Oceans of Eve / The city on the Mun

[The Error]

He looks a wee bit tipsy.

Oooh, what do we do with the drunken Kerbal,

[RobotsAndSpaceships]

Also, one thing that you should do while on Eve with a rover-boat is drive to the mid-northish part of Eve with all the tiny islands separated by rivers and streams.

[mstachowsky]

Hm, I might be missing something, but I got an email saying there was a new post (with new pictures and everything) but it doesn't show up here. Is there anything new?

[Tw1]

Hm, I might be missing something, but I got an email saying there was a new post (with new pictures and everything) but it doesn't show up here. Is there anything new?

Sorry, that was my mistake. Hit submit post instead of preview while working on Ch 2, Prt 5. deleted it fast, as it wasn't done. Should be out in a few days.

Also, one thing that you should do while on Eve with a rover-boat is drive to the mid-northish part of Eve with all the tiny islands separated by rivers and streams.

http://i44.tinypic.com/6f2szq.png

That part of Eve does look interesting. For a story called Oceans of Eve, so far, there hasn't been that much ocean. Chapter three is going to set this right.

Also, have a teaser image ...

I forgot to turn of star reflections for one scene. Please ignore them.

Edited December 7, 2014 by Tw1

[Tw1]

 

I give parts titles now. Titles are cool.

 

 

* * *

 

Dontop's Private chamber, Mun

Seetop: "Now, if you'll look at the screens, I've got something you should see."

Dontop: ....

Dontop: "This is perfect! Call a meeting right away"

 

 

* * *

 

Mt Venus, Eve.

 

[iNCOMING TRANSMISSION]

 

Gene (transmitted message): "This is KSC. Good morning Watsan."

As you'll recall, your support probe was originally bound for Laythe, then redirected when you decided to stick to your Eve landing plan."

(at this, Watsan rolled his eyes)

Gene: "Now, on board that probe, are several small landing packages. Fortunately, we built them with enough tolerance to operate in Evian conditions. Each consists of one wind power probe, and instruments for setting up remote weather stations. We want you to set them up as you travel across Eve. Attached are the control codes, I look forward to receiving the data.

Watsan: "Will do."

 

 

* * *

 

Prograde City, Science lab 03

Mallie: "I've been lookin into the dust samples, trying to work out what keeps going wrong with our soil synthesis. And I think I've found something."

Joefell: "Ooo, what is it?"

Mallie: "I'm not sure. Some sort of chemical. I'm still workin on extracting it, but it reminds me of Kethane."

"What do you think we should do about Dontop?

Joefell: "I'm not sure. We have policies for when a base director dies, retires, or is no longer fit to direct, but I'm not sure Dontop quite fits any of that."

Mallie: "Maybe if he'd agree to a medical check..."

Seebus: "I have to agree with you guys. Prograde City needs a proper leader."

Joefel: "Hi Seebus".

Seebus: "Also, meeting in room Room A in fifteen minutes."

 

 

* * *

 

Sixteen minutes later...

Room A, Prograde City main module.

Dontop: "Thank you everyone for coming so quickly. This may be Prograde City's greatest scientific opportunity yet. This asteroid, VSV-320, is a small, C class asteroid, which our tracking team has determined will impact the West Farside Crater in a proximately two weeks."

At this, a few kerbals up the back took the opportunity to look smug.

Dontop: This unusual occurrence will give us an opportunity to to to ....."

For a brief moment, Dontop looked like he'd lost his balance . Then Seetop quickly poked him in the side.

Dontop: "Ahhh oh ... To study how a crater forms up close. So, for the coming week and a half, we must get ready. We've got to contact munar outposts, design texperiments, build debris shields, and begin moving equipment to the impact site."

Seetop: "Now, we need to develope on a schedule for the mission, so we can all get out experiments ready in time.

 

 

* * *

 

In space, high over Eve.

As the support probe began the orbit which would pass over Evepod, one small, semi-autonomous probe detached from behind the shield.

 

I like to hum the Thunderbirds theme for this bit.

Operating on battery power, it turned, and with a small puff of thrust, moved itself away.

At the opposite side of the planet, the probe de-orbited, aiming for Mt Venus.

Streaking through the atmosphere, constant small adjustments kept the probe on course.

This took me about six goes, I recently installed FAR, was still mastering the aerodynamics.

Watsan was out, working on Evepod's wheels when he saw the parachute open.

It was coming down a few hundred meters to the west. Wastan waited, finishing up what he was doing,

Then drove over to inspect it.

Watsan (for mission log): "I have arrived at KSC's probe. It seems to be encased in a heatproof shell."

Watsan could not make out what instruments this probe had come with, everything was inside the casing. He'd have to look at the logged data later.

the attached type A standard container.

Adjusting the Evesuit's external microphone, Watsan could hear the faint whir of the probe's internal turbine, converting Eve's ever present winds into electricity.

Watsan: "Everything seems operational. I have collected the equipment package, and am returning to Evepod."

Watsan proceeded with caution- the package was not excessively heavy, but you can't be too careful, carrying things in almost twice kervin's gravity.

Watsan returned to Evepod, mounted the container on the storage rack, feed squishy, and settled down to sleep. Tomorrow, he'd start exploring the mountain.

 

 

* * *

 

Farside Canyon, Mun.

Bill: "Bob, we should go to the ridge top. I'd like to examine these craters from above.

Bob: "Alright."

Bob: "Wow.. I really don't get how something like this could possibly form!"

Bill: "Agreed. It's not the shape we'd expect for an impact at the base of the cliff."

Bob: " I mean just look at it! It perfectly matches the curve or the surrounding cliff! If this was kerbin, I'd look for tectonic movement, some sort of folding, but Milly's old study was pretty clear this canyon was an impact feature!"

Bill: "Bob. Do you think these craters could be an act of Squad?"

Bob: "Squad? As in the deity?"

Bill: "Yes."

Bob: "No, I don't believe a superpowered old man who lives in the stars. ."

Bill: "Squad is not a man. He's not even Kerbal. Squad is made of several persons. Besides, the fact that we've found artifacts not only on Kerbin, but on the Mun and Minmus, which bear His name should mean something."

Bob: "I don't know, I prefer the ancient aliens theory. Both might as well reasonable explanations for the crater phenomenon, given the bizarre data we've got so far."

 

 

* * *
(Author's note:  this scene may be deleted in future)

Bill: "Bob, do you have the list of landing sites? Could you tell me what's next?"

Bob: "OK. We're to check in with the base near here. Then the next one is. 0° 8' S, 136° 42' E."

Bill: "I recognise that. Retrograde crater, there's a fuel depot there."

Bob: "57° 39' N, 9° 9'E."

Bill: "Umm, Mack's pit, lowest point on the Mun? Odd choice..."

Bob: "18° 32' N, 49° 2' E. "

Bill: "Site of the first Mun landing? Hmm..."

Bob: "And 12° 27' N, 39° 11'' E."

Bill: "That's the arch near old Mun Base One. Right on the edge of the Northwest Crater. Might be interesting."

 

 

* * *

 

Mt Venus, Eve.

The clouds had come in thick, along with a rise in temperature, and according to the instruments, humidity. Visibility was still quite high, as Wastan prepared to set of.

He would be making use of an automated guidance system, enabling him to pre-set routes based on satellite data. This would leave him free to observe, except where manual intervention was necessary. He was quite impressed by how the route was shown on the helmet HUD.

Fancy computers. What will they do next?

He arrived at the south eastern ridge at dawn, pausing to watch the sunrise.

The mist brought back memories of his days climbing kerbins mountains. It looked bracingly cool.

The reality was quite different, but that didn't stop Watsan turning down his suit internal temperature, just a tiny bit.

At the western face, Watsan made several, three hour long EVAs to inspect the cliff face. The large slope of regolith between the exposed rock was an enigma. In higher gravity, the angle of repose (angle soil sits at) would logically be lower, yet here it was, sitting on a slope greater than one in one.

Digging about, Watsan began to suspect Eve's carbon-rich seas had a role to play here. A tar like residue seemed to glue the soil* particles together, giving the ground a consistency somewhere in between softfall and silly putty. Stay still for too long, and you'd start to sink in.

*technically not soil. But it's nicer to not have to always say "regolith".

The north face was a lot gentler, sloping down to the sea.

Here, Watsan noticed small channels, running parallel down the hills side, possibly rivulets, formed by some sort of precipitation event.

Watsan chose a small mound to be the first of his remote weather stations. After making sure the ground was firm, he planted a flag.

This will serve as both support and antenna.

Then, he brought out the box of parts, and bolted them on.

Watsan: "KSC, you have your first Eve weather station."

He looked around.

Watsan: "First weather report: cloudy, with a chance of boiling to death."

 

 

* * *

 

West Farside Crater, projected impact side

Dontop: "Today, we make history once again! First kerbals to witness a munar impact up close!"

Dontop: "Instruments, what's your status?"

Mallie: "Thermometers, seismometers, everything is lookin' good."

Dontop: "Cameras?"

Dudbus: "All set, on standby to record!"

Dontop: "Tracking?"

Edu kerman: "We have just received a visual from Mun Satellite 5. Asteroid 18 minutes from impact, and we now have 98% certainty it will land within 50 meters of the projected spot."

 

 

* * *

 

Edu: "Asteroid 6 minutes to impact. "

Dontop: "I want anything that is not critical, anything that could interfere with the fine instruments shut down. Life Support reprocessing, Long range coms, shut them all down."

Edu: "But sir, what if someone tries to contact us?"

Mallie: "We can remove any interference when we-"

Dontop: "DID YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID! Shut them DOWN."

Edu: "Yes sir! Right away!"

Mallie: "What's with the sudden angry outburst?"

Edu: "Two minutes to impact!"

Dontop: "Everyone at the ready! We need as much data, and as many samples as possible. Stay behind the shields until impact is over, and beware of falling ejecta!"

From behind their shields, (Or technically, while peeking over them,) the kerbals of the Mun base turned their eyes skyward....

 

 

Who would want to miss somthing like that?

 

Dontop: "Go! Go! Go!

 

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile:

Conference Room One, Admin building, KSC.

Gene: "... bringing us one step closer to completing our goal of manned landings on all known planets, inspiring the next generation of astronomers to dream of worlds beyond. With your sponsorship of our Jool mission..."

Suddenly-

BEEP-BEEP BEEP-BEEP BEEP-BEEP BEEP-BEEP

Mat Kerman(Integrated Integrals representative): "What was that?"

Gene: "Just a fire alarm. I'm sure it's nothing we should worry about."

Walt bursts in.

Gene: "Walt! You're late! And what's with the suit?"

Walt: "I'm sorry Gene, we've got to evacuate."

Gene: "It's just fire."

Walt: "This fire is in the storage facility. The crew were in the middle of storing recycled Lv-Ns. And that SRB shipment which ran late."

Elle Kerman: "Gene, as your legal advisor, I must remind you that in a the event that a fire becomes likely to trigger an explosion which would result in nuclear material being spread, the UN requires-"

 

Gene: "We evacuate all non-firefighting personnel from the complex. *sigh* Ladies and gentile kerbs, if you'll follow me, we must relocate. I know a place in town..."

Gene had a lot of confidence in his firefighting team. They'd get things under control, well, they'd better.

If they didn't, KSC would be set back by weeks. And need a lot of new paint and topsoil.

Mt Venus, Eve.

After a week of exploration, Watsan was ready to return to sea level. Here is a simulated image of the planned route down to the bay:

This route was carefully planned to avoid excessive bumps, and maintain a slope of less than one in three- Evepod's designed maximum.*

Thanks to the adjustments to the suspension, it performed admirably, only once did the journey need to be paused for wheel maintenance.

*Does not include safely margins.

As altitude fell, temperature, gravity, and air pressure all rose.

At the foot of the mountain, the mist was thinker than ever. Visibility extremely poor.

There was no guarantees driving in this weather. Watsan decided to call it a day, and went inside.

 

 

* * *

 

A few minutes later...

Inside the Evepod.

Watsan was settling down, and about to move to the science section for his daily medical tests, when he was noticed a status light change:

This is a mini airlock used for bringing equipment or samples out onto the deck, or exposing them to the air. Basically, it's the science jr. part on the front.

Odd. That shouldn't happen, those doors can only be operated from within the science lab, or from that would mean...

Oh no.

Watsan glanced at the jar. Empty.

Fearing the worst, he turned to the window..

 

 

Quickly, Watsan pulled on an Evesuit, grabbed a helmet, and set the airlock to cycle at maximum safe speed.

Once outside, he dashed around to the front, found Squishy still alive and twitching,

Quickly, and carefully prised Squishy off Evepod's scorching hot surface and pushed him through the hatch. He cycled the airlock,(with external controls,) activating the cleaning system on the slowest setting.

He got back inside as soon as he could, and began transmitting:

Watsan: "Watsan Kerman to Prograde City. Watsan Kerman to KSC. My... my pet has been exposed to the Eve atmosphere. Suffering from burns. Please contact Joefel kerman. Please advise. Urgent. Over."

He grabbed a weak, but still moving Squishy, placed him in the jar, and filled it with water. He waited for a reply.

Nothing.

Watsan: "Watsan Kerman to Prograde City. Watsan Kerman to KSC. Please advise. Urgent. Over."

...

Watsan: "Watsan Kerman to Prograde City. Watsan Kerman to KSC..."

 

 

 

* * *

 

Edited August 18, 2019 by Tw1

[LABHOUSE]

Yes!!! it is here.

Edited December 7, 2014 by LABHOUSE

[nicky4096]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! squishy!

*sniff* will squishy be okay?

great story though!

[RobotsAndSpaceships]

Excellent, I have been hoping for a long time to discover an asteroid thats on an impact course with the mun. Never have though.

[The Error]

KSC has a fire at the same time Prograde City shuts off comms?

:suspicous:

But hey, good chapter!

Poor Squishy D:

[Sylandro]

Oh jeez, not Squishy!

[Tw1]

Now I've done a few victory laps of the forum, finally updating this again, it is time to respond to comments.

This one needed the most image processing so far. (I might turn it down a bit, so I can make these in a more timely manner.)

Excellent, I have been hoping for a long time to discover an asteroid thats on an impact course with the mun. Never have though.

I have heard of it happening, but it is pretty rare. I must confess, I did end up cheating a bit to get the asteroid to do what I wanted.

I planed out the outline of the whole Chaper 2 at the beginning of the year, upgrases to the

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! squishy!*sniff* will squishy be okay?

KSC has a fire at the same time Prograde City shuts off comms?

:suspicous:

I know right? What an awful coincidence. Poor, poor Squishy.

I'm glad everyone's liking it, (It would be a lot of wasted time, otherwise. Then again, making these is fun.)

Will curiosity have killed the...whatever Squishy is?

(Will I have made up a name for that species? Actually, that's a yes.)

What's up with Dontop?

Does Jeb like archeology?

Find out the answers to, well, some of these questions maybe, next time, in the final part of Chapter Two!

Out maybe in February or March, but no guarantees.

Also, have an extra image or two, which I uploaded, but didn't end up using.

And also:

And that time I exported the gif backwards.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Tw1

[nicky4096]

is squishy a squisholite?

[megatiger78]

that squid thingy...... IS DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (by next part)

[nicky4096]

that squid thingy...... Is dead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (by next part)

not!

Squishy will live!

[Rolanvorxariat]

nooo.... squishy...

[Tw1]

OK, trying out things in 0.90.

Watsan's specialization is scientist. Seems right.

I'll have to be careful with those wheels though, might wait and see if some way to add the wheel repair skill to specific kerbals emerges.

Dontop and Seetop are engineers, Joefel and Mallie are also sceintists.

Looks like I got lucky, them and a few other important kerbals have all emerged with suitable roles. Perfect.

Also, I ran out of Christmas cards, but I found this strange, Prograde City branded postcard in a service station near KSC. So I stuck a sticker on, and wrote on it:

Uh, Merry Christmas!

Edited April 24, 2015 by Tw1

[The Error]

Feliz Navidad!

[megatiger78]

Feliz Navidad!

what? whatis a feliz navidad?

[Sirrobert]

what? whatis a feliz navidad?

It means marry cristmas

[DMSP]

Tw1, great work!

How did you make the asteroid impact?

And the crater too?

That is so cool!

-DMSP

[Tw1]

Tw1, great work!

How did you make the asteroid impact?

And the crater too?

That is so cool!

Thanks!

I animated the impact myself, using GIMP:

First, having set up the asteroid to land at a certain point, I made a kerbal look at that point, and activated the first person view from a mod I've got. Then I photographed the asteroid on the way down.

I looked at some artists' impressions of lunar impacts to get some idea of what it should look like. I set up everything in Gimp, and a folder to export frames to. Then I put everything together in a new Gimp image, made some more adjustments to achieve the lighting and shake effects, exported it, and uploaded one rather large GIF to Imgur.

The crater is also a special effect, edited in from a different part of the Mun

Also, an announcement:

I will get back to this eventually, but Life + Uni = busy. Also but in order to keep it possible to keep going, there must be some budget cuts dividends to make sure it is sustainable. This will probably come from reducing post production, editing, and part size. I'll still do the small things, and include what effects I need to properly tell the story, but try to be a little less perfectionistic about the whole process.

Also, if some one has a good stock-like IVA texture, could you please PM me, or send a link please?

[s[Oceans of Eve will return around late May.

As some photos have already been taken, I will not be using the new female kerbals until chapter three. Sorry, there have been more delays. I'l get it done at some point.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Tw1

[DMSP]

Yes, returning soon!

[flamerboy67664]

Thanks!

I animated the impact myself, using GIMP:

First, having set up the asteroid to land at a certain point, I made a kerbal look at that point, and activated the first person view from a mod I've got. Then I photographed the asteroid on the way down.

I looked at some artists' impressions of lunar impacts to get some idea of what it should look like. I set up everything in Gimp, and a folder to export frames to. Then I put everything together in a new Gimp image, made some more adjustments to achieve the lighting and shake effects, exported it, and uploaded one rather large GIF to Imgur.

The crater is also a special effect, edited in from a different part of the Mun

Also, an announcement:

I will get back to this eventually, but Life + Uni = busy. Also but in order to keep it possible to keep going, there must be some budget cuts dividends to make sure it is sustainable. This will probably come from reducing post production, editing, and part size. I'll still do the small things, and include what effects I need to properly tell the story, but try to be a little less perfectionistic about the whole process.

Also, if some one has a good stock-like IVA texture, could you please PM me, or send a link please?

Oceans of Eve will return around late May.

As some photos have already been taken, I will not be using the new female kerbals until chapter three.

Aaaaand it's now June.

Cheers, flamerboy67664/SpaceEagle

[The Error]

Sooooo....

What is up with Dontop?

[Tw1]

Aaaaand it's now June.

Yeah, it's been far too long. Life and uni were being sucky, and I needed to see other games for a while. But excuses/reasons aside, it's hight time this updated.

Depending on if I also decide to do an Apollo recreation this year, the next bit will be realised in 10 to 15 days.

Thank you for your patience.

There has been technical difficulties with the Bill Bob and Jeb segment. Currently working on an alternate solution. Please stand by.

Edited July 26, 2015 by Tw1