Galaxies Unbound : A grand tour of Nova Kirbani with a probe [BEGINNER]

[Soldraconi_IV]

I'd like to thanks@StarCrusher96 with @TheSpacePotato for the amazing work they delivered in this mod and lore, as well as @JadeOfMaar for the engines he created at this occasion  

Preliminary notes: Dear readers, this is my very first mission report. My ship is basic in terms of design, and lacked communication for maneuver nodes. I played in sandbox with by default normal difficulty setting. To date, I can confirm this was probably my longest mission ever performed. Also, I am not an English native writer, please let me know if there are any problems regarding orthographic/semantic quality of the post. The report will be quite simple;  however I have included some lore in it to cope with glitches and the conditions in which I performed this trip. I also included some music to fit the ambiance, though not for all tastes (synthwave).

The list of used mods:

• Galaxies Unbound 
• Kopernicus
• Tweakscale
• Better Timewarp and its dependencies
• HangarExtender
• DistantObjectsEnhancement
• Scatterer
• EVE (no clouds in Kerbin system since I was not focusing on)
• Trajectories (minor use due to RAM)
• Transfer window planner (here just in case, not really used)
• Sigma's texture replacer for GU's skybox

The report will be divided into 4 parts:

1.  The launch and the Travel to Nova Kirbani 
2.  The tour of Nova Kirbani A system
3.  The tour of Nova Kirbani B system
4.  The Great Final in the Proksimus system

 

 

Part 1 : Journey to the Great Unknown

Spoiler

It was just a probe core, yet the most advanced one. Not conscious (for the moment), but with quantum computing aspects organized in a deep convolutional network. The asked task baffled even the most donkey Kerbal researchers among researchers. Combining the most advanced electronics to the first engine of its category, a Liquid Helium 3 Fusion engine, they had to send a fully autonomous probe to the nearest star system, Nova Kirbani, suspected to host a possible new eden for Kerbals.

Yet, even if the best of the best from technology was put into three key components, the head the legs and the food stock, they all ruined the budget of the agency. In a society already in permanent economic crisis (due the eternal appetite from Kerbal financials for snacks, food, sea fruits, lasagnas…), the maneuver margin was far too small for a proper design. Hence sacrifices were done on probe design and launcher… Yet it must launch something. Then came the morning launch, with its flaws and wobbles due to the poor design.

Yet, the launcher was strong enough to send the probe on a high sub-orbital trajectory, although a bit random. While the amount of LHe3 put onboard was the most aggressive hit to KSC’s budget, at least the probe had an amazing amount of DV, reaching ~1165 km/s in all, more than enough to visit all the major bodies of the Nova Kirbani system.

The control center kept an influence on vessel’s decision until it reaches the right position in Kerbol system to start the long journey quadruple burn.

From here start the unknown. The four burns maneuver led to a 1 hour cumulated burn time, and the probe reached a cruising speed of 135km/s, right toward the target. A long travel lasting more than 300 years starts from here, As well as the beginning of unknown and unplanned behaviors, especially when reaching a third of the distance the multiple antennas put everywhere on the ship, proved to be insufficient to maintain communication with Kerbin.

Alone in the dark, facing radiations and particles of all sorts, the probe started to encounter glitches while in minimal service, some of them becoming strange and cumulative, like sending non-sense message to itself, taking the most improbable outcome, experimenting logical actions entirely different from what it was supposed to do ; and becoming conscious, feeling alone, in the dark, without any way to communicate with someone, forever…

Music [The Storm is Coming - Endless Grid]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzrsrjyzFe0

 

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by Soldraconi_IV
OP presentation

[Soldraconi_IV]

Part 2 : Nova Kirbani A

Introduction:

Spoiler

332 years passed, the probe, now conscious, took many years to find its purposes, more than a century. Now, she discovered she was built to search a second home for Kerbals (with the secret hope she could find also a less goofy intelligent life to communicate with), she redirected her power into deceleration. Three massive burns each time decelerating the probe by 45Km/s were launched, at few hours of interval, near the periapsis, some 2.5 billions of Km from the system.

The poor design was far from being enough to avoid gimbal stabilization and proper targeting. But the carburant amount left was more than sufficient to conduct a full study of the system. Yet it targeted the system’s barycenter, and due to it’s slightly donkey side inherited from its creators, our probe finished trapped around barycenter…

Efforts to move toward NK A paid, and the probe found a close encounter with the target. The amount of fuel then did the rest.

Alva:

Spoiler

Once on the proper plane, she targeted the innermost planet of the system, Alva. Luck was with her, a minimal burn regarding all of what has been done before gave a rapid encounter.

Then a low orbit survey was carried out. Without durable instrument, big observation aside visual ones were performed. So far, the world proved very dry with a possible oceanic past. Canyons, massive dust storms and generalized auroras issued from the interaction of solar wind with the decaying and the recently solidified core of the planet proved the world was becoming very hostile.

Also, the almost inexistent water clouds on the planet were a proof of evidence of unbearable heat and disappearing atmosphere.

Soon, the probe started to leave to the next planet, Blalo.

Blalo:

Spoiler

Once again, luck was with the probe, Blalo was quite well positioned relatively to Alva to get an easy encounter. After a quite distant periapsis, she decelerated, and reached an elliptical orbit.

Soon, it became clear the world hosts oceans, hope suddenly raised from within quantum computing units and electronic circuits, maybe life is present on this planet! (which indeed soon proved to be the case).

At this moment, the probe targeted the just discovered low gravity asteroid C1, orbiting within the rings, a perfect place to study the planet, while avoiding sandblasting. Soon the decision is taken, it must land there.

While quietly landing, the visual survey starts, although being directed toward south Pole, the probe gathered evidence of the recent massive impact that hit the planet some 80 to 130 million years ago. It became now certain that C1 and the rings were the results of such massive collision.

 But mysteries grown when landed on C1, the aspect of the terrain looked very similar to sedimentary rocks only, with the difference being the scares and metamorphized parts resulting from the shock… Maybe it was something different from a Dres sized impactor? With its design, impossible for the probe to solve the question. Instead of bugging on this, she started to focus on weather patterns and climate, the planet is currently entering a new ice age.

When combining core knowledges to the recently gained ones, the probe decided the planet was too beautiful and incompatible for the moment with Kerbal’s appetite for snacks and food. This gem world must be preserved for some time; and will be ready to host them when they will be less goofy and hungry (and out of the related financial crisis of course!).

Now, the probe performed observation toward the three major moons of Blalo. Realizing their size and orbital influences, another conclusion came soon, they are like guardians of their mother planet, and will easily constrain any orbital possibilities around the former. Still, it would be a nice challenge for orbital racing with landings in chain on those three ones (like a Jool 5, called “Space Dakar” or “Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo” challenge), as chain flybys can be easily reached.

Indeed, the latter proposition sounded better. Leyn is like a good protector, lighting the nights of Blalo, but not so good and more ominous when taking a closer look, with its field of charged particles due to the quite strong magnetosphere of Blalo.

Then while approaching Rav, the probe decided to not stop there and perform a flyby. Again, the moon gained properly its nickname of “brutto”, as a massive and brutal impact event reshaped and melted half of it’s surface, hence the fear of the probe (and maybe its lack of enthusiasm) to orbit it.

Alar looked faith to the tradition. Small in the distance but bigger than the two previous ones, misleading at first the probe on its trajectory, on a direct collision one. Ugly, yet outermost shield.

Elno:

Spoiler

As the survey of Blalo and its moons was done, the probe targeted Elno. This time, the luck was not here to make a simple and direct approach, and she ended orbiting for several years Nova Kirbani A before reaching its target.

In sight of the planet, the conclusion emerged directly: too cold! The planet being covered by ice fields anywhere, it proved to be a harsh place for landing. Still, another beautiful yet more dangerous pearl to observe.

After a low orbit flyby reaching less than 55 km at periapsis, time came to target its small moon, Irnil, to survey it and maybe attempt to land here. Before, the probe encountered its first sandblasting when crossing the rings of Elno. The price to pay for nice views.

An odd feature appeared On Irnil’s north pole, a tall and sharp peak. Luck came back here as an almost polar orbit can be directly achieved. With a trajectory oscillating between 3 and 4 km above the datum, the probe could easily observe the terrain and react quickly if any interesting things are found. Many geysers, cryovolcanoes and cracks punctuate the surface, as well as giant, blocks. Maybe an ocean can exist under the ice with life in it.

Arriving near the peak, the probe encountered interferences and parasites in some of its cores. A very faint, repetitive blip came to its 10 useless antennas, almost indistinguishable from noisy background but undoubtedly present. Better not to land nearby, as the exploration would had suddenly come to an end. The peak is dusty but some kind of ivory and shiny material seems to lie underneath.

 A flat area near a cryovolcanic region is found, a landing is attempted, and succeeded.

Many seisms are sensed by one of the rare instruments external to the core. Better to leave now, another achievement for her with this second more dangerous landing.

The exploration of the second star Nova Kirbani B now starts for the probe.

Music [Francci & Flávio La Barre – Prismatics]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXYtGkuewWs

 

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by Soldraconi_IV
Added Elno part - 2nd chapter finished

[Geschosskopf]

22 hours ago, Soldraconi_IV said:

Preliminary notes: Dear readers, this is my very first mission report. My ship is basic in terms of design, and lacked communication for maneuver nodes. I played in sandbox with by default normal difficulty setting. To date, I can confirm this was probably my longest mission ever performed. Also, I am not an English native writer, please let me know if there are any problems regarding orthographic/semantic quality of the post. The report will be quite simple;  however I have included some lore in it to cope with glitches and the conditions in which I performed this trip. I also included some music to fit the ambiance, though not for all tastes (synthwave).

Welcome aboard and thanks for sharing this amazing journey!  I really look forward to see the rest of this part of the galaxy.

Your English is quite good, far better than my attempts to write in any other language    Sure, it's not perfect, but it's close enough to be perfectly understandable, which is good enough.

My main suggesting for improvement is to put the music links at the top of your posts.  That way, readers can get the soundtrack started immediately, so it will be playing as they read the text.  It's good to see somebody else adding theme music to their stories---it makes me feel less crazy    And I think synthwave is a perfect choice for a story about a self-aware robot.

 

22 hours ago, Soldraconi_IV said:

Yet, even if the best of the best from technology was put into three key components, the head the legs and the food stock, they all ruined the budget of the agency. In a society already in permanent economic crisis (due the eternal appetite from Kerbal financials for snacks, food, sea fruits, lasagnas…), the maneuver margin was far too small for a proper design. Hence sacrifices were done on probe design and launcher… Yet it must launch something. Then came the morning launch, with its flaws and wobbles due to the poor design.

Well, it seems to be working well enough, despite the constraints imposed by goofy Kerbals  

 

22 hours ago, Soldraconi_IV said:

Alone in the dark, facing radiations and particles of all sorts, the probe started to encounter glitches while in minimal service, some of them becoming strange and cumulative, like sending non-sense message to itself, taking the most improbable outcome, experimenting logical actions entirely different from what it was supposed to do ; and becoming conscious, feeling alone, in the dark, without any way to communicate with someone, forever…

Such pathos!  I love it!

 

1 hour ago, Soldraconi_IV said:

332 years passed, the probe, now conscious, took many years to find its purposes, more than a century. Now, she discovered she was built to search a second home for Kerbals (with the secret hope she could find also a less goofy intelligent life to communicate with), she redirected her power into deceleration. Three massive burns each time decelerating the probe by 45Km/s were launched, at few hours of interval, near the periapsis, some 2.5 billions of Km from the system.

Hehehe, "finding less-goofy intelligent life".  A grand ambition.  I wish her success in finding it

Also, very impressive burns!  Wow.

 

1 hour ago, Soldraconi_IV said:

The poor design was far from being enough to avoid gimbal stabilization and proper targeting. But the carburant amount left was more than sufficient to conduct a full study of the system. Yet it targeted the system’s barycenter, and due to it’s slightly donkey side inherited from its creators, our probe finished trapped around barycenter…

It's pretty cool that the 2 stars have intersecting orbits around a barycenter.  That must have interesting effects on their planets.

Anyway, this is an epic journey and I'm really looking forward to seeing more!

 

[Soldraconi_IV]

@Geschosskopf, Thank you for your kind comment, normally I should be done by this evening, since I have prepared the text and the screenshot for the two other parts. It is not a very long report, but I have spiced the last part a bit  Regarding the music, I envisioned it as a transition, when the probe is alone in the dark during interstellar travelling. Your advice will be very useful for the last system however since I have more music to suit the ambiance 

[KerballingSmasher]

Well done! Now, about the name Nova Kirbani... 

[Soldraconi_IV]

Part 3 : Nova Kirbani B

Introduction :

Spoiler

Music [Starforce - Summer Of 2085 (Original Mix)]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXRMZ3Abyn4

 

 

Several decades passed again. The conscious probe reached Nova Kirbani B system. Based on its calculus, there seems to be two planetary bodies orbiting the star. She awakened in half distance to compose her trajectory relatively to the Barycenter, performs correction burns, sleep again, awake, maneuver to enter in orbit, correct 60 degrees of inclination, decelerate… The 475 years of travel start to be felt, few glitches, repetitive behaviors, and confusions. Still, she had plenty of margin with the DV left.

Loneliness being omnipresent more than ever, the probe started to regret the inerasable decision she took some 45 years ago to leave Blalo to continue the mission, instead of attempting to go back to Kerbol…

It was in these conditions, with a melancholic state, yet with a glimpse of hope she began to explore the system.

Cail:

Spoiler

Moho on steroids was her first conclusion. As the Duna sized brown planet arrived in sight, it directly proved to be unsuitable to Kerbal’s way of life so far.

While passing over the south pole, the probe’s low luminosity camera observed nothing in the shadows which could correspond to water ice. At the same time, fractures and low crater density tend to show this world as a highly seismic one, like Irnil, but much warmer. Cail also seemed to face a resurfacing event in a more distant past than Moho. The probe, disappointed by this world launched quickly the escape burn. Too dry and too growling.

As she traveled to Syro, the luck was absent again, as the future encounter took some time. Still an occasion to observe the star more in details. So far almost not a single flare, the quietest one she encountered during its journey through the system. It would be ideal for a new home, but sadly; the next world will prove itself to be worse than Cail.

Syro:

Spoiler

She thought it was a gas dwarf, but it was a dryer (although smaller) version of Eve. All hopes for life or colonization quickly vanished from the beginning. No surface features visible, just clouds made of dust, ashes and sulfuric compounds. As it is the second and last planet of the system, probe’s deception increased, so that at a moment, she envisaged to end the mission into these clouds…

And two small moons came to sight, Tur and Setha. Tur seems to show an intriguing feature, like if it was almost torn apart. Decision to perform low orbit passes around the body is taken.

The state condition of the quantum process units increased again, the probe felt better, and amazed by the view of these dry worlds. No water in this system, but at least nice scenery with the equatorial canyon from Tur.

Time has come to move to Setha. Another dry world yet easy of access. More barren but with the same color hue as all the other bodies orbiting Nova Kirbani B, suggesting a same planetary nebula ring origin.

The probe now starts to prepare to burn for Proksimus. The targeting is difficult, as the star is invisible due to its dimness. The flight will last 39 years at ~25 km/s, in the silent obscurity of the space…

 

3 minutes ago, Kerballing (Got Dunked On) said:

Well done! Now, about the name Nova Kirbani... 

Thank you !  I think it is because of Blalo, a planet which looks very similar to Kerbin aside its enormous impact. The system is inspired from Alpha Centauri in reality