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Share Your Headcanon!


Tex

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Howdy, everybody.

I'm constantly fascinated by the stories that people come up with for video games, whether it be over-analytical fan theories or simple origin stories, so I wanted to make this sort of thread for people to sort of summarize and share where they think Kerbals came from, and what their purpose is. It doesn't matter how crazy the origin is, or why the Kerbals are there, but I just want to know what people think and have these awesome stories in one place.

For myself, I believe in the old theory that Kerbals are descended from plant species, which explains their green hue. It would also explain how they can stay on long spaceflights for periods of time without needing nourishment. Yes, they have snacks, but plants can survive without any specific fertilizer. As long as they can take in nutrients from soils and sunlight to make energy, I think they can survive. An idea that just barely occurred to me is that, as plants, if Kerbals exhale oxygen as a waste product, they would have to wear their suits even on Kerbin so they could have a more concentrated form of the COthey need, similarly to how real astronauts' suits supply them with oxygen. I think that Kerbals are an entirely peaceful, benign race that just want to explore space and learn what they can about the universe. As for the lack of cities on Kerbin, I do think they tend to live underground, mining for nutrients and metals to build spaceships.

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This is simple and sort of made up on the spot but:

Kerbal life was delivered to Kerbin via an asteroid. Their foreign bacteria overwhelmed any life on the planet, leaving only the basic life forms including the moss-like plant which covers the surface. The 'trees' on the surface simply mark where kerbal homes are underground. 

Spoiler

The monoliths and other structures are remnants of the pre-kerbal forms of life and their civilisation. They too were spacefaring but could not redirect the asteroid. Any kraken attacks are actually remaining missions of the pre-kerbal intelligent life trying to destroy kerbal missions.

EDIT: I like your thinking Tex

Edited by Skylon
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46 minutes ago, Skylon said:

The 'trees' on the surface simply mark where kerbal homes are underground. 

Ah, so would they be similar to energy collectors for houses?

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Some nice ideas here - I especially like the idea that the in-game trees are markers for underground kerbal houses!

As for my own head canon - hoo boy, where to start! My ongoing First Flight story (see signature for link) covers most of it, with the rest appearing in the comments to that story. First Flight is basically my version of the history of the Kerbal Space Program - how it started, why the kerbals went to space and, ultimately, why they kept going to space - mixed in with a whole lot of stuff about the kerbals themselves. However, since it's currently running at around 700 pages worth of material, have some links to the more relevant parts for this thread: :)

A potted history of Kerbin. This is the key part - the other links probably won't make a lot of sense unless you've read this first.

On kerbal cities.

Kerbal children and rural life.

Some leisure activities.

Life and Death. Where kerbals come from (forum friendly) and their funeral rites.

Some thoughts on kerbal economics and kerbal drinks:) 

Finally, some notes on Old Kerba, the ancient language of Kerbin. Starting at the linked post and expanded on over the next couple of pages of replies. It wasn't entirely intentional but it turns out that 'kerbal' is an Old Kerba word with a very appropriate translation.

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This isn't really about the origin of the kerbals, but I think that the kraken is a poessed and distorted ancient kerbal, who discovered it on bop, as the skin colour is (I think) identical to kerbals. as for the origin of the species, I basically take the unimplemented Easter egg storyline as canon, as it's sort of official.

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I'd tell mine, but that post would be several hundred thousand words. Some interesting features, though:

There are, in fact, three species of Kerbal :"Proper" Kerbals (the ones we see in the game), Nierbals (Shorter and largely slightly less intellingent), and Va'akbals (Even shorter, skin is blue-green). The reason we only see Kerbals is that they are the majority of the population (about 65%), and that they are the only species that retains the ability to hibernate.

There are, in fact, surface cities. They are enormous. The largest, Varaal, has a population of nearly 300 million.

See my latest thread on a map for further discussion.

Feel free to ask more questions

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Kerbals are from Duna!

I think that it's actually supported by "evidence" in game.  Kerbals' large heads and small bodies would be well suited for lower gravity than Kerbin has.  On Duna they can run just as fast as on Kerbin, they aren't slowed down like they are on the Mun or other lower gravity moons.  Also their jetpacks are conveniently just powerful enough to be used on Duna.  Their green color allows their skin to absorb more sunlight which is predominantly red on Duna (green is reflected but red is absorbed by Kerbals' skin) so they can warm up and make vitamin D more efficiently.   Kerbals also probably hibernate, that's why they don't need life support for long missions (in stock KSP).  It would be a good adaptation for living on a cold planet like Duna.

And now for the non-gameplay origin story.  Kerbals live underground on Kerbin because as Duna's atmosphere became thin and unbreathable, they were forced to go underground there.  Eventually after hundreds of years they realized they couldn't stay underground on Duna forever, so they built many ships to travel from Duna to Kerbin to colonize it.  When they got to Kerbin, despite the breathable atmosphere their culture was already built around living underground so they just live underground on Kerbin too.  It took the Kerbals a long time to become established on Kerbin, and during that time they forgot most of the knowledge of space travel.  However, the spirit of courage and exploration has always been a part of their culture, only the bravest Kerbals made the trip from Duna to Kerbin long ago.

The space center on Kerbin was built above ground for practicality, the only reason Kerbals build above ground is aerospace related buildings.  They could use underground trains for transportation between their cities and trucks like the VAB ones for cargo movement.  It's also why off-road rover wheels take so long to develop in the tech tree.  Planes take longer than rockets to develop because Kerbals are initially stuck in the Duna mindset and they never used planes or jet engines there because the atmosphere is so thin and lacks oxygen.

As for Easter eggs... 

Spoiler

The face on Duna could be the remains of a Mount Rushmore-like monument, all that's left of the Kerbals' surface presence on Duna from long ago.  The other Duna Easter eggs, the periscope and the CCTV signal, are a surface monitoring mast and a distress signal from the abandoned underground Duna cities the Kerbals used to live in.  The monuments were probes sent out by the Duna Kerbals to scan the planets for suitability to be colonized.  They were looking for underground features like water, so they also landed on the airless moons and planets.  The crashed UFOs were some of the ships bringing Kerbals from Duna to Kerbin.  The pyramid was built at the first landing spot.  Kerbals also went to other places when they left Duna like Vall, which could have a large underground ocean, and built the Vallhenge there.  They might have gone to Laythe too but either crashed in the ocean and didn't make it, or Laythe was too volcanically active then to consider landing there.

 

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