Through the Prism - Chapter 5 - Nobody Home (In Progress)

[Torgo]

I started telling this story back in January, and got a few chapters in when I came to the inevitable conclusion that if there was something to be done wrong, then I was doing it as wrong as Kerbally possible. And since I'm still about 42 reboots behind Batman, I'm trying this again... and hopefully less wrong!

This series of reports will be using KSP 1.13, RSS/RO, Strategia, Research Bodies and about a bazillion other mods. 

The story itself is inspired by actual events. I'd encourage you to read up on the Carrington Event of 1859, and then try not to think about what would happen if it happened again tomorrow. 

Links to chapters on Imgur:

• Chapter 1 - Echoes 
• Chapter 2 - Point me at the Sky
• Chapter 3 - Learning to Fly
• Chapter 4 - Fearless 
• Chapter 5 - Nobody Home (Now Playing) 
• Chapter 6 - Green is the Color (Coming Soon™)
• Chapter 7 - Childhood's End (Coming Not Soon At All™)
• And more (I hope!)

I'm open to feedback and discussion, but not so much to suggestions. The story itself is pretty much written. I just need to play it out (and remember to get pictures).

And now, on to the story...

 

Edited August 15, 2016 by Torgo

[Torgo]

[Ultimate Steve]

Nice job so far! Sounds interesting.

EDIT: 300 posts AND 300 rep!

Edited July 11, 2016 by Ultimate Steve

[Torgo]

3 more pages tonight. 

I'd post a link to the George Carlin Airline Announcement bit, but he uses many of the 7+ words you can't write in the forums.

[Torgo]

[Geschosskopf]

Wow, this is great!  Keep up the good work!

[Torgo]

2 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Wow, this is great!  Keep up the good work!

Thanks!  I started getting my shots for chapter 2, and then my 5 year old decided he wanted to play Kerbals on the PlayStation. 

He's actually made it through the first 3 tutorials without much help, but flying a rocket with a PlayStation Controller just seems weird. I tried to help him and didn't fare much better than he did. 

[Geschosskopf]

4 minutes ago, Torgo said:

He's actually made it through the first 3 tutorials without much help, but flying a rocket with a PlayStation Controller just seems weird. I tried to help him and didn't fare much better than he did. 

I can't do console controllers at all, in any type of game.

[Torgo]

And now, Chapter 2. Let's meet our team of intrepid   enterprising moderately enthusiastic explorers.

 

[Torgo]

The next part of this story is a tribute, in a way, to my step-mother's first husband. In the early 60's, he built a one man civilian space program and set the high-altitude manned balloon record which stood until Felix Baumgartner broke it in 2012. There have been several books and even a movie done on his life, Angry Sky, which is available on Netflix. Spoiler alert,

Spoiler

he died after his 3rd attempt failed.

 And now the story continues...

[Commander Zoom]

Was a fan of this before, and I'm glad to see it's getting another run - even if you have to cover some of the same ground again, first.

[Geschosskopf]

7 hours ago, Torgo said:

And now, Chapter 2. Let's meet our team of intrepid   enterprising moderately enthusiastic explorers.

Well, so far, so good.  I'm quite intrigued, which is doubtless your intent   First was have human-colored and -named Kerbals in RSS with actual humans on the screen, so presumably they are supposed to be humans.  And they're facing their 2nd doomsday of the century.  Then we switch to normal green Kerbals in the typical early career no-tech start.  Are these sequential, meaning the 2nd storm blasted humans to bedrock and mutated them into Kerbals?  Or are they parallel, meaning one group will eventually contact the other?  Can't wait to find out (didn't read the original).

I do have a suggestion, though.  The color gradient of the speech balloons is OK except for Bill's, where the white text is very hard for me to read in the upper half where the green background is lighter.  I like the gradient, so instead of getting rid of it, maybe switch Bill to a text color with more contrast?  Like black or even gray?  Thanks.

[Torgo]

28 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Are these sequential, meaning the 2nd storm blasted humans to bedrock and mutated them into Kerbals?  Or are they parallel, meaning one group will eventually contact the other?

These two concepts are not mutually exclusive, but the answer is someplace in between but closer to one. Answers will be coming soon, though, I promise.

It could be Planet of the Apes or Wizard of Oz... or is it Wizard of the Apes as directed by a PG rated Quentin Tarantino? (OK, these ARE Kerbals, so it would have to be Michael Bay to account for all the gratuitous explosions)

30 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

The color gradient of the speech balloons is OK except for Bill's, where the white text is very hard for me to read in the upper half where the green background is lighter.

This is a good suggestion. I'll make the switch, and then I'll go back and redo Bill's panels that are already up sometime down the road. 

1 hour ago, Commander Zoom said:

Was a fan of this before, and I'm glad to see it's getting another run - even if you have to cover some of the same ground again, first.

 Thanks! While the theme is much the same as before, the actual details of the original story were, well, a hot mess. And how I actually was playing the game to accompany the story was totally wrong. 

I haven't gotten around to posting my full mod list yet, but I'm playing it in RSS although the Kerbs are treating it as stock + OPM, because that's all they know. One of my soundstages, though, is the stock system, because some of the mods don't play nice with RSS. Have to be real careful with camera angles there. 

[Geschosskopf]

25 minutes ago, Torgo said:

These two concepts are not mutually exclusive, but the answer is someplace in between but closer to one. Answers will be coming soon, though, I promise.

It could be Planet of the Apes or Wizard of Oz... or is it Wizard of the Apes as directed by a PG rated Quentin Tarantino? (OK, these ARE Kerbals, so it would have to be Michael Bay to account for all the gratuitous explosions)

Hmm, an allusion to travel through time or between alternate universes?  The whole Pink Floyd prism thing implies a spread of possibilities.  Perhaps this is all happening inside a dewdrop at the bottom of an ever-dark crater on the Dark Side of the Moon?

But yeah, Tarantino is more gratuitous gore, not so much gratuitous explosions.

[Torgo]

30 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Tarantino is more gratuitous gore, not so much gratuitous explosions.

Reservoir Kerbs, starring Mr. Green, Mr. Green, Mr. Green and Jeb, not coming soon to a Squad forum near you!

30 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

The whole Pink Floyd prism thing implies a spread of possibilities.

Once I do the reveal, I'll explain the motivation. And the Floyd certainly is at the center of it all. But here is some more story, and another new character! I also adjusted the gradients to take out the far end of the light or dark. I'm hoping it's a bit easier on the eyes. 

[Geschosskopf]

6 hours ago, Torgo said:

Reservoir Kerbs, starring Mr. Green, Mr. Green, Mr. Green and Jeb, not coming soon to a Squad forum near you!

Hehehe   Anyway, I had no problem reading Bill this time.  The rest seem a bit easier, too, although they weren't problems before.

[Torgo]

Only two slides for tonight. What was supposed to be a standard firewall upgrade at work somehow devolved into a 'let's make the load balancer for the web server think it's on Dres with no antenna' activity. So now I'm listening to engineers trying to find things to blame and maybe, eventually, resolve the issue. 

About an hour (and several near catastrophic injuries later)

I think my first shot at making a mod will be a KAS/KIS air sickness bag.

And it turns out that tonight's little adventure in engineering was that someone couldn't follow a backout plan. They never undid their configuration change from step 1. It only took them 4 hours to realize that. 

[Geschosskopf]

20 hours ago, Torgo said:

I think my first shot at making a mod will be a KAS/KIS air sickness bag.

I can't believe this doesn't already exist.

[Torgo]

And the thrilling conclusion to Chapter 2...

The moral of the story: Eating too many snacks before bedtime will give you weird dreams.

[Geschosskopf]

20 hours ago, Torgo said:

The moral of the story: Eating too many snacks before bedtime will give you weird dreams.

Visions of another world, or merely imagination unchained by overindulgence?

[Torgo]

Ended up making home made Minmus Mint Ice Cream last night and earlier today, so only 2 slides as we begin Chapter 3, and a loot at the very first days of the flight program...

This chapter guest directed by Michael Bay

[Torgo]

Every program needs a sponsor, right?

[Geschosskopf]

8 hours ago, Torgo said:

Every program needs a sponsor, right?

Well, that sort of advertising works on the alien minds of Kerbals, but as a human, I'd probably avoid that product   Still a sponsor's a sponsor..

[Torgo]

Imgur... fixing what wasn't broke, Kerbal style!

Naturally, they do that before my biggest upload to date... a Jool sized amount of exposition and Kerbal history... hooray!

Of course, being done in RSS, those are really Jupiter and Saturn... but my Kerbs don't know that... yet...

Dun dun dunnnn!

 

[Just Jim]

So that's the mythology of the OverKerb? 

Very, very good!