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Voyage - The Final Warning (Chapters 34-36 And Epilogues)

Ultimate Steve

By Ultimate Steve
in KSP1 Mission Reports

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Ultimate Steve

Ultimate Steve

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Hello, everyone! Thank you for the kind words! I have been a bit too busy to respond to them and TBH I should probably be doing my control systems homework at the moment... Or trying to figure out why the Cubesat's ADCS isn't working... Or catching up on sleep... Or doing optimization homework... Did I mention they are all due today... But I'll do my best to get back to everyone right now!

On 3/18/2023 at 2:03 AM, VA7NFH said:

I don't have words.

That was amazing.

Thank you! The ending has been bouncing around in my head for years now and I'm glad I was able to finally get it in writing. It doesn't completely live up to what's in my head, but I'd say I got about 95% of the way there.

On 3/18/2023 at 1:59 PM, LittleBitMore said:

An amazing conclusion to an amazing fic! I'll be reading the epilogues later when I have more time, but wow, this is frickin amazing!!

I'm glad you enjoyed it! The epilogues were pretty fun to write.

On 3/19/2023 at 12:12 PM, SSTO Crasher said:

No words

just thunderous applause

Thank you, thank you!

On 3/19/2023 at 1:42 PM, Kerbalstar said:

Wow... hard to believe that this story, which has been with me since I was twelve, has finally come to a conclusion... knowing that it was unfinished and what was going to happen next has been a part of me for so long now that it's amazing to think that's it's over... something's finally changed, there won't be more of it... it's hard to believe. And the ending was beautiful and gorgeous and everything I could've hoped. 

Thinking about it, it makes sense that (end spoilers)

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the only way to defeat the Species was to teach them the meaning of life and hope... after all, when you have an enemy so much more advanced, so much so that they were planning everything from the beginning, the only way you can really hope to win is by teaching them that war isn't the way. I also really liked the ending with the Species becoming advanced protectors instead of destroyers - hopefully, they'll learn more about people as time goes on. 

That said, the end and epilogues were great... I have to admit, I was rooting for Ethan and Evelina. I know it doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense... but they had something special, I mean, few other couples (probably none) can say they had a whirlwind romance that started with watching 12 rockets launch in 12 hours, included seeing the galaxy from outside of it and having a prom there... Then again, I may also be biased because of the things I came back to reread this story for, one of them was the real-written romance of dreams. 

That minor thing out of the way, again, the ending was awesome, the battle for Kerbin felt dramatic, and the epilogues were perfect. Like I said, I've reread this story a lot... and I'll probably be doing one more reread now that it's over, at least. Over the years, it became kind of a comfort story for me - even as the story becomes less fun escapism and more a serious story about existential threats and ends with an Outer Wilds-esque message, it's still a great story, well written too, with good characters, and just a fun time. 

I suppose my one request would that it'd be nice if you could post this somewhere where it'd be a little easier to read, like fanfiction net or similar (or give us a PDF), since right now there's a lot of scrolling to deal with, and the forum doesn't remember your place in long text posts. I totally understand if you don't wanna go through all that work though... you've already given us a lot in one of the most important things someone can give, a story. So thank you for finishing that, over these six years, it's a wonderful thing you've done for us! 

Re: first paragraph, I feel the same way, the story has been with me since I was 15. I turned 21 a few days ago! It has been quite an emotional journey. Although it might not be completely over... The idea of doing a second draft has always bounced around in my head and I did test rewrites of chapters 1 and 2 a few months ago that turned out pretty good. Unsure if I'll ever get around to this, if I do, it will be a while. Also have ideas for Galactus related spinoffs. Don't be surprised if I post short spinoffs in this thread every now and then.

Re: Second paragraph in the spoiler. This is something that I went back and forth on a lot... Should they stay together? The decision largely came down to my growing up and my personal experiences with that kind of stuff, and the fact that I did not believe I could write a satisfying romantic conclusion... It is very validating that you enjoyed the romance parts, I did not think they were very good at the time. If it makes you feel any better, my headcanon is that they tried for a while and ended up friends for life (musical collabs in the epilogues). One version of the ending that didn't make it into the final story was that they both reached the Pluto monolith together.

Re: Third paragraph.  PDF/reposting to another site is on the list. I will see what I can do about putting together a definitive version of the first draft but it will likely be a while before I am able to do that.

One of my dreams is to get it printed out and actually put into book form so I can have it on a shelf somewhere. However that will likely wait for the hypothetical second draft, which I don't plan to include pictures in if it ever happens, so it should translate much better to novel form.

On 3/20/2023 at 8:02 AM, iamn00b said:

ngl my guy I think you could try writing something for r/HFY, good job with this story!

I actually have written a couple things. By far the most successful was a one shot called Mr. President: 

Looking back on it, it is a bit of a fairytale looking back on it TBH, and the whole Queen and Putin things didn't age too well, but a story is a story!

On 3/21/2023 at 4:50 PM, IntellectualTortoise said:

@Ultimate Steve Many thanks for this incredible ending to one of the most amazing stories I've ever read on the forum. It completely transcends the genre of "KSP Mission Report" into something entirely new, and the game honestly seems a little boring to me after reading this fantastic adventure. The amount of creativity on display is simply staggering and I'd definitely say it was worth the wait!

 

(additional comments below may contain spoilers)

  Reveal hidden contents

Only thing that I wish had been included in the last chapter/epilogues would be a scene where The Species apologizes...although I realize that might be a bit out of character for them and that Epilogue VIII sort of serves that purpose.

Also, "jetpacking through the pain" (Ch. 36) is one of my new favorite four-word phrases!

I have actually considered multiple times asking the mods to move this from mission reports into fan works, as the mission report label isn't really accurate any more and hasn't been for several years, but at this point I think it would  just confuse people. I'm glad you enjoyed the story!

No real comments on what's in the spoiler, just general agreement. I kind of like the idea of them still operating somewhat in stealth mode going forward.

On 3/23/2023 at 10:33 AM, obney kerman said:

It has been a pleasure, an honor, a privilege, and a lot of other things to follow this story over... gosh, it's been how many years? I couldn't have asked for a better ending: all the insane technology and high concept (higher concept? high2 concept?) sci-fi worldbuilding, all the fantastic character work and messages of hope and healing, the payoffs to countless setups, just... I don't have the words that this story deserves, but I'm very grateful for it.

I could talk endlessly about lines I loved and pieces of storytelling that resonated with me and characters and themes and incredible concepts, but I'll just sum it up by saying that Voyage: The Final Warning will go down as one of the most amazing, insane, wacky, and wonderful things I've read, and I've read a lot of amazing, insane, wacky, and/or wonderful things. Thank you very, very much, for all of it.

Almost six years! I know, right? I'm a bit at a loss for words on how to respond to such high praise, so I'll talk about the galaxy instead. The worldbuilding and the technology and stuff is something I'm very proud of.  In the beginning it was just all technobabble but I eventually wrangled it into stuff that makes sense.

Speaking of which, the whole quantum spectrum stuff. A semi-canon explanation follows.

Quantized spectrum would be a more accurate name, but Quantum spectrum sounds cooler.

The main idea is that, well, the spectrum we are all familiar with, the electromagnetic spectrum, on which photons traveling at the speed of light are the carrier particle, is not the only one. By varying some variable that is admittedly still mumbo-jumbo, additional spectrums can be found on which other particles are the carrier particles. These particles may follow different rules, they may interact with normal and exotic matter differently and may travel at different speeds.

The "variable" though, is discrete and not continuous, hence the quantization of the spectrums. Every so often in this variable, another usable spectrum appears, and this pattern repeats. Starting at the electromagnetic, or zeroth quantum spectrum, if you go 1, you get the quantum spectrum, 2 for the second quantum spectrum, etc.

However the quantization also happens in multiples of pi. So there's a 3.14 spectrum, 6.28 spectrum, and so on... The galaxy as a whole headcanonically uses tau instead of pi (2pi=tau) in everyday use, so the 6.28 spectrum would translate as the tauquantum spectrum, which is the spectrum that the tauquantum gate technology relies on.

However, there are actually multiple "variables". The second one that was discovered was just called variable 2, and a prefix was applied to any spectrum discovered - the first Diquantum spectrum, second diquantum spectrum, etc.

As more and more variables were discovered, you get stuff like triquantum, quadquantum, pentaquantum, etc. It would make more sense to think of the spectrums as an n dimensional plot where the electromagnetic spectrum lies at (0,0,0,0,0...). There's nothing special about the electromagnetic spectrum other than that it happens to be the one that interacts with the matter that tends to form life the most, so it is the most rapidly understood by a large margin.

I never really mentioned variations in multiple dimensions at the same time (There could theoretically be a 1-Quadquantum 4-Triquantum 17-Diquantum Tauquantum spectrum or some other wizardry) so headcanonically variation in more than one dimension at a time tends to make the resulting spectrum difficult to study and not very useful. It would also lead to half of the words in Voyage being complete mumbo jumbo.

On 3/23/2023 at 10:16 PM, SSTO Crasher said:

Voyage: The final warning

by the New York Times bestselling author Ultimate Steve

now that’s got a ring to it

Indeed it does! Someday, someday...

(Additional things I want to quote are on next page, posts will probably merge)

 

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Ultimate Steve

Ultimate Steve

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2 hours ago, Maria Sirona said:

Damn... What a beautiful story this has been. Thank you so much! Voyage: The Final Warning has everything: humor, magic, love, tragedy, zany, future tech, you name it! This story is literally perfection.

I am glad you have enjoyed it! literally perfection is pretty high praise, and while I don't think it is exactly perfect myself, I am glad that the story was able to affect you in that way!

1 hour ago, Just Jim said:

Outstanding!!!  :vallove:   :heart_eyes:

The man, the myth, the legend Jimself! That means a lot having grown up reading Emiko Station... Man, those were the days, every day I woke up there was a new Plan Kappa or Kerbfleet: A Jool Odyssey or Emiko Station out... I'm glad I was able to join the club of completed stories.

Also while you are here, being the KSP 2 writer and all... 

Spoiler

If the KSP 2 data miners are to be believed, after Kerbol and Debdeb, the third star is to be called Tuun. If this data is accurate, is this meant to be a reference to Tuun, the star Meros orbits in Voyage, or just a coincidence (there can't be that many Kerbal-sounding star names, after all!)?

If it is a reference, consider me honored! If it is a coincidence (which is my guess), I will have officially predicted both SpaceX's launch of a Tesla into space, and the name of a star in KSP 2, all in offhand comments in a single story, which is just, wow!

 

56 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

After reading through the entire story from start to end when the last chapters got posted, it’s clear to me that your writing has come on in leaps and bounds since you started. Excellent work and I look forward to your next one!

I am so glad you have enjoyed the story! My writing has definitely improved a lot since 2017 (part of the motivation for the rewrite, should it ever be complete). As for what comes next in Kerbal related writing... It has been delayed a bit, and I likely won't be able to commit to anything long term, but I have a story that has been in the works for a while now. If it ever sees the light of day, it will be a Kerbal fanfiction exploring a world in which Kerbal technology and magic both exist. I don't really write much fantasy, so I get to try my hand at something that isn't strictly sci-fi!

Although I've been mulling over the idea of doing standalone non-Kerbal work that I could actually publish someday with no copyright complications. I have no shortage of ideas, just a shortage of time and willpower... The two most prominent ideas both involve airships actually. One set on another world, and one set on 21st century Earth.

The story of Meros was actually a standalone story idea before I roped it into Voyage.

 

==========

 

I would like to issue a sincere thank you to anyone who has ever read any bit of this story. I have a problem with not finishing things. This is without a doubt the single greatest creative work I have ever finished (despite my rocky writing skills at the beginning), and a strong contender for my greatest creative work of all time... so far. The only other contenders are all unfinished (2 musical pieces, 1 Minecraft build, 1 other story, and 1 physical piece are the competitors that come to mind). Without each and every one of your encouraging words and each of those like pings ("YourName has liked a post in: Voyage - The Final Warning (Chapter XX)), it would have taken a lot longer, if it was ever finished at all. Every notification put a smile on my face.

Come to think of it, parts of the subpar initial writing can be explained away as Ethan being the author, growing up and maturing. In that way it is incredibly authentic, as the affect of having Ethan mature in the face of existential threats was accomplished by my maturation in the face of slightly-less existential threats!

The writing of this story has coincidentally (or maybe not?) spanned almost exactly from start to finish a time in my life that I have come to call "Chapter 1," my first character arc, from disaster to recovery. Loosely from summer 2017 to spring 2023. Not a complete resolution, the war is far from over, but the long battle has been won. A lot of my writing in this story parallels that. Chapter 2 has proven to be a tough cookie so far. Who knows what it will hold, but it will doubtlessly be quite the story.

I'm open to answering any questions you may have about the story, but be warned, there's a high chance the answer will be "Because I was 16 and didn't know what I was talking about!" :D

Thank you all for reading, and may the Infinities smile upon you!

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Ultimate Steve

Ultimate Steve

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33 minutes ago, ShinyMouse said:

What does a Fate drive actually do, and why is it so dangerous?

I don't remember if I ever explicitly stated this, but the implication was that most forms of FTL either don't actually exist in this dimension/plane of reality (Tauquantum Gates) or have truncated kinetic energy beyond a certain point (possibly K drives). Fate drives are neither. The collision damage scales up forever with speed, so if you accidentally hit a planet going over the speed of light with a Fate drive powered vessel, that planet is toast.

Since the far safer second generation FTL technology is vastly more complicated than the first generation Fate based FTL, this lead to a lot of planets blowing themselves up before they had a chance to make better drives.

It ended up being a big war between two Fate using civilizations (the odds of this happening are extremely low) that led to the rapid technological development needed to create second gen FTL. I suppose it also helped that most of the ships leaving these worlds wouldn't be coming back, lessening the chances of a collision.

Come to think of it, this might also explain the Union's obsession with using a dozen or two different forms of FTL. Knowing the cosmic horrors, they put a lot of effort into trying to find an easier form of FTL but ultimately didn't.

 

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Kerbalstar

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On 4/7/2023 at 7:16 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

I am glad you have enjoyed it! literally perfection is pretty high praise, and while I don't think it is exactly perfect myself, I am glad that the story was able to affect you in that way!

The man, the myth, the legend Jimself! That means a lot having grown up reading Emiko Station... Man, those were the days, every day I woke up there was a new Plan Kappa or Kerbfleet: A Jool Odyssey or Emiko Station out... I'm glad I was able to join the club of completed stories.

Also while you are here, being the KSP 2 writer and all... 

  Reveal hidden contents

If the KSP 2 data miners are to be believed, after Kerbol and Debdeb, the third star is to be called Tuun. If this data is accurate, is this meant to be a reference to Tuun, the star Meros orbits in Voyage, or just a coincidence (there can't be that many Kerbal-sounding star names, after all!)?

If it is a reference, consider me honored! If it is a coincidence (which is my guess), I will have officially predicted both SpaceX's launch of a Tesla into space, and the name of a star in KSP 2, all in offhand comments in a single story, which is just, wow!

 

I am so glad you have enjoyed the story! My writing has definitely improved a lot since 2017 (part of the motivation for the rewrite, should it ever be complete). As for what comes next in Kerbal related writing... It has been delayed a bit, and I likely won't be able to commit to anything long term, but I have a story that has been in the works for a while now. If it ever sees the light of day, it will be a Kerbal fanfiction exploring a world in which Kerbal technology and magic both exist. I don't really write much fantasy, so I get to try my hand at something that isn't strictly sci-fi!

Although I've been mulling over the idea of doing standalone non-Kerbal work that I could actually publish someday with no copyright complications. I have no shortage of ideas, just a shortage of time and willpower... The two most prominent ideas both involve airships actually. One set on another world, and one set on 21st century Earth.

The story of Meros was actually a standalone story idea before I roped it into Voyage.

 

==========

 

I would like to issue a sincere thank you to anyone who has ever read any bit of this story. I have a problem with not finishing things. This is without a doubt the single greatest creative work I have ever finished (despite my rocky writing skills at the beginning), and a strong contender for my greatest creative work of all time... so far. The only other contenders are all unfinished (2 musical pieces, 1 Minecraft build, 1 other story, and 1 physical piece are the competitors that come to mind). Without each and every one of your encouraging words and each of those like pings ("YourName has liked a post in: Voyage - The Final Warning (Chapter XX)), it would have taken a lot longer, if it was ever finished at all. Every notification put a smile on my face.

Come to think of it, parts of the subpar initial writing can be explained away as Ethan being the author, growing up and maturing. In that way it is incredibly authentic, as the affect of having Ethan mature in the face of existential threats was accomplished by my maturation in the face of slightly-less existential threats!

The writing of this story has coincidentally (or maybe not?) spanned almost exactly from start to finish a time in my life that I have come to call "Chapter 1," my first character arc, from disaster to recovery. Loosely from summer 2017 to spring 2023. Not a complete resolution, the war is far from over, but the long battle has been won. A lot of my writing in this story parallels that. Chapter 2 has proven to be a tough cookie so far. Who knows what it will hold, but it will doubtlessly be quite the story.

I'm open to answering any questions you may have about the story, but be warned, there's a high chance the answer will be "Because I was 16 and didn't know what I was talking about!" :D

Thank you all for reading, and may the Infinities smile upon you!

I totally forget to respond to this, and I'm just gonna pretend it hasn't been a month! Sorry about that. 

 

Anyway, in response to your response to me, all very valid reasons and points, and I like the idea of seeing some spinoffs! If you don't mind, I think I might headcanon they reached the Pluto monolith together - while this version is plenty sweet, there's something about that ending that just makes me happy. 

 

You have a very good point about the changes in writing being able to be explained as Ethan being the author, which is technically an explanation that works for my own Magnus Opus of a work that I've never finished yet written over 600k words in. In fact, I published another chapter of it today, partially because I figured that if you finished Voyage, I could finish my work. :) As for your life, I feel that - good luck with Chapter 2! 

 

On 4/7/2023 at 7:16 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

The two most prominent ideas both involve airships actually. One set on another world, and one set on 21st century Earth.

The story of Meros was actually a standalone story idea before I roped it into Voyage.

I like airships, I'd definitely read a book about airships written by you - and that's also a very good story idea, Meros was such a heartbreaking story. 

 

On 4/7/2023 at 7:16 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

Man, those were the days, every day I woke up there was a new Plan Kappa or Kerbfleet: A Jool Odyssey or Emiko Station out... I'm glad I was able to join the club of completed stories.

Yeah, I remember those days fondly myself... good job on reaching the club. Here's hoping I will be too, relatively soon! 

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