Visual Survey missions - more whimsy please

[manaiaK]

FYI - total noob here, both to KSP and to games in general. I love the whimsy shown in the part descriptions (best, the LV-1: "what is this, an engine for ants?") and I'd love to see more whimsy elsewhere in the game. So here's a suggestion for more whimsy in the missions.

I suppose this could be considered a request for more "realism", but in a direction orthogonal to most such requests.

The "visual survey of $BODY" missions are rather grindy, in part because they are so implausible. What interest could Flooyd or Ionic Protonic possibly have in a visual survey of some random part of the Kerbol system? Flooyd et al. make rocket parts; they aren't map-makers or otherwise interested in what's where. The mission sponsor kind of makes nonsense of the whole mission. I'd like to suggest a few alternative sponsors for visual survey missions.

As I see it, there are five organisations that could have an interest in visual surveys:-

• The Combined Churches of the Kraken.
  

Normally the

All-Kerbin Church of the Kraken

and

The Church of the Kraken for All Kerbin

are bitter rivals. However, they have a shared interest in, erm, "investigating reported manifestations of the Kraken" -- in reality, in disproving these reported manifestations, or destroying the evidence if it exists. For if kerbals can experience the Kraken directly, what need do they have of a church to intermediate for them? So the Churches want to be the first on the spot when there is a report of a Kraken's Egg, or the Kraken itself.

• The Kerbin Skeptics' Society.
  

Ordinarily well-balanced and sensible, this group of kerbals has an unfortunate bee in its collective bonnet about reported sightings of UFOs. Specifically, the all-too-common reports of aliens: giant brown or pink kerbals with inset eyes, a fleshy protuberance between the eyes and above the mouth, and with five-fingered hands on their arms. Thanks to an anonymous donor, the KSS has virtually unlimited amounts of money, and wants to spend some of it disproving sightings of "giant brown kerbals", GBKs, as it calls these aliens. There is enough irrationality in the world without dreaming up such crazy beings!

• The Followers of Velikovsky Kerman.
  

This group -- also funded rather too lavishly, by another anonymous donor -- is convinced that life exists, or existed, throughout the Kerbol system, and that every few thousand years the planets come into alignment, causing an almighty cataclysm and transfer of beings between worlds and moons by means of waterspouts. (Nobody say "Sharknado".) In between publishing tedious, ill-written and badly-made books on the subject, and haranguing passers-by, the Followers want to investigate reports of evidence of ancient waterspouts (on Kerbol) and life (on other bodies).

• The Ancient and Honorable Guild of Explorers, Cartographers and Astrolog - er, Astronomers [sic].
  

This long-established (well, as of last week) group just wants to be there first, and to make its mark on the map. Which it publishes. However, thanks to an ethical requirement drawn up in antiquity (last Krakensday), the Guild has to actually send someone to the places it wants to claim naming rights for. As cheaply as possible, mind you.

• The Kerbinic Reconnaissance Agency. Motto: "To boldly know (where everyone and everything is)!" The director of this agency, the charismatic and mono-maniac- .... highly focused J. Edgar Kerman, is convinced that in every place he cannot see, there are kerbals Up To No Good. So he wants to see what they are up to. Being so charismatic, he has no trouble obtaining funds from hypnotised elected officials, for whatever missions he dreams up.
  

Missions for groups such as these would be more plausible, if not more fun, than visual survey missions for StrutCo and Rockomax.

Science missions could also be sponsored by some of these bodies, and possibly one or two others: Krakenvard University, or The Scrimshaw and Lacemaking Society (founded a century ago, and now, through a chain of unlikely coincidences, the premier publisher of scientific journals on Kerbin, and no longer a society but a profit-making corporation).

----

No doubt this kind of thing has been suggested before, but it doesn't seem to be in WNTS or the alternative WNTS.

[Bill Phil]

More Corporations, right? Not a bad idea. Although, Survey contracts need to be improved on a bit anyways. That and the tech tree.

[Slam_Jones]

I like the combined Churches of the Kraken. Reminds me of Life of Brian with the bitter rivals with very similar names: "The People's Front of Judea", "Judean People's Front", "Judean Popular People's Front", and the "Popular Front of Judea" (which consists of a single old man)

[moogoob]

I like the Church references, too.