I've been thinking about this recently and here's my own version: The Kerbals started out much like us Humans did. Hunter gatherers that eventually came together to form societies and different countries, molding over time. This is when they differ from ours. The Kerbals have a natural curiosity, just like we do, but theirs is much stronger and more powerful. Each "country" expands out, not looking for anything specific, just looking around, finding out about themselves. Of course, each "country" would eventually meet each other, and this would no-doubt cause some friction between them, but I believe that they would quickly learn and realise that they are not so different, that they both have this deep and powerful curiosity to discover. The age of sail would come relatively faster than in our own world, leading to the unified Kerbals of each separate landmass, discovering each other. I believe that because each Kerbal group on each landmass have developed so differently, this would lead to a larger conflict, one that would stay in the history books as a lesson to all Kerbals. This would be a series of longer wars, but eventually, like when the smaller states met, they would see they are not so different, and the wars would soon be over. Their curiosities ultimately lead to each landmass group mingling together and a global society slowly forms out of the embers of the past wars. Each "country" would be known as a "landmass state" with each different group inhabiting their own landmass. Their societies would be based on cooperation and sharing, with currency being used for trade between each independent state. The curiosity that once drove each Kerbal to look around them for something new starts to slowly disappear with Kerbals accepting that what they have is all that is. The "landmass states" don't have any particular assigned leaders or representatives, so the Kerbals really have no-one to look up to so they eventually grow isolated and the vast trade-routes that inter-connected each society collapse and each state grows independently, building up with what they have, trying to best what the other states have accomplished. It would be an age of great scientific discovery, but each state would have no one to share these new technologies with. Generation after generation of this isolation and scientific discovery led to a particular group of Kerbals to come together after reading about the Kerbals of old and how they used to share with all. This lit a spark in each of these Kerbals hearts, one that hadn't been lit in centuries. They rediscovered what it meant to be Kerbal; Curiosity. They work together, forming so-called governments to help light this spark in the hearts of all Kerbalkind. It works and the kerbals come together en masse, public rallies are held and they rediscover their shared curiosity. Trade is re-established, this time on a global scale, the public cheers at this new-found cooperation and they look to the sky. The kerbals realise that they have run out of places to discover so they look up. They realise that this petty squabbling they had between each state is only a tiny tiny part of the universe and the whole species turns to Astronomy to fulfill their desire to discover. I realise now that after writing this, I've just basically made my own history of Kerbalkind. Meh, whatever, it's like my first post so forgive me.
