Your Take on KSP Lore?

[Mahnarch]

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Edited February 14, 2024 by Mahnarch
I can do better lore. Just need to workshop.

[Iapetus7342]

Spoiler

I imagine the Kerbals had a fair bit more time to evolve than humans, and eventually lost the need to eat and drink because they learned photosynthesis (this is why their skin is green). Eventually they evolved a brain and civilization like us, and had a war (which is why Wernher is in the game) which ended in the countries finding out how rockets worked. A few years and many attempts to get to space later, the Space Agency (your space program) is founded by Gene Kerman and his friends Wernher, Gus and Mortimer. Then whatever happens in your install happens. The precursors were a very old species at this point, and during one of the Space Agency's launches, the monoliths were summoned to the planets by the Precursors. This led kerbalkind to have a purpose to their motive to go to space: to find out what these monoliths are. 

 

[Manfred_Kerman]

Kerbals are aliens from Mars miljons of years in the future. They came from the planet they called Duna and killed all the human.  The Kerbals took the great human languages Spanish in speech and English in writing but adapde their own names to the planets. So the kerbal system is our solar system in the future

[Mr. Kerbin]

The kerbals are a new civilization. There actually used to be an old civilization here- you may have known them as the Precursors. Let's call them.. the Larbek. (totally not kerbal spelled backwards)

The Larbek originate from Kerbin, but they called it Sumuh. It was cold, the Sun was smaller and less bright, 0.872x the mass of our sun.

The Larbek became more and more advanced, using monoliths as flags/communication. arches to easily get around....

but one day...

war.

After many unfortunate events- including, but not limited to

A large body, around 40km, hitting already tense Laythe, causing volcanic eruption, and general badness causing the planet to intensely heat up, ice to melt, oxygen to become atmosphere, causing the Laythe today, and similar things with Dres, Ike, and Minmus- why they have nearly no craters- Eve (like in the Before Kerbin planet mod) being whacked by Demise (a explodium rich moon from Before Kerbin), and not mentioning the fallout of the bodies being whacked. AND THEN A GAMMA RAY BURST!

After that, nuclear war broke out, causing the Larbek to die off, from high radiation from the weaker ozone and the war.

However.

A fungal growth appeared. And a took a shape. Learning to walk. Learning to be something. Becoming self aware on this charred world. Some grew into a green substance all over the planet, killing a lot of plants off, consuming all buildings into the one, with the occasional tree or grass left. This is not true if you have Parallax, as it still has life and plants.

But some refused. Becoming kerbals. Self-repairing radiosynthetic little green guys. They can eat. When they do, it is much easier then absorbing radiation.

While clumsy, incredibly smart. Living underground to avoid the monster above.

Soon building a giant facility. You know this as the KSC. In the hopes to escape this dying world, soon to die from the giant monster (Or the green stuff that poses as “grass”) consuming the world, and the Sun becoming a Subgiant (why it is so big), and twice as luminous. And yet, of all the people on Kerbin to lead them to the stars, they chose you.

Also deserts are just areas that have been “consumed” by The One (planet wide fungi), and pretty much dead zones , without nutrients or much water.

Quote

I might have mentioned this before, but Kerbals could be semi-autotrophic, like the Emerald Green Sea Slug. They could have special pouches in their intestines that catch chloroplasts, and distribute them to their skin, where is behaves like melanin, turning their skin green and plant like.

Maybe we’ve been looking at this wrong too. Maybe they aren’t plants or animals, but rather multicellular protists. This would give them similar qualities to both kingdoms.

 

 @Kerbalsaurus made the quoted bit.

Edited Monday at 02:49 PM by Mr. Kerbin

[Fizzlebop Smith]

This was one of my biggest hang up with KSP2.

The exploration and discovery feeling was replaced by an overarching goal the throttle jockey it up to the next anomaly. 

The vague approach was much better because it allowed the community to add to this lore through mod content.

The various dialogued and meshes that have been added over the years based on community imagination is the best way to proceed (IMO) and why squad got it so right.

It allowed the player to design their own wrapper for the sandbox.

There are a million different origin story's for the kerbal. This thread supports that theory at least.

I am not much for taking pictures, but enjoy writing and kerbals both a great deal. I have crafted a boat load of stories that no one really cares about but me and am all excited now.

I'm going to comb through some of my stories and see what hints abound to answer this questions.

I will be back with my post... beware. You have opened a can of krak-a-lacken.

[Hobbesian]

Spoiler

My headcanon, before I moved to RSS/RO, was sort of as follows:

Kerbals are a mammalian sort of yellowy-green stumpy creature that lives somewhat like humans, had their heads not been so large they likely could have fit many more inside capsules.

Kerbin/Kerbol is an astrophysicist's worst nightmare, with Kerbin being strangely dense for it's admittedly miniscule size.  Same atmosphere as our Earth though. I never thought too much about it though, might come back to add extra thoughts.

The space program is well funded however not ambitious, anymore (Reflecting my own personal lack of ambition for any kind of exploration past the Kerbin-Mun-Minmus system). Mun landings are somewhat common, once a year or so, with regular crew replacements to the multitude of stations in LKO.  I never cared for doing uncrewed flights so I just pretended like they still happened just that I wasn't responsible for them. 

I always imagined there being multiple countries, though "larger" than our countries on average, usually being as big as a continent. The continent on which the main KSC lies I have interpreted as analogous to South Africa. Which makes only surface-level sense so I prefer usually not to name the countries for fear of losing my mind trying to explain it all. Eventually I stopped calling it "South Africa" because that made no sense, but kept using the flag (I am not South African so I don't even know why). 

Kerbals as a culture are fairly alike no matter where you go, Kerbin to me is small enough to where one culture has almost completely dominated the planet, be they through simple peaceful long term methods, or the more likely violent ways. This monoculture to me explains why every Kerbal has the last name "Kerman", it's similar to the real life Sikh religion in which every man's last name is "Singh" and every woman's last name is "Kaur".  Why does Kerbin have multiple countries despite being monocultural? Probably political infighting. 

Why the Kerbals go to space is to me about the same reason we go nowadays, science and research, to better understand the world they live on, and the universe itself. Admittedly a bit more well-funded and streamlined than our space programs in real life, since every now and again with regularity a mission launches to the Mun or Minmus even. Perhaps one day they'll send some poor brave sap out all the way to Duna, they keep saying they're waiting for a transfer window but we all know the eggheads over at the probes and satellites department are going to get the jump on it. For now they're happy spending their time in LKO.