The Outer Planets Traveling Circus Episode 28: Superheroes (The End)

[Mister Dilsby]

You do that voodoo so well.

[UnusualAttitude]

10 hours ago, insert_name said:

hmm now there are two undead kerbals, wonder if we'll have the sarnus zombie apocalypse

Nah, just looks like a nasty rash from staring at the radiation for too long....

"Sanny, what do you see?"

Geschosskopf, for sticking landers to low gravity worlds, I recommend those new fangled KAS harpoons... 

[Geschosskopf]

13 hours ago, insert_name said:

hmm now there are two undead kerbals, wonder if we'll have the sarnus zombie apocalypse

 

8 hours ago, galaxyguy said:

AHHHHHHH ZOMBIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

2 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Nah, just looks like a nasty rash from staring at the radiation for too long....

"Sanny, what do you see?"

Why is it that everybody's so down on zombies these days?  When I was a kid down in New Orleans, some of my best friends were zombies

But yeah, zombies.  See, Kerbals traditionally die of impact, explosive, or thermal trauma so intense that there's no corpse left, often not even spores.  I can't ever remember having a Kerbal die without total destruction (ragdolls were just KO'd and could be woken up).  But here we have 2 that were killed solely by plot mechanics, not trauma, so what do you do with the corpse?  Especially since Kerbals in KSP have only 1 state---walking around normally.  Thus, having zombies is the only possible outcome but the mechanics still need explaining so here goes...

First off, Kerbals have no superstitions involving zombies, vampires, or any other form of walking corpses simply because the whole concept is alien to them.  Kerbals pop into spores when they die, at least as far as they've always known.  They do believe in noncorporeal ghosts but nothing tangible.  So none of the remaining living Kerbals realize what's going on and just think the zombies are sick.

Gergas is a techno-zombie like Frankenstein's Monster, a corpse reanimated mechanically instead of magically.  The DeepFreeze kept him from popping when he died and brought him back to life as it was designed to do, so there he is.  He actually doesn't know he's dead, but is enough of a sciencemate to be beginning to have suspicions.  Still, he's not going to let that stand in the way of doing his job or having a good time doing it.

Sanny's zombification is an unexpected result of 2 things:  total bio-system meltdown from intense radiation (which prevented the normal popping from happening) and the current embargo on souls leaving trans-Joolian space for the afterlife.  Being all attuned to energy fluxes, she is pretty sure her physical body is dead but that to her is a good thing because now she can stay in the rings forever.

Now, as to whether zombie Kerbals eventually decide to eat living Kerbals, and whether zombieism is contageous, you'll just have to wait and see.

2 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

You do that voodoo so well.

Thanks

2 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Geschosskopf, for sticking landers to low gravity worlds, I recommend those new fangled KAS harpoons... 

Hmmm, Maybe next time.  I've never been comfortable with KAS winches after many bad experiences.  I understand they've fixed a lot of their problems over the last year or 2 but I still don't trust 'em.

[Cydonian Monk]

What's wrong with zombies now? I'm one of those most Mondays and quite often Fridays. These sound more like Fallout ghouls than traditional zombles anyway. At least that Sanny chick.

(Personally I'm of the opinion kerbals aren't affected by radiation... short of radiation so intense that it breaks down everything. So no noseless ghouls for me - just regular old noseless kerbals.)

[Geschosskopf]

45 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

What's wrong with zombies now? I'm one of those most Mondays and quite often Fridays. These sound more like Fallout ghouls than traditional zombles anyway. At least that Sanny chick.

Yeah, I considered making Sanny an FO-type ghoul, but it's simpler to deal with only 1 type of abnormal lifeform(?) if I want any chance of wrapping this up before 1.1.

45 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

(Personally I'm of the opinion kerbals aren't affected by radiation... short of radiation so intense that it breaks down everything. So no noseless ghouls for me - just regular old noseless kerbals.)

This is the 1st time radiation has ever had an effect on Kerbals.  So why?  I suppose it's because the Kraken, not the forgotten creator gods, built the planet and thus the source of the radiation.  Yeah, I'll go with that.

[Geschosskopf]

I got this all flown during the week but didn't have time to put the pics together until now.  So hopefully I'll get another episode in later this weekend, too.

EPISODE 22: Junco Partner

Spoiler

 

Having made her decision, Sanny returned to HOPELESS.  Her shipmates' reactions were varied.

So the HOPELESS lander returned to the HOPELESS tug and started waiting for a window back to Orvok.

Meanwhile, back on Tekto, Gergas noticed that it never really got dark thanks to the glowing terrain.  And of course he no need for sleep so he decided to keep going.  But first he had to do something about the malfunctions of TOPER-1.  With no engineering support, he mashed buttons at random and threw chunks of ice at the plane until he got it into a configuration that he could "live" with.  This turned out to be with the cargo bay open, but at least the airbrakes and all the wing parts were finally working reliably.  Leaving the doors open caused no aerodynamic problems that Gergas noticed, although it was a bit unnerving watching the airbrakes pass through the cargo doors.  But then again, nothing about his situation was normal so he decided to go with it.

Having hit all the biomes except the poles, Gergas now turned north.  Tekto has "polar rifts" instead of just "poles" so Gergas was expecting something interesting.  And the terrain along the way continued to be beautiful and soon it was apparent that Tekto possessed a spike-like mountain on its north pole.

Upon closer inspection, the polar spike proved to be at the center of a network of jagged ridges marking the lines of longitude, There were also some strange streaks of black around one part of the polar area.  But it wasn't as exciting as he thought it would be.  In fact, it was arranged pretty much like Duna's north pole.

Gergas circled around and eventually picked the gap between ridges that appeared to have the smoothest bottom.  There he landed, taxied right up to the spike, and climbed it as far as he could.

Then Gergas took off and started heading south.  His goal was to get to the south pole nonstop, not because it was a different biome, but because he was having fun and enjoying the scenery.  Such as this..

 

During the trip, Gergas gave TOPER-1 her head, climbing to about 22km and reaching 230m/s, still just subsonic.  However, the engine started getting warm in the slightly thinner air so Gergas descended to 17km and 170m/s for most of the trip.  Eventually, the south polar area came into sight.  And this place definitely deserved the name "polar rifts".

It looked like the fabled Emerald City of Koz being assaulted by an army of Kodzillas.  Gergas came down low but found no place at all amenable for a landing---the whole area was covered with countless potholes.

So Gergas aborted his landing and instead circled the spires of the "Emerald City".  It was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen.

The engines were now running a little warm even at lower altitudes and Gergas wanted to save his progress.  Besides, there were those strange black patches of ground to investigate, some of which were conveniently nearby.  So Gergas flew a bit away from the south pole, picked out a flat spot of normal ground that verged into the black, landed, and taxied gingerly into the black.  It proved to be mudflat biome, just a different color but otherwise identical.

After a short break, Gergas continued back north towards the equator and Tekto Base.  More spectacular views abounded on all sides for much of the southern hemisphere.

But when Gergas neared the equator, he came onto the vast plateau.  Tekto Base was near the east edge of this huge expanse and Gergas had headed out east, so he wasn't expecting what  he found.  The monotony of the plateau, stretching as far as far as Gergas could see, was something of a shock and even a disappointment after all the beauty elsewhere.  But he was still intrigued that Tekto could contain such extreme contrasts.

But fortunately TOPER-1 was moving right along and soon Gergas was back at Tekto Base.

Gergas loaded all his science data into TRASHCAN-1 and entered BATHMAT's habitat in a glorious mood.  It had been an amazing trip.  But his shipmates were in no mood to celebrate with him.  Midi was still crashed and Elite was still badly hung over.  Gergas was very concerned about Elite's condition and during his trip, he'd been giving the matter a lot of thought.

 

 

 

------------------

Will Elite make a date with Death?  Will Sanny contaminate the rest of her crew?  Who will win the battle for Truiki's soul?  Find out eventually, but no promises as to when.  But tune in next time anyway.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2016 by Geschosskopf
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[insert_name]

wow the kraken seems to be doing a number on TOPER 1

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, insert_name said:

wow the kraken seems to be doing a number on TOPER 1

Yeah, this is extremely annoying.  It's a bug with cargo bay occlusion which I hope is one of the "old bugs" Squad is fixing in 1.1, because it's a serious problem for spaceplanes.  What happens is, if you have parts attached to the outside of a cargo bay (Mk2 or Mk3), when you open and close the cargo bay, those parts often get treated as if they are now inside the cargo bay.  So wings no longer produce lift, airbrakes won't activate, etc.  And this usually happens asymmetrically, affecting only 1 side of the plane.  I first encountered it way back in Episode 5 of this series, asked questions, learned the cause,but by then the TOPERs were already en route to Sarnus so there was nothing to be done about it.

I did learn that repeatedly cycling the cargo doors sometimes solves the problem with wings, but in this case the airbrakes complicate things.  Either they work or the wings work, but not both at once.  Unless I leave the bay open so it no longer deactivates the things it thinks are inside it.  Even though visually, the open doors are more in the way of the outside parts than if the doors are closed.

Believe me, this is one of the things I'm going to test immediately when 1.1 comes out, and if this bug still exists, I'm going to be disappointed.  For the time being, however, try to design your planes so you have nothing attached to the outside of the bay.  Which is usually not possible due to the requirements of CoM/CoL placement.

[UnusualAttitude]

These guys are definitely the most hopeless bunch of anti-heroes ever to explore the KSP system. Awesome.

12 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Believe me, this is one of the things I'm going to test immediately when 1.1 comes out, and if this bug still exists, I'm going to be disappointed.  For the time being, however, try to design your planes so you have nothing attached to the outside of the bay.  Which is usually not possible due to the requirements of CoM/CoL placement.

Hate to be that annoying guy who suggests yet another mod, but if problems persist, consider trying FAR. Not because it's more realistic, but because it has delivered a completely consistent experience since I started using it nearly two years ago, whereas stock aerodynamics seem to change like the weather.

[Geschosskopf]

3 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

These guys are definitely the most hopeless bunch of anti-heroes ever to explore the KSP system. Awesome.

Aw, thanks   Although I put Camwise far ahead of them.

3 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Hate to be that annoying guy who suggests yet another mod, but if problems persist, consider trying FAR. Not because it's more realistic, but because it has delivered a completely consistent experience since I started using it nearly two years ago, whereas stock aerodynamics seem to change like the weather.

FAR was one of the 1st mods I ever installed years ago and I used it for a long time.  But I ultimately decided that it wasn't realistic to force toy-sized, ultra-dense, made-of-exotic-matter Kerbin to have an atmosphere that at all resembled Earth's.  This is, in fact, my main problem with all so-called "realism" mods.  Realism doesn't mean "just like Earth", it means "consistent with the natural laws of the universe".  As long as you have the toy-sized KSP system, something like the old stock "soup-o-sphere" was more realistic than what FAR did to Kerbin.  So I quit using FAR.  Then 1.0 - 1.0.5 happened, much to my displeasure.  But OTOH, stock air is still considerably less Earthly than FAR's, so I continue to not use FAR.

Now, if I played with RSS, then "realism" and "just like Earth" would mean the same thing and I'd be using FAR.  But I don't do RSS.  I had enough of messing with realistic rocketry after many, many years of playing Orbiter and its predecessors quite extensively.  Now I've "retired".  I'm more in to whimsy now, so keep KSP at its tiny size.

[Just Jim]

Wow.... I am absolutely loving the terrains!!!  That weird spiky thing is epic!!! 

And your plot is getting wonderfully creepy..... 

[Geschosskopf]

9 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

Wow.... I am absolutely loving the terrains!!!  That weird spiky thing is epic!!! 

Yeah, I'll have to be going back.  Tekto's south pole is the most fantastic thing I've ever seen in the game.  So now I've got a reason, finally, to learn to make and fly VTOLs.  Definitely don't want to drop a lander anywhere near there from orbit, it looks pretty impassable for a rover, and even with a 10-12m/s landing speed, I don't want to risk landing a STOL plane there.

9 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

And your plot is getting wonderfully creepy..... 

Thanks.  Hopefully somebody will make it home alive

[Mister Dilsby]

That emerald spire area looks like the perfect 'fortress of solitude' for whichever undead crewmember has the most Chris Reeve Superman mojo.

[Geschosskopf]

5 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

That emerald spire area looks like the perfect 'fortress of solitude' for whichever undead crewmember has the most Chris Reeve Superman mojo.

That's a good idea    I was thinking of building a hanging base there,. inspired by this classic effort by @M4ck.

[Geschosskopf]

Things are drawing to their crudely executed and poorly told conclusion, made even more clumsy but the rush to get this over with prior to 1.1

EPISODE 23: Mining Camp Blues

Spoiler

 

By this point, STEAMINGPILE and the addled crew of Eeloo Base had finally gotten the massive tanker FLAKEE loaded up for a run to TOEJAM.  It departed crewlessly and being gentle on the thrust to start with so as not to throw TOO MUCH gravel through the inflatable modules of STEAMINGPILE.  It left at night which, as the great bard @Cydonian Monk says, is only right and proper.

FLAKEE's central 3.75m tanks are for her own use, enough fuel for 5 aerospikes to lift 1.25 OTEs (Orange Tank Equivalents) of fuel to a 100km Eeloo orbit, rendezvous, dock, and return.  The radial tanks are for the cargo.  The mondo lander legs and long ladders to the Hitchhiker are from @NecroBones' Lithobrake mod, and the 3.75m-to-5x-1.25m adapter is from his Space-Y LIfters.  Despite its unglamorous mission, FLAKEE had been a challenge to design and get to Sarnus, so the Boffins were rather fond of it.

FLAKEE stabilized into a 20km parking orbit, paused very brielfy to synch up, and then went up to 90km to meet TOEJAM.  The Boffins back at Mission Control were rather proud of this, having eyeballed to launch timing and sent the probe instructions through the intense coronal static that still plagued communications.

Despite the added cargo mass, docking FLAKEE to TOEJAM was actually a bit less damnably difficult than it had been when the 2nd Sarnus Expedition first arrived.  FLAKEE had been built to balance best with full holds and about 1/3 propellant, which was her current situation.  Also, there wasn't as much part-count at TOEJAM so FPS was way better.  I do not find any advantages to low FPS, except in having more time to take screenies of the ensuing disasters   But fortunately that issue didn't arise.

CRACKHEAD, like FLAKEE, has 2 radial X200-32 tanks so FLAKEE's cargo transferred directly into them.  All that remains is the 4x FL-T800s on CRACKHEAD, which together equal another X200-32.  The 2nd X200-32 of FLAKEE;s 2nd load will go into TOEJAM's own tank for future use (yeah, right).

Mission accomplished, FLAKEE cast off and returned to Eeloo Base.  It of course aimed for Eeloo base but again wanted to be careful about using too much thrust too close to STEAMINGPILE.  As a result, she came down about 200m W of her original position.

200m is of course much farther than KAS pipes stretch.  But that was precisely why STEAMINGPILE had wheels.  Once FLAKEE was back down, Truiki, Munmy, and Orbles moved into the nifty see-through Karibou cab (complete with fuzzy dice), upped stakes, and drove over to FLAKEE.  Soon, Orbles had STEAMINGPILE reconnected to FLAKEE and Truiki was again having fun "making Ore-pies", as she termed the mining-refining process.  Meanwhile, Munmy shook the inflatable modules back out and got the life support systems back online.

 However, this relocation did not go flawlessly.  While climbing FLAKEE's ladder to reconnect the KAS pipe, Orbles felt a strange sensation.

To outside appearances, Orbles seemed to be having a seizure.  But he had actually been dragged unexpectedly into the Spirit World.  His guides were waiting for him at the bridge between this world and that one.

 

ORBLES:  You mean, we just wait in hopes the gods do a smackdown on the Kraken, then we pick up the pieces?

MASK:  Yes, it's the oldest trope in the book.  Deus ex machina, as your Classical forespores called it.  It hasn't been used in millennia so the Kraken will never suspect it.

BLOB:  And at this point, it's really our only hope of saving Truiki.  If you're the praying sort, you might want to beseech the gods to smite the Kraken.

ORBLES:  I've never prayed in my life.  Never saw the point.

IMP:  That's just as well.  The gods only listen to shamans who, uniquely, are able to apply in person in the Overworld.  And because the Way is blocked, you can't get there.

ORBLES:  OK, assuming the gods attack the Kraken, that will break his hold on Truiki and I can swoop in and guide her soul back to her body, right?

MASK:  It probably won't be so simple.  The Kraken is the next best thing to a god himself.  He is capable of vigorous and prolonged resistance.  It will probably take a multi-pronged attack, dividing his attention, to succeed.

BLOB:  Yes, a simultaneous assault on two fronts.  When, or rather if, the gods attack the Kraken, you must attack Munmy.  But remember, simply killing him is not the answer.

IMP:  So distracted, the Kraken might lose his grip on Truiki's soul as he tries to confront both threats.  Should that happen, we might be able to get Truiki away from him.  Then it would be up to you to guide her back.

ORBLES:  Hmmm.  I have an idea for dealing with Munmy.  But it will be a while before I can do it.  How much time have we got?

MASK:  It depends entirely on, firstly, when or if another of your crew succumbs.  We have no control over that.  And secondly, whether or not the gods will really act against the Kraken then.  Again, we have no control over that.

BLOB:  But that's why it's such a classic trope.  Everything is totally hopeless, requiring changes to the very laws of physics for the protagonist to prevail, and that's when the gods appear to make that happen.  Life imitates tropes.  Thus, we have every confidence that our plan will succeed.

ORBLES:  Even so, pulling this off will require careful coordination been your world and mine.  And other than just now, me getting to the Spirit World has required extraordinary circumstances.  Either the cryopod or much chanting and drumming.

IMP:  That's where the ladder trick comes in.

MASK:  Yes, I can't believe we forgot to tell you about that.  But as we said, it's been a long time since we've had a shaman,. so we're out of practice.

BLOB:  Hopefully, you'll survive long enough for us to remember all we're supposed to teach shamans, so that we can do better with the next one.

ORBLES:  Lovely.  I hope to remind you of everything in the book.  But for now, what's this "ladder trick"?

IMP:  It's all obsolete symbolism, really, dating from before Kerbals could climb and parkour off practically any surface, from even before they learned to fly at all.  Back in those ancient pre-flight days, ladders were the only way Kerbals could get to higher altitudes.

MASK:  Therefore, in the language of the shamanic trade, ladders came to symbolize climbing the World Tree along the Axis Mundi to reach the Overworld or Underworld.

BLOB:  Which led to a shortcut to the Spirit World.  A shaman need only climb a few rungs on a ladder while even half-way thinking of otherworldly goings-on, and POOF, he's here.

ORBLES:  Wow, that's a handy trick to know.  I shall try my hardest not to trigger it accidentally in the future.  But now, I'm afraid I must return to the Middleworld.  No telling how long I've been gone.

IMP:  Only about 5 minutes.  But that's enough to raise suspicions.

ORBLES: OK, I can deal with that.  Help me get back.

=====================

Meanwhile on Tekto:

====================

And back to Eeloo:

 

 

What further horrors await?  Tune in next time to, perhaps, find out!

 

 

Edited March 20, 2016 by Geschosskopf
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[Mister Dilsby]

"Life imitates trope" indeed.  Love the lore about ladders--yes, of course that's a sacred object in a culture motivated by altitude, and of course anyone who's been playing this game through a lot of version knows that Strange Things^TM often happen when you're on a ladder. 

[Just Jim]

Oh man, this is so seriously messed up, and I am really loving it! 

I can't wait to see where you go with it!

 

P.S. ladders... lol...

[Geschosskopf]

50 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

"Life imitates trope" indeed.

Which is, essentially, what you get when you boil St. Thomas Aquinus down to his essentials.  Even Hannibal Lector recognized this

NOTE:  I'm not slamming Aquinus, just poking fun..  No matter where you stand on the spiritual, let alone religious, spectrum, he's an essential and illuminating read.

50 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

 Love the lore about ladders--yes, of course that's a sacred object in a culture motivated by altitude, and of course anyone who's been playing this game through a lot of version knows that Strange Things^TM often happen when you're on a ladder. 

44 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

P.S. ladders... lol...

Granted, ladders in KSP are demonstrably magic items.  @Chemp and @Tw1 have shown what highly skilled and adequately motivated sorcerers can do with them.  However, and by complete coincidence, what I said about ladders in my story is straight-up shamanic gospel.  In shamanism, earthly ladders or their local equivalents often really do symbolize the World Tree and shamans really do climb them when seeking ecstasy, which in shamanic terms means the out-of-body experience of going to the Spirit World, Overworld, and/or Underworld.  Echoes of this belief remain even in today's mainstream anti-shamanic religions with Jacob's Ladder and the superstition about it being bad luck to walk under a ladder.

And this provides a neat feedback loop.  KSP players regard ladders as mystical, sometimes cursed, things, so often their Kerbals reflect their Master's belief, and that goes with their real-world shamanic use.  Kinda cool, I think.

For them as are interested in learning more about shamanism, which is a fascinating subject from purely intellectual grounds regardless of how you feel about religion, the best source of all shamanic tropes is Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, by Mircea Eliade.  Remember, "ecstasy" here means the out-of-body experience.  This is not a kama sutra-type thing.

44 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

Oh man, this is so seriously messed up, and I am really loving it! 

I can't wait to see where you go with it!

Thanks.  I'm not trying to make things "messed up".  I'm just playing out the natural consequences of how things work in my universe.  Which will obviously have to change based on the experiences of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition.  Traditional methods are clearly not up to the task

 

[Just Jim]

42 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Thanks.  I'm not trying to make things "messed up".  I'm just playing out the natural consequences of how things work in my universe.  Which will obviously have to change based on the experiences of the 2nd Sarnus Expedition.  Traditional methods are clearly not up to the task

OK, maybe "messed up" isn't the best choice of words.  It's just this is not what I expected in a KSP story (and this is coming from the brain-pod guy...lol) and I'm really liking it.  I like unexpected!

The only book I have relating to shamanism is Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth... somewhere around here... I think.  I have so many books I forget sometimes.  But I don't know that much about shamans, unfortunately.... I should fix that.
I also didn't know about ladders, but thinking about it, it makes perfect sense, and has a certain elegance to it.... like a sort of stairway to heaven, if I'm understanding you right.

Edited March 14, 2016 by Just Jim

[Geschosskopf]

13 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

OK, maybe "messed up" isn't the best choice of words.  It's just this is not what I expected in a KSP story (and this is coming from the brain-pod guy...lol) and I'm really liking it.  I like unexpected!

"Messed up" is fine.  But there's a spectrum to that.  At one end, we have the real world today.  At the other, we have Thompberry, Spawn of Yuggoth.  Somewhere in between we have the 2nd Sarnus Expedition.

This story is not turning out as I expected, either.  I set out to do the usual thing of sending a glorious expedition to another planet and returning in triumph with the emphasis on the ships and their maneuvers, not the Kerbals.  But along the way you and the other great skalds of the forum entranced me with the adventures of your Kerbals.  For the 1st time, I turned my mental tables and shifted from the POV of the Travelling Circus' board of directors to that of the galley slaves astronauts.  So I decided to make them interesting characters by giving them "issues" from cryosleep.  Which of course is a huge sci-fi trope.  Then by complete coincidence, communications with Kerbin, already delayed by an hour, are passing so close to the sun as to be mostly garbled, meaning these afflicted Kerbals have had to fend for themselves.  Things have gone downhill from there.

My hope is that somebody survives to make it home.  I've made preparations for receiving CRACKHEAD upon its return and it would be a shame to waste them.  But the Travelling Circus will be doing things a bit differently after the up-coming Supernova of Kigma-11.  Mixing indoctrination with cryosleep is not a good idea

13 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

The only book I have relating to shamanism is Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth... somewhere around here... I think.  I have so many books I forget sometimes. 
I didn't know about ladders, but thinking about it, it makes perfect sense, and has a certain elegance to it.... like a sort of stairway to heaven, if I'm understanding you right.

"Stairway to Heaven" is exactly the whole shamanic ladder thing.  There's a lot of shamanism still left in today's mainstream religions, even those that ruthlessly persecuted pagans, and basic animism is part of daily life.  If people didn't believe inanimate objects had souls/spirits/whatever, why would they give personal names to their ships/tanks/planes/rockets?  People seem to be hardwired for such things.  That's what makes the study of it so fascinating IMHO.

[Mister Dilsby]

11 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

 For the 1st time, I turned my mental tables and shifted from the POV of the Travelling Circus' board of directors to that of the galley slaves astronauts.  So I decided to make them interesting characters by giving them "issues" from cryosleep.  Which of course is a huge sci-fi trope.  Then by complete coincidence, communications with Kerbin, already delayed by an hour, are passing so close to the sun as to be mostly garbled, meaning these afflicted Kerbals have had to fend for themselves.  Things have gone downhill from there.

Downhill's a great place to be sometimes. Amazingly, sometimes you have to climb a ladder to get there. Well, speaking as a member of the (up until now anyway) secret conclave of skalds, I'm very glad you went this route. I think it adds a lot to what was already a very entertaining set of tales. As you've said more than once in the past, all the tropes we'll ever know were written down long, long ago and there is nothing new under the sun. But the sun isn't new either, and yet it never seems to get old. 

[Cydonian Monk]

Hopefully these kerbals don't get swept up while descending the ladder back to Kerbin. (Though once there they might be able to climb the launchpad ladder back into space.... I once had a kerbal make it about 5km up before I got bored.) Spirituality of ladders and brooms and tropes aside, that Karibou cab does make for a slick-looking rover. I especially like the braking mechanism, which is an obvious thing in hindsight.

[Geschosskopf]

19 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Downhill's a great place to be sometimes. Amazingly, sometimes you have to climb a ladder to get there.

Given what's been said above, that's pretty deep

19 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Well, speaking as a member of the (up until now anyway) secret conclave of skalds, I'm very glad you went this route. I think it adds a lot to what was already a very entertaining set of tales. As you've said more than once in the past, all the tropes we'll ever know were written down long, long ago and there is nothing new under the sun. But the sun isn't new either, and yet it never seems to get old. 

Well, coming from one of the masters, this is high praise.  But egad, you've used me as a trope in my own thread.  That's genius

[Geschosskopf]

14 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

...that Karibou cab does make for a slick-looking rover. I especially like the braking mechanism, which is an obvious thing in hindsight.

Yeah, I'm using an older version of Karibou.  The mod updated after SE-2 was well on its way and the update deprecated the wheels I'm using here, so there was no choice but to continue as launched.  These old wheels have very little traction.  The thing steers best by torque and is bloody hard to stop without dropping legs and retracting the wheels.  The new version supposedly addresses this but I haven't tried it myself.  And of course wheels are about to change fundamentally anyway.

Another issue, at least with these old wheels, is that the extended wheels stick down a good ways below the reach of the legs.  And due to the way KSP animations are irresistible forces, extending the wheels tends to fling the whole rover off the ground, even in fairly high gravity.  But it can handle such routine bumps no problem.  It's a tough vehicle.

Edited March 14, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[Just Jim]

10 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

"Messed up" is fine.  But there's a spectrum to that.  At one end, we have the real world today.  At the other, we have Thompberry, Spawn of Yuggoth.  Somewhere in between we have the 2nd Sarnus Expedition.

This story is not turning out as I expected, either.  I set out to do the usual thing of sending a glorious expedition to another planet and returning in triumph with the emphasis on the ships and their maneuvers, not the Kerbals.  But along the way you and the other great skalds of the forum entranced me with the adventures of your Kerbals.  For the 1st time, I turned my mental tables and shifted from the POV of the Travelling Circus' board of directors to that of the galley slaves astronauts.  So I decided to make them interesting characters by giving them "issues" from cryosleep.  Which of course is a huge sci-fi trope.  Then by complete coincidence, communications with Kerbin, already delayed by an hour, are passing so close to the sun as to be mostly garbled, meaning these afflicted Kerbals have had to fend for themselves.  Things have gone downhill from there.

My hope is that somebody survives to make it home.  I've made preparations for receiving CRACKHEAD upon its return and it would be a shame to waste them.  But the Travelling Circus will be doing things a bit differently after the up-coming Supernova of Kigma-11.  Mixing indoctrination with cryosleep is not a good idea

"Stairway to Heaven" is exactly the whole shamanic ladder thing.  There's a lot of shamanism still left in today's mainstream religions, even those that ruthlessly persecuted pagans, and basic animism is part of daily life.  If people didn't believe inanimate objects had souls/spirits/whatever, why would they give personal names to their ships/tanks/planes/rockets?  People seem to be hardwired for such things.  That's what makes the study of it so fascinating IMHO.

Spawn of Yuggoth..... yup, that's just about right... hehehe.

Isn't it funny how you set out to write one thing, and it sort of evolves on it's own into something completely different? 
Sci-Fi trope indeed.... I'm beginning to wonder if these stories themselves taking on lives of their own isn't one as well...