Your Take on KSP Lore?

[Jeb x Valentina]

Part II, which explains what happens right after the player creates a new save:

 

Or just a bit befor:

Spoiler

The rise of a space program:

Before the Kerbal Space program, there were already some smaller programs; the agencies. Before they started making contracts and selling parts on a large scale, they too tried to reach space. They were quite succesful on the unkerbaled scale, but as for kerbaled missions, they still couldn't quite figure it out. That's when the founder and CEO of the space program, which we will refer to as Felipe Kerman (Yes, he's named after HarvesteR) was wandering around, looking for the right place to make his space agency dream come true. After failing to find the right spot over and over again, he heard of the monolith at the equator. It was still unclaimed land thanks to some dumb luck, so he rushed to buy it. Then he hired some wrkers to build the KSC, which right now is in its start of carrer configuration. The kerbin world record keeping society then sends Felipe some contracts. That's when the player enters the story...

Yeah, now after the player joins:

Spoiler

Who or what is the player?

We are Felipe Kerman. At least when we're not controlling a craft. Every facility upgrade, every node of the tech tree unlocked, every contract, every ship's "blueprint" is all controlled by the CEO or someone very high up in the hierarchy. In-game, there is no mentioned CEO, and the one making these decisions is the player.

While we are controlling craft, however, we are either playing as mission control as a whole (if the ship has a connection to the KSC), the pilot/crew (If the ship has no connection and is manned, or during IVA and EVA), or as a probe's automation (If no signal is required for control and a probe has no connection). As for the camera, I can only explain it as a supernatural being, as it's not being held on the ship, by the kerbals or launched on a separate craft.

After that, I think it's mostly headcanon and speculation (Read my username 4 example )

[Davi SDF]

I like to think Kerbals are kinda like WH40k orks, fungi that just poof and spread their fungus to grow more Kerbals.

Why they want to go to space? Cause it cool! And some of them are really eager to prove that Eeloo is a planet (they get into serious fights for that).

Unlike orks, they have a good understanding of how machines work. They are very smart, and always think about if they can make something work (they have a serious case of not thinking if they should).

 

I do like to think that Kerbin has more than barren grasslands and deserts, it's just that the game isn't focused on that, they might even have "Kountries", wich would basically be rival Engineering programs!

[paranoid android]

On 8/3/2023 at 10:54 PM, TwoCalories said:

Cheaty post to unbury the thread, but seriously, it would be nice to have a megathread like this to talk about lore.

My space program doesnt give a s**t about safety and just wants to send people to space

Just now, paranoid android said:

My space program doesnt give a s**t about safety and just wants to send people to space

And the best solution to a problem is more boosters

[TwoCalories]

On 10/16/2023 at 9:14 AM, paranoid android said:

And the best solution to a problem is more boosters

Is there any other way? 

But anyway, my space program practices safety but most of the times we eyeball it.  Our rockets also undergo a long design phase before launch, to make sure everything is aesthetically pleasing safe and reliable.

[Great Liao]

My take:

Spoiler

 

Kerbals didn't originate on Kerbin, but originated on Eve, which got ruined through a cataclysm, causing Kerbals to spread through the system. Dunatian and Laythe kerbals died out due to enviornmental problems (laythe was freezing), Tekto kerbals were killed in the great Outer War (I use OPM, QuackPack and one of my own mods in development) and a bunch of other kerbals didn't survive to to EXTREMELY exotic enviornments. 

After that the continent of Kurup got destroyed by the meteor that caused Kerbin's crater, causing the Keljuk Empire to be able to conquer the Kyzantines during the Kerbal Year -2004. Then the Keljuks collapsed, allowing the Mahid dynasty to rise up and conquer Karab and the Kaghreb. As the Mahids grew, the Kongs were slowly declining. They had enjoyed hegemony over Kali for hundreds of years, but internal revolts caused a ton of chaos for them and they collapsed, causing Kali to enter an age of chaos. The Qiuquan Dynasty had just begun, and they began rising.

-1000: By this point the Kughalids had conquer Kindu Desh, and has made significant excursions into Kamilia. The Mahids had collapsed allowing the Nilids to take over the Karini region, conquering the land for themselves. by this point the religion of Divine Kerbolism had reached its peak and other religions were on the decline. The Quiquan dynasty conquered the Bogd tribe, causing a seismic shift in the thought of the area.

-500: This is extremely different from earlier in the time period. the dynasties of old had fallen; and interest had been taken in the skies as Divine Kerbolism claimed that "The lights our our brothers" and "We are not of this place" and that "The fallen Paradise (Eve) will Return". This intrigued the ruler of the Anachrids, who ruled northern Karab during this time. He ordered an expedition to the east in order to contact the declining Wukuo Dynasty, since rumors were circultaing across Kerbin that they had discovered spaceflight.

-450: The rennaisance of Kerbin begins in the Karab region.

-400: The Kagrebi golden age begins.

-350: The industrial age begins; most dynasties are gone now are they were replaced by others; and then subsequently overthrown by kingdoms and dictatorships and technocracies. The Kerbold war begins.

-250: The Kerbold war ends, with the Technocrats establishing "Sectors" of Kerbin in which different peoples lived. The Kagrebi golden age ends.

-150: Kerbals start funding a space program. Many attempts are made but they fail. The Technocrats unite all of Kerbin under the KTS (Kerbal Technocratic State). A small resistance movement emerges underground.

-30: The Kerbal University of Kerbonauts is founded. Jebediah Kerman is born. 

1: The Kerbal University of Kerbonauts loses funding and a state-sponsored space program, the KSP, succeeds. The KSC is established in the Eti region, on the east coast of Alkebulan. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by Great Liao
Just some cleaning up to do

[TwoCalories]

It's time for the question... what is Mystery Goo, anyway?

[Lisias]

10 minutes ago, TwoCalories said:

It's time for the question... what is Mystery Goo, anyway?

A fantastic cliffhanger for a Kerbal halloween short history that, frankly, I'm surprised no one (AFAIK) explored yet!!!

Spoiler

My take on it can't be published on forum, however. Crap.

 

[TwoCalories]

I think it's just some kind of algae that reacts to different radiations that change its color. It is also attracted to water.

[Lisias]

23 minutes ago, TwoCalories said:

I think it's just some kind of algae that reacts to different radiations that change its color. It is also attracted to water.

Someone zoomed on it once, and:

[Jacke]

16 hours ago, TwoCalories said:

It's time for the question... what is Mystery Goo, anyway?

The answer is still the same.  Mystery Goo is green.  Kerbals are green.  Kerbals often perform acts or fly in rockets that would leave them less than...solid.

Thus, Mystery Goo.

[OrdinaryKerman]

While not strictly about kerbals themselves and maybe not quite lore, here's a thing
 

AK - After Kod calendar

Year 1 ingame is 1971 AK

Each week is 6 days (because bestagon, also in ancient times Kerbals considered the ‘cold lights’/planets to be Mün, Minmus, Duna, Eve, Jool, Moho.

The number and names also refer to these planets, but a. are more ancient names for deities assigned to the same bodies by the Mayolonian civilization, and b. the Acijem Republic/Empire replaced the moons with The Sun and The Kraken as part of their Squidman Cult.

Months

Each year has 6 months, average length of 71 (JNSQ: 61) days

List

Erbol (72 days)
Kraken (70 days) / gets leap day every 12th year except every 24th year
Egar (71 days)
Taeus (72)
Ander(70)
Langh(71)

For JNSQ every month has 61 days except Kraken, which has 60 because February

 

On Mystery Goo: Is it green though? The stock Goo container shows only black under the grating, the warning stripes are yellow/orange, and BDB and NF/Restock seem to have settled on purple being the color of bare Goo. I'm inclined to think that it's some mix of bacteria in a growth medium

Edited November 11, 2023 by OrdinaryKerman

[Kimera Industries]

Well, I don't have much in the way of lore, but here goes... (Ha I just finished writing this. I did not expect so many words to come out of my hands.)

Spoiler

1. Kerbals

Kerbals are the descendants of a long-ago crashed alien race. These aliens crashed, fleeing... something.

Kerbals use photosynthesis, but not as their main source of energy, that comes from snacks. Snacks are able to be produced on any part that can hold a kerbal via a Subnautica-like fabricator. For extremely long missions, they have the ability to "time warp," where their breathing slows down to almost nothing, temperature plummets, and bodily functions in general just kind of cease, kind of like that one frog that hibernates during the winter by letting itself freeze. When the aliens crashed on Kerbin, (the UFO in the arctic is one of their ships) they had to evolve this trait to better survive the arctic winters. During the crash, the ship's databanks were damaged and caused an enormous technological regression, setting them back thousands of years.

2. Space Program

The Kerbal Space Program is the main space program of Kerbin. It was founded for similar reasons as NASA, though without any military motivation. Kerbals are too interested in the finer things in life, like snacks and explosions, to care about governments or militaries, and as such, their entire planet is unified, though with a mix of cultures in different places. The space program accomplished similar things as NASA before private space companies, like landing on both moons of Kerbin and unmanned probes to most of the solar system.

The Kimera Industries private space company is their equivalent of SpaceX and they design and build reusable launch vehicles and SSTOs. Andrew W. Kerman is the founder of Kimera Industries and naturally the best kerbal in existence because he is me. K Industries aims to land on every planet in the solar system and to eventually have interstellar travel. 

3. Easter Eggs/ Alien Relics

Most of the easter eggs (which I'll call monuments) are a result of early alien exploration of the Kerbol System. The Mun arches are ancient wormholes for easy transport across solar systems, and only recently have their camouflage coverings begun to decay. Monoliths are a slightly more advanced form of flags, a way of saying "I was here." Vallhenge or related structures are either an even more elaborate way of saying this, or were placed there by alien trolls. Pranksters, that is, not aliens that look like trolls.

Kerbolar System Origins 1: (Something I made up just now)

The system was devoid of life but the fourth planet from the sun was deemed usable for terraforming, hence the large crater. A vast multitude of comets were redirected to provide water, and once the planet was ready, it was seeded with simple plants- grass and various trees, namely baobab. However, a large political faction of the aliens felt that terraforming was cruel and unnatural, warping a planet beyond what nature had intended. Before "Kerbin" was completed into a tropical paradise, as planned, terraforming largely fell out of favor and the project was abandoned. The system was reserved as a sort of national park, as it was one of the few systems to not see extensive terraforming.  

Kerbolar System Origins 2: (What I support most in my head)

The entire system is artificial. It was a secret project, known only to a few in the government. The project was intended to create a "safe haven" to raise a new species, one free of all the prejudices of the old species. The stellar empire was predicted to fall apart soon, and this faction wanted to make sure life would survive, as an all-out war was imminent, and let me tell you, interstellar weapons are a most cruel thing indeed. The project was rushed, heavily rushed. Each planet started as a megastructure, then layered with an unimaginable amount of rock and metal. At the core of each planet, including Jool, lies one of these megastructures, each shaped like one of the Platonic solids or a polyhedral, with many layers.

Minmus was a hasty addition, as someone charged the project developer's account for a planet-sized amount of mint ice cream and it needed disposing of. It was added as a second moon of Kerbin. Dres was a dump spot for leftover material in general, and many lazy project workers simply left their trash in orbit of Dres, which over time would become its rings. The Mun's arch/wormholes were used for easy transport of materials straight to Kerbin. However, before Kerbin could be completed and Jool dyed to its proper orange-and-white colors, (That was a joke. Jool was meant to be green.) interstellar war wiped out the stellar empire. Countless worlds were ravaged, and almost no life survived. The few sentient survivors were forced to flee to the solar system of their own creation, ironically fulfilling its purpose in a cruel twist of fate. Their ship was rendered unflyable after crashing into Kerbin, and, well, read the section on kerbals for the rest.

The Kraken:

The Kraken is an S-class species, capable of living in space and traveling between stars. They are highly hostile and avoided at all costs by the empire's ships. Krakens are capable of warping faster than the speed of light, kind of like the purrgils from Star Wars. Anyone who has seen Rebels or Ahsoka knows what I am talking about. They feed upon metal-rich asteroids and comets, and as such are drawn right to spaceships, as they are big chunks of refined metal with packets of water inside.

A secret project to weaponize them was successful, implanting control chips directly into their brains. Krakens can channel their warp energy into a powerful beam, capable of annihilating the surface of planets. It's unknown why they evolved this ability, but a low-power version of it is probably used to vaporize space rocks for easier eating. Very old specimens can reach a kilometer or two in length, but most babies are around several inches and grow rapidly in their first few decades of living. They hatch from eggs by the thousands (most will not survive, killed by the harshness of space, or eaten by their siblings) and reproduce like octopi.

The weaponization attempt for the Krakens was used in the interstellar war, the cause of such destruction. However, many of their chips shorted out and the Krakens in a blind rage destroyed everything they could. A rogue juvenile Kraken was chasing the crew that crashed on Kerbin, but they were able to distract it. Using an old backup communications array, (The crater on Bop) they broadcast a signal to the Kraken's malfunctioning chip that commanded it to return to base, and that Bop was base. It bought enough time to flee to Kerbin, and the Kraken, commanded by its chip, stayed on Bop until it died of starvation and was eventually petrified. Because of their origins, kerbals refer to "The Kraken" as a general omen of bad luck or something to blame for accidents.

Enjoy! My favorite bit is about the Krakens.

[TwoCalories]

1 hour ago, Kimera Industries said:

Vallhenge or related structures are either an even more elaborate way of saying this, or were placed there by alien trolls

Somebody had a sense of humor to put a huge hole at Moho's north pole (the Mohole).

[Lisias]

8 hours ago, TwoCalories said:

Somebody had a sense of humor to put a huge hole at Moho's north pole (the Mohole).

Moho is the upper half of an unfinished bilboquet made by the Krakens!

[Kimera Industries]

14 hours ago, TwoCalories said:

Somebody had a sense of humor to put a huge hole at Moho's north pole (the Mohole).

Actually, as far as the Mohole, I think that is where a segment of the underlying megastructure collapsed, resulting in the unnatural deepness. Either that or they constructed the porta-potty over it. 

[CrazyJebGuy]

I think they all have the last name "Kerman" because it's not a last name like we use it now, but like a medieval one describing your job (hence names like Taylor, Smith, Miller), or maybe it's a title, for astronauts/rocketry/space things. Kerbals that don't have anything to do with spaceflight aren't in the game (I think). "Werner von Kerman" is kinda weird for having a 'von' though. Maybe he has a regular last name but somebody screwed up his paperwork or something for the KSC.

[Kimera Industries]

On 11/21/2023 at 7:35 PM, CrazyJebGuy said:

I think they all have the last name "Kerman" because it's not a last name like we use it now, but like a medieval one describing your job (hence names like Taylor, Smith, Miller), or maybe it's a title, for astronauts/rocketry/space things. Kerbals that don't have anything to do with spaceflight aren't in the game (I think). "Werner von Kerman" is kinda weird for having a 'von' though. Maybe he has a regular last name but somebody screwed up his paperwork or something for the KSC.

That's probably the best idea I've heard for the same last names. Maybe when a kerbal is born they have an ancestral last name, and whatever profession they go into, that career's title overrides whatever previous last name they had, hence "von Kerman." Maybe it was von Braun before he got a job, and when he started working on rockets it became von Kerman. But then what if they change jobs? Maybe kerbals have certain traits that manifest themselves at a certain age and that just automatically makes one good at specific jobs, so they only get assigned one job in their life by their increasingly Orwellian-sounding government.

On 10/4/2023 at 12:42 PM, Davi SDF said:

They are very smart, and always think about if they can make something work (they have a serious case of not thinking if they should).

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn't stop to think if they should."

On 10/4/2023 at 12:42 PM, Davi SDF said:

And some of them are really eager to prove that Eeloo is a planet (they get into serious fights for that).

I assume the debate over Dres is already settled?

[Cytauri]

On 10/30/2023 at 9:27 PM, Lisias said:

Someone zoomed on it once, and:

...

 

Well, Restock has the Mystery Goo as purple (and as Nertea is part of the KSP 2 team now, it should be canon at least for me). I don't think it is green, 

Spoiler

and I hope you are not alluding to something.

[Lisias]

8 hours ago, Kimera Industries said:

I assume the debate over Dres is already settled?

Of course not! The Dres Planetary Society is still working on the case!  

[Kimera Industries]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Of course not! The Dres Planetary Society is still working on the case!  

So the debate over Eeloo is just more physical. 

[TwoCalories]

What is Dres, anyway? Does it exist?

[StateOfBurgundy]

I don't agree with the food part, to my knowledge, they eat snacks, ONLY SNACKS

[OrdinaryKerman]

Short follow-up on my Kerbal calendar from above, their days of the week: 

Aiblon

Aibuna

Aiboho

Aibuli

Aibanu

Aibol

Anu and Bol are the weekends. 

Edited December 31, 2023 by OrdinaryKerman

[Rutabaga22]

The kerbs only like science because it makes bigger rockets. 

[TwoCalories]

Most of my KSP lore was based around my mission report. I put up a poll to change the names of the countries, and so far, it seems readers want new country names, so here's some rough ideas for new names, with their real-life counterparts to the left of them:

CONTINENTS:

• North/South America---> North/South Vankada
• Europe ---> Echolahn
• Asia ---> Eleshen
• Africa ---> Okanha
• Oceania ---> Azzinhe
• Antarctica ---> Chilades

OCEANS:

• North/South Pacific Ocean ---> North/South Kalau Ocean
• North/South Atlantic Ocean ---> North/South Koloan Ocean
• Indian Ocean ---> Eleaden Ocean
• Arctic Ocean ---> Colodei Ocean
• Southern Ocean ---> Chilodei Ocean

COUNTRIES (Incomplete List):

• United States of America ---> Democratic States of Vankorda
• Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ---> Socialist Union of Zolosten
• European Union ---> Echolahean Union
• Canada ---> Ovorda
• China ---> Kalestia

I'm still not sure on how to make the country borders. I'll work on it once I have a complete country list.