Twilight Shelter: A mission to Cercani

[EnderiumSmith]

It's been 32 years since the founding of the National Space Agency and kerbalkind's foray into space. A first fateful journey into interplanetary space, a momentous first step oh Jool's crown jewel, a self sufficient Mun base, a first spark of fusion opening the gates to the ice giants, a fearless descent into the clouds of Eve and a lonely outlook from the shadow of Plock, the Kerbol system has been thoroughly explored. Talks of colonizing Laythe and making kerbals truly multiplanetary are on the table but the Agency's goals of pushing the frontier ever further now align with another organization: Intervision. Data from the sprite program provides 2 candidates: Cercani, a 3.2Ly K5IV with 5 known planets, 2 in the habitable zone; and Nova Kirbani, a 4.3Ly G2V-K1V-M4Ve trinary with 4 known plants around the latter, 1 in the habbitable zone.  The decision will be made for them by the reception of the PRP-2611 signal from the second planet of Cercani.

The agency veterans that will be joining this mission are:
Jebediah Kerman                                      - Chief Pilot >Duna|Jool|Urlum
Bob Kerman                                                 - Chief Scientist >Duna|Jool|Sarnus
Bill Kerman                                                   - Chief Engineer of surface operations
Valentina Kerman                                     - Reserve Pilot and partner of Jeb
Aiko Kerman(F)                                          - Prodigy pilot >Sarnus|Urlum|Plock|Moho
Piko Kerman(M)                                        - Scientist under Aiko
Miki Kerman(F)                                          - Engineer >Jool|Sarnus
Lupond Kerman(F)                                   - Scientist >Jool
Melming "Honeydew" Kerman(M) - Engineer on the Duna mission where he crashed the lander into Ike. Founder of the Mun base.
Haifurt Kerman(M)                                  - Pilot >Neidon
Danfry Kerman(M)                                   - Fearless scientist that returned from Eve. Also joined Haifurt to Neidon
Elibur Kerman(F)                                       - Scientist >Urlum
Alming Kerman(F)                                     - Scientist >Urlum
Gracal Kerman(M)                                    - Engineer >Urlum
Zhandar Kerman(F)                                  - Scientist joining from Intervision

From Helion Base lifts the HMS Endeavour, powered by a J45 Fresnel drive, it lifts off under the power of its afterburners

With a payload of 200tons and a top speed of 550km/s it will arrive at Cercani in around 6 years.

Approaching Cercani, starting deceleration burn

After achieving orbit, Valentina wakes from cryosleep to inspect the ship and plot an intersection with Disole, the Duna-like moon of the superkerbin Pequar. However she discovers an anomaly, the Endeavour had started its deceleration burn too early, causing it to arrive a year late. It relied on luminosity to measure its distance however the agency had somehow missed that Cercani was not main sequence, but a subgiant with luminosity compared to Kerbol and ancient beyond measure. Since the system was also much bigger as a result, Valentina will reenter cryosleep as it will take over a year to intercept Pequar

Puquar and Disole

Arrival

While Disole is being scanned for resources, Aiko decides to take a makeshift spaceship and be the first to land on an interstellar body. C3 is a small asteroid inside Pequar's rings which is rich in exotics but lacks all volatiles. This mission will prove to be more than just bragging rights

Skimming the atmosphere for argon. Until the base is established the only fuel sources available are argon and the polymers brought from the Mun

Resource scanning reveals that Disole completely lacks exotic minerals, as well as being quire metal poor. C3 does however have a lot of exotics. The colony will have to import its exotics from offworld. Fortunately not many exotics are required, a single shipment can produce 10 times the specialized parts carried by Endeavour

The habitat truck begins its descent. While most modules have landed withing loading range of each other, the goal of not landing at night requires a shallower less precise descent

Crew arrives at Disole colony. Nearby is the cargo retrieval truck and far in the distance is the exotic minerals drop pod. The crew will spend a while building the bays of the processing plant until it works at full capacity. At that point it will start building apartments for the rest of the crew, half of which is still in cryosleep. A name for the colony has not yet been chosen. Disole has been chosen as the colonization target due to its low gravity, thick rich atmosphere and large available land. Specifically its atmosphere contains about 12% O₂ likely left over from past water being lost to space;  which will allow lifting material back into orbit via spaceplane. It also contains trace amounts of methane which make fuel production much easier. It is by no means breathable and is poisonous in fact but its much more hospitable than Vessa with its dissapointingly anoxic, sulfurous atmosphere.

The crew in orbit isnt sitting idle however. With plenty of leftover materials it starts to produce probes to scan the nearby planets. Troni is first due to its fast orbit. This is what the ancients imagined Moho to be, and its high proximity to Cercani might make it a good location for producing antimatter

Landing wasnt planned but with plenty of sunlight, the engine proved capable, except for crash landing here. It was the last destination at least

To be continued...
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[Vanamonde]

Interesting ship design.

[EnderiumSmith]

Part 2: Hearth of Neutronium

A bit later another probe arrives at Vessa

After scanning Vessa, the probe goes to inspect C2. Weirdly it is quite rich in hydrates considering how close it is to the sun. Even more weird, this potato appears to have quite the gravity. Density calculations seems to indicate the core of this rock has to made of neutronium. Is this thing even a moon at all? After checking data from C3 it also indicates such a dense core but C2 appears to have a huge one.

Meanwhile construction of apartment modules finishes on Disole. Work towards orbital infrastructure can begin.

First a plane is made to actually explore this moon. Inspection of the midlands on the Pequar facing side reveal much richer resources compared to the dwindling silicates and metals in the plains. Moving the base is in consideration.

In this low gravity even the panther can get most of the way to orbit. This spaceplane will fill bring hydrogen to the endeavor to prepare for its journey. I can be a bit unstable on descent, but with a twr much over 1 it has no chance of crashing. The small amounts of methane in the air also provide an easy supply of fuel

Meanwhile another probe arrives at Prima. Due to the antenna being too small, the probe heading to Nienna did not receive signal and flew into deep space. But planetary aligment favored this one, receiving a few % of signal right at encounter. The moons are mostly ice, with Secunda being slightly active while Prima is completely dead despite the tidal stress.

It is time for HMS Endeavour to head out once more. Destination Vessa, the source of the signal. Joining the A team will be Zhandar Kerman which was chosen to head down to the surface.

Only overshoot the landing site by a quarter of the planet and ended up at the rift archipelago. Unfortunately i also undershot the island that looks like a crab

The atmosphere is quite steamy and filled with poisonous sulfur dioxide, no oxygen at all. Of course we already knew that from the sprites and the James Kerman telescope. Still the skies are much more inviting, even with the yellow tint. While most of the surface lies buried in ice, Vessa could still make a better home than Disole with the proper terraforming. With geologic activity ceasing, the sulfur will soon dissolve away an leave the atmosphere ripe for oxygenation, even if artificial. It is also possible that life did manage to take hold out of reach on the ocean bottom. Stars like these live eons even past main sequence and so long as the subsolar storm may continue forever to reflect the scorching heat from boiling the oceans, life will always have enough time, native or not.

Spoiler

After a bit of flying, Zhandar arrives at the source of the alien signal

Spoiler

It appears to be a distress beacon. The aliens werent trying to get us to find them after all. Well technically they were but were expecting some FTL ship. Its been 14 years since the signal was sent, more than half of which was spent traveling. If the aliens was still here it would have likely contacted us by now. Inside the kit used to assemble the antenna was an alien tablet that is able to locate their radio signature. Weirdly it appears readable. An universal translator perhaps. Or maybe a time travel paradox?

After flying all around the planet, Zhandar ascents back to the mothership. Due to a much smoother ascent than in simulation, a ton of deltaV was left over and could even escape the planet completely in fact. However it had no capability beyond ascent and so was discarded.

Spoiler

Following to the neutronium potato, the other source of the signal is also found. Looks like the alien moved outwards from here. First the Endeavour will head to Troni, then it will return to the origin of the adventure: C3. Funny how an asteroid that has been visited immediately at arrival and has been mined for minerals since could protect an alien device from notice. At some point a mission to Pequar itself is also in order. Its pure CO2 atmosphere isnt very inviting but it has near kerbin gravity. Perhaps it would be even easier to terraform than Vessa given the massive ice caps. An influx of oxygen could be all it needs to kickstart its transition to an ocean world.

Departing for Troni. While the ship can refuel itself here, it has more than enough fuel and the transfer window is coming up. Also the ship would have to stay separated while refueling happens

To be continued...

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[EnderiumSmith]

Part 3: just desserts

The second attempt at a probe arrives at Nienna, this time with a larger antenna. This mission will take a while and the last moon will be scanned shortly before the crew arrives.

Arriving at Kevari. The sulfur fields are very colorful, but there are no lakes of molten sulfur unfortunately

Nianna looks small from the furthest asteroid. This one is surprisingly big, in fact the probe has only 0.9twr. But because the ground is much higher than sea level, on a potato with a very small radius the gravity is actually much weaker so the real twr is 1.5!

Passing by Crons to correct the inclination. This is the last moon to visit(i didnt take screenshots from Niko and the inner potato) so the probe will wait here until the crew arrives so they can take the atmo scanner off since i forgot to put one on the lander.

Meanwhile HMS Endeavour arrives at Troni. This is what the ancients imagined Moho to be. This place took the heat well as it would have been a dres-like planetoid in its past life. However we must wonder about the worlds inner of Troni that were swallowed up. Were there a much more hospitable world in the old habitable zone that hosted countless lineages of life over countless eons only for it to fall to be flames never to be known about? Or were there no worlds at all and this period is the beginning for worlds like Vessa and maybe Pequar? But one must wonder what kind of strange lifeforms would develop in 25 billion years, especially if Cercani had its calm nature during main sequence.

This lander could have done with an extra engine. It has a twr of only 1.4, increasing to 2.6 empty. Troni is not that interesting from the ground. Probes are better suited to it. Also the low twr limited how many places could be visited.

Returning home to search in the place where it all began...

Spoiler

Additional information from the alien relay has ruled out time traveling Jeb as the alien. Mentions of missing outposts has instead brought another theory: This place used to be an outpost for silent observer aliens, which due to the sprites or perhaps due to unlocking the fresnel, had decided to wipe clean any evidence they were even here, only for their plan to thwarted by our stranded friend. This relay must have been installed before arrival as the alien would have noticed the mining probe and the starship around the nearby moon. Next destination: Nienna. Consider the possibility of the alien camping there and noticing the dead probe flying by, would that inspire or demoralize him?

The plan: Miki will take the lander and argon tug down to the orbital factory and use the last of the materials to make a better lander that can run on just hydrogen, then carry the new lander to the Endeavour. Then the starship will depart towards Nienna with a high energy transfer as PrimaSecunda is close by and there is limited time to transfer,

It will arrive in about 136 days using the last of the fuel, entering orbit around the inner asteroid to refuel which will take around 28 days.

To be Continued...

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[EnderiumSmith]

Part 4: A story of Ice and Gravity

The HMS Endeavor arrives at Nienna via a low pass for how much the oberth effect is worth at these speeds.

First destination is the inner potato moon where the fuel tank detaches and begins refueling from the asteroids water rich crust. These bodies are not as water rich as it would be expected so it will take like 28 days to fully fuel

The first destination is the volcanic moon Kevari. Arrival time happened to coincide with an eclipse, Kevari being lit only by the light the diffracts through the atmosphere of Nienna.

This is the Atomic Peanut lander. Unfortunately it underperforms just like the Tronitron. The gravity on these bodies is quite large so it only gets around 2 twr. The nuclear engines are also slow to respond making touchdown difficult. It does however run on only hydrogen so it can be refueled at least, even if this 5ton lander gets half the deltaV than the 100ton starship from that amount of hydrogen. Of course some of these moons are the size of Duna so this lander would have been much better at Troni. Better fuel tank design an maybe a dedicated water tank might have made LOX more feasible due to less gravity drag but FFT is lacking in terms off efficient lander engines. The Fresnel is longer than physics range so it cant land and the Discovery gets less than half the isp and is very heavy to carry around just as a lander. The only other viable option is the lithium engines but that would require hauling lithium from the colony. A singular nuclear lightbulb would be the best option but no such engine exists.

Next Destination is Niko in search of the signal. Surprisingly Niko is Mun-like with a completely dry rocky surface. Maybe it was more like Kevari before it was pushed out by the arrival of Crons. Overall this system is very water poor for how far beyond the frost line it was when Cercani was in main sequence, and it still is.

Last up is Crons. The atmosphere here is just tick enough to add a rim glow effect to the sky which looks really nice. Despite what the intervision team said about Niko, this is definetely the most hostpitable moon of the Nienna system. The hard vacuum might be a problem due to micrometeors but the lack of craters suggests this is a calm part of the system.

With all the moons visited its time to head to the next planet. The transfer windows is a bit off but theres still plenty of fuel to brute force the approach.

For some reason theres no light in the barycenter SOI but solar still works.

First up is Secunda, the most interesting looking of the planets, and the only one where it still looks interesting from the surface. The shattered plates on the other side looks even better. 10/10 would want it as a moon.

Spoiler

Lastly is Prima and the last of the signals. From the messages it looks like the time traveling paradox theory was in fact right, except this is not Jeb. The Church of the Kraken might not be happy to hear that kerbals might not be the chosen ones, owners of all uninhabited planets by birthright. Anyway this only raises more questions than answers. The alien cant be from the future as kerbalkind would have terraformed the planets in that timeframe and he didnt even know of other aliens. But if hes from the past that still doesnt explain why the system was abandoned. An why would the Kraken transport this alien into the future? Surely only 1 is of no use to us. The most he could do is find his home star but it cant be that far away to not find it eventually. The Message also suggests that he last headed to the Pequar system and we found no signal around Troni so if he is still alive he must be there. It cant be on Disole as thats where the colony is and he would most likely have noticed the planes flying by. It also means that the alien would have watched the starship arriving and setting up the colony, probably frustrated that no one is coming down to Pequar to possible find him.

Time for an express departure back to Pequar. It will take around 90 days in which Pequar will have orbiter a quarter orbit. That will be the final destination. There are plans to establish long term outposts on both Vessa and Pequar with reusable shuttles between them, then work will begin on a gas giant diver to collect He3 for the return journey as Nienna is the only place in the system this is possible. The question is weather to bring back Jeb and the crew. The HMS Endeavour will be tasked to carrying colonists and infrastructure between Kerbin and Disole via refueling at Urlum and Nienna. The very steamy atmosphere of Vessa might in fact be a great refueling spot for both water and argon and should have been considered for the first arrival instead of waiting for the colony to develop a way to send hydrogen up form Disole.

 

To be Continued...

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[EnderiumSmith]

Part 5: Return to Sender

It turns out we missed some of the signals, As signal on Disole is encrypted. A new lander design is made with better thrust and more minimalist crew quarters, just 1 kerbal this time and no material bay as most places have been fully explored already.

Returning to Nianna and Kevari. The 2 inner moons both had a signal, some quite far off the equator.

The outer moon also had a second signal that could now be read, it looks like it was placed way later.

Zhandar decides to just parachute down to the hangar rather than bring the shuttle down

The signal chase can now resume, At this point the good antennas have been depleted so the signals are much weaker, Since this moon is easy to scout a later signal has been found here too. The date it was recorded indicates our alien didnt get as lucky with outer planet alignment.

Spoiler

New info has been gained from the signals: Alien monoliths similar to the derelict ones found around the Kerbol system seem to play a role in this and more of them have been constructed during the time jump. The next destination is back to the origin. While the possibility of the alien being stuck on Pequar still stands, it seems the journey is no where near over so unless a signal is received via the Kerbol relay antenna, a mission to Pequar is on the back burner. Especially since the message recovered back at Nianna indicates the alien may have gone to Kerbol instead. This would be less than ideal since the guys at Intervision are having difficulty replicating the alien tablet. But with Laythe having a large population by now and a significant presence all the way to Urlum, it is unlikely for the alien to miss us. Eve might prove a challenge for him as nothing here comes close to that, but with talk about Eve mountain bases and cloud cities it is unlikely to pass undetected even there.

Next destination is back to Vessa. The question is if this is the time for a semipermanent Vessa base or not. A reusable shuttle is probably in order anyway, and atmospheric scooping should provide a good way to refuel the lander and restock on fertilizer on the Endeavour.

Since this one is shorter here is a chart of the habitability of different worlds. Some adjustments could be made to the ranking.

To be Continued...

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[EnderiumSmith]

Part 6: Sand Planet

Back at Vessa to investigate the signals. As expected, no remnants of the previous outpost was found. Its still unknown if they were removed intentionally or simply abandoned a very long time ago.

If youre flying east on a tidally locked planet, is it called a sunrise or sunset?

I dont know if i mentioned it but the plane is called Stormsonor and the return shuttle is Reaper. The low gravity and high atmosphere allow for easy splashdowns so there is no chance of tipping over

The fuel truck waits around the asteroid to refuel the next mission

Since a lot of traveling will be required around Pequar, a mobile base will be used with long term habitation and renewable life support

Even with the fins it is not entirely stable but the fairing is just heat resistent enough to aerobreak

Parachutes are surprisingly effective here. A small single use fuel tank powers a set of landing rockets for a soft touchdown

Next is the lander, which will meet with the Endeavour in low Pequar orbit to pick up the crew. It has 5k deltaV

Tiramisu Base meets with the lander to pick up the crew for the long journey. A large RTG will provide power for the life support during the night

This random crater appears to contain a signal. It appears that the alien is from  a low gravity world, perhaps one like Vessa. Kerbals however find it perfectly comfortable here. Perhaps if we find its species they could be better adapted for low gravity worlds like Disole, Duna or Tekto

The journey has reach far up north, this is round the same latitude as Oslo and the south tip of Greenland. Surface sample reveals something very promising, these polar caps are made largely of ice and CO₂ and satellite scans indicate that its at least 4km thick! This planet is also much richer in exotic minerals so it would be relatively easy to set factories to produce massive amounts of perfluorocarbons to increase the greenhouse effect enough to melt the ice, increasing its atmosphere in the process. Currently the atmosphere only reaches high enough pressure to support breathing in the deepest regions, which are full of rough sand and will be the first to be flooded. The scarcity of N₂ means the atmosphere will likely never be fully breathable but plantlife should be able to thrive

This elevation map shows pretty well the expected result. The deep sand seas and polar basin will be filled and swampy midlands will become common around the equator

Some marketing guy at intervision claims this polar basin has the best views in the system. This is clearly false

This latitude is the best for observing the rings as the thin bands fade out from closer to the equator

After 3 weeks and driving basically around the planet the Tiramisu mobile base returns to the landing site, where it will spend another week refueling the lander. Perhaps merging the refueling equipment with the mobile base want the most optimal design as its a significant part of its weight and does nothing while in transit

Here is a revised version of the habitability index. While Vessa is still better as is and is much easier to orbit, the terraforming project would raise Pequar to 10, which is higher than Laythe! Vessa could get perhaps another point in the short term. In the long term where atmospheric refactoring is in play Pequar could become a second Kerbin and Vessa could surpass Laythe while Disole could reach at most 8.5, similar to Eve and Duna back home.

To be Continued...

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[Ariel Kerman]

Nice stuff so far!

[EnderiumSmith]

Part 7: Country Lode take me Home

After returning from Pequar, the only planet left to search is Troni, as hinted in a stray signal found on Disole

Theres a thin strip of ice on the night side. Surprisingly the alien considers this gravity comfortable, while its much to low for kerbals. Maybe he is from a Duna sized planet. Next destination is back to Nienna

Passing through the rings

Does this look as cool as the other shot? No settlement to be found here but theres more points of interest further away. It seems losing fuel to overheating put the alien very close to running out of fuel. Im not sure how since the burn would be close to Nianna so a refueling pass would come naturally. Our ship has enough fuel it doesnt even need to refuel here again

Having found everything of note, The Endeavour return to Disole one last time. This time at a very high inclination for some reason. A hohman transfer had to be done due to bad angles for a high energy transfer

One last thing is left to do: a long term Vessa base

Parachutes are enough here, also no need for a fuel module

Lastly an atmospheric probe arrives at Nienna to investigate the concentrations of ³He and ²H. Also its been a long time since a fuel cell has been used. Since Cercani lacks a close in large vacuum moon, Nienna is the only place to get ³He for returning home. Due to other findings with the alien, returning home will not be as simple as first assumed.

Spoiler

While tracking the points of interest around Crons more info on the monoliths has been found. Apparently the one in the past was prophesied to send the user to a world with a similar civilization awaiting arrival. We suspect this was actually a mistranslation and it is the world awaiting the civilization. Cercani was a popular destination even before the signal and would have likely won anyway, though it turns out it is Pequar than was awaiting us rather than Vessa. Anyway the ones in the present dont do this.

Rather it seems these ones are beacons pointing or transmitting towards an object in the stellar neighborhood. After finding a second one and triangulating the location it was revealed that the target is a rogue planet around half way between Cercani an Kerbol. This is actually very problematic since we cant just dip into interstellar space to investigate and return, instead the ship must carry enough fuel to accelerate, stop then accelerate again and finally stop at Kerbol. Refueling there cannot be relied on as the planet is very massive and of unknown composition. The moon where the alien likely resides now also has quite tricky conditions to land and return from. By the way we found the message that the alien has gone somewhere a while ago, which also included info on how to activate the spires. Also since the cryonic chamber will be unusable on the alien, enough life support must be stored for the homeward journey even if he has higher metabolic rates. I wonder what would happen if we tried the activation device on the monoliths around the Kerbol system, the inner system ones are at least not completely dead.

As far as getting help from Kerbol, another fresnel will not help at all. A hammertong might but that assumes that ship number 3 is both ready to go and a hammertong, which is unlikely as the lack of afterburners would require carrying a secondary drive for use at the destination. There is some hope that if the alien is indeed there a more advanced ship might also be there but the return strategy cant rely on that.

The possibility that the alien continued to Kerbol is very low as the system is very active. By now scanning probes have been deployed from Moho to Plock and even Dres(and Thatmo too) so to be missed he would have to either actively avoid contact or succumb to the more extreme planets like Eve, Tylo or Slate.

To be Continued...

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[EnderiumSmith]

Part 8: Dancer in the Dark

The Endeavour picks up the new fuel module and heads to Nienna. The detour means it will need just as much fuel as it started with. A direct return could have been done with just 1 of those tanks

Helium diver arrives at Nienna. Transfers are cheap in this system so nukes will do just fine once the starship leaves the colonists here

Had kerbalkind evolved here, fusion development would have been hampered with low demand and high entry barrier having to mine it from gas giants from the start. Nienna is however a much better ³He mine than Urlum, so i guess it evens out

A secondary tug transfers ³He to the starship as the diver isnt very agile

Once fully fueled it return to Disole to pick up the payload

Unknown conditions at the destinations need a very large lander

¹H depleted. Switching to reaction products

Spoiler

The lack of stars reveals a large planet floating in the interstellar void

Due to low rotation speed the radar scanner only catches blobs around the north hemisphere

The seas appear to be made of liquid hydrogen and the atmosphere is mostly helium. Refueling here would likely be possible if there is ever a reason to return

The radio signal appears to come from this large island

Spoiler

Further investigation leads to a cave which appears to show signs of habitation

Spoiler

After over a decade of searching, Zhandar Kerman appears to have made first contact. Hes taller than expected

3rd degree encounter report: The theories on the spikes have been confirmed. Their purpose is to send the user to another time, specifically around the time a civilization is about the visit that location. In the target time more spikes exist which are made to locate and guide to the next step in the chain. This rogue planet being part of it implies that at some point in the past or future it was part of a system and was ejected or captured. This does however raises the question of why did the aliens species leave the Cercani system. They appear to be more advanced given the kind of trajectory performed without ground support. Maybe the system was deemed uninhabitable given the low gravity preference, violent storms on Vessa and chlorine on Disole. But where are they given than they lived millions of years in the past? Maybe they are silent observers after all in the present and were the ones who built the monoliths around Kerbol?

Anyway the encounter was very odd. The alien was not interested in coming to Kerbol, or even to the Endeavour. Instead he took this as a sign that the spike do indeed work as advertised and decide to immediately leave for the next one. Maybe 30 years in isolation have taken their toll. The next encounter is likely decades off if he decides to wait for them. The hope is that the system eventually loops back around and he can return home. This will likely anger the Kraken for having to deal with all the time travel paradoxes. Following didnt seem to work, which is probably good since we dont want our ship coming along by accident. How does the spike know which ship to take anyway?

At the end this alien hunt was quite disappointing, we didnt even get anything out of it, no new tech, no new crew, no alien system starmap and well probably never try to prod the paradox machine we found here. In hindsight this detour was not worth it. Sending a probe to prod at it might have sparked a better outcome, as visiting Kerbol was mentioned several times by the alien.

Time go home

With the help of landing at a slight elevation, the return rocket ends up with a whole spare stage

Burning for Kerbol

After a long journey the Endeavour returns home. The burn starts while the star is still small but the periapsis is around Moho

Hi Minmus you have a small SOI

Green and Blue, a yet unique sight

With the Mun in the sky, a shuttle is launched to retrieve the crew

After 32 years the first interstellar travelers return home. The roster includes the veterans, Zhandar and Aiko's crew. A better destination will be their resting place, one that the James Kerman telescope detected oxygen on. As for the Endeavour, it will be refurbished and used for colonial transport between the Kerbol-Cercani systems. At first it will send smaller crews of 100 and highly advanced tech the colony cant make but once significant self sustained grown its achieved it will start sending crews of several thousand. Eventually a subcolony will be established on Pequar to start producing greenhouse gasses to melt the ice. In a few hundred years Pequar will be terraformed and the truly massive waves of a million at a time will depart for a world like Kerbin  bar only breathable air. Vessa is a tease, the SO₂ needs O₂ to precipitate, there is very little actual rocky surface and the climate is unstable. With enough terraforming both it and Disole will be habitable but that will take geologic time.

The spoils. This brings enough science to unlock the most theoretical of propulsion drives. Antimatter will never be practical but Z-pinch will help a lot. The next choice will be between K2V Kepsilon Kirilani and G8V Cer Turi, then furthest yet detected M8V Tarsis-1. But first in focus is the mission to Nova Kirbani...

FIN