How to get to new worlds: featuring MLP:FIM and KSP
"Hey Jeb! How long until lift off?" Bob Kerman asked his friend. "Hmm..." Jebediah said quizzed about the new reduced in priced alarm clock, "in about a minute or something like that." In the background to all of this Bill was sitting next to a command console of the new SSTO the R&D facility had just finished developing. "Launch to Warp station in T minus 30 seconds" a muffled voice said through the radio of the new radio. "Read you loud and clear Destop!" Jeb shouted down the radio. "Good, by the way the station has a detachable base you can take down to this unexplored planet, and make sure you keep high levels of kethane in your tanks, this planet might have a higher gravity than Kerbin's." said Destop through the radio. "Got it" Jeb answered back to Destop in the Space Plane Hangar's control tower. "Ok Destop, pre flight checks engaged. Fuel 100%, Oxygen 100%, RCS Fuel 100% and-" Jeb was interrupted by Bob shouting extremely loudly "SNACKS 100%!"
The jet engines started up and the craft started to lurch forward on its wheels. "Disingaging breaks in 3, 2, 1, MARK!" The SSTO Explorer shot forward with a huge amount of G-Force and the gigantic plane started to liftoff of the runway and the landing gear started folding away under the heat-proof hull of the ship. "We have liftoff on the first endeavour of the SSTO Explorer heading to a new exoplanet on the outer reaches of our galaxy." Jeb implied to Destop. "Ok, Jeb when we reach 12,000m above sea level we switch to our rocket engines and then rendezvous with the warp station ok." Bill explained to Jeb, "ok then, how long until we're supposed to dock up with the warp station?" Jeb asked while piloting the craft. "Umm... 3 hours from... Now, at an altitude of 100km over Kerbin." Bill responded.
As the crew hit 12,000m the rocket engines roared to life giving the ship a sudden burst of acceleration, the ship began to climb higher and higher into the atmosphere. "How long do we have to burn for to get our orbit right?" Bob asked because he was bored. "34 seconds from now." Bill explained. Bob was annoyed with the KSC in their decision to send bob up as a scientist, so he wasn't allowed by protocol to fly any space craft, only atmospheric planes and rovers. Jeb suddenly turned off the engines and the cockpit was filled with silence. "Ok gentlemen, we will be rendezvousing with the warp station in about 10 minutes, so get ready to transfer onto the station, and make sure we don't screw about because if we do, we may miss our chance and have to go around Kerbin before we would get another shot at it, understand." Jeb said with a military leaders voice in mind. "Ok Jeb, just gonna grab a snack first." Bob replied
The warp station was in sight and it was much larger than any of the Kerbal's had expected. "Whoa!" Exclaimed Bob, "it's huge!" "That's what she said!" Snorted Jeb and all of the crew had a brief chuckle before the docking sequence began. "Jeb, Kerbin to Jeb, do you read me?" Destop asked, "we read you loud and clear, Over." Said Jeb in response. "Ok you are free to dock up with the Warp station, notify me of any problems you encounter,over." Destop explained to Jeb "ok, got it" responded Jeb.
The RCS thrusters came to life as Jeb kept constantly tweaking the course of the ship to make sure nothing was damaged, the ship started to slot into place and the electromagnetic docking ports came to life, the ship grinded against the ports as it was locking in place. "Locked" Shouted Bill. "Great ok crew I'm going to be turning on the exterior lights of the station so we can get a better look at it before we move inside." Jeb explained to his triumphant crew. Lights on all sides of the ship lit up and every feature of the station was visible. It was a white hollow cylinder that had engines on exterior panels on the sides of the ship. "According to the owners manual kept in the SSTO's glove compartment," Bill explained, "this gravity rolls meaning we can create artificial gravity inside. It says here to start rolling it now before we enter the ship using the warp stations RCS thrusters to achieve this." "Ok, how do we know when we're spinning fast enough?" Asked Jeb "It will come up on the dashboard when 1.0g is achieved by the station." Bill replied. Instantly Jeb started rolling the ship and slowly he could feel gravity acting on him. "1.0g reached." Bill shouted to Jeb. "Got it" said Jeb as he left the controls alone.
The crew unbuckled from their seats and climbed down the ladder leading to the station. It was a very large station and to be honest, a highly dizzying one too. Jeb read some signs on the doors of the station, they said things like: airlock, habitation, kitchen, lounge, gym, Ground base and finally the cockpit. "Ok guys, we've got to buckle up and get ready for interstellar transfer, the transfer is in about 5 minutes, so get ready." Jeb told his two fellow Kerbals. "Gotcha" said Bob and Bill at the same time. They all buckled up and the ship started to whirr as the dark matter was being fed into the into the particle accelerators. "On my mark" shouted Bill to Jeb, "MARK" the station shot off in a flash of white light, millions upon millions of blurred stars shot passed the station as its intergalactic voyage was almost finished, the warp engines fired retrograde and the station was orbiting a planet similar to Kerbin. "Have we gone round in a circle?!!?" Bob shouted. Bill looked at the console of the ship and pressed the 'scan area' button. The station had a screen which said in big red letters 'SCANNING'. "Ok just wait a minute and we will find out where we are and Jeb are we in an orbit around the planet?" Bill asked. "Hold on." Jeb said, waiting for a holographic display of the planet coming up. "Looks like we have an orbit of 120km, we should notify the KSC anyway." Bill then screamed with joy. "Holy Kerbals, it's not Kerbin, but the scan says there are a lot of settlements on the surface, we should land near one and investigate." "Agreed" responded Bob. "If we are landing, shouldn't we land the base so we can live down there?" Jeb the responded saying "Of course you biscuit, that was the mission, remember. Anyways we should get some sleep, we want to be full of energy before landing so if there is life on that planet we make a good first impression." Bob then accused Jeb of being an even bigger biscuit. "What do you mean IF there is life, how could there be settlements without life you stupid biscuit." Jeb thought about this for a second and then simply said "Disease or something like that." To be honest Jebediah did make a good point, there were still caves from the cave Kerbal period and besides, none of them knew how 'in tact' the settlements were.
Luna was worried, very worried, she had sensed with her magic an unwanted presence in her star system. "It's those dastardly Pegasi again, for ponies sake they annoy me." Luna thought, she had sensed the anomaly but never saw it, so she could never be sure what it really was, well not this moment in time anyway. Her senses suddenly told her that this 'thing' was coming over the horizon. She opened the doors to the balcony of the castle and walked out to take a look. It was an extremely tiny star that moved slowly across the sky, she couldn't make out any of the actual details of this thing, Luna decided to scurry over to the telescope perched on the edge of the balcony to take a close look. "The pony that has done this to my stars will be punished for messing up my beautiful night, stars moving about themselves, that's terrible, next it will be the moon moving itself." She whispered to herself as she pointed her telescope towards the moving star. As it focused she could see a few details, it was round, it illuminated itself, it pushes itself using no magic at all and it's magic resistant. As soon as Luna had figured it was magic resistant she was halfway to princess Celestia's bed chamber. She flung open the doors finding Celestia drinking a cup of coffee and reading some of the letters from her student in ponyville. "TIAAAAA!" Luna shrieked at her older sister who had spilled her cup of coffee due to the volume of the shout. "For goodness sake Luna, your not exactly the dragon born, you don't need to shout that loud" Celestia moaned as she cleaned herself up from the spilled coffee. "What's on your mind Luna?" Celestia asked in her calming voice. "There's an artificial star that is magic proof, it is also moving by itself and creates its own light, it has to be aliens!" Luna exclaimed. Celestia replied saying, "There's nothing beyond the stars, every pony knows that." "But Tia, what happens if your wrong, could equestria be in danger?" Luna asked. "I highly doubt it." Celestia replied "anyway I need sleep or the sun will rise late, goodnight Luna" they hugged and Luna went off highly puzzled about the situation, "what if equestria is in danger" she thought
Back on the warp station all the Kerbals on the station were having breakfast, mainly high energy snacks and a bit of 'red kerbal' energy drink. "You know" Jeb said "were gonna have to stop spinning and then split up so we can land in the planet without failure, so you two will land the base and I will fly in the SSTO, correct?." "Yeah" answered bob, "but we need a landing site." Bill then added "guys come over to this window, that plain area between two settlements looks good, there's a river, some trees and a road." "Looks good to me, lets go," said Jeb. "Bill you need to burn retro grade for about 10 seconds at maximum thrust while I pilot the SSTO the same way." "What do you mean 'the same way'?" Asked Bill. "It means I'll follow the same route down to the surface as you." Jeb answered. The noble Kerbals walked to the docking ports, Bob and Bill climbed into the base which contained a rover, some science equipment and habitation for 6 Kerbals so definitely plenty of room for them, Jeb climbed into the SSTO and strapped in. "Slowing gravity roll in 3, 2, 1, mark" Jeb said into the radio. "This never gets old" Jeb thought as he felt completely weightless in the station. "Ok guys get ready to undock."
The airlocks closed and the two crafts slowly burned retrograde, once they were out of the station the two ships burned incredibly hard until they're orbit was a straight line heading towards the planned landing site, the Kerbals started falling towards the unknown planet at an incredible rate, the crafts hit the early morning atmosphere and started burning up, a trail of smoke and bits of ice came off of the space plane and base. The two ships started to slow down as they were burning. "12000m" thought Jeb, he turned on his jet engines to maximum thrust output. Jeb pulled up as hard as he could, he felt the G-force literally ripping his face off.
Luna and Celestia were on the highest balcony in the entire castle, looking at the orange glowy things in the sky. "this was the false star." Luna said, "there's something unnatural about it." Celestia and Luna saw one stop turning orange as it started gliding towards Canterlot. "What is that?" Celestia Shrieked. The SSTO was being flown expertly by Jeb but the problem was turning 190 degrees around before hitting Canterlot. Celestia quickly teleported down to the ground below canterlot waiting for the sound of exploding stone an magical flying machine, but the sound never came Jeb had managed by the skin of his teeth to miss the walls of canterlot by about an inch, and that was no exaggeration. "That was too close to even remotely think that was possible without using magic or anything like that." Exclaimed Celestia. Luna and her older sister took flight and followed the no magic flying thing.
Rainbow dash was having a nap until a loud noise made her ears twitch, she opened her eyes to see a gigantic flying thing above her head. The noise this thing was producing was so much it almost destroyed cloudsdales structure due to it being built out of clouds. Rainbow immediately took flight to track down this villainous flying thing she was joined by Celestia and Luna following close behind the flying piece of metal it started to descend and wheels suddenly popped out of the machines hull it started to slow and then it touched the ground. All 3 of the ponies were confused about why the craft had landed. "Why would it stop here, out of all the places why here?" Rainbow asked the princesses. "We have as much idea as you Rainbow Dash." Celestia replied.
Jeb landed the SSTO Explorer next to the newly founded KSP base 142, as Jeb left the craft he saw Bob planting a flag which said in large bold writing 'BOB RULES!' Jeb could only face palm at this completely idiotic statement, Bill appeared out of the base and placed the actual KSP flag next to Bobs stupid one, Jeb then planted his own which said KSP, sponsored by C9 Aerospace. "How's the base?" Jeb asked Bill who was opening some of the solar panels on the roof of the base. "The base is great, were full on oxygen, water and snacks, and we have our own bedrooms and we also have a science lab!" Bill replied excitedly. "That's great, is the air safe to breathe?" Jeb asked Bob who was taking some surface samples. "I don't know, check the computer, it might of finished testing the air for the right gases." Jeb ran over to the computer, he had his hopes up, he hated the EVA suits so much he was hoping he could burn it from existence. 'Test Complete' popped up on the screen, Jeb hurriedly mashed the keyboard to show the results Oxygen 25%, Cabon Dioxide. 0.03%, nitrogen 70%. Jebs heart skipped a beat, it was incredibly similar to Kerbin's, he twisted his helmet and lifted it off his head and let the fresh air flow into his lungs. "Ahhhh..." Said Jeb, he took the rest of his suit off and put on some 'all-star' shoes, blue jeans and a red shirt, he found a deck chair and some sunglasses in his room. Jebediah walked out to where the flags were, he unfolded his chair and sat down and admired the planets sunlight, he had never been so relaxed in his life, he loved just to be able to sit back and stretch his muscles out. Bob came over and took his helmet off, he ran to his room and plonked his deck chair next to Jeb's, Bill shortly followed and they were all just sitting relaxing in the beautiful sunlight. "This is great isn't it?" Bill said, "totally Jeb replied.
Celestia, Luna and Rainbow dash were heading towards the landing site it was right on the edge of the white tail woods, next to a road and river, Celestia admitted, they picked a pretty good spot, that's for sure. The 3 ponies started to circle down to where the alien base was. They landed next to three different flags behind 3 occupied deck chairs. "They're definatly aliens." Luna whispered.
Bob nudged Jeb and Bill, "I think I heard something, something behind us." Bob stood up to see 3 angry horses standing in front of him. He immediately started laughing at them and rolling around on the ground hitting it with his fist it was so funny to him, he stood up and pointed and laughed, Jeb and Bill stood up an they started laughing, you have to admit seeing 3 ponys with mascara and makeup on looking angrily at you must be pretty funny. The 3 aliens collected themselves up of the ground. Bob needed to wipe a tear from his eye he was laughing so hard. The 3 horses immediately jumped up and pinned all three to the floor in anger. The only this Jeb said was "hello?" Immediately Celestia relised something. "You speak equestrian?" Jeb replied "no, we speak kerbalish...?" Jeb said highly nervous, Celestia immediately stopped pinning Jeb to the ground. "Get up." Jeb got up onto his feet and asked if his friends could be released. Bill and Bob got up and said hello to the mares that had just released them off the ground. All the Kerbals immediately sprinted towards the rover, they got in it and drove off towards the road and along towards one of the settlements but before they got close Luna, Rainbow and Celestia got in their way, "Quick, drive through the river. The rovers suspension took a pounding as the Kerbals sped along to the settlement. "Goodness that was weird, these people need to tame their wildlife a bit!" Shouted Bob. "I know, that was ridiculous" replied Jeb.
