.  On the other hand, the increased contrast will hide the subtler details and features in the middles of things, away from the edges, and if one uses a filter, one must also remember that there is always a trade-off in doing so.

The point of the example is that the lens, much like the filter in photography or the clichéd rose-coloured glasses, can give insight into deeper or more hidden truths by allowing us to examine what we know in a new light.  However, doing so nevertheless demands an altered perception and it is equally important to remember to take the lens off and see things for what they are lest we allow ourselves to confuse what we see in the lens for reality.

I am not accusing you of this but I am wary enough to hesitate to expound further without knowing more of what you meant when you chose that specific lens.

If, given the chance, we would be like the Kerbulans, then I offer the final point that unlike them, you do not accept this, and even more unlike them, you recognise that that sort of behaviour is wrong.  The Kerbulans don't know or don't care, which makes you morally superior--but that may well be more a burden than a blessing.  The worst that I can possibly do to them is pity them ... but they would not understand why.

P.S.:  If that other picture in your signature means what I think it does, then you have my condolences about your dog.

[Dman979]

8 minutes ago, Zhetaan said:

P.S.:  If that other picture in your signature means what I think it does, then you have my condolences about your dog.

It does.

Thank you. I'm still processing it, so it hasn't really sunk in yet.

As for everything else, I'll get back to you in 3 weeks.

 

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

To join in on interpreting a Jool Odyssey, @Zhetaan's post made me think of good comparison in fiction: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The Kerbals, like Dr Jekyll, are perfect. They have no vices or selfish tendencies, and they live in what humans would call a utopian society.

The Kerbulans, like Mr. Hyde, are flawed. Their faults completely define them, and they are only out to serve themselves. Curiously, though, they do have a form of government, even if it is only by power.

Just like Dr. J and Mr. H, no humans are completely like either. The characters were used as an extreme example for literary reasons. I would argue that so are the Kerbals and Kerbulans, for a similar reason: which of these do you want to be? Not if you had some magic button o' morality, but in your day to day life. 

To clarify: this is my interpretation, not necessarily what Kuzzter intended.

 

[DarkOwl57]

19 hours ago, Dman979 said:

It does.

Thank you. I'm still processing it, so it hasn't really sunk in yet.

As for everything else, I'll get back to you in 3 weeks.

 

Oh gosh.... I'm so sorry man. The loss of a pet is always hard..

[Zhetaan]

19 hours ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

The Kerbals, like Dr Jekyll, are perfect.

We should all probably be cautious when someone who calls himself Mad Rocket Scientist starts citing other mad science stories, but I do want to make one point:  one of the thematic elements in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was that while Mr. Hyde was pure evil, Dr. Jekyll was both good and evil--he was by no means perfect, and it was the desire to suppress the evil part that drove him to create the potion that transformed him.  Rather than suppress the evil and thereby make him good, it only gave life to the evil (and while the evil part was awake, the good-and-evil part of Jekyll was suppressed).  The fact that he didn't split into a perfect side to complement the evil side was one of his main sources of anguish, and while it may be easy to read into that that humans really are inherently evil, another way to read the story is to say that there's no magic potion that will make people inherently good.  Morality has to be taught and goodness must be practised; there's no circumventing the work.

Edited June 11, 2017 by Zhetaan

[something]

Haven't seen any updates for an entire month now...so story suspended?

[GDJ]

1 minute ago, something said:

Haven't seen any updates for an entire month now...so story suspended?

Kuzzler is really busy IRL (employment stuff) so yeah the story is "paused" for the time being.

[something]

Ah ok, missed the part where it read that he now got a job in automotive....

[Just Jim]

39 minutes ago, something said:

Ah ok, missed the part where it read that he now got a job in automotive....

Not automotive... although I'm not sure if I can say what it is... he told me privately, so... well.... Up to him to say exactly what he's doing.

But I think it's safe to say it's a huge job, and opportunity, and he needs to give it his full attention right now.

However, once things settle down, he'll be back...

And knowing @Kuzzter like I do... he'll probably dream up a bunch of new stuff while he's on hiatus.

Edited June 12, 2017 by Just Jim

[Guest]

Yeah, sorry all; I'm a few weeks into the new job now, which is public sector so no shenanigans allowed   

I've avoided making promises here or even speculation on when I can get back into things because I'd hate to disappoint. What I'm planning is to finish and post the Interlude next, and after that the action goes back to Laythe orbit where, if anyone still remembers, Despair is grappled to Intrepid--with Kurt and Melgee Kermulan locked and loaded to board, and Our Heroes bravely staring danger right in the scruffy face. 

But given that the ride to the end needs to happen quick enough for readers to follow, and that things take me a lot longer these days, what I think I'll do is not post new pages until I have enough of a 'backlog' built up that I can be sure to keep releasing at least a few pages a week until chapters are done. In the meantime, I'm planning to post some short text-with-links recaps of previous chapters to refresh memories and ramp the excitement back up before the thrilling conclusion. 

So, the plan is:

1. Kuzzter continues to get things in order
2. Interlude posts
3. Text recaps/summaries start
4. Next chapters start posting in some semblance of a regular schedule.

Also let me say again how much I appreciate your readership, and especially the very insightful comments on Kerbals, Kerbulans and human beings. As I've said before, the main point of a genre like science fiction is to use its "un-reality" to say something truly real about the human condition. You've no idea how happy it makes me to see people talking about that.  

[Zhetaan]

Given the state of affairs at the end of chapter 19, I for one am intensely curious about what you're going to put in the interlude.  I will say this, however:  if you're going to call them 'Our Heroes', then you'll need to write those recaps in the style of old radio serials.  This could be fun:  '<Zzt>  When last we left our heroes, they were held in the grip of the evil Ship. From. Outer. Space!!!  <Organ suspense notes>  As they stare danger in its scruffy face, we wonder:  Will this be the end?  Will Bill code another miracle?  Can Valentina lead her crew to a new dawn out in the cold light of Jool?  Find out on today's episode of Kerbfleet in the ¹/₂₅^th Century!  <Orchestral fanfare>  ...And now a word from our sponsors.   <Zzt>'

 

On 6/12/2017 at 9:22 AM, Kuzzter said:

Yeah, sorry all; I'm a few weeks into the new job now, which is public sector so no shenanigans allowed

Public sector, eh?  Does that mean that if you keep climbing the ladder, one day we'll refer to you as Kuzzoner?

[something]

Was just  assuming he went to automotive, 'cause jobs there usually are like get paid for x hours, work 1.6x hours. Oh and by the way your vacation in 10 days is cancelled,  you are going to Japan, so go get a visa, good luck.

[Guest]

Several pages done, but several more needed before I can post the Interlude. Also working on making this thing fly, hopefully without too many engineering "miracles" (i.e., cheats) from Jimmy Kerman.  

Spoiler

 

[Terwin]

While I can see why you would want them on the bottom for the purpose of creating images, don't most water planes have wings much higher up?  That lets them do things like turn at low altitudes without having a wing ripped off by the water...

[DarkOwl57]

2 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Several pages done, but several more needed before I can post the Interlude. Also working on making this thing fly, hopefully without too many engineering "miracles" (i.e., cheats) from Jimmy Kerman.  

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Something tells me Shirley is coming up...

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Terwin said:

While I can see why you would want them on the bottom for the purpose of creating images, don't most water planes have wings much higher up?  That lets them do things like turn at low altitudes without having a wing ripped off by the water...

Yes they do... but in this case function is secondary to image... and I'm thinking it only has to go in the water once.  

[1101]

3 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Yes they do... but in this case function is secondary to image... and I'm thinking it only has to go in the water once.  

I thought the saying was 'Any landing you can walk away from......', not 'Any landing you can swim away from.....'?

[Zhetaan]

So long as it can't make orbit, the landing part will happen pretty definitely anyway.

[Dman979]

5 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Yes they do... but in this case function is secondary to image... and I'm thinking it only has to go in the water once.  

Interesting. At the beginning of the series (all the way back in D,OB!), form was second to function, judging by some of the older designs.