What Lies Below

[Dizzle]

So I recently conducted a rover mission to the equatorial arch on the Mun, and I couldn\'t help but notice something from an aerial view of the place.

I\'m probably wrong, but doesn\'t it almost look like the arch is just the top part of something that\'s buried underneath?

[VincentMcConnell]

I believe it\'s on the edge of a larger Maria region, which could account for the mound on which it sits.

But who knows? Maybe there is something under there.

[Ronox]

You see an arch, I see a tow hook to de-orbit the Mun with.

[Altair1371]

You see an arch, I see a tow hook to de-orbit the Mun with.

That would be a hilarious feature. I now see people towing Minmus to crash into Mun.

[ModernArc]

You see an arch, I see a tow hook to de-orbit the Mun with.

The perfect thing to make a space elevator with. ;P

[Bluejayek]

The perfect thing to make a space elevator with. ;P

Not sure you can acually make a space elevator on the mun. I\'m pretty sure munostationary orbit is beyond its SOI, since its day is a month. But I agree! That would be cool!

Sidenote, does anybody know if minimus is tidally locked?

[Katalliaan]

Clearly it\'s the handle to a teapot.

[Bluejayek]

Clearly it\'s the handle to a teapot.

Filled with liquid nitrogen, flavoured with flecks of frozen methane.

[GOOMH]

To me it looks like some giant buried his briefcase there but didn\'t did deep enough so the top bit protrudes after being buried. Plus he forgot to fold down his handle. Maybe there\'s gold in it, I wonder how many boosters it\'ll take before I can crack it open.

[Blade_N]

I\'ve never been to the mun anyway

[Vanamonde]

If you really want to know...

An occasional glitch while resuming a flight in-progress sets the camera angle so that you\'re looking slightly below the surface. KSP worlds are hollow, and there\'s nothing under the surface. Well, kind of...

A glowing blue dot that is no doubt just some graphics leftover can be seen inside Kerbin, and once a very strange glitch allowed my lander to pass through the surface of Mun, and after a while and descending several hundred meters, it exploded as if it had hit some invisible something. So worlds are empty, or are they?

Which is not to say the developers couldn\'t put stuff down there later.

[Lord Wasteland]

Gentlemen, I propose a spacecraft, that is an Arch, to blend in, and learn their secrets.

[Vanamonde]

A Trojan arch? They\'d notice it flying in. It would have to land over the horizon, and inch closer, day by day. Kind of like Jane Goodall with the chimps.

[zpox357]

K, I think we need to design a giant crane-like spaceship to pull the arc/handle to reveal what it is connected too... and then, of course, de-orbit the Mun 8)

[Dizzle]

I thought it was possible that it only looked this way because it was on top of a valley. I kind of suspected it while approaching it in the rover, but a low fly-by this morning seems to disprove that. It\'s its own formation.

[samstarman5]

I propose it is the remains of an ancient munar catapult system for sending cargo back to Kerbin or into orbit for retrieval by passing craft. Most of it has collapsed due to munquakes and nearby meteor strikes, but that one support arch remains as testament of an ancient space-faring race. Either the kerbals were space faring before in a far-flung epoch, or the Kerbol system has played host or home to another race. We must be vigilant and discover more!

[Valdez]

Why, surely it\'s the Kerbal incarnation of TMA-1.

[Luigibro606]

Alien burial grounds. :b

[Gav12c]

we\'re gonna need a bigger boat!!!

Edited August 11, 2012 by Gav12c

[Zephram Kerman]

we\'re gonna need a bigger boat!!!

Happy feeling gone!

[flaillomanz]

Quickly! Search for the X! A mound of that size MUST have treasure buried beneath it!

[samstarman5]

Why, surely it\'s the Kerbal incarnation of TMA-1.

That would be the Munolith, which if I remember right from posts, is not too far from the arch.

[funfight22]

Maybe it is a giant alien spaceship, that you can dig up and destroy kerbin with. Or maybe it is the head of a giant droid from star wars.

[Valdez]

That would be the Munolith, which if I remember right from posts, is not too far from the arch.

Ahaha, that\'s a great name ;D

[samstarman5]

Ahaha, that\'s a great name ;D

Thank the community. Depending on their location, each 'monolith' has its own noms de guerre. If it is on Kerbin, which has a few, it is a kerbilith. If it is on the Mun(about 2-3 at least documented), then it is a munolith. And if it is on Minmus(or floating, as it were) then it is a minmolith. Whether there is a kerbolith remains to be seen, though you would need to borrow Jeb\'s shades for that.

Whether the future planets get their own black monuments remains to be seen, but it is pretty safe to deduce their specific names will have a twist on their planetary location slipped in. For example, if the next planet out from Kerbin is named 'Kars', which I rather hope it isn\'t, then any monoliths on its vicinity would probably be called karboliths.

Thus endeth the lesson.