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

[obney kerman]

  On 3/4/2018 at 6:45 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

All my stories are currently on hold as in two days TTI will legally own them, holding my breath here. If it will help with legal stuff I might consider moving everything to a different platform.

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TTI?

[Ultimate Steve]

  On 3/4/2018 at 7:19 PM, obney kerman said:

TTI?

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Take Two.

 

Actually, looking at it I think I'm overreacting a lot. Yes, they do have the power of boilerplate EULA/TOS to do whatever they want to this but they probably won't and this won't ever get published so I'm just going to keep it here unless something catastrophic actually happens...

[53miner53]

  On 3/4/2018 at 10:02 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

Take Two.

 

Actually, looking at it I think I'm overreacting a lot. Yes, they do have the power of boilerplate EULA/TOS to do whatever they want to this but they probably won't and this won't ever get published so I'm just going to keep it here unless something catastrophic actually happens...

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I hope nothing catastrophic happens. 

[obney kerman]

  On 6/16/2017 at 2:56 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

Elon Musk sat, transfixed at one of the windows, probably thinking up a way to launch a Tesla to Mars.

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Either Elon Musk reads this story, or you are a prophet.

I think it's the second. ALL HAIL HIGH PROPHET @Ultimate Steve!!!!

[53miner53]

  On 3/6/2018 at 11:55 PM, obney kerman said:

Either Elon Musk reads this story, or you are a prophet.

I think it's the second. ALL HAIL HIGH PROPHET @Ultimate Steve!!!!

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I forgot that part!  

Also from rereading the chapter: “Hey, are you considered a plant?”

[Ultimate Steve]

@obney kerman @53miner53

 

Holy Jeb, I forgot about that too!

[DAL59]

Moar?

[Ultimate Steve]

  On 3/27/2018 at 2:24 AM, DAL59 said:

Moar?

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Soon.

  Reveal hidden contents

Finishing Driver's ed stuff, turning 16 and getting a licence, trying to get a job, the time taken up by that job, normal school stuff, Prom stuff... And I am currently planning on doing another chapter of Project Intrepid before a chapter of this. I already have the PI screenshots done and I just need to write, but I need to port this save to 1.3 and then do the next step in gameplay.

But yeah, I'm sorry, I left you on a cliffhanger a month ago. EDIT: 2.5 months ago (how is it getting to be this long?)

 

Edited March 27, 2018 by Ultimate Steve

[obney kerman]

  On 3/27/2018 at 1:20 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

Soon.

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I believe you mean  

Soon^tm

[DAL59]

  On 3/27/2018 at 2:49 PM, obney kerman said:

Soon^tm

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[Ultimate Steve]

TL;DR: Really long, verbose explanation of why there are two Jebs, AKA lots of storyline and explanation, but very little gameplay.

P.S. this was originally supposed to be longer but because of the fact that it's over 4000 words already and I'm not even to the second of two major events, I'm splitting this chapter up (which leads to a rather darker chapter than usual, sorry!). This also means that Chapter Fifteen should come sooner than usual, so, yay!

Chapter Fourteen - Warp Speed Ahead

  Reveal hidden contents

"What the -" I screamed.

"Calm down!" said the two Jebs at the same time."

"Twins?"

"No!" they shouted.

"An alien taking your form?" I shouted, louder and more panicky.

"Definitely not!" they said at the same time as they turned to face each other.

"Mirror universe?" I asked, running out of options.

"ETHAN!" they shouted. "Just wait a few seconds! It takes us a while to desync."

"I have no idea what -"

"Okay," said the two Jebs, "The Jeb closest to the starboard airlock is Jeb 1, and he will speak first." There was a moment of silence before Jeb 1 spoke. "None of those, Ethan. We are clones." My vision shifted from Jeb to Jeb, wondering why I had not arrived at that conclusion earlier.

"Well, why are you two here? And how many of you are there?" I asked, still a little freaked out.

"Well," said Jeb 2, "We usually try to keep it to one or two."

"But, there has been hundreds of us," added Jeb 1.

"The first cloning machines were invented by the Illasticonians at galactic interval 87123, and - "

"Wait, what the heck is an Illasticonian?" I asked.

"Oops, I've said too much!" said Jeb 1.

"Too much of what?" I asked, somewhat aggressively. The two Jebs looked at each other for a few seconds.

"Should we tell him?" asked Jeb 2.

"No," said Jeb 1.

"Well, considering the circumstances..." replied Jeb 2.

"Okay, I get your point, fine, I'll tell him... Ethan, I would try to break this slowly to you, but we don't have time. There are actually almost 90 known species of intelligent life in this galaxy alone." I stood silent for a few seconds, my mouth wide open.

"Ninety?!?"

"88 or 87 at the last count, if I remember correctly. And there is one more that - "

"NINETY?" And you haven't told the humans at all?"

"That's not my-"

"And what does this mean for peace!?! What does this mean for philosophy?"

"Ethan, please -"

"What does this mean for religion!?!?!?!?!?"

"ETHAN, IF YOU WILL BE QUIET FOR A SECOND - " began Jeb 1.

"Tone of voice, Jeb," replied Jeb 2.

"Sorry. Ethan, just calm down, and you'll get some answers." With no real other option, I laid back in defeat and prepared for one really long explanation.

"Are you done freaking out?" Asked Jeb 2.

"Yes," I replied, "For now, at least."

"Good. To answer your most recent question, the whole religion thing has still not been proven one way or another - interesting parallels have been observed even across planets, and the odds that there is more than one universe are arguably pretty high, but nobody knows for certain and everyone is as divided as ever."

"O-kay, then, so that doesn't change anything..." I said, partially confused, partially relieved.

"As for us," said Jeb 1, "The original Jebediah Kerman died several hundred years ago after a freak rocketry accident involving parachutes in the first stage. About a hundred years later, the Kerbals were discovered by the Galactic Council and immediately inducted. Jebediah was then brought back to life and cloned - he was found to be one of the most suitable leaders. He became the Representative of Kerbin, the second highest position anyone can hold in the entire galaxy."

"Okay, I'm sort of following this... Why didn't we get inducted?"

"To put it kindly," said Jeb 2,  "you are one of the most violent, vile, selfish, racist, and cruel races we have ever come across. We had to test you."

I began to protest, before being cut off by Jeb 1. "None of that matters any more, though!"

"Why?" I asked. I began to take a sip of water from the container strapped to my spacesuit.

"Skipping to why we're here," said Jeb 2, "We recently discovered a new species that is several million times bigger than all 88 of us combined and wants to take over the galaxy." I spit my drink out.

"WHAT?!?!?"

"They could undoubtedly delete our galaxy in a second, but apparently they want it for something and are planning on invading it rather slowly, it seems."

"You mean, I could just vanish right now? Poof? Just like that?"

"It seems the reality is far worse," said Jeb 1. "They will crush us slowly, like slowly taking a Band-Aid off. They have already begun their attacks, and the council is divided upon what to do. Some of them wish to surrender. Some of them wish to run. Some of them wish to fight, although our core belief is peace. We haven't fought a war in millennia."

"So we're all doomed?" I asked.

"Now look, there's always hope - " said both of the Jebs at the same time.

"Against something millions of times bigger than us?"

"I didn't say there was much hope," said Jeb 2.

"Don't say that to him!" said Jeb 1." The implications of this whole scenario hit me like a ton of bricks. I stood there shocked for some time while the Jebs argued.

"When were you planning on telling the humans?" I asked.

"Um..."

"Well..."

"You weren't?" I shouted.

"This whole invasion thing is a new occurrence," said Jeb 2. "We did not know it was happening for sure until an hour ago, tops."

"And what are you going to do about it?" I demanded.

"Before you laugh at my shell of a plan - " said Jeb 1.

"Our shell of a plan," cut in Jeb 2.

"Same difference. We must try something - action is better than inaction, no matter how pathetic the action is. We are going to take a bunch of preserved embryos from many of the species as far as possible, not caring about time dilation or the laws of physics.  Many times further than the reach of this new species, if possible - which it may not be. We have no idea how far their reach extends, or if they can expand faster than our ship can travel. Then we find a habitable planet and do our best to set up shop, buy our races a few thousand years, and develop the technology to outrun the species again."

"So basically you stole the plot of Interstellar?" I asked.

"What?" asked both of the Jebs.

"Interstellar, it's an Earth movie. Doesn't obey all of the known physical laws either, and given the sheer enormity of what we're up against, your plan is a pretty bad plan."

"We know, but it's the only one we've got," said Jeb 2. "We aren't the only ones, though - we have several dozen of these ships nearly ready to depart, the rest should all be ready within a week."

"Which reminds me - assuming you mean FTL travel, how are you dealing with the time dilation? And have you invented time travel?"

"Yes, Sort of, and Yes. This is an FTL ship, we have a weird machine for dealing with some of the dilation by dilating only a small part of the universe which is now quadrillions of years ahead of the rest, and we have time travel, but it's iffy and it has been banned."

"Why not time travel back far enough to prevent this evil species from forming?"

"We don't know where and when they started, and there are two main methods of backwards time travel. One can only send small objects and is rather inexpensive, but allows for universe ending paradoxes. The second method works around paradoxes and can send anything back in time, but the energy required to send the objects backwards increases exponentially. It would require more energy than the observable universe will ever produce to send even an atom backwards a billion years."

"Okay, so that's out... Why do these guys want to invade us anyway?" I asked, hoping for an easy way out.

"They want to unite all of the creatures of the universe and use all of its resources to try and find a way to escape heat death by going to another universe."

"That's not so bad," I said. "Why are resisting? That seems like a noble cause."

"They think slavery, total control, and extermination are the most efficient ways to do this."

"Oh. Well, maybe - "

"Stop right there, we've had teams of millions of geniuses with access to more technology than you have ever seen work on this problem. I can almost guarantee that there is nothing you can think of that we have not already considered." I stood there, thought for a moment, and frowned in defeat.

"Tell me about this ship," I asked, trying to distract myself from the reality of my impending doom.

"It's a model seven Astra, one of the first operational, general utility, non experimental warp ships. It was used to build up much of the third generation Jool architecture back before the Council found us. It's called 4-16 Memories. It is powered by a mark five K-drive core." Jeb 2 pulled up an old photograph of the ship up on the computer.

"What is a K-drive?" I asked. I briefly wondered why the picture looked so old even though it was taken using a race that had technology thousands of years ahead of mine, but then dropped it because of the vastly more important current events.

"It's a type of high acceleration reactionless engine," explained Jeb 1. "It runs off of strange particle interactions between two plates, which is amplified by Zeta particles, which create a vacuum force in space-time that vibrates through the ship, causing acceleration."

"English, please!"

"A few pistons push down on a plate made of matter that does not obey some of the laws of physics, which causes negative mass to briefly form, pushing the ship forward. However, the force is jittery and irregular, which is why it has so many reaction wheels. It's to keep it straight. Acceleration can be tuned by adjusting the height of the piston. In addition to being the first throttleable K-drive, the mark 5 core was one of the first restartable K-drives. That's what those purple lamps are for, they actually keep the core in a time loop so that it resets every so often. This requires energy, but it means the ship does not have to replace its warp core after every jump."

"So, just how fast can this thing go?"

"Well, that's a complicated question. Originally, the 4-16 was only rated for 4g because that was the limit to how much Kerbals could survive sustained. Although, earlier K-drives were not throttleable or tunable and usually provided either 0g or 40-100g. Eventually, advanced acceleration protection was developed and the ships were rebuilt to withstand 50g, which allowed the users to travel from one side of the system to another in two days. After we were discovered by the Council, we modified our existing ships to circumvent relativity to travel faster than light, placed the hull in an acceleration bubble so it can withstand almost anything, and applied a thermal coating capable of withstanding almost any atmospheric entry, and almost capable of surviving the surface of a star."

"So, how fast can it go?"

"Pretty much infinite, the only limiter is the acceleration. After a certain point, physics breaks down and acceleration becomes linked to heat, and the ship will turn to liquid."

"What is the acceleration limit?"

"So many questions."

"Well, as a general rule, humans are pretty obsessed with things that go fast."

"If you really want to know, about one million G is the limit. However, due to inaccuracies in warp tuning, and the fact that acceleration increases exponentially with throttle setting, it would be unwise to go within an order of magnitude of that. If we accidentally tune it so that it hits infinite acceleration, it could create a rip in the Higgs Field, and that would be bad. Plus, we'd be dead."

"That's pretty darn fast."

"No joke." There was a long silence.

"Take me with you," I finally said.

"No," said both Jebs at the same time.

"Why not?"

"It's extremely dangerous with next to zero chance of success," said Jeb 1.

"Well, so is staying here!" I said. The two Jebs glanced each other.

"He has a point," said Jeb 2.

"If you don't let me come I will tell everyone."

"Ethan, I think all three of us know that you wouldn't. Would you rather know the date of your death, and that you were going to die violently, and spend your entire life dreading it, or let it come by unannounced? Imagine that times eight billion. Very few would be evil enough to do that."

"And yet, earlier you mentioned you weren't sure whether to tell anyone or not!"

"Well, to be fair, we've only had an hour! I'm not the only person that needs to make this decision!" said Jeb 1. "And I'm not talking about just Jeb 2 either!"

"We'll worry about telling everyone later," said Jeb 2, "but we need to set the plan in action now! Ethan, you will stay here with Jeb 1, and I will complete the mission." An idea hit me.

"Why don't you clone me?" I asked. "If you cloned me and took one of me with you, then the other me would stay here and not make much of a fuss." The two Jebs shared another look, and then, after several seconds, responded.

"Well, it's not like anything can get any worse. Come on, the cloning machine is back here. Be warned, it hurts about as much as getting run over by a planet while inside a blast furnace." I shuddered, partially regretting my decision immediately.

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Several hours later, Marie sat up, looked around her, and blinked. It was dark. She tried to rub her eyes, but there was a thump as her gloved hands hit her visor. She remembered - she was on Pol. All of a sudden, her head started hurting. She again went to touch her hands to her head, but failed again. Then, she remembered the party - and why her head was probably hurting.

She had never been a drinker. The only other time she had ever had an alcoholic beverage of any sort was when she mistook a glass of wine for a glass of grape juice. Which is probably why the hangover hurt so bad...

Shortly after Ethan had left, Cheng had revealed what his personal cargo was - a lot of beer and wine. And, in the mood of the party, everyone had tried some, and it had affected Marie more than most. As a side note, the Kerbals all seemed unaffected by the beverage...

Speaking of Ethan, she thought, where was he? She stood up and looked around. He had to be back by now, she had dared him to go to Voyager and back as fast as he could. What if he had crashed? What if he was dead?

Stumbling a few times, she got to her feet and activated her jetpack to look around for him. However, it was really dark and she still hadn't regained her senses of direction or balance. She ended up flying sideways into the monolith and falling downwards onto the lander.

She decided on a new approach - she would first attempt to communicate with Voyager to determine if Ethan was still up there or not.

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"Okay, Ethan, this is going to feel a little bit weird - you and your clone will be able to read each others' minds - not to the point where you know everything you are thinking, but it's sort of vague, as if through a dream..."

"Is there a way to turn that off?" I asked, slightly nervous.

"Yes, but that requires another machine and we don't have time for that. It's also important to note that you are both equally Ethan - instead of generating a clone and keeping the original, the machine injects excess matter into you and commands all of your cells to split at once, so you sort of get really fat and then split into two. The engineers back on Kerbin made a config file for humans, but you'll be our first test subject - err, I mean, user."

"You mean you've never tried this before?"

"Nope."

"Great," I said with a million tons of sarcasm. "Also, Jeb?"

"Yes?" they both said.

"I notice that neither of you look particularly old - I'm assuming through a different type of cloning, you can also reduce age, is that correct?"

"Well, technically, yes..."

"What is there to stop someone from living forever?" I asked.

"Laws and regulations, including strict guidelines on reproduction - Kerbals have long lifespans, there are very few accidents any more, and space is limited on our planet - although the Kerbals on Kerbin actually only represent about a quarter of our race. Only a very few select Kerbals can get extended lifetimes, for being exceptional leaders, historical figures, or for being famous and rich."

"Can I ask you another thing?" I asked, as the Jebs messed around with the equipment. One of them suddenly stuck a needle in my arm. "Ow!" It was quickly followed by more.

"That's just the painkiller. Also, you'll be really thirsty after the procedure, the water storage is over there. And yes, you can ask."

"How many Jebs have there been?"

"At the current count, a few hundred or so. I answered that already, you know!"

"A few hundred?" I said in disbelief. "Does it ever feel weird, knowing that you aren't that unique?"

"Listen," said Jeb 1. I had obviously struck a nerve. "We are Jebediah Kerman. We are unique. Unique enough to be preserved for future generations to benefit from. We share the same history. I can remember several hundred years back. I went to school in Greenwood, and studied astronomy at Kerlington college. I got a job at a junkyard and later bought it. I began launching rockets, one thing led to another, and here we are today."

"But splitting that many times - there can't be that much of the original left, can there?" Jeb 2 stared me down.

"Some of your scientists back at home estimate that every single year, 98% of the atoms in your body are replaced."

"Oh," I said, a cold chill going through me. It sort of reminded me of the Ship of Theseus... A darker version of the Ship of Theseus...

"Anyway, we're about ready. Be as still as possible, do your best not to scream, and make sure you remembered to write a will."

"What?" I said, but then Jeb 1 pulled a lever before I could say anything else. Despite the painkiller, it still hurt a lot A lot is an understatement. There are almost no words to describe how torturous it was. Over a hundred pounds of nutrients shot into my body through various IV tubes into a matter of seconds, and my cells took them all in thanks to all the alien steroids that had been pumped through my body. Even though the Jebs had told me not to, I couldn't not scream. I grew huge and bloated, screaming and panicking - and then it started - it felt like every single piece of my body was being ripped in half - well, technically it was. Sparing most of the gruesome details, I sort of plopped into two pieces which solidified fully a few seconds later. The entire process probably took about fifteen seconds.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!" I said. "WHAT THE - " and then I turned to face myself. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" The Jebs passed us pouches of water. I both drank it down pretty fast, and then I drank another pair. My muscles were sort of just burning... It was a weird feeling. After I/we had stopped panicking, I turned to face me (narration is pretty hard when I is plural). The pain subsided almost instantly, replaced by curiosity.

"Does my hair really look that weird?" I asked myself out loud, as I had always seen it through a mirror (and that reverses direction). "Yes," I answered. "Hey, we should try a chess game!" I said. "But who would go first? Wait, you want to do the airlock thing like Jeb did? Nah, this is too fun! Wait, I'm talking to myself! But I can't have a conversation, actually, it's like talking to a mirror! Should I use I or me, Ethan? Hehe. This is funny! Okay, let's stop now!" Jeb was struck by a moment of humor odd for the situation and chuckled. "Ethan 1 is the Ethan next to the airlock. Which one? The starboard one, dummy. Oh. You can talk first. No, me! Wait, oh..." At that moment, the ship's communicator beeped. We both reached for it and pressed the button at the same time.

"Marie to Voyager!" said Marie, her voice sort of slurred.

"Yes?" I answered.

"Ethan, thank goodness! We thought you had died or something!"

"Marie, your voice sounds sort of weird!" I said.

"Yours does to, like some sort of echo!" I looked at myselves and stifled a giggle. "Why have you taken three hours to get back?"

"Oh, um..." I said, searching for an explanation that wasn't a total lie. "I got distracted."

"Okay, that's fine. Anyway, we've been down here long enough, why don't you just stay there until you've orbited around again? Then we'll all jetpack back up."

"Sounds good, bye!" I said, trying to get out of the conversation before she found out anything else.

"Ethan, wai - " she was cut off.

"Okay, Ethan one is the one closest to the airlock. He speaks first. Got that? Yes? Okay."

 

------Narration at this point starts from Ethan Two's perspective

"So, like this?" said Ethan One.

"Yes. Hi, me!"

"Hi, me!"

"Can I give you one piece of advice?" I asked.

"I already know what you're going to say, you are going to tell yourself not to die," he responded.

"OOOOH, this is cool! What color am I thinking of?" I asked.

"Atomic Tangerine, and not just because I am your clone, I can read your mind now!"

"While the first time is always funny," said Jeb 1, "We really must be going, we don't know how much time we have. Their invasion force could have already started to sweep the galaxy, we just don't know!" he said.

"Okay, then!" I said.

"So, I'm Ethan one, right? So I'm staying? Aww, lucky you!"

"Our minds are linked, so it won't be that bad," I said.

"Alright, let's not dilly-dally, we need to get moving!" said Jeb 2.

"Right! Wait, I need another spacesuit, don't I?" I asked.

"Right cupboard," said Jeb 1 as he prepared to exit the Memories to return to the Voyager. I opened the cupboard to find three additional spacesuits, slightly more futuristic looking than my previous suit. I put one on quickly (they were rather easy to put on). At this point, Ethan 1 and Jeb 1 were about to exit the airlock. Ethan 1 had yet to put his gloves on... And I knew what he was thinking.

"Goodbye, Ethan," we both said. I held up my right hand, he held up his left. They touched for a few seconds before the Jebs got anxious. Ethan 1 and Jeb 1 departed, and almost immediately we undocked from the Voyager. Jeb 2 activated the navigation system.

"Where, exactly, are we going?" I asked, thinking that I'd never see anyone I knew again, except through the thoughts of my clone.

"Far, far away. We are starting at impulse 1, should be good."

"How will it feel?"

"Bumpy. Activating K-drive in 3... 2... 1..." The ship lurched forward, sending the two of us back into our seats to Jeb's screaming. The ship stopped again. "Gah, forgot to activate the anti-g mechanism... That could have been bad. Impulse 1 in 3... 2... 1..."

And we were off. A few seconds later, Jeb went up to impulse 10. Then 50. It sure was bumpy. I didn't feel any linear acceleration, but I felt like my brain was going to be shaken out of its skull. After Jeb went to impulse 100, we left Pol pretty quickly.

A minute later we skimmed Laythe's atmosphere and passed by Jool.

Then Jeb hit impulse 10,000, which he quickly upped to 100,000.

Our cruising acceleration became impulse 200,000 as we rapidly left they system behind. I wondered if I would ever see it again - and then I wondered - why did I ask to come in the first place? Was I stupid or something? I was voluntarily leaving everything I knew and loved behind for adventure and a slightly higher chance of survival.

But then again, I'd already left everything behind twice... I left Earth, then I left Kerbin... What difference should a few more orders of magnitude make?

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Ethan 1's private journal

Gah, it's only been five minutes and I'm already going crazy. How am I going to manage keeping this a secret? What will happen when the others find out? And how in the whole universe am I supposed to just sit here as evil aliens invade the galaxy?

I don't think I can do it.

I wish I had never found out about this, it's just too much knowing something this big and not being able to know about it. The first chance I get, I'll ask Jeb if they have invented memory erasers yet. But for now, to the humans reading my blogs on Kerbin, I'll have to dodge the truth. I can already tell, my writing is going to be halfhearted - how am I supposed to write about something that seemed so large that has suddenly become so small? Oof, I can already picture it, it's going to end with a cringey "Ethan out!" for lack of a better option. This is going to be so terrible...

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Hello, Kerbin! Ethan here, with an update!

That party was so epic. If you ever get the chance to go to one similar to this, do it. Even if it isn't an epic space party, just any party in general, it's better to go than not to go! I ended up leaving early, everyone else went to sleep, and I did some checkouts of Voyager, routine, boring stuff. If one can consider anything in space to be boring and routine!

Anyway, a few hours ago, the crew finished their surface mission on Pol.

Bob was the first one back up to the Voyager, followed by the others in rapid succession.

Cheng ended up taking the lander back up, joyfully... still a bit odd for him, but I think he's changed for good.

We're currently plotting a trajectory for our next destination, Bop! In case you didn't know, it's a low gravity world, similar to Pol. And due to the limited fuel, we have to be as careful as possible with our trajectory. We have plotted a course that will hopefully use less than 300m/s out of our 2100m/s total - and that's before even stripping down the ship further, which we will do after Laythe!

So, in short, not much happened this week...

But, as a note to all the humans and Kerbals reading this - to restate my point, parties are awesome. If you get the opportunity, just do it! Even if it doesn't work out, at least you know what to expect from that type of party and - how do I word this... Just have fun, alright? Good luck, Kerbin!

Ethan out!

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"Okay, fine," said Evelina to herself, after she had finished reading Ethan's most recent post. Oddly, it seemed weird to her... More distant than his other reports. Probably due to something spacey, she concluded. She decided to drop it.

"I agree with his point - I'll never know if I don't try. If Ethan wants me to go to Homecoming, I'm going to Homecoming. Not with Jared, he's a jerk. Maybe not even with anyone else... Probably by myself. What could be the harm in just stopping by for a bit by myself? At least I'll know..."

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Edited November 20, 2019 by Ultimate Steve

[roboslacker]

Things are getting weird

[obney kerman]

  On 4/9/2018 at 3:49 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

"So basically you stole the plot of Interstellar?"

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DANGER: HULL BREACH DETECTED. FOURTH WALL COMPROMISED.

  On 4/9/2018 at 1:07 PM, roboslacker said:

Things are getting weird

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You don't say.

[53miner53]

  On 4/9/2018 at 3:49 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

"Now look, there's always hope - " said both of the Jebs at the same time.

"Against something millions of times bigger than us?"

"I didn't say there was much hope," said Jeb 2.

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Ethan’s probable reaction to this remark:  

My reaction to this remark: 

[obney kerman]

I just learned my school is going to put on the Seussical.

I really hope I don't get teleported to Kerbin.

EDIT: Although, with what happened to ethan...

Edited April 9, 2018 by obney kerman

[Ultimate Steve]

  On 4/9/2018 at 7:03 PM, obney kerman said:

I just learned my school is going to put on the Seussical.

I really hope I don't get teleported to Kerbin.

EDIT: Although, with what happened to ethan...

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Just be make sure to sit next to two of your crushes in the right side of the balcony and get into an argument with a flat earther, and you should be good to go!

Although, actually the whole beginning was closely modeled after what happened to me about a week before I started writing the story... Names and places changed, of course. It was actually Thoroughly Modern Millie and there was not flat Earther! Our school did put The Seussical on the year before that, though...

[Alpha 360]

I'll like this because you are always hilarious, but i would never read anything like this outside the kerbal forums. 

Also that is an unnecessarily painful way to clone. Granted it gets done in a couple of seconds, but surely they could have copied his brain onto a computer in a simulated universe where there WASN'T aliens wiping out the galaxy and wind it down so that he lives a lifetime in a second for less effort. Or put a copy of his brain and Jeb's into the spaceship, and then speed up to 10,000 gs without any side-effects. Or even better, send off the ship into deep space and then transmit everyone's copy of their brain over there once it set up a colony. And repeat the process until the nasty aliens can't keep up with the speed of light. 

I don't want to debunk this entire story though, and I only know all these things because I am a nerd, and if you had two crushes, you're not a nerd. Great set up and execution, and i just love your since of humor. Keep going with the story!

Happy Explosions! 

Edited April 10, 2018 by Alpha 360

[Ultimate Steve]

  On 4/10/2018 at 9:03 AM, Alpha 360 said:

I'll like this because you are always hilarious, but i would never read anything like this outside the kerbal forums. 

Also that is an unnecessarily painful way to clone. Granted it gets done in a couple of seconds, but surely they could have copied his brain onto a computer in a simulated universe where there WASN'T aliens wiping out the galaxy and wind it down so that he lives a lifetime in a second for less effort. Or put a copy of his brain and Jeb's into the spaceship, and then speed up to 10,000 gs without any side-effects. Or even better, send off the ship into deep space and then transmit everyone's copy of their brain over there once it set up a colony. And repeat the process until the nasty aliens can't keep up with the speed of light. 

I don't want to debunk this entire story though, and I only know all these things because I am a nerd, and if you had two crushes, you're not a nerd. Great set up and execution, and i just love your since of humor. Keep going with the story!

Happy Explosions! 

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...Huh. No writer is perfect, I'll say... If I ever claim to be perfect I give you full permission to slap me in the face.

It's sort of "where do I draw the "advanced technology" line so that I can have an advanced species and keep the story interesting..." Although the cloning thing is explainable, sort of, as it is a smaller device packed into an ancient spaceship trying out a config on a species that hasn't been cloned before... Presumably they have a better machine somewhere in the galaxy!

Really glad you are enjoying the story (although I probably am at least part nerd in my opinion!), and I do intend to finish it sometime!

Also Happy Explosions!

[KAL 9000]

Well... that happened. The K in K-Drive obviously stands for Kraken.

We should definitely tell the humans. If anyone knows how to fight a war, it's them.

[53miner53]

  On 4/10/2018 at 2:48 PM, KAL 9000 said:

We should definitely tell the humans. If anyone knows how to fight a war, it's them.

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Why haven’t any of the characters thought of that?

[KAL 9000]

WAIT JUST A SECOND!

The Kraken Drive... Yes... 

A reactionless drive unit! Put about four of them on an axle so that they spin it around, turn it on, and eventually, it'll be spinning fast enough that it will produce more energy (if it's hooked up to a generator) than it consumes!

PERPETUAL MOTION!

A perpetual motion machine can keep you alive past Heat Death!

GIVE A KRAKEN DRIVE TO THE INVADERS! THEY WON'T NEED TO INVADE!

[Ultimate Steve]

  On 4/10/2018 at 4:14 PM, 53miner53 said:

Why haven’t any of the characters thought of that?

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  On 4/11/2018 at 1:05 AM, KAL 9000 said:

WAIT JUST A SECOND!

The Kraken Drive... Yes... 

A reactionless drive unit! Put about four of them on an axle so that they spin it around, turn it on, and eventually, it'll be spinning fast enough that it will produce more energy (if it's hooked up to a generator) than it consumes!

PERPETUAL MOTION!

A perpetual motion machine can keep you alive past Heat Death!

GIVE A KRAKEN DRIVE TO THE INVADERS! THEY WON'T NEED TO INVADE!

Expand  

Well, y'all are certainly good at pointing out stuff I didn't think of!

Lets see... Question 1 is partially solvable by the fact that it has been an hour, there are rules about the test, and that the humans know nothing about super advanced weaponry... But I might explore that. I was planning on doing something similar-ish, but I might go a bit further now...

Question 2, oh boy... Presumably The Species has developed even faster ships. Maybe I made the K-drive a tad too OP, maybe I should impose a speed limit, that might also explain why the others haven't gone outside the galaxy. Maybe Jeb was trying to rush through the explanation and glossed over some of the details... And the free energy thing might be loosely explainable by the time dilation thing (dilating only one tiny portion of space across many K-drives). Or maybe the strange particle that powers it steals energy from somewhere else... Hmm... I can't make the warp core resource too scarce because the time core just resets it (or who knows? Maybe Jeb's explanation was oversimplified and it's not actually a time core!).

Yeah, I'm just spitballing here. Nothing you see is final, etc. As I said, I'm not perfect. Hopefully, I'll think of explanations faster than you all can point out the story flaws!

 

 

[elementgermanium]

Following in the footsteps of so many before me.

 

MOAR

[53miner53]

Express to front page!

[The Minmus Derp]

I DEMAND MOAR NAO @Ultimate Steve