Fan Theory - Kerbals not Native to Kerbin

[KerBlammo]

I believe that Kerbals are native to Kerbin and used to live on the surface in vast numbers.  

Then they developed rocket technology.  

The survivors quickly moved underground and now live in deep bunkers safe from falling rocket debris.

[Buster Charlie]

I just want to say, just reading the topic title makes me want squad to release battlestar kalactica as an official DLC in which you have to manage a fleet of fleeing kerbal colonist as they evade the murderous kylon fleet that chases them  across the stars...

[JoeNapalm]

 

Kerbals are a clone race, developed specifically for space flight, that lives underground/under sea.

They like to breathe and eat, but have been designed with a tardigrade like ability to go pretty much indefinitely without food, water, or air.

Somewhere, deep under the surface, is the Kerbal master race, or Kerbal Primes.

I suspect they pretty much look like taller thinner blue Kerbals...but that's just wild speculation.

-Jn-

[KerikBalm]

There are at least 2 other places on kerbin with signs of civilization(one modern, 1 ancient). There are many kerbals walking around in the assembly buildings with doors open to the outside and no helmets. The EVA reports mention how uneccessary a spacesuit is.

That said, NovaSilisko did have some vague xenogenesis story in mind when he was working for them, and when he placed some easter eggs. I think its pretty safe to say that Miguel Pena (thats the right name, no?) didn't have such a thing in mind when he was launching model rockets with his own "kerbals" in them in real life, before KSP even existed.

Easter Eggs on Duna, however, could fit in with an origin on Duna, and an ancient exodus to Kerbin...

[Overland]

On 26/07/2015 at 8:55 AM, Commissioner Tadpole said:

Uh, there are some pictures of Kerbals in Kerbin without the suit.

Sorry no dice..kerbals dont have a nose..closed mouth? Hes holding his breath and waiting maddly at the plane crew to throw him a suit

Wrote this in another thread but better here... Why not much stuff on kerbin

 

The evil green monsters destroyed it!!

 

 

 

 

Ever wondered why rockets? Surplus nuclear missile parts left in the only standing command center on kerbin

Thousands of years have past and only now can people venture out..even then wearing spacesuits to prevent breathing in radioactive particles

The shielded bunkers wernt quite enough protection.. Mutations resulted in green skin  .. Eyes without eyelids and the complete lack of a nose

Only recently was the females of the kerbal species brought out of stasis..preventing further damage to the kerbal gene pool by the once higher radiation.. 

Kerbin itself without kerbalkind grew green and pure...trees...rocks.. A clear sky free from polution.. A world where the only memories of great empires of kerbal are simple ruins and lost instalations.. Its said one still bears the name KSC2.. Surviving mostly intact because the crater its in absorbed alot of the shockwave during the final days of the war

 

Great cities have been reclaimed by nature.. Covered and now resemble mountains with great spires..

Billions once lived on this world.. Lost in a terrible war.. They slowly recover.. Exploring a now alien unknown landscape

 

The lucky ones manage to strap together more complex parts to make spacecraft in search of a new home

The unfortunate ones board trains bound for KSC2 but never return..

Those with a background in the military choose to do battle with one another for reasons unknown..

But make no mistake..

All of this came about due to the most violent warring period of kerbal history

 

The kerbal has much hidden history we simply dont speak of 

 

[Geschosskopf]

16 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

There are at least 2 other places on kerbin with signs of civilization(one modern, 1 ancient). There are many kerbals walking around in the assembly buildings with doors open to the outside and no helmets. The EVA reports mention how uneccessary a spacesuit is.

Neither the VAB nor the SPH have open doors.  From outside, they are definitely shut.  From inside, the view is demonstrably illusory because 1) it's always daylight "outside" regardless of the actual time, 2) there are "clouds" in the sky when clouds really don't exist outside, and 3) you never see anything sitting on the launchpad even if you know something's really there.

As to the EVA report about the necessity or not of spacesuits, remember that's the same source that says Minmus is thought to be ice cream but then says it doesn't taste that way, and that Kerbals might be able to see their houses from space even though there are no houses on the surface of Kerbin at all.  IOW, the EVA report is not known for its veracity or consistency.

16 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Easter Eggs on Duna, however, could fit in with an origin on Duna, and an ancient exodus to Kerbin...

But how many of the Easter Eggs can we definitely impute to the Kerbals?  Consider:

• Kerbin:
  • KSC2:  Almost certainly.  KSC1 used to look exactly the same right up until about 0.20 or so.
  • Island Airbase:  MAYBE.  The main problem is that Kerbals are too short to see over the window sills in the control tower, making it useless.  So either the airbase wasn't built by and for Kerbals, or Kerbals were taller in the past when the airfield was in use, or today's Kerbals really did build it but then immediately abandoned it due to the faulty control tower rather than just fix that problem.  All of these theories are plausible.
  • The Pyramids:  MAYBE:  There's the big statue of what appears to be a Kerbal.  However, it's impossible for Kerbals to climb the pyramids.  So again, maybe Kerbals were taller back in the day.  But OTOH, they could have been built by somebody else and the statue might not actually be a Kerbal (note the long protrusion on the chin).
  • The Polar Discoid:  Almost certainly not.  While we humans automatically think it's crashed UFO, there's no evidence that's what it really is.  It's totally opaque of meaning and has no obvious purpose.  No telling who made it or how it got there.  But it's so unlike anything Kerbals make today,and the fact that there's another on Mun, make it very likely Kerbals aren't responsible.
  • Monoliths:  Definitely not:  They're found on many other bodies and all bear the image of a semi-intelligent being from Earth.
  • Giant Smiley Face:  Definitely not.  This is a cartoon image of an Earthling.
• Mun:
  • Neil Armstrong Memorial:  Definitely not.  This is all about a guy from Earth, whom the Kerbals could never have heard of.
  • The South Polar Discoid:  Almost certainly not.  See above for Kerbin.
  • Monoliths:  Definitely not.  See above for Kerbin
  • Arches:  Definitely not.  These are natural (and rumored to be living) things.
• Minmus:
  • Monolith:  Definitely not.  See above for Kerbin
• Duna
  • The Face:  This is actually 2 separate artifacts:
    • The Face itself:  MAYBE:   It does, after all, look like a Kerbal.  But see qualms above about the Kerbin Pyramids.  It's quite possible this was just a joke by some teenage aliens out joyriding.  Not finding any cattle to mutilate, they defaced a boulder.
    • The Graffiti:  Definitely not.  This provides a clue to the Vallhenge which doesn't seem to be of Kerbal construction (see below).  The style of the Graffiti has nothing in common with the Face, indicating that it is probably a later addition by something non-Kerbal.  That doesn't help determine who built the Face, however.
  • The Camera-on-a-Stick:  Definitely not.  This is a crashed UFO from Earth.
  • The CSTV Pyramid:  Definitely not.  The image it used to show provided another clue to the Vallhenge.  Also, it appears to show a group of humans, not Kerbals.
• Ike:
  • Magic Boulder:  When this used to exist, it had a Monolith which is definitely not of Kerbal construction.
• Vall
  • The Vallhenge:  Probably not.  It has nothing in common with any known Kerbal architecture and it's on Vall.  Plus, the clues to its location don't appear to be of Kerbal origin.
• Tylo:
  • Sagan's Portrait:  Definitely not.  When this existed, it was a portrait of a guy from Earth.
  • "Caves":  Probably not.  When this was above the surface and visible, it looked at least partially, if not totally, artificial, so somebody probably built it.  But again, it was unlike any known Kerbal architecture.  Plus, it appeared to be made of the same material as the Discoids on Kerbin and Mun, pointing possibly to a similar, non-Kerbal origin.
• Bop;
  • Dead(?) Kraken:  Definitely not.  This is known to have been left where it fell after being slain by the Great God Harvester in a ferocious battle for the fate of the universe.

So, out of all the Easter Eggs, only KSC2 can be attributed to the Kerbals with any certainty.  Ascribing the Kerbin Pyramids and the Duna Face to them is jumping to conclusions without eliminating other possible explanations.  OTOH, there is extensive evidence that some other race familiar with Earthlings (but probably not Earthlings themselves) has visited the Kerbol system, leaving things like the Monoliths, the Neil Armstrong Memorial, etc., scattered about.  These folks are also likely responsible for the Duna Face.  It's also quite possible that at least 1 other type of alien has been there as well (the Discoids, the Tylo Caves, Vallhenge).

Therefore, the Easter Eggs tell us essentially nothing about the origin of Kerbals.

 

[KerikBalm]

2 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Neither the VAB nor the SPH have open doors.  From outside, they are definitely shut.  From inside, the view is demonstrably illusory because 1) it's always daylight "outside" regardless of the actual time, 2) there are "clouds" in the sky when clouds really don't exist outside, and 3) you never see anything sitting on the launchpad even if you know something's really there.

As to the EVA report about the necessity or not of spacesuits, remember that's the same source that says Minmus is thought to be ice cream but then says it doesn't taste that way, and that Kerbals might be able to see their houses from space even though there are no houses on the surface of Kerbin at all.  IOW, the EVA report is not known for its veracity or consistency.

We are discussing game lore -

As in many games, you have to accept that there is a difference between the fictional world, and the rendering in the game engine.

Would we look at starcraft, and conclude that 6 marines consume as much supplies as an enitre battlecruiser? or that a few dozen marines could shoot one down? That their nukes only have blast radius of <100 feet (using the height of a marine for scale)? No

Heck, kerbal helmets can't even fit through the hatch of a mk1 pod, so if proportions for the control tower seem a bit big... I don't see it as a problem.

There is nothing in the KSC that implies that the spaces that kerbals occupy is airtight. that trailer for the admin building? All the applicants and the tourists not wearing space suits.

The buildings are closed for gameplay reasons... lower poly count. Its always sunny because adding day/night cycles would be a waste of effort that doesn't affect gameplay (IIRC, the interior lighting is pre-rendered, and to do day/night cycles would be a lot of work).

The Island airfield: has previous versions of old kerbal technology... clearly kerbal, but I wasn't thinking of that, I was thinking of the pyramids. FYI, step pyramids have levels that are way to big for humans to climb (though in the case of the american ones, they often have a central staircase, but the early egyptian ones didn't afaik)

Then there are other easter eggs that are nothing other than breaking the 4th wall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall

They reference things from our reality... the thing (polar saucer of seemingly alien origin), monoliths (again, one of our movies), Apollo 11, etc.

I'm willing to exclude the desert kerbal pyramids, the face on duna and the duna signal, the old magic boulder and some monoliths, vallhenge, the kraken as non-4th wall breaking easter eggs... ie easter eggs that should constitute in-game lore rather than 4th wall breaking references to our reality.

Vallhenge -> ancient aliens/astronaut evidence

Face on Duna -> ancient aliens/astronaut evidence, leaning towards ancient kerbal astronauts.

Maybe kerbals came from Duna/somewhere else, but Kerbin is clearly habitable to them, and they've been there a while as evidenced by the planet descriptions in map view.

As for the science experiment descriptions, some of them seem to be what you'd learn after returning them. but for minmus tasting...

Crew Report:

        MinmusInSpace = Looking at the surface of Minmus reminds you of a favorite childhood dessert. You are tempted to taste the surface...

 

Surface Sample

        MinmusSrfLanded = The surface seems to consist of tiny crystal-like grains, very pretty. Probably not edible.
        MinmusSrfLanded = You sneak a taste of the surface sample... nope it definitely is not made of delicious dessert products.

Materials bay

        MinmusSrfLanded = While the material samples were processed, you began to turn your thoughts to how much Minmus looks like a mint dessert, and have discovered that you are now hungry.

Clearly this last one implies it comes after some processing.

I can imagine that the kerbal really waited to get the taste when he has gone back inside the spacecraft, or somehow his spacesuit can be opened and re-sealed really fast (note, you do not instantly die like in the movies if exposed to vacuum).

After all, I really doubt that the kerbal instantly concludes this from a seismic reading:

    MohoSrfLanded = The sensor detects vibrations deep inside the planet. It appears that the interior is very volcanically active.

        LaytheSrfLanded = The tidal forces appear to be churning the interior of the moon.

or this from a surface sample:

        MunSrfLandedNorthernBasin = The sample contains evidence of a weak, localized magnetic field.

        MunSrfLandedPolarCrater = It appears that some of the samples are magnetic and show a faint alignment.

        MunSrfLandedTwinCraters = This area has a particularly high concentration of rare elements. Nice!

 

Some are clearly on the spot results, some seem to be what you'd get after some time... again... the fiction/lore doesn't have to perfectly coincide with what is represented in game... after all, I'm not concluding that kerbals are telekinetic just because they can operate science instruments and fix things without actually touching them (the science instruments could be explained by bluetooth... but chute repacks, wheel and strut repair... nope)

[A35K]

On 7/27/2015 at 1:45 AM, parameciumkid said:

I just figure that A: perhaps the helmet doesn't come off, so the Kerbal would have to take off the whole suit, and B: Kerbals are aquatic. We can't go underwater, so for all we know there are vast cities down there. Indoors they can climate-control the buildings to keep them humid so they don't dry out, but in general it's too inconvenient to build cities on land. The KSC is only on land because launching from the seafloor would be a huge pain.

Wait a second... aquatic goofy species, with vast underwater cities... THE KERBALS ARE GUNGANS!!! I should have known all along... Kerbin is Naboo, and it's not Bill Kerman, it's Jar Jar Bill!

[Geschosskopf]

4 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

We are discussing game lore -

As in many games, you have to accept that there is a difference between the fictional world, and the rendering in the game engine.

Actually, KSP is about science and using the scientific method.  Take observations, try to make sense of what you see.  Develop theories, make predictions, take further observations to confirm or refute those theories.  Make new theories taking all that into account.  Repeat until you reduce everything to 42.  Doing otherwise is against the very spirit of the game.  There is exactly zero "lore" in KSP.  It's all hard fact derived from scientific observation and then the educated inferences based on those facts.

[KerikBalm]

Right... you're the definitive authority on what KSP is about.

I observe many similarities between an easter egg and a real world thing. I observe that KSP exists only in computers. I hypothesize that it is fictional. I hypothesize that it is breaking the 4th wall. So far, all subsequent observations have confirmed this and failed to disprove it.

Jeez... its a fictional game, get off your high horse.

I also love how you discard observations that don't fit your point of view, like the EVA reports.

With strictly "in world" observations, pretending its not fiction, then we must conclude that kerbals are telekinetic, and that the craft just materialize out of nowhere with no connection to the ground crews who amble about doing nothing related to the construction of a craft.

Stuff just magically appears, created by a divine presence for which there is much evidence, the very powerful "user", although there is a higher group of gods, the "developers". It is they who divinely stop the influence of gravity beyond the hillsphere of an object, and place special wards on the orbits of certain objects - keeping val in an nice circular orbit, and preventing us from changing the orbits of certain divinely protected spheres.

They likely also created these anomolies, not the kerbals.

All my observations tell me this, its science.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

No no no!

Kerbals live underground, they evolved from mold.  They have massive underground cities that look like 1960s suburban America.  They have a government, and infrastructure, they pay taxes, they have colleges that teach physics, they have factories that produce everything from rocket engines to pencils and coffee cups and shirts and ties.

And every morning a few of them get in a big elevator and go the only buildings ever built on the surface of Kerbin, the KSC.

THIS is why there isn’t a single building anywhere on the surface (other than the KSC)

THIS is why they wear space suits outside, to keep them moist and protect them from the sun.

THIS is why you get contracts to explore the surface of Kerbin, because they really haven’t been outside that much.

THIS is why they don’t need heat or light, and have an endless supply of snacks.  There are mushrooms growing in those cabinets!

I really think the game would be improved by a short animation at the beginning, showing that 1960s subterranean city and those guys getting into that elevator.  And when you go to recover a vehicle at sea, a giant aircraft carrier/submarine should surfcae and begin recovery operations and then fade to black.  Similarly, on the ground, big trucks to drive in from the side. 

There really should be hints of the rest of the infrastructure that a space-faring society would need.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[KerBlammo]

18 hours ago, A35K said:

Wait a second... aquatic goofy species, with vast underwater cities... THE KERBALS ARE GUNGANS!!! I should have known all along... Kerbin is Naboo, and it's not Bill Kerman, it's Jar Jar Bill!

Luckily for you its not possible to give a post negative likes

 

 

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

I don't see the point of any of this. Who cares where they came from? Maybe they all live in the space center together. The game doesn't really give much to go off of. The easter eggs are just that: Easter eggs. They're just fun little things to find that don't really hold significance.

[A35K]

5 hours ago, KerBlammo said:

Luckily for you its not possible to give a post negative likes

 

 

Are you saying you don't like Jar-Jar? Come on, everyone loves him.

Anyway, my theory has always been that they just live in huge underground cities, because they don't like sunlight. It is actually 'supported' by in-game evidence. This is the last sentence on the in-game description of the Sun: ' This is especially important to keep in mind considering the effect shiny objects have on the average Kerbal.'

[bewing]

I just re-realized something that I've seen many times previously. To anyone with an eye for impact craters, Kerbin has obviously been the target of a recent massive meteor bombardment. Like, "less than a million years" recent. Barely eroded craters everywhere, when you look closely. The badlands are very recent impacts. And the one on the other side of the planet is enormous. Which definitely either implies a war with a spacegoing enemy (who can drop rocks from orbit), or alternately an impossible environment for evolving intelligent life. Option A leaves open the possibility of a Kerbin origin for (possibly space-faring) Kerbals (but you have to factor in an extreme resurfacing of the planet to your theory), but option B definitely rules out Kerbin as the Kerbal home planet. More research is necessary.

 

[Geschosskopf]

15 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Right... you're the definitive authority on what KSP is about.

I observe many similarities between an easter egg and a real world thing. I observe that KSP exists only in computers. I hypothesize that it is fictional. I hypothesize that it is breaking the 4th wall. So far, all subsequent observations have confirmed this and failed to disprove it.

Jeez... its a fictional game, get off your high horse.

I also love how you discard observations that don't fit your point of view, like the EVA reports.

With strictly "in world" observations, pretending its not fiction, then we must conclude that kerbals are telekinetic, and that the craft just materialize out of nowhere with no connection to the ground crews who amble about doing nothing related to the construction of a craft.

Stuff just magically appears, created by a divine presence for which there is much evidence, the very powerful "user", although there is a higher group of gods, the "developers". It is they who divinely stop the influence of gravity beyond the hillsphere of an object, and place special wards on the orbits of certain objects - keeping val in an nice circular orbit, and preventing us from changing the orbits of certain divinely protected spheres.

They likely also created these anomolies, not the kerbals.

All my observations tell me this, its science.

Apart from your personal barbs, your explanations of stuff in KSP all sound perfectly reasonable to me.  I'd put all that as another of many equally-valid-until-proven-otherwise competing theories.  Whichever one you pick as your personal favorite is up to you, although always remember that, until it's proven or disproven, it's still just a theory, not dogma.  So relax and be open to other points of view.

Also remember that the laws of physics in KSP are somewhat fluid, so that some theories are invalidated before any of their predictions can be put to the test.  For example, prior to 1.0.5's change to buoyancy, Archimedes' Law did not apply (and there's some question as to whether it even does now).  It was shown that neutronium would float in Kerbin's oceans by hacking part masses to create that density.  There was thus much theorizing as to what the Kerbal laws of buoyancy really were, and no real way of testing them.  But then Squad made radical changes to the whole buoyancy thing and rendered all such discussion moot.