[SPOILERS] Exploring the Mun in KSP 1.12.5

[MythicalHeFF]

Just last night, I was scrolling through my Steam library, when I noticed that a new update for KSP was available- version 1.12.5, which had no changelog to speak of other than one thing.. Something had been "added to the Mun".

Immediately, I assumed that this must be a new easter egg of some sort, and, although I probably could have flown a mission there to investigate, it was already getting very late and I decided to wait until the next day.

That brings us to today, when I decided to begin the search by booting up an old save on my gaming laptop (which has FINALLY been fixed after being broken for way too long). Luckily, I already had existing infrastructure around the Mun in this save game, and immediately switched to the MAD (Munar Anomaly Detector) satellite and began searching for new anomalies.

Before too long, I managed to find one that I had not seen before, an anomaly located at the approximate coordinates of 57°N, 87°E. 

Having located a potential new anomaly, I then fueled up one of the landers on board the Regulus asteroid space station and sent it down to investigate.

Upon landing, however, I was rather disappointed to find that I had only managed to find another monolith- albeit one I had never seen before, in a pretty cool location to boot. Also, since the lander I was using was only designed to land on the Mun from low, equatorial orbit, Hadsey and Jedlan Kerman were stuck there.

Having failed the first time,  and after locating another potentially new anomaly near the south pole, I launched a new mission to go investigate, this time with a small rover to aid in locating the anomaly.

Upon landing, however, the story was much the same; it just turned out to be another monolith, this one likely being the green monolith. I'll never know for sure, though, as I never actually saw the monolith; I just saw the message and reloaded to back when I was still in orbit.

After two failed attempts to find any new anomalies, I began to wonder if there was even a new anomaly at all, or if maybe one of the existing easter eggs had been changed. Luckily, as previously mentioned, I already had quite a bit of infrastructure built up on the Mun in this save, which included flags located at a monolith, the Neil Armstrong memorial, and two of the Mun Arches. all left by the crew of my Elcano circumnavigation from almost a year ago. Searching the Armstrong memorial and the first Mun Arch (Beaski's Arch) yielded nothing, but what I saw next was truly something to behold...

Spoiler

.. The second Mun arch I had visited, which I called the Highland Arch, had become an alien arch/stargate of some sort, which had been hiding within the rock arch this whole time, perhaps connected in some way to KSP 2 or the original storyline for KSP1 that was never implemented (the precursor civilization). Immediately after seeing this new arch in all its glory, I knew I had to land there with Kerbals, and subsequently did so. 

Even during the approach, from several kilometers away, the Highland Arch's strange lights were easily visible against the darkness of the Munar twilight.

Upon landing about 500m away, I then deployed the rover, as well as the two brave Kerbonauts, Germund Kerman, a veteran kerbonaut, and Shepvey Kerman, a new recruit, to approach the wondrous arch. This arch was especially meaningful to Germund Kerman, as he had stood on top of it with his own feet during my aforementioned Mun Elcano, which had taken place just a few  in-game years prior. 

As the duo drew ever-closer to the structure, Germund could hardly believe his eyes. He was a veteran kerbonaut in the most literal sense of the word, having served on  a plethora of missions; an asteroid capture, two circumnavigations, one of Tylo and one of the Mun, during both of which he'd covered thousands of kilometers and encountered several anomalies, standard landing missions, he'd seen it all, and yet, he'd seen nothing like this. He knew that he bad been year just years ago, and yet the arch made it feel as though he had never been at all. It almost brought him into a trance, calling him to get closer, and, well before he should have, use his jetpack to ascend to the top of the arch. Shepvey and Mission Control shouted to him to stop, but their words went in one ear and out the other.

It filled him with wonder and confusion to know that all of this had been just inches beneath his feet, so close to being discovered, and yet so far away at the same time. Instead, it had taken what was presumably a meteorite impact to shatter the rocks that had concealed the true nature of this arch for so long. For a moment, Germund hardly even considered the actual implications of discovering an artificial structure on another world- instead, he was overtaken by the wonder of it all.

Germund Kerman standing on the Highland Arch, as it had been named by his crew, during the Mun Elcano mission, oblivious to what lay just beneath his feet (1.12.2, January 21, 2022)

After some time had passed, and it had become apparent that ascending the arch was safe, rookie kerbonaut Shepvey Kerman jetpacked up to the top of the arch to join Germund in his wonder.

After spending several minutes in a purely mesmerized state, Germund finally came back to his senses and began to investigate the rest of the arch, which included the bright, multicolored lights that had been revealed on it. Upon approaching the light, it almost looked like some sort of portal to another dimension.

It also ended up producing a pretty funny lens flare effect when viewed from the inside.

 

Further investigation will be needed to determine what exactly this arch is and where it came from... perhaps an elaborate research facility could be assembled.. but that's a job for another time.