The Hitchhiker's Guide to Kerbals: A Primer on the Species

[rexrex600]

What happened to Jebism?

[Tremzack]

Two of my most favorite things combined.......Why this is better than a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster topped with some boosters

[Whirligig Girl]

Can you mention the Krokman alternatives to the naming scheme of the planets (The lore found in the tracking station?) What about some Kerbal myths? Also, you forgot the Church of Jeb.

[sytaline]

Ha ha ha the two thing s I love

[Whirligig Girl]

MAKE MORE[/slightly necro-ish]

[B11267]

Noooooo... Its been half a year! D:

Ok. I'll wait patiently...

[KeithStone]

Within the first minute this had me laughing hysterically, making it a true HHGTTG fanwork. Great stuff!

[SkyRender]

Oh my, I thought this was lost forever. Well, I'm more or less obligated to continue it now that I've discovered otherwise, aren't I?

[FenrirWolf]

I like this thread.

[SkyRender]

Kerbal Technological Advancement

Few species escape the confines of their horribly hospitable and pleasant atmospheres and reach the delightfully unsurvivable confines of space without some help from a more capable species along the way. Those that do manage this feat tend to make horribly inefficient rockets which rely on the laughably outdated and backwards principle of going too fast to fall back to the planet below. (See entry: Flight for the modern take on this rather ludicrous method of space travel.) It is perhaps somewhat unsurprising that Kerbals were amongst those species which discovered space flight unaided. It is far more surprising that they continue to utilize this technology in spite of ready contact with more capable species quite willing to help them utilize more practical technology like Hyperspace Bypasses and Improbability Drives.

Kerbals, upon discovering the presence of alien life in the universe and their willingness to help them out, promptly utilized their advanced knowledge of the gravioli principles that allow for hyperspace travel and effectively rendered their solar system too dense for any lifeform besides Kerbals to occupy. The exact reasons for this are unclear to either of the leading Kerbologists in the universe, but both suspect that it had something to do with Jebediah Kerman's love of explosions. They then proceeded to destroy all of their existing technology and restart their space program from scratch, destroying all of their notes on the fantastic technology which had allowed them to reach such heights before. Reportedly this can happen as much as a hundred times a year when Jebediah is feeling especially vindictive.

Of course, given that the scientists who made that technology generally remember pretty well what they discovered and developed before, much of what goes on to enhance Kerbal space-faring is something of a farce. By gathering brief reports of data from various parts of their solar system and returning that information to Kerbin, the Kerbal scientists grant access to more advanced technology as they see fit. Even though much of the information gathered is by and large useless (and indeed, already well-known by the Kerbal scientific community from past excursions into space), the Kerbal scientists still insist upon this data being gathered before they will reveal their secrets once more. Again, this is by and large a farce since they just destroy all of the recorded information and constructed parts and force their species to start again from square one at arbitrary intervals. Presumably the Kerbal scientists get a kick out of watching their fellow Kerbals struggle pointlessly.

Kerbal scientists are generally agreed to be something of annoying gits amongst most Kerbals. No Kerbal dares say the same of Jebediah Kerman, however, as this tends to result in an express delivery of an SRB to the offending Kerbal's living room, with postage due no less.

[Space_Kraken]

Space Kraken approves. Free Bop for everyone!!

[quasarrgames]

Mmmmmmmmmuusst.... gggggggiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiivve...... +rep.....

[SkyRender]

The Asteroid Belt of Kerbin

A strange and unexpected development in the Kerbals' solar system of late has been the spontaneous and completely unexpected appearance of an asteroid belt between the planets of Kerbin and Duna. No prior record existed of these massive space rocks from previous trips to examine the Kerbal solar system, although one of the leading Kerbologists has stated in his defense that he wasn't very keen on staying in the system due to the rampant problems with absurd density and the risk of being tricked into taking random solid rocket booster joyrides. The other leading Kerbologist was unavailable for comment on the matter, having relocated to the Horsehead Nebula to evade copyright infringement notices from a breakfast cereal company regarding his previous entries on Kerbals.

Regardless, this newly-formed asteroid belt consists almost exclusively of asteroids on orbit-crossing paths with Kerbin, quite a number of them on impact trajectories over the next few Kerbal years. The unlikeliness of this has led to a number of theories regarding the formation of the asteroid belt. The Kerbals themselves are divided between believing that it is punishment from the Space Kraken for their lack of hubris in exploring their solar system, and believing that Jebediah Kerman just got a little overenthusiastic in trying to build "Kerbin Two". The leading Kerbologist in the galaxy has postulated that the asteroids were probably put there by one of the races that has previously had contact with the Kerbals and realized that the galaxy would be better off without such an explosion-happy species.

Although no solid facts can be found on the matter, apparently a receipt for several megatons of asteroids to be delivered COD to the Kerbin system was found recently. However, as it was found in a disused lavatory in the basement of a building on a horribly unfashionable planet where the local lifeforms are still so backwards that they think digital watches are pretty neat, nobody is particularly inclined to believe it to be authentic.

[KSK]

In related news, the new asteroid belt has been speculatively linked to an advertising push by the Galactic Sub-Etha network. "We'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.â€Â

[SkyRender]

A Guide to Vacationing on Kerbin

While a handful of the more eccentric sorts in the galaxy have taken a vested interest in visiting some of the more exotic worlds the Milky Way has to offer, it's generally advised even by them that you give Kerbin a miss on your itinerary. If you decide that you would like to take the risk and do so, the Guide takes no responsibility for your inevitable demise in the aftermath of your poor decision. That said, here is a brief synopsis of what to expect when vacationing on Kerbin.

First of all, get used to abnormally high density, as everything in the Kerbal solar system is several times too massive to be possible. This can lead to severe discomfort when visiting the surface of any body in the system, excepting perhaps the tiny asteroid moon of Gilly.

Second, do not eat any of the local food. While this advice is generally good for most worlds, Kerbal food in particular is generally agreed to be unpalatable by any species save Kerbals (and possibly a few backwater civilizations that nobody really cares to talk about). Never accept any offerings of mun, minmus, gilly, laythe, tylo, vall, pol, or especially bop. Whatever you do, do not get within 100 meters of any of "Jeb's coffee", unless you aren't particularly fond of having facial features. Ike is generally safe to eat, as the sole exception in Kerbal cuisine.

Third, do not accept any offers for transportation of any kind from a Kerbal. On the off-chance that you don't find yourself strapped to the top of a solid rocket booster and launched on a sub-orbital trajectory, you will probably end up going on a joyride across the countryside in a wheeled rover designed specifically to flip over at speeds half as fast as the Kerbals tend to drive. Why Kerbals enjoy crashing their own vehicles so much remains a mystery, but unless you're sustained by kinetic impacts or explosions, it's considered to be a bad idea to humor them on their offers to give you a ride.

Assuming you manage to follow the above cautions properly and don't get killed by a random rocket explosion or falling debris, you will find that Kerbin is quite a scenic place to visit. The planet features a multitude of diverse biomes in occasionally improbable locations, as well as a fascinating lack of clouds despite its thick atmosphere and abundant seas. It is an ideal planet to practice flying, as there is quite a lot of ground to miss and very few structures to accidentally ram into when attempting to do so.

It is recommended that you avoid swimming in Kerbin's ocean unless you are a particularly strong swimmer, however, as the tidal forces from two different moons pull the waves in several directions that were previously believed to only be theoretical. One assistant Kerbologist reportedly was folded into a temporary fractal dimension briefly by a Kerbin ocean wave, which he reported was "slightly more pleasant than being drunk". The potential applications of Kerbin waves for interstellar travel are currently under investigation as a result, although thus far the results have been six dead investigation crews and an awful lot of explosions.

[B11267]

Yes! Its back! I'm so happy!

On an unrelated side note, you sir, SkyRender, seem to have captured Douglas Adam's cynical (?) style of writing and the slightly sarcastic nature of the guide and put it into... Well... this...

I would totally pay 12 Altarian Dollars for a Hitchhiker's Guide just for this information.

[SkyRender]

Looking through the archives of the Guide, a forgotten entry was drudged up. Let's see what it says...

Kerbal Civilizations

There are few things quite as baffling as that of Kerbal civilization, particularly given the many conflicting reports about their species as a whole. Granted, most of these reports conflict due to the tendency of Kerbals to cause explosions in the vicinity of anyone who attempts to contact them, but this is less due to self-defense and more due to their rather poor grasp of rocketry. That said, at least one correspondant of ours has managed to glean some information about the spacefaring civilization on Kerbin known as the Lovothorians.

Lovothoria (a Kerbal term which more or less translates out to "we're better than everyone else"; points at least for being honest about their nationalism) is a nation situated near the equator of Kerbin, on the large peninsula commonly known as Lovotrazi (a Kerbal term which directly translates out to "our landmass is better than everyone else's"). The population ranges across the entirety of this region, though most of them are concentrated to the far west of the large mountain range in the center, the Lovobagits (which is Kerbal for "our mountain range is better than everyone else's").

The Lovothorians were reportedly quite egoistical even before they first started launching things into space, and often tout the fact that they have launched things into space as justification for their tendency to go "nah-nah-nah-NAH-nah!" at Kerbals from other nations. It is perhaps unsurprising then that they also sport a very large diplomatic force, which is mostly tasked with apologizing profusely for the behaviour of the rest of their people to the other nations of Kerbin, mostly because Lovothoria does not have any sort of standing military. Indeed, they possess no weapons at all according to their standards, though other nations around the planet argue that their frequent failed rocket launches should really be classified as ICBMs (even though most of them hit Lovothoria itself).

While the civilian population of Lovothoria is very proud of their nation's accomplishments, their space exploration and rocket design team tends to be far more humble. Mostly because they know that if the rest of Kerbin gets sick of the constant spent fuel stages falling down onto their cities, they will be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Edited May 16, 2014 by SkyRender

[Mekan1k]

I was more staying true to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series's underlying theme of never being consistent with anything previously released, and if possible contradicting itself in places as well. As the first book itself put it, there is much in the Guide which is apocryphal, if not outright wrong, but it continues to sell better than the Encyclopedia Galactica for two key reasons. First, it is slightly cheaper, and second, it has a nice cover with the words "Don't Panic!" emblazoned on the front.

With the entry describing kerbals, those words would have been revised into 'Panic. NOW!'.

[SkyRender]

Two new entries have been submitted to the Guide concerning Kerbals.

The Kerbal Economy

Normally the Guide does not detail the economic behaviour of a species, but with the Kerbals, it was inevitable. Put simply, the vast majority of Kerbals don't understand the first thing about money, in spite of their utter love of it. This trait is believed to be so unlikely in an intelligent species as to be improbable that any other species in existence could possibly share it.

A large part of why most Kerbals fail to grasp the value, purpose, or proper storage of money is that the majority of the money Kerbals produce gets funneled directly into their space program. In fact, 95% of all money spent on Kerbin goes directly towards designing, engineering, building, and launching rockets. It's estimated that around 94.5% of all money spent on Kerbin specifically goes into the latter two activities, but the lot of them tend to get lumped together for tax purposes.

The remaining 5% of money on Kerbin, according to the leading Kerbologist and his assistant, is spent exclusively on the manufacture of snack foods. While this may sound absurd, given the need for shelter, government, police, hospitals, fire protection, and a mess of other civil services, this is where the average Kerbal's failure to understand money truly shines. The majority of Kerbal goods and services are traded for not with currency, but rather with snacks. The going exchange rate in this backwards economy is suitably absurd as well, and fluctuates wildly depending on what snacks are currently deemed tastiest. Generally a Kerbal who invests in ike will be wealthy for life, for example, while one who invests in bop is as likely to be fabulously rich one day as he is to be destitute the next.

A recent trip to Kerbin by the leading Kerbologist's assistant has led to an important discovery in regards to the Kerbal economy: visitors must take care in how they treat Kerbal snack food. The act of spitting out one of their treats in disgust can and often will result in a national economic crisis, and can even lead to war if you happen to do it around a member of the Church of Treerock. As ever with Kerbal cuisine, the best course of action is to politely decline, unless you happen to enjoy causing disaster. And really, if that's your game, Kerbin's the place for you anyway; you'll fit right in with the Kerbals and their tendency to cause explosions at random for kicks.

Kerbin's Calendar

The Kerbal homeworld of Kerbin follows a highly unlikely calendar system which was adopted shortly before Kerbals took to spacefaring. The typical Kerbal day lasts only 6 hours, while the typical Kerbal year has 426 days, leading to a very unfortunate situation in that there aren't a lot of numbers that go evenly into 426. In ancient times, the solution to this problem was that Kerbals had 71 months, each one 6 days long, and held a celebration on the 6th day of every month during which they would gorge themselves on bop. This led to a massive dislike of bop, and an increasing interest in finding somewhere in the solar system where nobody ate it.

The modern Kerbal calendar system, by contrast, has six months that are 71 days long each. Going by the names of Radaphi (Kerbal for "booster month"), Giraphi (Kerbal for "liquid fuel month"), Daphi (Kerbal for "oxidizer month"), Makaphi (Kerbal for "command pod month"), Snaphi (Kerbal for "launch month"), and Kablaphi (Kerbal for "explosion month"), the Kerbal months are generally heralded as a pleasant and desirable adaptation of the former calendar which is still upheld by the Church of Treerock. Members of the Church of Treerock tend to also be upheld, often over burning copies of their hated calendar and piles of bop, which does little to improve relations on either side of the fence.

Despite the lack of any sort of logic behind it, a number of Kerbals insist on following a much more bizzarre calendar which shows no ties whatsoever to Kerbin or anything in its solar system. In this calendar, they record every four Kerbin days as a day, and track every 365 of these extra-long days as a year. Why anyone would ever measure time in such a backwards fashion remains a mystery, but certain Kerbals insist that this is the "true calendar". Other Kerbals insist that the Kerbals who believe in the "true calendar" have eaten too much bop lately.

[rdfox]

And from the new Abridged Edition...

Kerbin

Mostly harmful.

[KSK]

And from the new Abridged Edition...

Kerbin

Mostly harmful.

Well played, although I'm fairly sure that was the old abridged edition. The new abridged edition simply reads:

Kerbin

Harmful.

[The Jedi Master]

Do entries on Bill and Bob!

[JebThePilot]

I LOVE THIS! Do a entry on why Kerbals wear spacesuits everywhere!

[Commissioner Tadpole]

I wish I could favourite threads.

[SkyRender]

Kerbal Space Program

The most lauded and important organization amongst the Kerbal species (after Ike'n'Gilly Snacks Co., of course) is the Kerbal Space Program, a massive organization dedicated to the exploration of space no matter the cost to Kerbal lives as their primary goal, and the development of the best fireworks in history as their secondary. Though a few dissenters exist to the policies of the Kerbal Space Program, most of them are members of the Church of Treerock or fireworks enthusiasts who think KSP has its priorities backwards. Seeing as the former frequently find themselves busy with the task of avoiding being burned alive by Kerbals who hate them, and the latter tend to get their wish anyway if they stick around the launch site, the majority of Kerbals come out of the deal satisfied either way.

Gaining employment at Kerbal Space Program is notoriously easy, which has led to a massive glut of starry-eyed Kerbals signing up for jobs in engineering, manufacturing, science, janitorial services, and most popular of all, flying in the rockets as an astronaut. In truth, the position of astronaut is quite a lot less popular than it would seem, however; any candidate rejected for one of the other positions is immediately shuffled off to the astronaut complex as a candidate for being stuffed into a highly unstable stack of explosives that Kerbals ostensibly call a rocket. This tends to cause quite a lot of panic in about 95% of all Kerbals who actually get the job of being an astronaut. It probably doesn't help that they're also welded into their space suits prior to being loaded into the rockets to prevent them from "feeling the breeze" mid-mission, as reportedly happened during the disastrous first Mun landing. The other 5% tend to be either actually interested in the job of being an astronaut, or too inattentive and slow-witted to realize that they're being sent up on a suicide mission.

Until recently it was not entirely clear why almost the entire Kerbal species is behind their space program. However, the galaxy's leading Kerbologist accidentally uncovered the horrifying truth: most of the Kerbals who dissent to the space program [REDACTED FOR CRIMES AGAINST LIFE]. This article's author hopes that this entire article doesn't get censored for mentioning such a despicable and heinous campaign of [REDACTED FOR CRIMES AGAINST LUNCHMEAT]. I hate to put my career in jeopardy by mentioning this, but the galaxy must know! The Kerbal Space Program is [REDACTED FOR CRIMES AGAINST LUBRICANT]! Spread the word!

EDITOR'S NOTE: Our former Kerbologist has been sacked due to his profane language and even more profane stating of the truth when a comforting lie would have worked better. We're currently accepting applications for new Kerbologists! Potential candidates should be unfamiliar with any entry besides this one regarding Kerbals. Inquire with Zarniwoop's secretary's secretary for details.