Is Pol Alive?

[cubinator]

Whenever I visit Pol, the fifth moon of Jool, I feel something deeply unnerving about the little world. Its folding mountains, spiky surface protrusions, and sickly yellow color all contribute to my feeling that there is something horrendously wrong about being there, almost as if there is an unknown threat at Pol more sinister than rough landings, gravity, and delta-V. I have the distinct feeling that Pol is alive, and somehow aware of my presence. What do you think? Do you feel eyes watching you when you land on Pol? Or do your Kerbals kick the dry, motionless dust about their feet with no regret?

Edited December 20, 2020 by cubinator

[The Aziz]

Well, I've never been there so I can't tell. I'll get back to this thread in a couple of years with opinion.

[Selective Genius]

I believe Pol despite it's size its just a unicellular organism. The protrusions on the surface might be the remnants of the cilia of this gigantic lifeform. There maybe many 'Pols' zipping around in the galaxy, evolving and growing at their own pace.

Some may remain in their single cell form forever, while others may evolve into demigods capable of consuming entire star systems at once.

[jimmymcgoochie]

Pol is just a rock, the spikes are nothing more than mineral deposits (not that I’ve actually seen those as I always have scatters turned off) and the weird colouration of its surface is due to the underlying rock layers.

[xub313]

Pol is a single grain of pollen drifting through the field of flowers that is the cosmos. In a time before time it floated into the nostril of the great Space Kraken who, having a terrible pollen allergy, proceeded to sneeze "ACHOOOO!" all over the Kerbol system.  The biggest of these cosmic loogies became Jool and the smaller droplets became the Kerbals. 

Spoiler

The Space Kraken still resides on Bop so that it can keep an eye on Pol. Another sneeze like that and who knows what might happen.

 

[Fierce Wolf]

For each kerbal that dies in space, Pol creates a spike. Of course it's haunted!

[CaelumEtAstra]

If it's made entirely of pollen, as the name would suggest, then it would be millions of little bits of pollen, so its surface and interior would be filled with what essentially mounts to nothing but single-celled life. So in a way, Pol would be alive.

Otherwise, it's just another rock in space that happens to be yellow due to a high sulfur content, with the spikes forming from volcanic geysers.

Edited December 21, 2020 by CaelumEtAstra

[Starhelperdude]

maybe it's made out of living yellow intelligent POLymer? And the spikes are ''spores'' or ''eggs'', which are shot into space to create another pol?

and the kraken is beeing digested on the surface, this process takes around 10000 years

[dprostock]

Pol alive?
Bah, marketing.

[Starhelperdude]

also the kerbals are the result of modified pol ''eggs'', which I'm gonna call Polegs, infected with the ''SSV, standing for Small Sattelite Virus, they turned green and broke out of the laboratory based inside of jool (so they took additional inspiration regarding the color of jool), wich was manned by the joolians, green tall intelligent shy robots made by an extinct civilisation. The the infected Polegs where thrown onto an bachristochrome trajectory to kerbin, and the rest is history

this is from a novel named ''Origin'', written by former kerbonaut Andreas Kerman

I'm just reciting it

[xub313]

I agree with OP that Pol is kinda spooky. Airless bodies, deep space, and gas giants are spooky enough on their own. The spiky terrain makes it even more unnerving. They remind me of plans to deter future mankind from tampering with our nuclear waste tens of thousands of years into the future. Some of the methods proposed involved paving over the entire area to make farming impossible and covering it with menacing spikes and thorns. 

Spoiler

 

[pyropelush]

Those spikes are alive. Everytime I touched one on EVA, Something went wrong sooner or later!

[Souptime]

Pol is a krakens egg, waiting for hatching season then the baby going to bop for growing. then jool for last stages of life

The dead kraken of bop is the same color of jool (And the kerbals) so maybe jool is a breeding ground with pol and bop being some sort of feeding ground

[MythicalHeFF]

    Well, the fact that you can randomly crash into invisible terrain 5 kilometers above the actual surface would seem to suggest that the moon is indeed haunted. 
Not only that, but one time I went there during my Peregrine mission (which was a grand tour of the stock system + OPM wherein I visited Jool first so I wouldn’t have to lug the extra mass of the Laythe lander and Tylo descent stage around any more than I needed to), the second my kerbals set foot on the surface, they instantly died. After reloading the quick save a few times, Bill could finally set foot on the surface without being turned to dust.

   But then another problem arose: the drills on my ship, which I had landed on Pol to refuel, couldn’t refuel because the drills kept saying “no ground contact” despite clearly being embedded in the yellow regolith. 
And then this happened..

Hans Kerman ended up being possessed or something and frozen in the T-pose. Also, that white dot in the background? That’s Jeb, who’s also frozen in place and sliding along the ground. In fact, it almost seems like a disease of sorts, as Hans was fine until he touched Jeb and the ground, after which he became frozen. I then got Phoebe Kerman on EVA to try and “cure” them by ramming into them without touching the ground, which ended up working. I then planted a flag, which was placed a few meters above the actual ground.
    Let’s just refuel and get out of here.. we’ve still got nearly a whole system to explore! That is, after a couple more quick loads, when my drills finally decided to function  correctly. 
Near the end of the 168-year-long Peregrine mission, the same thing that happened here also occurred on Plock’s moon Karen, only that time it was even worse because I ended up having to move to a different landing site halfway through refueling, and then lost a crew member to the insta-death ground terrain bug because I forgot to quicksave and couldn’t be bothered to do the landing over again. So maybe it’s possible that what I was experiencing was an issue with Kopernicus or OPM and not Pol itself.
    Regardless, as a result of this experience, I tend to completely avoid going to Pol for any reason to save myself the hassle, even going so far as to set up my refueling base on Bop instead despite it being harder to get to and from.

[Kerminator K-100]

Pol is cursed and so is Bop. Both are evil.

Slowly Pol and Bop slip around Laythe, keeping an eye out for pesky kerbals looking to make a base.

[Minmus Taster]

On 12/21/2020 at 11:04 AM, Fierce Wolf said:

For each kerbal that dies in space, Pol creates a spike. Of course it's haunted!

WOW

Thats a cool head canon!

[SkyRender]

According to the Hitchhiker's Guide to Kerbals, Pol is considered cursed by some denizens of the universe and the harbinger of the Great Green Arklesiezure, supposedly having been one of the colossal grains of pollen that caused the sneeze that formed the universe.  Of course, Kerbals themselves don't believe that at all, and have formally designated Pol as "target practice".  To be fair, every celestial body in the Kerbol system has been designated "target practice", so it's hard to tell one way or another what they honestly think about any planet or moon.  Attempts to get details on the matter have cost the Guide a few dozen Kerbologists in freak SRB-riding accidents, so there's not a lot of interest in finding out the truth.  As a result, the Guide has decided to resort to their usual tactic of making things up and is claiming that Kerbals think Pol is made of cheese.  Please note that no Kerbal has ever expressed this sentiment in the history of the universe, but since it sells copies, the Guide's keeping it in there.

[Fierce Wolf]

Proposition to put an atmosphere in Pol, just so a dramatic wind could be heard

[cubinator]

4 minutes ago, Fierce Wolf said:

Proposition to put an atmosphere in Pol, just so a dramatic wind could be heard

Perhaps just an occasional puff of terribly smelly gas.

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

On 12/21/2020 at 10:04 AM, Fierce Wolf said:

For each kerbal that dies in space, Pol creates a spike. Of course it's haunted!

Then the one in my game would be smooth?

[Fierce Wolf]

38 minutes ago, JcoolTheShipbuilder said:

Then the one in my game would be smooth?

[kerbiloid]

It's a mineral virus, a megamicroorganism.

[SkyRender]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

It's a mineral virus, a megamicroorganism.

So you're saying it has a microbrain colony on it?  Are they going to call the Kerbals "ugly giant bags of mostly water" and try to take over their ship systems?

Edited January 8, 2021 by SkyRender

[kerbiloid]

25 minutes ago, SkyRender said:

So you're saying it has a microbrain colony on it? 

No, I mean it is a megavirus itself.

Spoiler

 

[SkyRender]

And my ST:TNG reference was missed.  Ah well.