The biology of a kerbal.

[Xd the great]

Kerbals have chloroplasts on their skin which produces food.

Also, how can they flip up like agent 47? And survive a 50m/s crash?

[vger]

Space magic.

[Xd the great]

19 minutes ago, vger said:

Space magic.

I mean their eyes are pouching out from their heads. How do thry survive banging headfirst into their visor.

[RealKerbal3x]

1 hour ago, Xd the great said:

I mean their eyes are pouching out from their heads. How do thry survive banging headfirst into their visor.

The sheer, undisputed, awesome power of SCIENCE.

[Xd the great]

13 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

The sheer, undisputed, awesome power of SCIENCE.

I agree. What bout real life science.

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, Xd the great said:

Kerbals have chloroplasts on their skin

Because they're green?

Spoiler

 

1 hour ago, Xd the great said:

I mean their eyes are pouching out from their heads.

Spoiler

Indeed

 

[RealKerbal3x]

5 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

I agree. What bout real life science.

Maybe they don’t have bones...they could just be squishy green guys.

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

Because they're green?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Indeed

 

Kerbals are frogs confirmed.

[Xd the great]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

Because they're green?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Indeed

 

Because they can survive on years without food.

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Kerbals are frogs confirmed.

Frogs are plants!

[Xd the great]

Ahh i see your loint on the eye, but no frogs bang head first into stuff...

[kerbiloid]

Just now, Xd the great said:

Because they can survive on years without food.

Plants need water, warm, and light. Kerbals don't.

[Xd the great]

Just now, kerbiloid said:

Plants need water, warm, and light. Kerbals don't.

Most kerbal capsules have window, heat is provided by using electricity, water can be recycled.

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, Xd the great said:

Most kerbal capsules have window

They can live endlessly far-far away from the Sun, with window turned into opposite direction. Or in capsule without a window.
They need very little electricity, just to keep the capsule intact. Just >0. Plants need more.

[RealKerbal3x]

Kerbals don’t need anything to survive unless you use a life support mod.

[Xd the great]

I know, but how is this possible? Hibernation?

[RealKerbal3x]

Maybe they hibernate during timewarp.

[kerbiloid]

33 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

I know, but how is this possible?

Do you really want to know?

Spoiler

Are you sure?

Spoiler

 

 

Edited July 23, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Xd the great]

16 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Do you really want to know?

  Hide contents

Are you sure?

  Hide contents

 

 

Another reason to kill them.

[ARS]

Their EVA suit contains an RTG to keep them warm (those PB-NUK can last forever!), outfitted with closed cycle life support that lasts forever, coated with the same material used in heat shields to (mostly) survive reentry, and their helmet was made from metal with the amalgam of kraken's chitinous parts, allowing it to survive a head-first landing (with an unfortunate tendency to summoning an actual kraken) 

Edited July 23, 2018 by ARS

[kerbiloid]

8 minutes ago, ARS said:

their EVA suit contains an RTG

Spoiler

 

8 minutes ago, ARS said:

to survive a head-first landing

Spoiler

 

Btw. Maybe Kerbals have a horseshoe on top of their head?

Edited July 23, 2018 by kerbiloid

[ARS]

An ankh? Maybe they're blessed by Tut-Un Jeb-Anh (Those pyramid in the desert?) with immortality?

[kerbiloid]

Who knows, who knows...

[vger]

When a Coyote actually manages to eat a Roadrunner, he turns into a Kerbal.

[kerbiloid]

Kerbals have popped eyes.
This reminds of Total Recall scene..

Maybe Kerbals are from a place with much higher pressure?
From a denser atmosphere or the ocean bottom?

Unlikely they can be from ocean bottom, as they can hardly sink.
On another hand, did you ever see a baby Kerbal? As well as Kerbal towns (except from mods)?

Look...

An oceanic hypothesis of Kerbal origin nature.

Disclaimer: I don't claim this for sure, it is just a hypothesis which may or may not be right.

Here is a life cycle of medusa/polyp.

Spoiler

And here is a hydra polyp's life cycle. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budding

Spoiler

 

So, there is a plant-looking (though it is animal) polyp sitting on the oceanic bottom.
It reproduces by developing a bud from its body.
Then the bud splits and depending on the polyp species either sits aside (like hydra), or floats away (medusa).

As we can see, Kerbals cannot be hydras, as they can actively move.
So, if Kerbals are buds of some oceanic polyps, they belong to a medusa-like lifecycle.

Also, as you can see, for hydra the "main" (and the only) form is the polyp.
While for medusa we could say that the floating form is "main", more complex and so. While its polyp is like an intermediate form, a medusa spawner.
(I know, this is a rough simplification, but this is important for further explanation.)

***

So, the hypothesis.

Somewhere on the oceanic bottom, in the abyss next to KSC site, there is an underwater polyp colony.
It is a deep colony, water pressure is high there.

Periodically the colony develops buds, they split and emerge.
The air pressure at the Kerbin surface is much lower than at their mother colony place, so their eyes pop out.

They are less dense than water, so they don't sink, but float to the closest shore and get on the ground.

But are the Kerbals a medusa-like form? No.
They are (see the pic.) ephyra(e).

But what is an adult, "medusa" form?

Do we know another endemic animal but Kraken?

Kerbals are ephyric phase of Kraken life cycle!

Krakens grow as Kerbals.

***

Do you remember that smal funny animal in a glass pot in from the old Kerbal science trailer?

It is Kraken's and Kerbals' planula larva (see the pic.)

***

Some Kerbals are tougher than others and are nearly immortal like Kraken.
They wear orange suits. They are grown ephyrae.

***

So, an adult Kraken from time to time returns to Kerbin, to its natural spawn place.
This happens since the Kerbin life had begun.

Kraken drops its larvae into the ocean, they sink and sit on the bottom and become the Kraken polyp form.
They are primitive, they don't move, nothing. This is just a Kraken incubator.

They develop buds, buds emerge, get to the ground and become ephyrae, whom we know as Kerbals.
As you remember, their eyes are popped due to the decompression.
They breathe with air. They should never return to the oceanic bottom to protect the defenceless polyps from intraspecies aggression.
So, their air breathing and high bouyoancy are on purpose, it keeps two phases of Kraken offsprings safe from each other.
(Of course, sapient Kerbals would not harm their maternal polyps, but who know what the wild Kerbals did).

There is only one place in the Universe, on Kerbin, where the Krakens spawn.
So, the only place on the shore where they get to ground.
This is the KSC site.

The place where newborn ephyrae (i.e. Kerbals) gather is where you can see the KSC pool.
This is a natural spring from underground full of nutrition minerals.
That's why they build a crew complex at that place, and why you employ them exactly there.

When Kerbals (i.e. Kraken ephyrae) got sapient, they have built KSC.
And that's why there is no other settlements on Kerbin.
"Kerbals" don't need other settlements. Here is the Kraken offsprings boot camp. They train there, and then spread around from there.

We can say, KSC is an important part of Kraken reproductiive cycle.
It spreads Kraken's ephyrae (i.e. "Kerbals") from their native planet.

An analogy: the shell of a snail, the crust of a crab, termite heap, other mineral structures made by the soft biological objects.
So, building spaceports is a strong instinctive desire of "Kerbals".
They do this automatically, like termites.
"Kerbals" may even not realize what are they doing, then oops! and a KSC is built.
Of course, originally it was just like a termite castle, not a spaceport. But when Kerbals got sapient, it became a spaceport.

The same story with Kerbal suits, which they wear almost always.
While KSC is like a termite castle for them, a spacesuit is like a natural crust.
Not that it grows on them, but they make and wear spacesuits instinctively. They can't oppose a desire to make and wear a spacesuit.
The same with helmets. They always wear helmets not because they can't breathe with air. This is just a part of their artificial  crust.

The grown ephyrae change their spacesuits color to orange.
There is some hierarchy between the "Kerbals". The most grown ephyra is always named "Jebediah".

The ephyra (aka Kerbals) spread around the Kerbol System.
They do this on purpose. They are looking some place where some of them can become adult Krakens.

Then adult Kraken (a former Kerbal) returns to Kerbin to drop some larvae into the ocean.

Important! Kerbals are not children, they are as adult as human adults.
Kraken is a patri/matri/whatever-arch form.

Also, that's why Kraken cannot be defeated in KSP.

***

Upd.
Even moar.

Possibly, BadS Kerbals are not a Kraken precursors.
Maybe they are a new, neotenic branch of evolution.

A normal Kerbal (i.e. Kraken's ephyra) can evolve either into a Kraken, or into a BadS Kerbal, which doesn't evolve into Kraken.
This could explain the antagonism between Jeb & Co. and Kraken.

Edited July 14, 2021 by kerbiloid

[Scotius]

 

I've read worse fandom theories Few of them were as entertaining as this one. Good job, sir.