The Storyline Mystery

[TheBomb343]

As few or many may know there was a storyline planned. Although deleted evidence remains. Long ago at the SSTV Pyramid (66°3's 160°54'W) There was a ringing sound. Decoding gives you an image of 4 stickmen on a surface with wierd things. The most important is a grey ball (Believed to be the Magic Boulder) and a arrow leading to a hill formation. What does this mean? Is there any more information pointing to the story mode? NovaSilsko started the story but left development so lots were scrapped. Please post theories 

and proof below.

Edited August 20, 2016 by TheBomb343

[Crocket]

There was an announcement somewhere by Squad, but I can't seem to find it...

[HoloYolo]

It's a shame NovaSilsko left, the story/easter egg/whatever would've been cool to do/have.

[TheBomb343]

Why did he leave in the first place?

[GoSlash27]

IIRC...

Spoiler

All of the clues were supposed to eventually lead back to the Kerbals' true home planet which was frozen and desolate. Discovering it would unlock new technology, including a hyperdrive.

But of course none of this was ever implemented, so now we just have the leftover clues as easter eggs.

 

Best,
-Slashy

[HoloYolo]

22 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

IIRC...

  Reveal hidden contents

All of the clues were supposed to eventually lead back to the Kerbals' true home planet which was frozen and desolate. Discovering it would unlock new technology, including a hyperdrive.

But of course none of this was ever implemented, so now we just have the leftover clues as easter eggs.

 

Best,
-Slashy

Would've been awesome to have ingame.

[GoSlash27]

Ah, here it is. NovaSilsko's comments on the subject:

 

Spoiler

 

The "plan", for a narrative loosely connecting easter eggs, as was originally imagined by me, was that a long, long time ago, a precursor civilization to the Kerbals had lived in the same solar system. This is evidenced by the face on Duna, the SSTV signal, Vallhenge, the Monoliths, etc.

 

Their home planet, however, was lost due to a severe miscalculation of the parameters of their interstellar travel system (maybe the player could've gotten their hands on the tech, but that's a bit of a lame way to acquire interstellar travel, being forced to jump through a bunch of hoops and calculate a bunch of stuff...), which resulted in the whole planet being placed in an extremely distant orbit around the sun, where it quickly froze and died. The rapidly dwindling population of survivors managed to launch numerous monoliths across the system, in hopes of seeding intelligent life.

 

Their plan failed. They made Kerbals.

 

This planet would not be visible in the map view, or discoverable through any telescope. To find it would require the player to locate several SSTV signals (these and the monuments were the equivalent of what flags are today for Kerbals - a "look, we were here") around the system. Each signal would normally contain a complete list of orbital parameters for the home planet, but over millions of years of degradation, only a snippet would remain.

 

Once the orbital elements of the planet had been found after decoding and analyzing enough signals, its current position could be calculated with reasonable accuracy, and a mission sent out. Once found, the planet would reveal itself as just a bit smaller than Kerbin, covered in frozen cities, abandoned monuments, oceans frozen solid, and an atmosphere long lost to the depths of space. This far out, the sun might even not light up the world too much, leaving it in a perpetual state of twilight. A very, very, very unusual and alien world.

 

On the subject of the first SSTV signal - it depicts four precursor critters standing by their monument, their home planet, and the symbol of the planet's world government, a universal sign of peace and exploration. A number would have been added later on, as Duna's contribution to the orbital solution.

 

Of course, this whole "plan" never really left my head, apart from a few brief teasings that I had a plan! I believe this is the first time I've ever really talked about the full extent of the ideas for a sort of narrative behind the easter eggs (although IIRC I may have touched upon it in past forum posts, like the idea of the monoliths failing and creating kerbals instead of proper intelligent life). Maybe one day I'll resurrect this plan, maybe as part of Alternis, or even in a different game.

 

Time will tell.

 

Best,
-Slashy

[HoloYolo]

4 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

Ah, here it is. NovaSilsko's comments on the subject:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The "plan", for a narrative loosely connecting easter eggs, as was originally imagined by me, was that a long, long time ago, a precursor civilization to the Kerbals had lived in the same solar system. This is evidenced by the face on Duna, the SSTV signal, Vallhenge, the Monoliths, etc.

 

Their home planet, however, was lost due to a severe miscalculation of the parameters of their interstellar travel system (maybe the player could've gotten their hands on the tech, but that's a bit of a lame way to acquire interstellar travel, being forced to jump through a bunch of hoops and calculate a bunch of stuff...), which resulted in the whole planet being placed in an extremely distant orbit around the sun, where it quickly froze and died. The rapidly dwindling population of survivors managed to launch numerous monoliths across the system, in hopes of seeding intelligent life.

 

Their plan failed. They made Kerbals.

 

This planet would not be visible in the map view, or discoverable through any telescope. To find it would require the player to locate several SSTV signals (these and the monuments were the equivalent of what flags are today for Kerbals - a "look, we were here") around the system. Each signal would normally contain a complete list of orbital parameters for the home planet, but over millions of years of degradation, only a snippet would remain.

 

Once the orbital elements of the planet had been found after decoding and analyzing enough signals, its current position could be calculated with reasonable accuracy, and a mission sent out. Once found, the planet would reveal itself as just a bit smaller than Kerbin, covered in frozen cities, abandoned monuments, oceans frozen solid, and an atmosphere long lost to the depths of space. This far out, the sun might even not light up the world too much, leaving it in a perpetual state of twilight. A very, very, very unusual and alien world.

 

On the subject of the first SSTV signal - it depicts four precursor critters standing by their monument, their home planet, and the symbol of the planet's world government, a universal sign of peace and exploration. A number would have been added later on, as Duna's contribution to the orbital solution.

 

Of course, this whole "plan" never really left my head, apart from a few brief teasings that I had a plan! I believe this is the first time I've ever really talked about the full extent of the ideas for a sort of narrative behind the easter eggs (although IIRC I may have touched upon it in past forum posts, like the idea of the monoliths failing and creating kerbals instead of proper intelligent life). Maybe one day I'll resurrect this plan, maybe as part of Alternis, or even in a different game.

 

Time will tell.

 

Best,
-Slashy

Sounds cool.

[ZooNamedGames]

Hm. Would be cool if we found out that the Kerbol system was in fact created by the Magrotheans and once the economic collapse occurred all races abandoned this star system and moved elsewhere leaving it as it is now.

Explaining why the planets have above average densities and why the Kerbals are the only life forms- they naturally formed.

Thats one of MANY ideas.

[AyeLmao]

Just now, ZooNamedGames said:

Hm. Would be cool if we found out that the Kerbol system was in fact created by the Magrotheans and once the economic collapse occurred all races abandoned this star system and moved elsewhere leaving it as it is now.

Explaining why the planets have above average densities and why the Kerbals are the only life forms- they naturally formed.

Thats one of MANY ideas.

One theory i have heard is that the kerbals wear space suits all the time even on their home planet because the Radiation is higher then normal, so they live under ground.

[Just Jim]

On 8/20/2016 at 10:12 PM, GoSlash27 said:

Ah, here it is. NovaSilsko's comments on the subject:

(snipped so as to not accidentally spoil it)

Best,
-Slashy

Oh wow, this would have been fun. 

At the same time, if it had been implemented, folks like @Kuzzter, @Parkaboy and the rest of us fan-fiction authors wouldn't be able to invent and write our own storylines, so I suppose it's a 50/50 kind of thing for me.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Just Jim

[Curveball Anders]

On 2016-08-21 at 4:36 AM, ZooNamedGames said:

Hm. Would be cool if we found out that the Kerbol system was in fact created by the Magrotheans and once the economic collapse occurred all races abandoned this star system and moved elsewhere leaving it as it is now.

Hmm, given their inherent greenishness maybe Kerbals are decendants of the fungus that grew when the telephone disinfectants was blasted off to space?

[Mister Dilsby]

6 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

At the same time, if it had been implemented, folks like @Kuzzter, @Parkaboy and the rest of us fan-fiction authors wouldn't be able to invent and write our own storylines

Pffft, speak for yourself. No so-called "storyline" can't hold me! FREEEEDOM!!!!  

But seriously, I love that things like the monoliths, saucer, and Easter eggs all exist without any "stock" explanation. Each player, whether telling a public story or not, is responsible for tying all the strings together. Or, not--it doesn't have to make sense at all!

For me, all of us "tying those strings" evokes the image of early humans trying to explain the strange artifacts of their world--the objects of the 'firmament', the sun and moon, the planets, the tides... there are probably hundreds, or thousands, of independently generated and self-consistent philosophies to explain it all. Those stories, and the more rigorous scientific models that followed them, are the basis of our shared culture.

[ZooNamedGames]

47 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

Hmm, given their inherent greenishness maybe Kerbals are decendants of the fungus that grew when the telephone disinfectants was blasted off to space?

Very improbable.  

[nascarlaser1]

On ‎8‎/‎20‎/‎2016 at 10:12 PM, GoSlash27 said:

Ah, here it is. NovaSilsko's comments on the subject:

 

  Hide contents

.

 

Their home planet, however, was lost due to a severe miscalculation of the parameters of their interstellar travel system (maybe the player could've gotten their hands on the tech, but that's a bit of a lame way to acquire interstellar travel, being forced to jump through a bunch of hoops and calculate a bunch of stuff...), which resulted in the whole planet being placed in an extremely distant orbit around the sun, where it quickly froze and died. The rapidly dwindling population of survivors managed to launch numerous monoliths across the system, in hopes of seeding intelligent life.

 

Their plan failed. They made Kerbals.

 

 

Lol.

[adsii1970]

Ok, so I was reading this thread and came across these posts. It started with @Just Jim saying...

1 hour ago, Just Jim said:

Oh wow, this would have been fun. 

At the same time, if it had been implemented, folks like @Kuzzter, @Parkaboy and the rest of us fan-fiction authors wouldn't be able to invent and write our own storylines, so I suppose it's a 50/50 kind of thing for me.

and then, @Kuzzter said...

56 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Pffft, speak for yourself. No so-called "storyline" can't hold me! FREEEEDOM!!!!  

But seriously, I love that things like the monoliths, saucer, and Easter eggs all exist without any "stock" explanation. Each player, whether telling a public story or not, is responsible for tying all the strings together. Or, not--it doesn't have to make sense at all!

For me, all of us "tying those strings" evokes the image of early humans trying to explain the strange artifacts of their world--the objects of the 'firmament', the sun and moon, the planets, the tides... there are probably hundreds, or thousands, of independently generated and self-consistent philosophies to explain it all. Those stories, and the more rigorous scientific models that followed them, are the basis of our shared culture.

So, I agree with Kuzzer, I think we'd all have simply taken our story lines and have made due with whatever they threw at us. Emiko station would have simply had new story lines and Thompberry would still be just about half-way crazed!   

Edited August 22, 2016 by adsii1970

[Curveball Anders]

31 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

I think we'd all have simply taken our story lines and have made due with whatever they threw at us.

I think that I'd actually be a bit miffed if Squad would suddenly whip out an 'official' backstory.

I mean who are they to interfere with my own petty universe?

[adsii1970]

Just now, Curveball Anders said:

I think that I'd actually be a bit miffed if Squad would suddenly whip out an 'official' backstory.

I mean who are they to interfere with my own petty universe?

Personally, I could see it as a part of an installment of KSP - the updated sequel (also known as Kerbal Space Program v 10.5: We still have bugs!). With what we have now, there's a totally different direction that KSP has taken. It would take too much coding, graphics work, and other sundry programming functions to make it work now. It would literally slow down the progress of working out the bugs and implementing the new features we've been reading about in the weekly devnotes (which should come out tomorrow ).

Now I could be wrong, but I do not foresee Squad's development team going back to pick up this extra work in this particular version of KSP. This development team seems focused on giving us what we've been screaming about for a while - a stable version of KSP with some expanded features and new parts for both space planes and rockets. So...I would not worry about this being changed any time soon...

[Curveball Anders]

24 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

It would take too much coding, graphics work, and other sundry programming functions to make it work now.

Now I'm a coder (ok, former coder, now senior software designer), but the key to a functional backstory isn't software design, it's game design.

It's not code, it's story telling.

From the technical side we can try to raise the  boundries on what we think we can show, but it's down to the writers to spin the tale.

[adsii1970]

Just now, Curveball Anders said:

Now I'm a coder (ok, former coder, now senior software designer), but the key to a functional backstory isn't software design, it's game design.

It's not code, it's story telling.

From the technical side we can try to raise the  boundries on what we think we can show, but it's down to the writers to spin the tale.

I stepped out of the programming side of computers in 1997; Played with C+, but well, job requirements changed what I followed. Now I run SPSS and setting parameters for correlations is pretty much the extent of my programming now... this is why I have been hesitant to getting into mod building. I have some great ideas, but am terrified of making a mess!

But still, I do not see Squad developing the old story line in the near future...

[Just Jim]

2 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

Ok, so I was reading this thread and came across these posts. It started with @Just Jim saying...

and then, @Kuzzter said...

So, I agree with Kuzzer, I think we'd all have simply taken our story lines and have made due with whatever they threw at us. Emiko station would have simply had new story lines and Thompberry would still be just about half-way crazed!   

Perhaps.... but honestly, if there had been an existing story line, I don't know if I would have been as motivated to make up my own. I'm not sure... I've never been this attached to a game before.

[Curveball Anders]

59 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

if there had been an existing story line, I don't know if I would have been as motivated to make up my own. I'm not sure... I've never been this attached to a game before.

I'll blatantly steal that quote and use it when arguing with family members who insist that the story comes first.

A free canvas can be so much better a mediocre story.

[Just Jim]

Just now, Curveball Anders said:

I'll blatantly steal that quote and use it when arguing with family members who insist that the story comes first.

A free canvas can be so much better a mediocre story.

It is yours to steal, my friend! 

[KSK]

11 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Perhaps.... but honestly, if there had been an existing story line, I don't know if I would have been as motivated to make up my own. I'm not sure... I've never been this attached to a game before.

Yeah - it's the first game that's really motivated me to put pen to paper. As a writer, I think I get the best of both worlds with KSP - it's a mostly blank canvas with enough detail (a scattering of names, the kerbals themselves and a handful of memes if you need them) to quickly establish a recognizable setting for your story.

I take @Curveball Anders point about an 'official' backstory but I actually think that Novasilsko's story would work quite well because it really just tops-and-tails the current setting without placing any extra restrictions on it. (Quite the opposite in fact, the Progenitors - for want of a better name - could make for an interesting source of fanfic material in their own right). Instead it provides a distant prequel (somebody else created the kerbals) and one possible present-day story arc (kerbals discovering their origins) and that's it. It says nothing about how a species that began as a failed experiment evolved to become a spacefaring civilization. It doesn't tell us anything more about that species than the stuff we already know from the game.  And it doesn't seem to preclude any other stories set in the Kerbol system.

I'm actually struggling to think of a fanfic (in whatever format) that wouldn't work OK with Nova's story. Certainly my own one wouldn't be affected. A Quest for the Monoliths (going to other worlds for Science!) sounds like something that Kerbfleet would get up to, amongst its many other adventures. And all the extra-Kerbolar entities hinted at in other stories could easily be accommodated.

 

Edited August 23, 2016 by KSK

[Curveball Anders]

8 minutes ago, KSK said:

I'm actually struggling to think of a fanfic (in whatever format) that wouldn't work OK with Nova's story. Certainly my own one wouldn't be affected.

The issue for me is that whatever story that is pushed as 'canon' has to be full of real data while still fluffy enough not to cause problems with the users own views (a job that ranges from 'very hard' to 'impossible').

The terminally sad connoisseurs of fanfic universes or at least almost outwardly normal people who like the concept can check the RP forums of 10+ yo EvE Online ...

Where the Devs are either flamed for not bothering about "the real story" or just as often flamed for changing a detail in a 'historically important' battle that was supposed to have happened 300 years ago ...

(Or changing a detail in the Empress dress or hairstyle ...)