Origin of KSP planetary bodies names

[RedPine]

Squad: Did you laugh at least once when you read these posts?

Also, do you have plans to confuse us further on the matter?

[Deadpangod3]

You got it all wrong.

"Safari key rings" would be (literally): Anillos de llaves de safari, or "irafas ed sevall ed sollina". I don't think that's where it comes.

No is the same in spanish, and yep, "moho" would be this:

But I don't see how it relates to the actual planet.

Google translate does not lie...

[KasperVld]

Moho also means rust, referencing the planet's rusty color. Also there's the Mohole project and things like that as well. So, overall, an excellent name

[Moar Boosters]

Eve is also an MMORPG based in space

Yeah.... I thought it might be a reference to the MMO. That game has a reputation for being incredibly difficult, so it'd be fitting for them to name the most challenging planet after it.

[SkyRender]

Amusingly, the Hobbits in Fellowship of the Ring fairly early on refer to jewels as "jools". Probably a coincidence.

[Moach]

oh well, I did make up at least one of those names, so I can tell you how it came to being.

it was over a decade ago, me and my brother (HarvesteR) were at my grandpa's farm trying to light up an Estes shuttle rocket model... not much luck getting it to go, as the propellant was probably all soaked from humidity

for some reason, we had cardboard bits and tin foil around - and while idly waiting for some good idea on how to get the thing to light, i wound up a little tin-foil men, and taped it onto a rocket

I called the guy a "kerbo" - and quickly made up and absent-minded backstory about him being from a planet called "Kerbin", a name hastily derived from the contraction of Kerbo and Bespin (from StarWars, which was in our heads at the time, when episode 1 was hot news)

shortly after that, and an event that resulted in the structural integrity discontinuance of my grandma's erstwhile microwave oven, following the sudden realization that model rockets should NOT EVER be placed inside such an appliance, we started getting better "luck" with the remaining stock of boosters we had from the soon-destroyed shuttle kit

and HarvesteR started logging the flights brave attempts, as you can see in my one blog entry - I'm not sure if it was me or him who came up with "Kerbal" from "Kerbo", but eventually it came to being... and "Kerbo" was mostly phased out except for use in contractions, e.g. Kerbonaut

and then, it all got made into a game, which was something we thought about back during college - some years later, Squad gave him a chance to go ahead and do it.

cheers!

Edited December 6, 2013 by Moach

[NovaSilisko]

IIRC most of the stuff like Tylo, Ike, Laythe, Eeloo, Dres, etc are just nonsense names that I had come up with. Eve, I always felt was a good name for an equivalent to Venus (which is the only planet named after a female deity IRL, maybe there's an Eve Kerman somewhere in kerbal mythology) Moho was some language's word for something relating to fire. Though this was all ages ago, so there might be more detailed stories behind the other planets that I'm just forgetting. I vaguely remember Jool's original name was something starting with "K" and ending with "er" before I saw it and was all "no god please no"

Speaking of, have an ancient chart I made of a solar system, way before I was on the team... https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/575558/KSP/solarsystem.jpg

[Catullus]

Do you realise that apart from HarvestR, you've probably shaped the Kerbal universe more than anyone else?

[celem]

Moho was some language's word for something relating to fire.

That one surprises me. When I first started playing and got my first probe there I found the deep pits at the poles and assumed the entire body was a reference to the terraforming technique 'moholes'. I remember first coming across the world in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Anyone keen on the idea of terraforming and space programs revolving around the red planet in general. This is quality sci-fi and i'd recommend. Moholes as terraforming tools would be fairly useless on mercury however, the author used them as a mechanism to raise air temperatures.

In reality the moholes on earth were to be for !science! rather than terraforming. Though heaven knows earth becomes less 'earth-like' every minute and could use some terraforming by now.... again, probably not the sci-fi 'moholes'.

Edited December 6, 2013 by celem

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Speaking of, have an ancient chart I made of a solar system, way before I was on the team... https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/575558/KSP/solarsystem.jpg

I find the Fire Star much more interesting than Moho.

You know, Squad should recycle those planets(except Kerbin, Mün and Eve, obviously, since they're alterady in the game) for use in another star system(if it's ever implemented), because, with the exception of Juturn's cheesy name, they are all good.

[khyron42]

... terraforming technique 'moholes'...

That in itself is a reference to a "hole" to the layer of the Earth known as the "Moho", short for "MohoroviÄÂić discontinuity" - the transition between the crust and the Mantle. I thought it a pretty fitting planet name just as a reference to the point where rock got hot enough to be a bit... bendy.

[Gojira]

Speaking of, have an ancient chart I made of a solar system, way before I was on the team... https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/575558/KSP/solarsystem.jpg

Forgive me for this, but...

"The Lost Moon of Poosh! Donna, you're a genius!"

[NovaSilisko]

I find the Fire Star much more interesting than Moho.

The original Moho (the one with the burning atmosphere) was much closer to the sun, with lava on the sun-facing side, but be safe and frozen on the other side. Unfortunately, there was some issue with the lava, and the atmosphere wasn't able to change temperature depending on where you are on the planet. So, initially just the lava was ditched and the superheated atmosphere kept until a solution could be found, but alas, things moved on and Moho was later redecorated into being more mercury-like.

Forgive me for this, but...

"The Lost Moon of Poosh! Donna, you're a genius!"

Yeah, I had been in proper doctor who mode at the time The real question of course - is Poosh the moon itself, or was Poosh the planet the moon orbited? A question for the ages.

And hey, if you're interested in more planetary history, have the album I showed off a few months back of the planet development process: http://imgur.com/a/RKPdE

Edited December 9, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[mdatspace]

Is there an official explanation? Surely the developers had a reason to use those names. There's a story behind every one of them. Some have already been explained, like Pol (resemblance to pollen grain).

I have some speculations about this, but would not like to open a thread and introduce something not confirmed officially right at the start.

I think Moho is named after the MohoroviÄÂić discontinuity, commonly called the Moho. Either that or project Moho, an attempt to drill into the mantle. It did not get very far. The Moholes may be a reference to this.

[NovaSilisko]

I think Moho is named after the MohoroviÄÂić discontinuity, commonly called the Moho. Either that or project Moho, an attempt to drill into the mantle. It did not get very far.

What's funny is, at least the way I recall it, I didn't actually know about either of those things until after it was named. It was ages ago though, so maybe it WAS named after those and I just missed the source of it.

[SkyRender]

Ah, the old "Harvest", "Meander" and "Egar" days. I remember when it was so amazing that we were finally getting planets to visit besides Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus. It was exciting every time Nova posted about the celestial bodies that were coming. Good times...

[lajoswinkler]

IIRC most of the stuff like Tylo, Ike, Laythe, Eeloo, Dres, etc are just nonsense names that I had come up with. Eve, I always felt was a good name for an equivalent to Venus (which is the only planet named after a female deity IRL, maybe there's an Eve Kerman somewhere in kerbal mythology) Moho was some language's word for something relating to fire. Though this was all ages ago, so there might be more detailed stories behind the other planets that I'm just forgetting. I vaguely remember Jool's original name was something starting with "K" and ending with "er" before I saw it and was all "no god please no"

Speaking of, have an ancient chart I made of a solar system, way before I was on the team... https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/575558/KSP/solarsystem.jpg

I hope one day Moho will get its lava back. It's too boring nowdays and needs to be spiced up. Superheated atmosphere was not realistic and posed ridiculous problems for landers, but lava lakes that destroy anything that falls into them would be really cool. Tidally locked Moho with one side covered in lava and one side bare rock (and some ices here and there) is also a nice idea.

Inis, Jall and Egar are great names, especially Egar.

Did anyone consider making an icy planetary body with low, wispy atmosphere and mountains protruding into vacuum?

Eeloo would be much more interesting if it looked like this.

[Kruleworld]

My hypotheses:

Eve - from Venus

Eve = Venus = Evening Star

Evening Star

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Astronomy

The planet Venus when it appears in the west (evening sky) after sunset

Edited December 9, 2013 by Kruleworld

[Buzzed Aldrin]

Gilly = Member of Ziggy Stardust's band "The Spiders From Mars".

Edited December 10, 2013 by Buzzed Aldrin

[NovaSilisko]

Eeloo would be much more interesting if it looked like this.

Eeloo originally had a thin atmosphere but it had to be eliminated. Because the visual mesh of it couldn't be scaled up (still can't), the camera clipped into it when you were actually landed or near the surface. Duna does this a little bit, now, so that's about as small as a body with atmosphere can get without it looking bad.

[lajoswinkler]

Eeloo originally had a thin atmosphere but it had to be eliminated. Because the visual mesh of it couldn't be scaled up (still can't), the camera clipped into it when you were actually landed or near the surface. Duna does this a little bit, now, so that's about as small as a body with atmosphere can get without it looking bad.

Is that Unity's fault or problems with KSP? Can we expect Eeloo to become anything more than a smooth ball of snow or maybe there could be another body with thin atmosphere in the future?

[Thomas988]

I read a book and Moho is the layer between rock and bedrock, or something like that.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

The original Moho (the one with the burning atmosphere) was much closer to the sun, with lava on the sun-facing side, but be safe and frozen on the other side. Unfortunately, there was some issue with the lava, and the atmosphere wasn't able to change temperature depending on where you are on the planet. So, initially just the lava was ditched and the superheated atmosphere kept until a solution could be found, but alas, things moved on and Moho was later redecorated into being more mercury-like.

eng i got an ex dev to reply to me ohgodifeelproud

But it kinda stinks that these limitations ruined the Fire Star. And that also explains Moho's description!

I hope that later on the devs are able to overcome these limitations and we get a lava-like planet, likely on another star system, if it's implemented.

[mdatspace]

I read a book and Moho is the layer between rock and bedrock, or something like that.

The Moho is the boundary between the crust and the mantle of a planet.

But back to the topic. I was not here during 0.18, but Moho looks like a somewhat resurfaced mun now. Moho should have some volcanism, but not too much.

But I have an idea: Vulcanoid asteroids. While these are still hypothetical, and searches have not found traces of them, I think it would be an interesting idea. These asteroids are supposed to reside inside of mercury's orbit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcanoid_asteroid#History_and_observation

[notsodeadjeb]

Gilly is a reference to the back up singer Gilly, in the David Bowie Song Ziggie Stardust