Forgotten Space Program

[RocketSquid]

9 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Then it's not just me???  I'm in the same boat. I try so very hard to keep up with everyone else's work, but I've found it's like trying to read 7 different novels at the same time, plus write my own, and it can get very confusing at times.

I feel you. I'm currently trying to read:

• ~7 webcomics
• 8+ KSP stories
• The discworld series
• Dante's Inferno

While trying to write:

• 3 KSP stories in three installs
• 1 mod
• A lab report

 

[cubinator]

15 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Totally me just being coy, but it's hard to say if I picked it up from somewhere else or not.

Well, I feel like you'll be quoted sometime for this. It's really quite worthy of it.

[Cydonian Monk]

Given today's announcements and departures, I suppose I should revisit an earlier statement. Will this continue? Yes, provided Squad keeps the forums up and running and doesn't turn community-hostile or something crazy. 

I will however say that I'll likely be trimming back on the mods I'm using once 1.2 is released, something I was already considering before the fan was hit by various foul projectiles. There were quite a few new mods I wanted to get to in 1.1.3, but I ended up taking a vacation in the middle of it.... At least one of those will see use in 1.2 (spoilers: small story-point). If certain mods look to never be updated again I'll just find an easy way to stop using them like I did with TAC-LS. Or I'll find a replacement.

Basically: If I can't recompile and maintain the sources myself, I'll likely not use it. There are only a few plugin-based mods I really rely on anyway, and I already recompile/patch most of those on my own at new releases. (And I've never kept that a secret, either.) Things like Scatterer and EVE are a bit beyond my expertise  (shaders? huh?), so I'll have to rely on the community there when things break. Or just play without clouds or decent atmospheres.

RemoteTech is off my list, and was always going to be given how nicely the comms stuff has turned out. If any of the thirty or so RT/RT2/RT-G devs read this: I really appreciate your work over the many years, even if we disagreed about how to fix certain bugs.  

I'll keep using the RT2 antennas I already have on ships. Sort of. The small static antenna coming with 1.2 will replace all of the like antennas from RemoteTech, and the Communicatron-32s will just revert back to being 16s. And if any of the larger dishes have decent equivalents in stock they'll get swapped out too. The others will be updated to use the new stock system. So I'll have a bit of save hacking to do. 

And maybe I'll get around to writing that speed-of-light delay plugin sometime real soon now you betcha don't ya know something something. And maybe a simple Δv readout/calculation mod. (Not that I expect Engineer to disappear, but it's really starting to do far more than I need from it at the cost of serious computation cycles.)

We'll need to wait and see though. KSP 1.2 allegedly hits next week, and I'm already hyped up; dev staff departures, franchise plans, sports teams sponsorships, convention plans or whatever else not withstanding. 

Edited October 5, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[AviosAdku]

2 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

... recompile and maintain the sources myself ...

Speaking as someone with minimal understanding of coding, that's impressive. That and the "save hacking" described. It really brought home to me how much work this work has taken "behind the scenes".

[Cydonian Monk]

Just now, AkuAerospace said:

Speaking as someone with minimal understanding of coding, that's impressive. That and the "save hacking" described. It really brought home to me how much work this work has taken "behind the scenes".

To be fair, it's what I do for a living. I have a couple decades of experience (both in and out of school) with dev tools of all stripes. Most of the source code for KSP mods are shipped in a "ready to build" state, especially those on github, and the few that I've come across that aren't are generally easy to clean up. Having access to a real version of Visual Studio helps too.

The save hacking, well, let's just say some really nasty bugs several years ago with a few mods made a complete mess out of one of my saves (the one where I launched Kelgee), so I had a choice of abandoning that save or learning how the world was stiched together, ships and such are stored, et cetera.

[Thedrelle]

Lets hope things don't get worse. If KSP was to meet an untimely fate either from developer strife or community outcry, it would be very sad. 

I see whats going on with no man's sky, and I worry. It's highly implausible that something similar could happen, the devs here are great at communication, and the KSP community appears to be among the best, but i still worry. 

anywhoo, it's great to see someone squeezing every ounce of KSP goodness out of a game file. keep it up!

Edited October 6, 2016 by Thedrelle

[Cydonian Monk]

Continuing From Where We Started

A day later and Jonbald was back at the Cape. Had it been years? Decades? He could barely remember. What was its name? That other program? All those years ago, when it had become Jonbald's duty to be hired on as the radar and telemetry expert. In that position he would hide everything that was already in orbit, keeping the kerbals outside their group none the wiser. Letting them carry on in ignorance of their true purpose: To provide the means to rescue and recover the stranded and forgotten from space. 

Yet plans change, worlds change, programs fail and disappear. It was bickering and infighting that led to the end of that experiment. Two groups formed from the survivors, one that wanted to keep to The Plan, the other that had a far more radical approach to rescuing their friends. Little did any of them realize how much damage their disagreements would cause. It was almost a relief when the splinter groups didn't reemerge after the inevitable collapse, though Jonbald had often wondered what happened to them. What had happened to his friends?

Now one of them was returning home: Rosuki. The Boss. Her last trip to space was against her will, at the behest of madkerbs and maniacs, yet it allowed her to escape the horrors that had befallen Kerbin afterwards. She had found her own horrors of course, first at the hands of The Party Boss, and later as a "guest" of Queen Sieta and her lapdog pirate, Captain Hallock. The former having threatened the lives of Rosuki and her workers, her friends, her self; the latter having forced upon her the sounds and visions of the death of Kerbin, the death of the Universe, the dark whispers from dark places.

And as always, things changed. Plans changed. Somehow Rosuki had escaped from Sieta in the queen's own Nitrogen capsule, Nitrogen TC-8, which she was now using to land at the Cape. To escape from her orbiting prison. 

He knew what to watch for, he'd seen it a hundred times or more. It would start as a speck against the western sky. And then another speck. And another. Small specks of fire, streaking through the air. Some would explode. One would spit out parachutes and land. Hopefully with a kerbal inside.

Fires in the sky, The Boss come home from her work.

He would be forever amazed by the automated pilots. Back in his day..., great powers he sounded like one of the really old kerbals.... Back in his day they were lucky if they landed on Kerbin. Luckier still if they were on land. More than one of the missions had ended on the sides of K-2, rolling endlessly down the mountainside, or way out in the ocean, bobbing helplessly so very far from the shore. 

Had Harler been right? Should they have replaced all of their pilots with these cold machines? Shadows in a box? Hard to say, but he couldn't argue the results. He wished Harler was here now, alive, happy, just so he could ask what had changed his mind. His thoughts were interrupted by the Nitrogen, drifting down to the exact spot where it had been programmed to land. Flawless.

What would they do with the pilots?

And so The Boss was back on solid Kerbin. He climbed into his jet and taxied over to her capsule. No reason to wait until the new recovery crews showed up. He laughed as he realized it must seem insane to these new kerbals. They thought they were setting up a space program. Thought they would be the first to explore the great black beyond the sky. And then this old, bald, crazy kerbal shows up, claiming one of his own will descend from the heavens and land on their lawn.

They were taking it well, all things being equal. How would he have reacted? Probably not like them.

Rosuki was already out of the capsule and pacing around it, waiting. She seemed to be ok with the gravity, no obvious signs of adaptation sickness. It was good to have her back, another of the forgotten who knew who he was and where he came from. Too many lost over the years. Too many had slipped through the cracks of time. Was he the oldest now? Hard to say.

The two old friends spent the better part of an hour at her landing site, talking about everything that had happened. How The Party Boss had forced her into space, had followed her there to finish the job she had failed to fail at. How they spent the next several munths living in the fear The First Citizen would send more goons to finish them off. Little did they know the bugs had already taken over.

She then talked about how she had fallen into the clutches of Sieta and Hallock. They weren't insane she insisted, not exactly, but there was definitely something off about them. They wanted to know about fuel, about other stations, about other kerbals in space. Rosuki mentioned something about the Chlorine tugs and their fuel reserves, a subject both of her captors seemed rather interested in. And so she woke one morning to find the Memory of Tomorrow gone, the station empty, and every drop of fuel drained.

And that's how she came into possession of the Nitrogen. The shuttle was useless without fuel, but the Nitrogen had enough monoprop to push her into a rendezvous with Kelgee. Just as she was about to leave, Jonbald radioed up from the new tracking station at The Cape, and so plans changed again.

And that's when she noticed the monolith.

"Has it always been that... large?"

"No. Something has changed both this one and the monolith at North Mountain. Shall we take a look? The council meeting can wait."

"Sure." It was perhaps a bit undignified, but The Boss dangled off of the jet's ladder as Jonbald taxied to their new distraction. He wondered if she was happy to be back, if the wind blowing through her hair made her feel alive again, but Rosuki was such a hard kerbal to read. It was one of the many reasons Elite had singled her out to be the head of their secret upstart space agency. Stoic, to the last.

Indeed, this monolith was much larger than before, just like the one at North Mountain. Was it perhaps even larger? Maybe. He kept his distance, too afraid of it to walk up and touch it. Who knew what would happen. He had no idea what any of the changes meant, if they meant anything, and he wondered if perhaps any of the Bobs had something to say about it. Surely at least one knew its secrets. Somewhere. Somehow.

Maybe he could ask the new Bob. There was inevitably one on this Kerbin, likely already recruited by this new agency. There was always a Bob. Always a Bill. Always a Jeb. He had never understood why, and likely never would.

The Sun was now low in the sky, just a few grains of sand above the peaks of K-2. No doubt their new council was waiting to meet them, wondering where these two enigmas had wandered off to. The grounds crews had already gathered around the capsule, a strange, alien sight to these kerbals who had never even known the skies, let alone the stars. They would shortly drag it off to the VAB and dismantle it piece by piece, studying, recording, learning.

"We should get going. You'll like this new Boss. Quite the character."

"I bet."

"You might even recognize her."

 

--

The conference room was filled with the warm glow of the setting sun. It was a new room in a new building, having been hastily constructed in the corner of the Research and Development park. So many new buildings were going up that Wernher was having a hard time keeping them straight. The space center was just a dirt mound and some trailers a few munths ago, now it was a bustling and sprawling complex. 

For hours they had been here, waiting for the newcomer to return with his friend. The conversation had devolved into the usual sports, snacks and social noise, so Wernher escaped to the windows to watch the sunset. He was joined a few moments later by Gene.  

"What a sight, I tell ya. It's a nice spot Wernher. Good view of the mountains. Good view of the plains." Gene waved his hand past the window, undulating up and down as he moved from left to right. "Peaceful scene, trees on the horizon, calm beaches, beautiful sunsets."

"Ja." Wernher nodded and smiled, not really sure how to respond. His was a world of physics and math, perfection and measurements. Yes, it was a beautiful sunset. Beautiful how the light diffused into so many wavelengths as it refracted through the atmosphere. Pure, scientific beauty. And a very nice spot, this cape. At the equator, good for slinging things into orbit with maximum efficiency. Lots of water to dump things into when they failed. Easy access to beach sand for when they needed to make glass or put out fires. 

"I could live my entire life here and be a happy kerbal." Gene folded his arms and leaned against the window. "You?"

Wernher shook his head, pointed towards the sky. "Up there. That's where we belong. Not here."

"Hmm, maybe." Gene absentmindedly banged his helmet collar on the window and then tugged at his fingers. "Say, why are we wearing these mittens again?"

A ruckus at the far end of the room interrupted them, the newcomers having finally arrived. The strange little monk was bowing to one of them, who returned the gesture in kind. Odd lot, these. Wernher moved to rejoin the crowd and motioned for Gene to follow. Might as well finish the introductions. 

The bald newcomer seemed to be in charge, and garnered the most respect from his group. He had arrived a few days previous before leaving again, held aloft on wings of metal, propelled by fire. Concepts not out of reach of science nor the dreams of kerbals, but his machine was unlike anything Wernher had ever seen. This bald one was speaking as Wernher and Gene rejoined the party.

"Munlin, it's good to see you again, even if you weren't expected for a couple days. How'd you get here so fast? I just left North Mountain a few hours ago and I didn't think Archibald had called yet."

The monk smiled back, just as peculiar as ever. "Oh, I have my ways." Truth be told he had been at the Cape for nearly a munth now, helping out here and there, but hadn't bothered to explain why. Quiet and strange little kerbal.

The bald newcomer motioned towards his companion, introducing her to all as Rosuki Kerman. She had just fallen from the sky in a tin can. A can Wernher was excited to start digging around in. He drifted off in thought of what secrets it might hold, what wonders it could reveal. His short daydream was interrupted by the same bald one, who suggested they take their seats and get the meeting started.

"Ladies and gentlekerbs, I'd like to thank you all for meeting on such short notice. I know it must seem a bit strange to some of you. Hopefully after tonight your questions will have answers and things will start to make sense.

"We have a few items to cover before I turn the meeting over to Rosuki. First, the existence of this council must remain secret, at least for now. Officially we'll each hold an administrative position in the agency, which will hopefully quell any suspicions. Second, this is your space program. It's why you have the majority of the positions on the council. If at any time you feel we're moving too fast, please speak up."

They first went around the table introducing themselves, going over each of their histories, strengths, weaknesses, et cetera. This Rosuki character had been an astronaut many years ago before her own space program had fallen apart, she then went on to start her own. As it turned out their own boss, Cartina, had a similar story. She had thought to hide her past, but Rosuki and the bald one had seen through it, and somehow knew she was an old space tourist. "There can be no secrets here," the bald one warned.

After that came their own first astronaut, Zeldrien, head of the astronaut corps, who had yet to fly. As the winner of the 28th Annual "Stale Snack Shack Stale Snack Struggle," she was judged the most likely to survive for years on end without fresh snack supplies. Perfect trait for a spacekerb. Then Wernher himself, who had just completed his undergraduate physics work and was deep in the Masters of Applied Physics program when Cartina called to recruit him.

"Wait," the bald one asked, "You don't have a PhD yet?"

Wernher shook his head. "Nein."

"So you're not the Doctor Wernher von Kerman?"

"Nein."

"Interesting." Knowing looks were exchanged between the bald one and his boss.

They continued to Gene, who had almost completed his associates degree in team management. That brought more inquisitions and strange looks from the newcomers, who had apparently expected more. The monk, the strange kerbal who had appeared unannounced, had apparently been responsible for climbing into rockets left assembled outside of an old launch facility and firing himself and other monks into space. This garnered the attention of some other agency, who then proceeded to strand him on The Mün.

Finally, the bald one introduced himself again, Jonbald Kerman, possibly the oldest kerbal still on Kerbin. He had been to The Mün with two of his friends, Harler and Geofsy, before being assigned to the first work crew for their space station, Baile Speir. Space Station. Mün Landings. Kerbals in Space. Wernher was never more certain he was in over his head.

The meeting dragged on long into the night. The bald one and his team wanted help reestablishing communications with their crews, and suggested they needed to build a large ship to rescue them from Jool. Their own boss, Cartina, wanted to conduct research on the space-worthiness of kerbals. The bald one protested, saying they had known of kerbals who were in microgravity for decades without _too_ much damage, but in the end they agreed to the research anyway. Wernher asked what he thought was a good question, "How do kerbals get to space?" A question that was answered with laughter.

He hadn't meant it as a joke.

Snacks and drinks were brought in at one point when they took an intermission, and once consumed the council went back to work. So much of what they talked about seemed pure fantasy to Wernher, ships orbiting The Mün, Duna, even Jool; crews having landed on most of the worlds in the solar system. Five days before he was blissfully unaware of all of this, now he was expected to design things that would take kerbals safely into space. To the stars.
 


Finally they had exhausted their list of things to discuss, and the bald one moved to end the meeting.

"Ok then, we have our goals. Construction will continue here at the Cape. We'll have our crews recover our designs, research, and technical documents from storage and bring them to us. Doc, uh, Wernher, once we have the plans I'll have our engineers walk you through them. After that our two main goals are to build out our communications systems, and to conduct space survivability studies on living kerbals. Any questions?" He looked to each of the six others.

"Ok then, we have our missions. Good luck. Meeting adjourned." They all stood and started stretching, have sat for entirely too long. The bald one had been walking towards the door when he stopped, turned, and addressed them again.

"One last thing. Welcome to Continuum."

 

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Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Wahgineer]

So, this time the space program actually has knowledge of their forebears existence?

[cubinator]

5 minutes ago, awsumindyman said:

So, this time the space program actually has knowledge of their forebears existence?

Some of them, at any rate. I wonder what would happen if any of the new ones went snooping around and found out about it...

[Cydonian Monk]

Sneak preview, since I'm running waaaaaaaaaaay behind on getting the next part written up. (Seriously - I flew the first part of the next update 2 months ago.)

[Kerbart]

It's not like we have a deadline for your story. Take your time, we'll see it when you're ready to post it!

[DMSP]

6 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Sneak preview, since I'm running waaaaaaaaaaay behind on getting the next part written up. (Seriously - I flew the first part of the next update 2 months ago.)

That is, by far, the most beautiful KSP screenshot a I have ever seen. I wish this existed in real life.

[Thedrelle]

6 hours ago, DMSP said:

That is, by far, the most beautiful KSP screenshot a I have ever seen. I wish this existed in real life.

Agree, nice camera work. 

also, don't rush on our account. were here for the quality, not the volume. 

[DMSP]

Hey, @Cydonian Monk, I'm thinking of painting the image of the Aluminum over Laythe for an art piece that's coming up. May I have your blessing to do so?

[Cydonian Monk]

13 minutes ago, DMSP said:

Hey, @Cydonian Monk, I'm thinking of painting the image of the Aluminum over Laythe for an art piece that's coming up. May I have your blessing to do so?

That sounds perfectly cool. Knock yourself out. (Well, not literally. )

[DMSP]

1 hour ago, Cydonian Monk said:

That sounds perfectly cool. Knock yourself out. (Well, not literally. )

Alright! The project is going to be later in the year but I'm sure I can get it to work.

I also now have a new background.

[Cydonian Monk]

An observation or two on 1.2:

• Orbital ephemerides have changed. A certain quicksave at Laythe in 1.1.3 is a dozen or so minutes before sunset. In 1.2 the same quicksave is about an hour after sunset.
• I ran a test launch of the Sulphur LDAV from Laythe..... and..... uh.......... errrr........ I've decided to finish the initial exploration of Laythe in 1.1.3. The (slight) changes to the aero and the new fuel flow system have made the flight characteristics of the LDAV a bit on the instantly fatal side, and I can't see a way to change how the fuel flows in an already launched craft.

Otherwise the migration from 1.1.3 to 1.2 looks straightforward and has no issues.

Edited October 14, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Thedrelle]

lol, "a bit on the instantly fatal side", I love it. 

[Cydonian Monk]

Continuing From Where We Left Off

Laythe. It felt like munths since they'd arrived, or even minths, but Gletrix knew she just landed less than an hour before. And what a landing that was. She had barely put wheels onto the ground when the LDAV started its descent. She had hoped see it as it entered the atmosphere, streaking across the sky, but it landed so far to the West there was nothing more than a small flare. And that might have been one of the other moons. 

The ground at her landing site was strange. A mixture of ash, sand, and other inert matter, it was easy to lose your footing and go sliding down the hill. The Aluminium 10 was doing just that: sliding across the face of the dune. Wait any longer and she may not make it over to her friends. At least it wouldn't slide over her flag, as there's no way an aircraft can slide uphill.

Once the team was down and safe, Gletrix relit the Aluminium's engines and prepared for takeoff. Time to join to party. Getting airborne again was a bit tricky, what with the strange surface, but in the end she pulled back on the stick and her metal steed soared into the alien sky. Because of course it did. And it was perfect, with nary an exploding wheel to be found.

Thomlock had brought the Sulphur LDAV down on an isthmus at the far western edge of the island. From the air it didn't look like a bad place to land, but Gletrix changed her mind after the first flyover. The rolling dunes would force her to land somewhere to the North or South of the Sulphur and taxi over to the craft. That ridge was too dangerous looking to risk.

No big deal, the tires and wheels of the Aluminium were up to anything, or so it would seem. Who would think they'd explode just for coming into contact with the ground? It's not like they blew up because she took off. No, that's crazy talk, and she wouldn't have it. The wheels were fine. No bugs to be found. Perfect round little examples of flawless software they were. Sure.

A few minutes later and she was drifting up to the front door.

And then through the front door. The inside of the shuttle was disorienting. Sulphur was designed as a lander, yes, but the internals were best suited to use in microgravity. The seats had swivels on them to point forward, upward, but not sideways, so most of the time they ended up sitting on the seatbacks. Thankfully the designers had to foresight to build a ladder into the floor.

Macfred and Thomlock were discussing where best to plant the flag while Agake was trying (mostly successfully) to pull data from the various science instruments. She had already collected a handful of sand to experiment with once they were back in orbit. Gletrix had brought samples with her from the first landing site, and Agake was poking through them gleefully. 

Gletrix looked around. One missing. "Where's Jeb?"

Macfred pointed towards the hatch. "He took off to play in the dunes. Said something about building a sand castle. He'll meet us at the flag planting."

the flag planting. They had two chores to complete before the first exploration flight could depart, and Gletrix was anxious to get airborne again. First, they had to plant the flag. The official flag. And all the pomp that comes with that circumstance. Second, they need to remove the now-useless hardware from the LDAV. The less mass they had on ascent, the easier they could get to orbit. 

So one by one they filtered out of the lander. Each had already had their run-in with the Laythe air, having almost immediately taken their helmets off only to taste the terrible air. Was it breathable? For a short time, yes. Was it worth it? No, not really. Once all were outside and agreed on where to spot the flag they set out, single file. 

Walking over the dunes wasn't as easy as walking on Kerbin's beaches, though none of them quite understood why. Walking in general felt a tiny bit awkward, each step taking a short time longer to complete than their bodies were used to. 

Jeb was already waiting for them at the top of the hill, having happily and easily bounded up the hill from the beach. Gletrix couldn't help but wonder: Was everything always so easy for him?

It was a good spot, perched at the top of the tallest dune between the lake and the ocean. To the south they had a clear view of the landing site. None of them knew much at all about the environment of Laythe, but they hoped this spot would be safe enough for the flag to survive.

Macfred shepherded them, gathered them around his chosen spot. He shoved the flag into the soft soil, flipped the switch, and was about to start into a speech. A speech he never got to deliver because Agake jumped in fright. Behind them an apparition had appeared on the sand, and they were all distracted by it.

"Was that there before?"

Thomlock walked to the mysterious square. It floated waist-high off the ground, and appeared to be level with the soil underneath. He ran his fingers along the edge and corner, then pushed his hand through the top of it. "The sides feel like they exist, but the middle is just, well, fog? Hard to describe."

Gletrix didn't much care what it was made of, and was more than a little creeped out by it. 

"I've seen this before." Jeb, standing across the square from Thomlock. "They locked me up in a hospital for munths after I reported it." He cocked his head as though trying to remmeber something distant. "Come to think of it the hospital visit might have been after the plane crash. But these squares, I've seen them on Kerbin. Much, much larger than this. The size of a small city."

Macfred walked up to the edge and started to pull himself on top when Agake and Gletrix stopped him. 

"Are you insane?!"

"Possibly. Likely. Might be we're all insane, and Sieta and the rest are the stable ones. Let's see what happens." He lifted himself up onto the square, took one step forward, and then fell through it and onto the sands underneath. "Huh, weird. It's like it exists, but doesn't exist."

Exists but doesn't exist. Why did everything have to get so weird? Gletrix had a good life back on Kerbin, back before she was recruited by the space program and trained by Thomlock. If she'd known everything was as weird as it really was, she would've stayed put. Lived on in ignorant bliss.

They spent the next several minutes debating the strange black square. Well, the rest of them did. Gletrix had tuned out and was watching one of the small moons as it drifted behind Jool, barely visible in the haze. Eventually Macfred decided it was time to get their next chore, and agreed they would revisit the strange square apparition in the future.

Next on the list was cleaning up the debris left by the Sulphur LDAV. When the heatshields were jettisoned prior to landing, they ended up creating a great deal of garbage. Structural pieces, I-beams, and whatnot. Macfred didn't want the garbage to still be laying around when they took off, so he sent the crew around to gather all the pieces.

Gletrix found a few small cubic struts and an I-beam to drag back, much the same as everyone else. No doubt other pieces had slipped into the sand and sunk halfway to the core of Laythe by now. Pieces they'd never find. 

The heaviest piece had to be pushed end over end, a chore Macfred took himself. Before long all the bits were gathered in a pile at the lander. Afterwards, Macfred had them go around to remove excess mass from the lander. That "excess" mostly being the parachutes they used to land.

"Won't we need those if something goes wrong during liftoff?"

Macfred shook his head. "If the liftoff fails and we have to ditch the ascent stage, we land using the upper stage's engines. We'll be stuck here either way, but we may not be able to land at all with the extra mass still attached. It's safer this way."

"If you say so."

With all the pieces gathered, and all the excess stripped from the Sulphur LDAV, the next task was to build a small sculpture. Ok, so it wasn't officially on the flight plan, but all of them agreed it was the best way to tell leave their mark for future generations. (And much better than just leaving trash strewn about the surface.) Gletrix thought it was cool enough that she didn't even mind it cutting into her exploration time.

It took the better part of an hour. All of them had to work together, most holding pieces while Macfred bolted them together with his space wrench. At first they weren't sure exactly what to make, but the pieces lent themselves to a certain shape, a certain build. 

A familiar shape. A shape from Kerbin's distant past.

And so the Pyramid of Laythe was born. Future explorers would no doubt find it and wonder what lunatics had built it. Why would they keep so many parachutes and explosive decouplers here, on the side of a dune? What madness was this? Were the lights supposed to be eyes? Why didn't it have any power? Did those that built it intend it as an offering to the Space God Jool? To the Great Powers? Ws it intended as some magic ward, to protect travelers as they come to these shores?

No, as with most things it was built because of boredom. Macfred shined the lenses on the lights, and tried in vain to turn them on. With that done he climbed down, turned to Gletrix, and said the words she's been waiting to hear for hours now.

"You're cleared to fly."

She could hardly wait.

 

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Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[KAL 9000]

Yay!

[cubinator]

I sense a disturbance in the Fourth Wall...

[Angelo Kerman]

That pyramid is sure to turn some heads in the future.

[BeeGeenie]

"We choose to build a tiny pyramid on Laythe, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because we are bored." - Johneff Kerman.

[DMSP]

I think Gletrix is going to have the time of her life.

[GDJ]

26 minutes ago, DMSP said:

I think Gletrix is going to have the time of her life.

Yep! Hopefully that will be longer than a few seconds!