THE BARTDON PAPERS - "Cancel all previous directives."

[UnusualAttitude]

3 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

One of Jonnie's tunes?   Like it.  Seems a bit shamanic in the video, too.

Yeah, Gojira is an improbable mix of ecology, environmental awareness, spiritualism and... technical metal. For context, they come from the southwest of France (just down the road, relatively speaking) and their international success is a pretty big deal for us here. They're also awe-inspiring to see live, so if you or any of your friends are into this sort of music at all, get yourselves to Houston this September 30th. You won't be disappointed.

3 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

BTW,  what's so bad about about phyllosilicates (which I had to google) ?  I ate my supper this evening off a plate made of them, as have most post-Neolithic humans for the past 7000 years or so, and the world hasn't ended yet.  So am I misunderstanding the meaning or has Margaret just gone nuts?

Infrared observations allowed the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft to observe phyllosilicates on the surface of Phobos in 2010. As explained by this article, this was a surprising discovery as they are minerals that are expected to be formed in the presence of water and therefore may not be native to the small moon. It is just another clue that Phobos might have formed from the debris of an impact on Mars.

Margaret is completely freaked out by the risk of taking some sort of contamination back to Earth, and she thinks they might have picked it up down on the surface of Phobos. Angun scoffs at this idea, but she happens to have the biggest fuel tank, which in their situation means that she gets to decide...

And, in the absence of any Alien Bacteria of Death, your plate should be safe... Bon appébird!

(Edit: dammit, apparently it's offensive to wish someone to "enjoy their meal" on the forum).

1 hour ago, DMSP said:

Wow.

Camwise needs to find something, and fast.

Yup. Get out of that one, Camwise.

I hate to do this to you though, but Part Three will take us back to Earth where we will find out what's going on there in the mean time...

Edited May 15, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[Geschosskopf]

 

7 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Margaret is completely freaked out by the risk of taking some sort of contamination back to Earth, and she thinks they might have picked it up down on the surface of Phobos. Angun scoffs at this idea, but she happens to have the biggest fuel tank, which in their situation means that she gets to decide...

And, in the absence of any Alien Bacteria of Death, your plate should be safe... Bon appébird!

(Edit: dammit, apparently it's offensive to wish someone to "enjoy their meal" on the forum).

Well, there are plenty of Earthly Bateria (and Parasites) of Death both in the dirt my plate was made from and in the food sitting on it.  On a daily basis, humanity relies on high temperature to kill them all.  If Phobos formed from a violent Martian impact, I expect the fragments got quite hot in the process

But anyway, given the little we know so far, it seems more likely to me that any Alien Bacteria of Death was deliberately introduced by the aliens to clear the way for Kerbals, rather than through negligence on their part accidentally bringing it from Earth to Mars.  After all, if they can cross the stars, they certainly know how to maintain space hygiene

 

7 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

I hate to do this to you though, but Part Three will take us back to Earth where we will find out what's going on there in the mean time...

Well, actually, I've been wondering what's been going on back there.  All the communications and conspiracies, conclusions being drawn, reactions to the Kraken pictures (assuming they've been sent back already), etc.  But especially whether anybody looting Camwise's office of stapler, keyboard, mouse, and chair paused to water his plant   And this is sort of the traditional place in a narrative to leave the audience hanging.

[UnusualAttitude]

40 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

If Phobos formed from a violent Martian impact, I expect the fragments got quite hot in the process

But these could be tough little beggars. Interesting Word of the Day: Lithopanspermia.

Turns out that some initial research shows that certain microbes could survive being ejected.

[Geschosskopf]

15 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

But these could be tough little beggars. Interesting Word of the Day: Lithopanspermia.

Turns out that some initial research shows that certain microbes could survive being ejected.

Well sure, microbes are notoriously difficult to kill.  But OTOH, if they were in a wad of wet clay that got heated, now they're safely locked up inside a solid ceramic.  Like my dinner plate

But anyway, I have to side with Angun on this.  After all, Camwise has to get home and be made to suffer other misfortunes

 

 

[UnusualAttitude]

Just a quick picture from my first attempt to update my Camwise Logs save to 1.1...

Spoiler

Yes, that's Lentillac, magically transported to the surface of Mars. I'm not sure Camwise would be proud or terrified to find out that one of his most dubious designs is Mars-capable...

I reckon that I can fix most of this, but I will probably wait until all of the missions I have running that are supposed to return to Earth are completed.

So, Camwise 1.1 will have to wait for a while, and do expect subtle (or less subtle) changes in the appearances of some of the hardware. 

Edited May 18, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[Geschosskopf]

10 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Yes, that's Lentillac, magically transported to the surface of Mars. I'm not sure Camwise would be proud or terrified to find out that one of his most dubious designs is Mars-capable...

LOL!  Is RSS Mars using the Mun template?

Anyway, Camwise can always blame it on the dead Kraken, which ultimately died of exposure to that noxious ship

 

[UnusualAttitude]

Right. Coming up, Part Three of the Camwise Logs, narrated by a new character (so watch out for the log's author from now on, and the time stamp may become important as things progress): Acting Principal Investigator Bartdon.

Be nice to him.

On second thoughts, don't bother. He certainly wouldn't go out of his way to be nice to you...

Edited May 25, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[UnusualAttitude]

PART THREE: LUNACY

 

"Where is everybody?"

Enrico Fermi.

 

YEAR 7, DAY 66. BARTDON.

Damn and blast...!

Morning. Shouted at assistant (still can't remember the damned boy's name) for stiff coffee for nearly three minutes before getting any response. Coffee was terrible. Note to self: have the boy redistributed.

Snapped some pencils. Felt better.

Glared at the name and title written into the frosted glass of my office door. No longer felt better.

API Bartdon. Acting Principal Investigator. If I'd been just Principal Investigator this time last year, none of this would have happened.

The situation is a mess. What the hell were we thinking when we let Angun swan off on his own private crusade to Mars without asking a few more questions first? What was supposed to be our triumphant first interplanetary flight has turned into a complete disaster from which our space programme will surely take several years to recover, if it isn't canceled outright tomorrow when we break the news to our sponsors.

First of all he stumbles across some sort of ancient structure on the planet's surface, quite by chance of course. And if you believe that, you'll believe anything. Then, after an entirely successful mission to Phobos, mere minutes from returning to the mothership with a capsule full of priceless samples, we lose contact with the lot of them. They vanish.

And what do we get for the trouble of investing several million funds and more than two years of effort? One last garbled message, sent from the damned lander's dish.

Can't be sure who sent it, but it sounds like that gung-ho oaf of a pilot Jonnie. Most of it is static, the signal cuts in and out as if they were suffering from intermittent power failure. Or as if the blasted capsule was spinning. Can hardly understand a word the boy is saying, but the transcript I have here reads Céré (…) Margaret (…) abandon (…) of control (…) Phobos (…) impact (…) seconds (…) long buddies.

Seriously? “Long buddies”? He barely makes sense even when you have all of the words in his sentence, but what kind of famous last words are those?

There is no doubt the ship and crew were lost. Images sent from our probes in low Martian orbit show an impact event near the rim of Stickney crater less than three minutes after the end of the message. From the size of the new crater, Steledith reckons impact was at about 200 metres per second. No-one will have walked away from that.

Good riddance too, if you ask me. I certainly wasn't looking forward to having Angun back here, or his sidekick Margaret. I do feel a bit sorry for Jonnie, though.

As for Camwise, well he was about as useful as a chocolate fireguard when it came to keeping us informed of Angun's intentions, but he was a good engineer. At least he had the guts to tackle some of the challenges we faced when the rest of our engineers came back from their tea-breaks whining pathetic excuses about how hard space is. If he could remember to get up in the morning and do as he was told, that is.

Note to self: send messages of condolences to his cousin Karanda, and to that pilot he got back from Drygalski. And get a translator to help me write to his father in that awful dialect of his. A good translator. “We regret to inform you that your son crashed into Phobos and is missing, presumed dead,” isn't something most translators have to deal with. Or most fathers.

Lunch. Taken with Investigators Siggy and Neldan. Stuff it. They are both pestering me to make sure our probe Martel out at Jupiter sweeps new areas on the surface of the Jovian moons for signs of giant arches or flying saucers. They also want us to return to the Moon as soon as possible to pursue our investigations there, despite the order to cancel all crewed flights until further notice.

Double-barreled blast! I knew this would happen. Angun is already a martyr, and at least part of the scientific community is howling for his work to be continued, despite the fact that no-one really knows what he was up to. And there I was thinking that with him out of the way, we might finally be able to get to work and have a sensible space programme with credible scientific goals, and twelve million funds safe on our savings account.

And for all his bluster, Neldan still hasn't managed to decipher the signals still being emitted into space from the relay Angun had set up in the Pacific. Does it matter? No-one is listening to them now anyway.

Afternoon. Returned to my office to prepare my official report on the loss of Cernin. I've no idea if I can come up with something that won't make us sound like a bunch of reckless loonies with no idea what we're doing. It will be a bloody miracle if they don't shut us down straight away, sell off our spaceplanes for scrap and use the VAB to stockpile ore or coal.

Had just got to work but was interrupted by Angun's ex-assistant (or should that be ex-Angun's assistant?). She brought me a letter. And, as if today couldn't get any worse, it turned out to be from... Angun.

Dear Bartdon,

If you are reading this, then I am dead.

Sorry about that, old boy. As you may have already realised, if we don't come back from Mars alive, things are going to be a little complicated for you.

And as you have probably already guessed (and being the astute person you are I'd be most disappointed if you haven't), my reasons for pushing for a mission to Mars as soon as possible went beyond the mere desire to explore the Red Planet and coerce our sponsors into granting us more funding.

Speaking as one Investigator to another, I do hope that you will eventually come to understand the secrecy surrounding my true intentions. The need for financial support often comes in the way of true scientific progress. And, as you know all too well yourself, revolutionary ideas are often shunned or ridiculed by the scientific community.

Anyway, here it is. You remember that accident in the Pacific I was involved in when I was in my final year of tutorship? Well, since our last discussion about this event I have pursued the matter. I admit that I used the influence and resources available to me as Principal Investigator to place a monitoring station on the ocean surface above the site and listen in for further signals. I was not disappointed.

The Monument I discovered on the ocean bed has been emitting signals intermittently ever since, and after many months of running algorithms through the laboratory's computer I managed to decipher some of them. They are pictures. One of these pictures lead me believe that we would find the Pyramid on Mars, and I hoped that it would be linked to our recent discoveries on the Moon. I hope therefore that you will forgive me for my subtle additions to the list of objectives for the Martian rovers.

I'm sure you'll be interested in seeing the other pictures, although I'm afraid some of them seem to contradict the conclusions of your thesis. Not that your work is relevant anymore, at least not since we discovered that ship in Bailly crater. By the way, I hope you still intend to look into that matter. I was disappointed to learn that no crewed trip was scheduled to go there this year. We did not set up a base at great cost in Drygalski crater for it to gather dust, and I'm sure that you will be reminded of this in due course by our sponsors.

So, please find enclosed the codes that will enable you to log on to my account. This will also give you access to the decipher, allowing you to understand any further signals that may be transmitted by the Pacific Monument.

As I'm sure you already know, I hate to draw hasty conclusions from limited data. The picture of the Pyramid does seem to suggest that whatever lies on the ocean bed is trying to lead us to something on Mars. We don't even know if its intentions are benevolent, hostile, or simply beyond our comprehension, although any sentient life form that came here with advanced technology could have wiped out our kind when we were still savages, should they have chosen to do so.

We can't even be sure that this message is addressed to us, as we now have evidence that at some point in our planet's history, this solar system was visited by beings with technology vastly superior to our own present capabilities.

But if you must have my personal opinion on this, I would say that this is a message from the past that we were intended to stumble upon some day, and act accordingly. And as scientists, it is our duty to investigate the meaning of these messages, wherever this may lead us.

The pictures suggesting microbial life of similar or even identical nature on both Earth and Mars are of particular interest and may be interpreted in many different ways. Margaret is concerned about the possibility of backwards contamination from Mars afflicting our planet, but I consider this risk to be highly unlikely.

But that's just my opinion, and I'm dead now so it may no longer be relevant. Particularly if the cause of my death is directly related to my pursuit of this investigation. I hope that I may trust you to take all necessary precautions.

Just in case you were wondering, I have made arrangements for copies of this letter to be sent to Siggy, Neldan and Steledith. Only one of our three aforementioned colleagues is likely to lose this letter or forget about its content.

I wish you good luck, Bartdon. You're going to need it.

Angun.

PS: Oh yes, those pictures.

 

Edited August 22, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[Windspren]

Those things... They're like bacteria with nans attacking them...

[insert_name]

36 minutes ago, Laythe Dweller said:

Those things... They're like bacteria with nans attacking them...

more like bacteria with rtgs attached

[UnusualAttitude]

16 hours ago, Laythe Dweller said:

Those things... They're like bacteria with nans attacking them...

Well, that would be a sight to behold...

Spoiler

 

15 hours ago, insert_name said:

more like bacteria with rtgs attached

Yes, they are bacteria. And the things attacking them do look a little man-made I suppose, but I assure you they are alive also.

Although their precise nature may not be critical to the story, if you are curious, they are phagemid plasmids.

Suffice to say, something is eatin' da bacteria, man.

 

 

And, because my new high def RSS skybox and 8k planet textures are awesome, here are some better pictures of that alien ship that were totally not transmitted via SSTV.
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Long live our Martian crew... and stay CamWISE.

*Determination.

[UnusualAttitude]

5 hours ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

Long live our Martian crew... and stay CamWISE.

*Determination.

Well, thanks, but we'll see about that. They're looking kinda dead at the moment... 

[Geschosskopf]

16 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Well, thanks, but we'll see about that. They're looking kinda dead at the moment... 

Ever since you left us hanging, I've been thinking Camwise would fire the harpoons to grab Cernin.  But that of course can create other problems.  Spaceships, being pared down to the minimum of mass, have very few places where you can safely poke a hole without hitting something important.  Like the crew cabin, the fuel tanks, the avionics, etc.  And then of course there's the Newtonian dance that will ensue between the joined ships, possibly resulting in collision(s).  So I've been wondering how that would play out.

 

On 5/25/2016 at 5:16 PM, UnusualAttitude said:

Céré (…) Margaret (…) abandoned (…) of control (…) Phobos (…) impact (…) seconds (…) long buddies.

And that sounds like things didn't got 100% in the desirable direction.  But I figure Camwise, maybe Angun, managed to transfer over and now can just barely get the crippled Cernin home.  Unexpectedly

[UnusualAttitude]

On 28/5/2016 at 2:38 AM, Geschosskopf said:

Ever since you left us hanging, I've been thinking Camwise would fire the harpoons to grab Cernin. 

A completely ridiculous idea! So ridiculous, in fact, that it might just work. We shall see...

[Geschosskopf]

6 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

A completely ridiculous idea! So ridiculous, in fact, that it might just work. We shall see...

I'm betting on only a partial success

 

[Creature]

Just read the entire story. Awesome mission going on and really great writing! I was especially impressed by your Skylon design.

Somehow I have this sneaking suspicion that we haven't seen the last of Camwise.

[UnusualAttitude]

3 hours ago, Creature said:

Just read the entire story. Awesome mission going on and really great writing! I was especially impressed by your Skylon design.

Somehow I have this sneaking suspicion that we haven't seen the last of Camwise.

Thanks very much for these kind words. And you're right,  Cam has so far proven to be a bit of an old bad penny. Maybe we haven't seen the last of him... 

...Yet.

[UnusualAttitude]

YEAR 7, DAY 71. BARTDON.

Morning. Arrived at my office early, before my assistant got in and assailed my taste-buds with some new concoction trying to pass for decent coffee. He still wouldn't recognize a good brew if one jumped up and bit him on the damned nose. Felt jittery while I waited for the mail to be delivered and practiced my putting on the carpet of my office in an attempt to calm my nerves. Managed to chip a ball into my wastepaper basket and almost took out a blasted window.

Opened the letter from the Board as soon as it arrived and read through it twice. Shoot! We made it. It was a close thing, and there are conditions, but we made it nonetheless. Our Board of Sponsors has given us the green light to continue with our space programme.

They have agreed not to freeze our accounts and allow us to continue launching. No crewed mission is to go beyond the orbit of Luna until further notice, but we are to continue our robotic exploration of the outer solar system, as well as the asteroid belt. We have precisely one year to make meaningful progress with our research on the Moon and hopefully begin to make sense of what the hell all that junk sitting up there is about. They are breathing down our necks for us to bring home alien technology for them to fight over, and turn it into profit or sell to the highest bidder, I assume.

We are also to perform a full review of the Cernin mission and to go through Angun's files until we find clues as to what happened out there. They don't have to worry about that one, I'm on it already.

In fact, I've already dug up some interesting facts from the data of our very first lunar roving campaign that took place nearly four years ago. This came before even the prospection rovers that allowed us to select Drygalski crater as a location for our polar base. They were sent to simply confirm the existence of other anomalies on the lunar surface, after the initial discovery of that strange rock arch near the Mare Smythii that sent us on this wild goose chase in the first place.

So let's take an inventory, shall we?

1) Cirq Two, the second crewed landing sent to Luna. The primary mission was to return rock samples from Schubert crater on the near side of the Moon and demonstrate our ability to land at a precise location. The secondary objective was to investigate an unusual looking surface feature spotted on one of the photographs sent back by one of our first orbiting probes, Vers One. This turned out to be the bloody rock arch in question that caused Margaret to end her career as a perfectly sane and competent geologist and team up with that lunatic Angun.

2) Type G-Two, the first successful rover landing. It landed near Paschen crater in the far side highlands and was driven to inspect something that, judging from orbital photography, looked similar to the first rock arch. It turned out to be just that: another blasted rock arch.

3) Type G-Three, the second rover. It overshot its initial target and made a sketchy landing near the western edge of the Mare Tranquilitatis. It was then driven for more than sixty kilometres back past the rim of Theophilus crater before circling aimlessly on a rather bland patch of the lunar surface for no apparent reason. The campaign was then declared successful and the crew that had been controlling the rovers from lunar orbit then returned to Earth.

4) The ill-fated Arcambal rover mission sent from Drygalski to inspect what had appeared to be an interesting looking boulder from orbit, and had actually turned out to be an alien space ship.

Notice anything suspicious about one of those mission reports?

So did I, so I looked back through the all the data from Vers One that had lead to the selection of these landing sites. It took me bloody ages, I can tell you that, but when I think I'm on to something, I don't let go. And all I could find was a very subtle anomaly detected by the magnetometer when the probe had passed above Theophilus crater.

It showed up on multiple passes, though, which meant it wasn't just an error. And guess what? Further study of the data also showed at least two more similar magnetic anomalies in other locations on the Moon's surface: one between Amundsen and Idel'son near the South Pole, and one in the Mare Frigoris north of Plato crater. These sites have not yet been visited. Damn it round the VAB twice and back for an extra helping of damn! What was Angun thinking he would find up there? I've found no mention of this in his notes...

Skipped lunch. Working on an empty stomach puts me in a bad mood, but I've found that I can think more clearly when I'm grouchy. Had an idea followed by the sudden urge to shout at someone. Killed two birds with one stone and got assistant to call Froemone at about the time he would be leaving his desk for lunch and requested he report to my office immediately. It took him nearly ten minutes to make it across the space centre from the VAB. He presented himself with a timid knock and shuffled in.

“...Uhm, yes?”

“Come on in, boy. Knock louder, I can barely hear you!” I bellowed at him as way of greeting. “Where the blazes were you?”

“In my, uhm... office.”

“Good! I want you to go back to your office straight away. You may leave your office once you have designed a lander capable of carrying a crew of four from Drygalski to any location on the southern hemisphere of the Moon, and then returning safely to refuel after spending no less than five hours on the surface. Oh, and it must be able to carry two... no, four hundred kilogrammes of science experiments and equipment,” I rattled off.

“Uhm, OK. Is that all?”

“Yes, thank you HE.” I muttered, a little disappointed at Froemone's lack of visible surprise, concern, or any emotion whatsoever in response to my demanding request. But that's Froemone for you, the boy is a robot. He did, however, pause at the door and turned.

“How long do I have?” he asked.

“Your design has to be on the Moon next season.”

“OK.”

As Froemone shuffled off back to his office for what would be one of the longest – and hopefully most productive – working days of his career, I sat again and contemplated our chances of success. This might be our last bash at understanding the motley collection of unexplained artifacts scattered around the system.

The alien ship at Bailly still seemed to be the most promising place to visit, but Camwise's failed attempt to approach it had triggered some sort of self-defence mechanism that could still be waiting to blast our electronics to hell... Too dangerous. What if Angun had been looking for another one of his Monument-thingies with Type G-Three? What if they were all over the damned system? Well, at least none had been discovered beyond Mars yet...

Afternoon. Was idly bouncing a golf ball off the wall of my office when I received a call. It was Neldan. He was calling in with the conclusions from the latest telemetry from Martel One orbiting Jupiter. There had just been another flyby.

“Well? This had better be good!” I snapped as I grabbed the phone, my stomach growling and my temper growing worse by the minute.

“The latest flyby was a little farther North than previously. It has kicked the probe several degrees out of the orbital plane of the moons but it was worth it,” chattered Neldan exitedly. “There's something down there near the equator. It looks like one of the rock arches...”

“Which moon?”

“Ganymede.”

With a blast! I slammed the receiver back down, grabbed my coat and took the rest of the afternoon off.

Edited May 31, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[spacebrick3]

Arches on Ganymede? 

Well, no one has checked there recently, so there just might well be arches there.

[DMSP]

This is getting interesting. 

I still hope that Camwise is alive somehow, still living in Phobos's tiny gravity well. I'll wait and see.

Ganymede arches will be one sight to see! Are you going to do a 48 km flyby?

[UnusualAttitude]

2 hours ago, spacebrick3 said:

Arches on Ganymede? 

Well, no one has checked there recently, so there just might well be arches there.

Yes, at least according to ScanSat. And so far, ScanSat has been correct in RSS although some anomalies end up being buried beneath the terrain (as in stock, depending on your terrain rendering quality).

2 hours ago, DMSP said:

Ganymede arches will be one sight to see! Are you going to do a 48 km flyby?

I hadn't even considered trying that, but if I recall correctly you have to be pretty damn low to see the arches well from orbit. Because Jupiter is so huge and Martel's orbit is eccentric, flyby velocity is insane (can't remember what it is at periapsis but Ganymede's orbital velocity is more than 10km/s, even though it is a million kms from Jupiter). And to cap it all, I'm working with a 50 minute signal delay which means I have to set up the flyby before I enter Ganymede's SOI, with no chance of tweaking it afterwards. So, all in all, a pretty risky maneuver. 

Having said that, Martel is reaching the end of her useful life, so even if the screenshots are disappointing (it's pretty dark down there), it might be something to try in the name of science. 

 

[Bev7787]

Was there a title change or something?

[UnusualAttitude]

2 hours ago, Bev7787 said:

Was there a title change or something?

Sort of. Camwise is unavailable at the moment...

This report/story is now being told by at least two narrators (both writing in the 1st person). The narrator is, of course, specified at the start of each entry (CAMWISE / BARTDON, maybe others in the future...) but I just wanted to make it totally clear who is talking in each episode. I'm always worried that this story is confusing enough as it is, without making it even harder for you guys with a sneaky change of narrator....

Your thoughts? If this is a bad idea, I can change it back...  

Edited June 1, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[Bev7787]

It's alright. I don't mind.