History Fanfic / TheNextFrontier

* TechnicianVersusPerformer: In a weird sort of way, Jeb and Bill. Bill's actually the better pilot, but Jeb is [[TheFaceOfTheBand The Face Of The Space Program]] because he's got a gift for showmanship.

* TranslatorMicrobes: Averted. The "universal translator" is a hybrid of quite ordinary speech-recognition software and the Kerbal equivalent of Google Translate, running on a laptop computer. The first exchange between the ''Starfarer 1'' and the IAV ''Fredericksson'' even contains a bit of {{Engrish}} because Jeb hasn't installed the latest version yet.

* ArtificialGravity: Lampshaded, played straight and invoked all at once. You know how it's a NecessaryWeasel trope here on 21st century Earth because simulating an aversion convincingly on screen is difficult and expensive, and shooting on location in space even more so? Well, the kerbals have much the same problem, and had presumed that the same applied to their new neighbours. Boy, were they surprised!

* SpaceElves: The kerbals have some elements of this, being a peaceful race of explorers, scientists and scholars with a deep connection to nature through the Kerm groves. ''Without'' being a smug MarySueTopia full of PerfectPacifistPeople, hopefully.

* PlugAndPlayTechnology: Averted, it takes several weeks and no small amount of effort on the part of the engineering teams on both ships to even display each other's text files.

* TimeSkip: The previous story ended with the announcement to the Alliance that aliens -specifically Kerbals- are real. This story starts with the asteroid Jessenstein established as an outpost of the government of Kerbin, multiple FTL-capable ships, a tourist industry, and many, many more Kerbals. [[ConservationOfNormality The novelty of all this has more or less worn off]].

* RealityEnsues: One problem of exploring another star system is that, well, the Kerbals have known about other planets and moons in their own system for hundreds of years, with scanning and probes being sent out to determine what's there. Another star system entirely... not as much. Jeb openly states that they're not going to know what's in the system after an hour and a half.

* HumansThroughAlienEyes: Downplayed what with NotSoDifferent being a big theme, but still played straight.

** HumansAreFlawed: Fortunately, [[NotSoDifferent so are the Kerbals.]]

* NotSoDifferent: Kerbals and humanity have a lot in common, good and bad alike.

And in case it wasn't obvious from the edit history, pretty much everything on this page is WordOfGod. [[NeedsWikiMagicLove Who'd appreciate a bit of help, by the way...]]

!! Tropes found in Beyond the Next Frontier include:

''The Next Frontier'' is a ''VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram'' fanfiction -- crossed over with [[spoiler:''Series/{{Firefly}}'']] -- by a guy who prefers to be known as "Jake Grey", or sometimes just "Tropers/{{Jake}}" (author of ''Fanfic/DoingItRightThisTime''). It's now complete and can be found [[http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=159483 here]], [[http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-next-frontier-ksp-something.266217/ here]], [[http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/cross-post-the-next-frontier-kerbal-space-program-spoiler-redacted.869/ here]] or [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069433 here]].[[note]]It ''used'' to be on the official ''Kerbal Space Program'' forums too, but the mods declared it HarmfulToMinors.[[/note]] It borrows a lot of worldbuilding and setting details from ''FirstFlight'' (with the enthusiastic consent of its author), and while it can be understood without, reading it first is strongly recommended.

''The Next Frontier'' is a ''VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram'' fanfiction -- crossed over with [[spoiler:''Series/{{Firefly}}'']] -- by a guy who prefers to be known as "Jake Grey", or sometimes just "Tropers/{{Jake}}" (autor of ''Fanfic/DoingItRightThisTime''). It's now complete and can be found [[http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=159483 here]], [[http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-next-frontier-ksp-something.266217/ here]], [[http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/cross-post-the-next-frontier-kerbal-space-program-spoiler-redacted.869/ here]] or [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069433 here]].[[note]]It ''used'' to be on the official ''Kerbal Space Program'' forums too, but the mods declared it HarmfulToMinors.[[/note]]

--> '''Scott''': "You've got to admire these people. They've been through such a cataclysmic catalogue of awful shit they're practically [[PlanetOfHats a whole race]] of [[UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist unsympathetic sitcom protagonists]], a fair bit of which they've done to themselves I might add. But not only are they still here, they've built themselves a thriving interplanetary empire! And an empire that hasn't destroyed itself in an orgy of blood, violence and fire despite apparently being run by a committee stuffed with cartoon supervillains, opportunistic plunderers and total cretins. I don't know how they do it!"
--> '''Bill''': "I'm pretty sure that was a little bit racist."
--> '''Scott''': "I dare say. But that doesn't mean it's not true."

** Recently put into a somewhat different context by an update to ''First Flight'' which reveals that the RT-5 "Trashcan" Solid Rocket Boosters have a craft beer named after them. Which RT-5 was involved in naming the incident? WordOfGod says: [[AscendedFanon "Let's go with both."]].

* InMemorium: InUniverse, The Kerbal Government wishes to name a star after the Alliance Scientist from the Miranda Broadcast.

** Some of the Schizo Tech is justified- it's a lot easier to make something simple and durable, especially when the nearest parts store is several ''light years'' behind you. Cramming the ship full of the latest gadgets and gizmos that no one knows how to fix would be courting disaster.

* SharedUniverse: The story acts as a kind of FullyAbsorbedFinale to [[http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/33400-First-Flight KSK's "First Flight"]], albeit in BroadStrokes.

* NoSuchThingAsAlienPopCulture: We at least get to see that Bob's little sibling is what a person of earth would call a "tumblrina," so Kerbals at least have social media.

* AliensStealCable[=/=]LearnedEnglishFromWatchingTelevision: A rare, possibly unique PerspectiveFlip, as we get to see the process from the point of view of the aliens.

* FirstContactMath: Discussed briefly in Act 1, but ultimately averted. At interstellar distances they're almost certainly useless, and once the Kerbals are at inter''planetary'' distances they [[LearnedEnglishFromWatchingTelevision found an easier method.]]
* FirstContactTeam: Played with; the [[VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram Kerbals]] can't send a full team of anthropologists, linguists and so on along on their first interstellar mission because the ship just isn't big enough, but thanks to the [[SubspaceAnsible FTL communications system]] they have the anthropology and linguistics departments of every university on Kerbin and Duna for MissionControl. The actual in-person contact team are three veteran astronauts, one engineer who helped create the AlcubierreDrive and one skilled CommunicationsOfficer who's supposed to [[AliensStealCable scan for radio and TV signals]] [[LearnedEnglishFromWatchingTelevision so they can start picking up the language]] if they ''do'' find some aliens.

* DeadmanSwitch: It turns out that Blue Sun build these into those nasty little sonic weapons of theirs, which the good guys use to their advantage at the climax.

* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: The cutting edge of Kerbal laser weaponry is basically about where 21st century Earth is; it can reliably shoot down a missile but as an offensive weapon it's pretty worthless.

* NoBiochemicalBarriers: Played with Humans and Kerbals can eat each other's food, but humans need different nutrition than Kerbals. Mention is made that Christopher is going to need to take supplimental pills if he is going to live in Kerbal Space. There's also mention of need for Antacids for the Kerbals to eat some types of human food.

* UnCoffee: Averted, Kerbals drink "something it is conviniebt to call 'coffee,'" on the grounds (pun not intended) that it's black, hot, and has caffeine in it.

* MythologyGag: When he first meets Mal and Jayne, he mentions that there was talk of erecting a statue of the crew of the ''Serenity.'' Mal and Jayne look uncomfortable at that, most likely remembering the episode "Jaynestown."

* TimeSkip: The previous story ended with the announcement to the Alliance that aliens- specifically Kerbals- are real. This story starts with the asteroid Jessenstein established as an outpost of the government of Kerbin, multiple FTL-capable ships, a tourist industry, and many, many more Kerbals.

''The Next Frontier'' is a ''VideoGame/KerbalSpaceProgram'' fanfiction -- crossed over with ''something'', but that'd be a spoiler -- by a guy who prefers to be known as "Jake Grey", or sometimes just "Tropers/{{Jake}}" (autor of ''Fanfic/DoingItRightThisTime''). It's now complete and can be found [[http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=159483 here]], [[http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-next-frontier-ksp-something.266217/ here]], [[http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/cross-post-the-next-frontier-kerbal-space-program-spoiler-redacted.869/ here]] or [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069433 here]].[[note]]It ''used'' to be on the official ''Kerbal Space Program'' forums too, but the mods declared it HarmfulToMinors.[[/note]]

* NegativeSpaceWedgie: The [[AscendedMeme Deep Space Kraken]] turns out to be one of these. It's also the key to faster-than-light travel: The Kerbals gained FTL drives by firing probes repeatedly into it, then took the data they got from the returned probes and cobbled together a drive based on that. Even ''they'' don't completely understand how it works yet.

** Justified in the story, as they note that this is an interstellar starship- namely, their ''only'' one. It's better to have parts that are durable and easy to fix than highly finicky and require spare parts... that are several light years away.