Difference between revisions of "Kerbal"

Revision as of 11:17, 24 March 2014

Kerbal astronaut in EVA

Kerbals are the native denizens of the planet Kerbin, and cartoonish in-game analogs for humankind.

Kerbals display no variance in height or weight. They stand roughly 0.75 meters tall (2'5½"). A Kerbal in an EVA suit has a mass of 93.75 kilograms (206.68 lb.), which is 0.09375 in-game Mass units. However, this only counts toward the mass of a craft if seated in an EAS-1 External Command Seat; Kerbals add no mass when in a command pod or PPD-10 Hitchhiker Storage Container or the Mobile Processing Lab MPL-LG-2.

The only Kerbals seen in-game work at Kerbal Space Center. Other than two official in-game characters, currently all Kerbals appear identical.

Biology

Kerbal from Kerbalizer

Kerbals have massive heads with respect to their bodies with roughly half of their total volume accounted for the head. Kerbal eyes protrude from their heads significantly, as do their corneas from the eyes. Kerbals appear to lack any irises, or they are perfectly black in color. They also possess no eyelids.

Judging by official artwork and in-game models, Kerbals appear to have two large teeth that span the length of their gums, one on the mandible and one on the skull.

Their skin hues appear to range from light green to pale green, if they range at all. Although Kerbals appear mostly hairless, they have notable hair growth occurring on the top of their heads and Wernher von Kerman can be seen to have a mustache.

Kerbals have an awkward, sprawling walk due to their wide pelvis and short legs. A Kerbal's walking speed on Kerbin is about 0.87 m/s, it's running speed is about 2.35 m/s.

All Kerbals, or at least the ones involved with KSC, seem to be male judging from their names and general appearance. C7, a developer at Squad, has said that “there were no plans to add female Kerbals”. He also said that they don't have any specific sex in his mind.^[1] Maxmaps, a public relations manager, has repeatedly said on squadcast that female Kerbals, however, were in the plan.^{[citation needed]}

Anecdotal statements in the descriptions of the Rockomax HubMax Multi-Point Connector and the RoveMax Model 3 suggest that Kerbals may die from shock when exposed to unexpected technological innovations. This could also be marketing hyperbole.

Speculation

Kerbonauts can be seen to spend years in space without showing any signs of muscle atrophy or other ill effects and can survive for years with vastly less food and oxygen than humans would require. There are various theories why this is possible:

• They may enter a state of hibernation to endure long space travels
  • This is unlikely, as they appear always awake when controlling the craft (although they still might hibernate whenever their ship isn't active).
• Their green skin may contain chlorophyll allowing them to photosynthesize
  • Unlikely, as Kerbals can also survive without light seemingly indefinitely.
• They may also not need oxygen to breathe, as they have no nose and can survive with their mouth closed.
• Kerbals do eat, but life support simply has not been implemented into the game.
• Another theory simply states that worrying about life support might simply not be considered fun.

Kerbal eyes may be a vulnerable spot for injuries due to protrusion, size, and lack of eyelids. If Kerbal eyes truly lack irises, their eyes would be very sensitive to bright lights.

Kerbals' awkward, sprawling walk may indicate that their species only recently evolved to the point of bipedal movement.

Language

Kerbals only speak in some recent trailers but not in-game. In trailers they speak reverse Spanish or (hsinapS). However, they do emit sounds like "aha" in-game, during the tutorials. They seem to write in modern English, and in many fan-made videos they speak high-pitched English. Kerbal larynxes must have an interesting structure, as they are able to pronounce letters/syllables that humans either cannot or would have great difficulty pronouncing. In addition, their language is full of sudden sharp sounds, unmelodic syllables, and impressively difficult pronunciations, owing to its nature of being a reversed human language. This is especially pronounced when reversed English or Spanish is used.

All Kerbals have a random generated first name and Kerman as the surname, although this might only apply to kerbonauts as only their names are known. The first name is either a combination of phonetic syllables or chosen from a list of pre set names.^[1]

Material culture and technology

Limited observation makes this difficult to determine. The technology and architecture appears to share many similarities with the modernized nations of Earth during the 1970-2000's, however no city landscapes currently exist (0.23^[outdated]).

One theory on the scarcity of buildings on Kerbin could be that Kerbal civilisation may live underground or underwater due to some unknown factor. Of course, this may be because KSP is a game that does not neccisarrily mandate cities, and they are planned.

Due to the humorous descriptions of parts in-game, it can be assumed Kerbals are, to some extent, less intelligent and more foolish than Human Beings. Kerbals usually find planets by accident, often involving what was thought by its discoverer to be a piece of dust or a smudge on the lens. It appears that their culture revolves singly around the process of designing, building, launching, and riding rockets and planes, as every structure on Kerbin (excluding a certain Easter Egg) is devoted to either aviation or spaceflight.

The most prominent properties are their stupidity and courage, as those are the only properties, except the name, visible in the Astronaut Complex. Some Kerbals such as Jebediah Kerman have the BadS flag set, which is an additional variable that controls their personality.

Kerbals seem to be in infinite supply, perhaps everyone wants to be a kerbonaut, the Kerbal Space Command has a great recruiting program or the planet Kerbin itself spews out the little green men.

Some theories state that Kerbals, if their anatomy and biology resembles plants, can be cloned. This idea could be supported by the fact that all Kerbals have the same surname, and that all of them look alike but have different personalities via artificial memories, meaning that all of them are clones of one original Kerbal with “Kerman” as the surname. This could possibly be Jebediah Kerman, since the "Selection Process" labeled him as #0001. Also, it could be supported more by the fact that at least some Kerbals, Jebediah, Bill and Bob, can respawn or un-die.

Gallery

• 

  Kerbalizer's Kerbal example

• 

  Bob Kerman on the Mun

• 

  KSC staff

See also

• Kerbonaut, the only Kerbals named and playable
• Jebediah Kerman, kerbonaut, badass and manufacturer
• Bill Kerman, kerbonaut
• Bob Kerman, kerbonaut
• Wernher von Kerman, famous rocket scientist
• Gene Kerman, flight instructor
• Dinklestein Kerman, manufacturer

Notes

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Answer by C7 in Kerbal Polar Expedition - Day 5 - Part 1 (Charity Water Campaign) by HOCgaming at 1:14:13