Kerbal Powers Forums

    
     NEW COMBERTH; 2211 - Signals received by Munar observatories are confirmed to originate from the Exodus interstellar colony approaching the Debdeb system, indicating the mission’s successful arrival at Kerbol’s nearest neighbor after departing in 2099 and travelling at 0.04c for a century; the Exodus Arrival was immediately met with ecstatic fervor by the Solari diaspora, Systems Commonwealth, and Kerbalkind as a whole, as the worlds anticipate new information on the Debdeb system in the coming months and years.
    
     In the late 21st century, as Kerbin persevered through the Shattering and the sequence of perpetual warfare which followed, the Solari Consensus announced the Exodus Program - in cooperation with the UIF after the System War, a multi-generational O’Neill Cylinder starship was constructed to transport 10,000 colonists to Debdeb, the nearest star system to Kerbol, at a fraction of the speed of light. Powered by an Orion pulse engine, and fueled by Helium-3 skimmed from the atmosphere of Jool and Munar regolith, the Exodus fired its engine in 2099, leaving Kerbol’s sphere of influence in 2100. Its majority Solarian colonists were also accompanied by a complement of Aenian settlers, invited by the Consensus after victory in the System War, while the Mechani citizens of the former Solani Commonwealth remained in the Jool system.
    

Refined footage from a message received from the Exodus to the Munar Far Side Obversatory, depicting the cylindrical habitat approaching the outer Debdeb system; the distances involved mean the broadcasts were dispatched to the Mun four years prior, and the Exodus has since made planetfall.
    
     The Exodus, designed for a hypothetical top speed of 4.5% the speed of light, was estimated to travel the 3.9-lightyear distance to the Debdeb system in 97 years. As it accelerated outbound, the ship went dark, and it was estimated to complete its burn in the mid-2110s, coasting through space for another eighty years, before starting its deceleration burn in the 2180s. The Debdeb system was chosen due to its proximity to Kerbol, and potential for habitable exoplanets in the star’s circumstellar zone. Though SysCom astronomers kept careful observations of Debdeb for signs of success, the ultimate fate of the Exodus mission has remained a mystery for several decades.
    
     The administrator of the Imperial Stellar Exploration Agency, ISEA, has since announced that, starting several years ago, astrophysicists at the Munar Far Side Observatory had begun to pick up anomalous signals from the direction of Debdeb which have exponentially grown in frequency and scale. The scientists in the Mare Séverin quickly solved the puzzle of the “Holst Line” as signal broadcasts from the Exodus - precision signals, dispatched to Kerbin in high-frequency bursts, to denote their arrival in the system. Redshift in the frequency of the arriving signals led the astrophysicists to conclude the ship was decelerating successfully, and from the exact wavelengths, that the Exodus very nearly reached its hypothetical top speed, culminating more closely at 4% the speed of light, for an arrival shortly after 2200.
    

Infographic from ISEA’s Applied Physics Laboratory on the voyage of the Exodus. Shielded by a magnetic deflector for micro-debris, the 10,000 colonists of the Exodus propelled through space for a century by nuclear pulse propulsion, burning through thousands of tons of Helium-3 and deuterium fuel.
    
     Debdeb is a young K-class star, still surrounded by a planetary disk; despite this, astronomers have predicted the existence of five exoplanets in the system. The farthest, Debdeb-E, also known as Dorau, is a gas giant. Debdeb-C and -D, meanwhile, are estimated to be within the circumstellar zone of the infant star. Of these, Debdeb-C, or Gurdamma, is comparable in size to Kerbin, and estimated to be the most habitable exoplanet in the system, potentially holding liquid water on the surface.
    
     The announcement came as a shock to the Kerbol system, especially the Solari diaspora within the UIF, who have long viewed the Exodus as a culmination of their nation’s struggle and pioneering ethos. The UIF and Systems Commonwealth, likewise, is comparably elated at the prospect of some thousand Aenian settlers accompanying their Solari allies, to be among the first Kerbals to set foot on the worlds of a new star. The success of the Exodus, and confirmation of planetfall in the coming years, stands at the precipice of being the crowning achievement in the collaboration of science and industry in the history of all Kerbalkind, comparable only to the first spacefaring missions to leave the bonds of Kerbin’s gravity, if anything at all.

The SEA government requests to send a transmission to their brothers arriving to the new system, hoping to reconnect with their distant relatives and provide them with news of what has occurred in the past few decades.

If one views the inside of this habitat as its own small nation, it is seven years older than Sahrland.

Though ravaged by budget cuts in the past decade, the Ministry of Extraplanetary Affairs, (formerly the Orion Space Force) sends a congratulatory message to our friends in the IESA and Systems Commonwealth as a whole.

“A truly remarkable achievement to be celebrated by all kerbalkind, and a step towards uniting around something greater than any individual nation.

This news has put a rare smile on my face and is a much needed reminder of the incredible achievement the species is capable of after the horrors of the most recent conflict”

-Emperor Aurelian I of the Imperial Union

In a remarkably incisive statement, Lin Tanaka, Prime Minister of Fegeland, addresses his congratulations to the UIF.

In such a founding moment of Kerbal history, I believe Namresh Tahura would have been the proudest to open this speech in grandiose congratulations about the profound meaning of exploration and the intrinsic beauty of a certain spirit of adventure inherent to our race. Some here will do with the usual remarks that the coasts of the Central Sea had not awaited for the well-acknowledged Sahren ideologists to come up with their own, Feguanesian-born version of Ascentionnism before it was popular. But we must part away from those reactionary voices. Would the Tahuraists been made from the true flesh and ambitions of a true conqueror like their Solari and Aenian brothers that they wouldn't have been forgotten by History! The Way of the Tahura is nothing more than a relic nowadays, one from an era of idealism. But I stand here not as a daydreamer! Our Government has been put in charge of this nation by the will of a people aspiring for concrete matters ; and my duty to their choice here is to remain pragmatic. I will not hop on the bandwagon of announcing some kind of Feguan comeback to the stars, surfing on the hype of the success of others like was customary of my predecessors. We here in the great democratic nation of Fegeland, choose Kerbin over the mirages of the far.

Nonetheless, the achievements of the UIF on this day deserve of us a just appreciation. It would be reactionary of us to ignore the century-shifting impact of such an accomplishment, and the deeper grandeur, purest honor of such an endeavour. So, bear with me for a minute as I cite one of Namresh Tahura's last and most revered quotes of the late 22nd century :

"I'm sure you once laid your eyes upon the infinity above us, and I'm sure you once dreamed of distant worlds and forgotten paradises. Maybe you too had children, and maybe you too once rose your arm at the stars and pointed them the Milky Way, the Great Bear, and the myriads of stars up there, infinite realms of our dreams.Maybe you once sat with them on a rock by the seaside, contemplating the sun diving behind the seas, and maybe you saw that diamond in their eyes, the shine of dreams and wonders ; and the most precious of all diamonds in this world."

In this day, more than any other, let it be known, between all of us no matter how far, that you are infinitely precious, sons of the stars. Don't waste your lives. Fair winds and fortune !

--Lin Tanaka