Encyclopaedia Kerbalis - Companion Thread.

[KSK]

Hey folks,

I thought I'd take the liberty of starting a companion thread for @MinimalMinmus's excellent Encyclopaedia Kerbalis.

"Today, I decided to start a large project on Kerbal space program: writing encyclopedic definitions for every bodies of the Kerbolar system! The infos will be varied, from history of science to exogeology, as well as some kerbal culture. I will try as much as possible to keep the whole scientifically sound. If you see anything that could be improved on this part, be sure to tell me. Also, you can if you want create your own articles, based on a body of the Kerbolar system, or you could expand on some of the topics I mention here."

Emphasis added. I thought it would be nice to keep the main thread as a repository of all the actual encyclopaedia articles, and have this thread as a place for comments and discussion!

Cheers,

KSK.

[Cunjo Carl]

  A couple weeks ago, @MinimalMinmus encouraged me to have a stab at writing some encyclopedia style stuff with some generous tips on places to start. This has been the result... I decided to take my half right out of the middle with topics beginning in "Ne"- a surprisingly busy category. Though I followed the longhand approach, I decided to try for a sillier and more conversational style. Most of these entries are based heavily on KSP tropes or on our own scientific development and community with slight tweaks to make it more 'Kerbal'. Pretty much every sentence is a reference to something, and in the end I'm not sure if it wound up being informative or just confusing ... quirkily funny or just odd, but I hope you get a kick out of scrolling through this entry in:

 

Kerman's Scientific Terminology Handbook:
A reference guide for sounding intelligent in our ever changing world

 

n-body problem
  (see: somebody else's problem)

Near Kerbin Objects
Brief visitors to our night skies, Near Kerbin Objects (colloquially known as Unknown Objects) are asteroids that occasionally come near enough to Kerbin to be seen by naked eye or through a small telescope. Though these objects have been mostly a passing curiosity, recent spectral analysis has revealed that these asteroids are made largely of rocket fuel, leading many entrepreneurial Kerbals to start referring to them as "moons we haven't met yet".
  Occasionally, a scientist will suggest reclassifying Kerbin as a planetoid because " it hasn't cleared its neighborhood of all these asteroids", but they often disappear mysteriously soon after making the suggestion.

Nebulae
Nebulae are widely regarded as stars and planets that just haven't gotten it together yet.

NECKTI²E
The KSC administration has been adamant that recent rockets whose launches resulted in "cloud shaped conflagrations" did not, in fact, explode. Even though the rockets disintegrated in enormous billowing fireballs, the details of how the fire spread made it 100% not an explosion and instead, a "Non-Explosive Conflagration Kind of Inflammable-Igniting Event". This just goes to show that KSC is finally getting the hang of contract law and that their love for ham-handed acronyms has been growing unchecked.

Neolithic Era
The Neolithic Era was a period of technological development during which Kerbals built everything out of stones and other natural materials. Rockets were naturally difficult during this time, but Kerbalkind persevered. Many stone structures remain from the Neolithic Era including the desert ziggurot "pyramids" and (we presume) the great stone monoliths strewn across Kerbin. The helmeted monkey heads on these monoliths are hypothesized to represent deities or creators, but the exact intentions and techniques of the monolith's builders are yet to be discovered.

Neolithic Matrilineal Origin
When studying the genetics of mitochondria and chloroplasts from Kerbals across the planet, Cann Kerman discovered that absolutely everyone shares a single lady from the Kerman tribe as a distant ancestor. This was quite a shock to Cann's mother, who was just preparing for a family get-together. Apparently there was no other way for it, and the entire Kerbal race was obligated to attend as 'extended family'. In honor of the discovery and Ms. Kerman's legendary crustless cucumber sandwiches, the Kerman family name was unilaterally adopted.

Neon
One of the many chemical elements, Neon is characterized by not having any interesting properties.

Neptune
A planet from a popular space game, Neptune is a large blue gas planet with an icey core. A lot of care obviously went into crafting Neptune's detail, but such a large planet forming so far from its sun is considered wildly improbable.

NERVA
NERVA was a rocket engine development program which created the new, highly efficient LV-N engine for launching rockets from KSC. Unfortunately, the high pressures at sea level stifled the engine's thrust, causing rockets to gently tip over and "kinetically disassemble" rather than launch. At the sight of the enormous cleaning bill, the KSC administration declared that any further attempts should be made "on another planet far far away", but rumors are spreading of an intrepid aviator who recently made a NERVA launch from the KSC runway.

Neural Networks:
Two heads are better than one (for spreading the blame), but in neural networks two heads can help make better decisions, too. Neural networks use thousands of simple decision making nodes called 'neurons' connected to each-other in just the right way to accomplish a job at hand. At their best, neural networks can make outstanding leaps of intuition that their programmers could never dream of, while at their worst Neural Networks are wildly inefficient devices for making decisions by electronic committee.

Neutrinos
While observing nuclear reactions, Pauli Kerman noticed that much of the energy from his reactions was going missing. He hypothesized that the energy was being embezzled by tiny invisible mystery particles called neutrinos which "are emanating from the sun and going straight through us all the time... EVEN NOW!" And, against all common sense, he turned out to be right. Tin foil hat sales tripled overnight, and the discovery spawned a storm of patents for devices designed to harness this hidden energy from the sun. Unfortunately, progress never made it past paper because no one could find "a Jool sized planet made entirely of lead," which would be necessary to capture the energy of these fleeting particles.

Neutrons
The lightest known gas, Neutrons are quite unstable on their own and tend to settle in to the nuclei of normal matter in much the same way as water tends to settle in to hydrate many minerals and natural materials. Neutrons are ever-present in the world around us, being responsible for about half the weight of everything, which is generally considered a lot. They stick strongly to atomic nuclei through the strong force and don't have any electric force to repel them apart, which gives them the ability to form in great masses called Neutron Stars (see main entry for more). They are also magnetic without having any electric field, which is considered "weird but definitely not the weirdest thing we have to deal with."
  Though Neutrons are generally responsible for holding matter together, occasionally when too many soak into something, the matter will fall apart like a cookie soaked with too much milk creating enormous amounts of thermal energy in the process. If this energy is applied to rocket fuel, it can be heated and ejected at enormous speeds without ever bothering to burn it (See also: NERVA).
  Also, because neutrons are the lightest known gas, they're often attempted for use in blimps and dirigibles, generally with disastrous results. Proponents of neutron gas dirigibles cite that later blimp designs using evaporated Hydrogen rocket fuel for gas and SRB propellant for paint didn't fair much better.

Neutron Stars
  (also redirected from Pulsars)
Neutron stars are enormous spinning lumps of neutrons, which (owing to their magnetism) emit jets of particles and light. If this jet points towards Kerbin, it can be seen as a regularly blinking light or a regularly ticking radio signal coming from an otherwise dark part of space, and is commonly called a Pulsar. When Jocylyn Kerman first heard the steady 'tick tick' of a pulsar coming from across the cosmos, she called her colleague at the Baikerbanur Cosmodrome who famously said "Don't answer the beacon! It might be an alien trap!" Jocylyn, who famously had a different interpretation, responded by tapping her foot along with the tick saying "A one... A two... A one two three four!" and proceeded in rocking out by drumming with anything she could get her hands on.
  Experiments into the nature of these pulsars soon revealed they would lay down many kinds of musical beat if asked nicely, including: 2/2, 3/3, and even 4/4 time. However repeated requests for 2/3 jig time always yielded negative results. It appeared aliens didn't like being jaunty. While Jocylyn Kerman was the first to hear the beat of the pulsars, many others soon listened in leading to their widespread popularity and the subsequent science fiction trope of aliens from dark planets leaving behind steadily pulsing beacons for us to find. Since then, pulsars have been shown to be naturally occurring Neutron Stars, but the stories and the search for alien life continues to this day (for more information, see SETI and Duna: Unconfirmed 'Wow!' Signal).
  Neutron stars are formed when a normal star collapses at the end of its life. Star collapses can't normally squish their particles into neutrons because their particles obey the fundamental law: The Schrodinger Equation... Except when sometimes they decide not to listen and just collapse into neutron stars anyways. Noted scientist Bohr Kerman is reportedly quite upset and still attempting to levy legal action against these law breaking stars.

 

 

Edited March 11, 2017 by Cunjo Carl

[Skylon]

I hope you don't mind this too much. So it doesn't get in anyone's way, it is in a spoiler.

Extra-terrestrial activity and the origins of life on Kerbin:

Spoiler

Regarding Laythe: Since its discovery using the Neutron II Space Telescope (the Neutron I mysteriously disappeared after what scientists claim was a 'spontaneous combustion that had nothing to do with the residual embers of Gene's cigar' , scientists have speculated that there is water and potentially even life on Laythe. This was supported by the images relayed from the NST and so a mission was planned to discover more. This was imaginatively named the Search For Extra-terrestrial Life Probe-I (SFELP-I), due to the team's love of ridiculous ACRONYMS (Amazing Contractions Read Only Near Young and Manic Scientists), and was planned to land on Laythe and relay readings. Not only did it show that Laythe had sustainable water and a magnetic field, but also that the atmosphere containing high levels (19.3%) oxygen. This suggested that life could be present, as oxygen supplies would have to be renewed for levels to be this high. To portray the looks on the scientists' faces as they heard this news, many documentaries describe the look of a slightly mad Aye-Aye who has been told that they may, in fact, be able to buy sweets with the change they get from doing Mum's shopping. Their smiles have also been described to have been able to stretch from Minmus to the Mun. Unfortunately the probe lost signal before it could actually detect life.

Regarding Kerbin: When the R&D team found trees on Kerbin, they were somewhat surprised. Many civilians suggested that they could have looked out their office window at some point during their somewhat infinite* lives but the scientists insist that their work was far too important. They were even more surprised when they found out that in these trees could be found MAMILs they named Aye-Ayes, very imaginatively, after their huge eyes and slightly crazy smile. After being outside for the first time in their lives, they also found a moss-like plant that they called the RAM-Friendly Organism (RAMFO). When civilians questioned how life came to be on Kerbin, they suspiciously coincidentally went missing. However, Bob has later been quoted saying 'I dunno really, maybe it came from Laythe?', causing the media to go wild. They quickly forgot why they had gone wild and after returning to the subject of why RAMFO is green a few times they decided to call it quits.

*the term somewhat infinite has baffled kerbals for many millennia, but whenever brought up in conversation the participants spontaneously turn into mugs of cold tea, so it has never quite been figured out

Regarding the Mun and Duna: Valleys and canyons on the Mun and Duna have led the way for many conspiracy theories, many of which suggest that they are a road for alien vehicles to pass through, and that they were built by the government to prevent an alien attack. Later Geedon Kerman of the National Science Department said that they could be a result of flowing water on the bodies, which excited a lot of lab coat wearers, other than the mice, a much more intelligent species, who knew from their tests that there was water on Duna and the Mun. The dolphins 'do not get involved in up-from-water affairs', and they remain indifferent. This particular scientific 'burn' is what eventually inspired a series of particularly pointless 1000 DEGREE KNIFE EXPERIMENTS, carried out in an unnecessarily shouty manner with rather obnoxious background music. The spacecraft sent to the Mun and Duna have revealed nothing of the presence of water, but the Norman II rover did find a Krazy Kraken Plushie TM in the centre of a mostly iron rock which also appeared to be magnetised, since it stopped the rover from moving while simultaneously ruining its electrical equipment.

Here are pictures of the SFELP-1:

Spoiler

A single parachute was all the craft was given for decent, as well as lithobraking landing legs...Unfortunately no 'land' was easily reachable by the solid-rocket deorbit system, and neither was any buoyancy device, leading the lander to sink. It transmitted only a sample of the ocean, atmospheric scan and temperature reading before the transmitter was submerged.

NOTE: Sorry if my writing is too RP for the forums, or if it too heavily influenced by Douglas Adam's writing style

 

Edited April 5, 2017 by Skylon
Finished 'Regarding Duna and the Mun'

[ZooNamedGames]

With @MinimalMinmus's permission, I would like to attempt to write an expansion from the eyes of Ford Kerman, a 5' 6" Kerbal (that is not in fact descendant from [EXPUNGED], but rather from a small planet in the vicinity of Rigel) as he explores the Kerbol system and accounts from things to add to the 'revised edition'. Less about adding actual content than telling his adventure. If anything I'd prefer Minimal Minmus write for Ford as far as the 'revised edition' goes, since I don't want to steal his parade and his story! All I want to do is tell a separate story of a Kerbal who's exploring the system with his work in toe  .

Ultimately that's up to him if he will permit me to do so as it's his work. Either way; I still enjoy it.

[Skylon]

4 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

-Snip

With @MinimalMinmus's permission, I would like to attempt to write an expansion from the eyes of Ford Kerman, a 5' 6" Kerbal (that is not in fact descendant from [EXPUNGED], but rather from a small planet in the vicinity of Rigel) as he explores the Kerbol system and accounts from things to add to the 'revised edition'.

 

I though it was the vicinity of Betelgeuse . And that's a tall kerbal . Have fun

Edited April 5, 2017 by Skylon

[Skylon]

I ask the @MinimalMinmus's permission to write about the Viktorian Era and the Kindustrial Revolution in similar style to Origins of Life and Extra-Terrestrial Activity

Love your Encyclopedia so far

[MinimalMinmus]

@ZooNamedGames @Skylon Sure and re-sure! Have fun!

And remember, I -okay, rather arbitrarily- decided to choose this thread for the general non-canon stuff. Also, make sure you don't confuse canons with cannons. Those are less fun. Or more. It depends on who you ask to, really.

P.S. Having personally loved H²G², I can say @Skylon definitely made me chuckle, and apparently you all want to make articles just like the Guide.

 

[Skylon]

I may also make some of the mentioned craft, though don't expect much. I don't know if you really want pictures on these threads, but I will edit my previous post to contain a picture of SFELP-1. Right now I don't have time to build it though, but hopefully I can get it up in a day or two.

[ZooNamedGames]

7 hours ago, Skylon said:

I though it was the vicinity of Betelgeuse . And that's a tall kerbal . Have fun

I decided that I can't duplicate everything from the story  .

4 hours ago, MinimalMinmus said:

@ZooNamedGames @Skylon Sure and re-sure! Have fun!

And remember, I -okay, rather arbitrarily- decided to choose this thread for the general non-canon stuff. Also, make sure you don't confuse canons with cannons. Those are less fun. Or more. It depends on who you ask to, really.

P.S. Having personally loved H²G², I can say @Skylon definitely made me chuckle, and apparently you all want to make articles just like the Guide.

 

Awesome  ! Granted I'm just getting into another series of mine (expect it soon), however in between episodes of that we can expect Ford to be running into some issues and other hilarious hijinx.

Edited April 5, 2017 by ZooNamedGames

[Skylon]

Kindustrial Revolution

Kames Watt:

For centuries the kerbals had been living in a world without electricity or machines other than solid rocket boosters. Due to the lack of other in-game materials on Kerbin, there weren't even gas or oil lamps. Historians have long wandered what they got up to during this period but most suggest that this time simply didn't exist and/or before the Kindustrial Revolution the kerbals entertained themselves by setting each other on fire with 'fleas' and making 1000 degree knife experiments about anything but what the title suggests they are about. This is called the Pyro-Clickbait Theory and is widely respected.

But, after a 'trip to the east' in one of the Kritish Empire's Kolonies (really it was just a trip to the local corner shop to buy a sophisticated-looking pipe), Engineer Kames Watt published a paper on 'steam power'.

He thought of the idea on a nice summer's day with a warm summer's breeze. But then he remembered that there was no summer breeze because coding difficulties the laws of physics didn't seem to allow for it. It was then that he thought about his favourite pastime, blowing up passing lunatics with a solid rocket booster. He reminisced about one particular incident: a slightly purple man was walking past, smelling rather a lot. He pressed spacebar lit a match and ignited the rocket and he watched as the man was literally blown away by it.

He decided that this, paired with a turbine, could power vehicles. Later Mikal Faraday and Sir Karles Parson worked together to generate and utilise electricity

Note: I may not continue with these ones about pre-aerospace activities, as they are less enjoyable to write, and I suspect that they are less enjoyable to read also. Added pics of the SFELP-1 . Sorry if this combines the first and second revolutions a bit...