From Kerbal Space Program Wiki

“ An Easter Egg is an intentional inside joke, hidden message, or feature in a work such as a computer program, video game, movie, book, or crossword. — Easter egg (media) on Wikipedia ”



In Kerbal Space Program, this corresponds to any anomaly that has been hidden in the game on the surfaces of bodies in the Kerbol System the Main Menu, in IVAs, and any other applicable area by the developers. This does not include bugs like terrain glitches.

Celestial Bodies

Although originally a terrain glitch, the Mohole (a large, steep vertical "tunnel" at Moho's north pole) is often considered an Easter egg, and indeed was later "canonized" by the developers, being given its own biome (the "Northern Sinkhole") and KerbNet anomaly marker.

One Green Monolith (Randomly spawns for each game)

One Green Monolith (Randomly spawns for each game)

The aforementioned Monolith.

One Green Monolith (Randomly spawns for each game)

The second space center, or "KSC2".

The crashed flying saucer.

The toilet found in the rubble of the Astronaut Complex

The smiley face on the seafloor can be seen faintly in the left half of this map, just south of the equator.

The smiley face with enhanced contrast.

A Monolith (or Munolith) on the Mun.

The only Minmus monolith.

The Face on Duna

The Magic Boulder - Missing since 0.18 - The magic boulder used to orbit Ike at an altitude of 15 km with zero eccentricity and an inclination of 80 degrees. The mesh (physical surface) for the magic boulder did not match its texture (visible surface) which could result in ships apparently digging into the surface with no ill effect. It would also cause ships to explode seemingly spontaneously, sometimes metres away from the surface, displaying " vesselname crashed into Magic Boulder" in the Flight Log. It also seemed to glow green as if radioactive, and there was a Monolith on its leading edge. The boulder had no gravity, did not appear in the map view and could not be targeted, much like any other Easter egg, except in orbit. A successor to the magic boulder was later added.

- The magic boulder used to orbit Ike at an altitude of 15 km with zero eccentricity and an inclination of 80 degrees. The mesh (physical surface) for the magic boulder did not match its texture (visible surface) which could result in ships apparently digging into the surface with no ill effect. It would also cause ships to explode seemingly spontaneously, sometimes metres away from the surface, displaying " crashed into Magic Boulder" in the Flight Log. It also seemed to glow green as if radioactive, and there was a Monolith on its leading edge. The boulder had no gravity, did not appear in the map view and could not be targeted, much like any other Easter egg, except in orbit. A successor to the magic boulder was later added. One Green Monolith (Randomly spawns for each game)

One Green Monolith (Randomly spawns for each game)

Even though the "surface" of Jool is inaccessible (since it is a gas giant and parts are destroyed due to the pressure), there are still science logs for having landed on Jool: "You're not sure how you even landed on the surface of a gas giant. But it's probably best not to think about it for too long."

There are two biomes on Laythe named for famous popular science figures - the Sagan Sea and the Degrasse Sea, named for Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson respectively.

One Green Monolith (Randomly spawns for each game)

The Vallhenge

A Cave-like formation can be found at 40° 11′ 58″ N 174° 0′ 5″ E. Between 0.23 and 1.1.2 the cave was inadvertently placed hundreds of metres below the ground, but after 1.1.3 it has been fixed, and is once again on the surface.

Although since removed, there was once a crater with a faint image of Carl Sagan's face coloring the terrain.

One Green Monolith (Randomly spawns for each game)

The dead Kraken.

One Green Monolith (Randomly spawns for each game)

One Green Monolith (Randomly spawns for each game)

In rare cases, asteroids can be discovered with a texture featuring glowing cracks in a variety of colors, very similar to the original Magic Boulder, which orbited Ike.

A "magic" asteroid with glowing fissures.

Comets

As of KSP update 1.10, you can see comets in your save file and rarely you can find an interstellar one. (Not sure if this is an easter egg or not)

Easter Egg Narrative

In a forum post from late 2013,[1] Squad member Jeff C.(NovaSilisko) described an idea he had for connecting many easter eggs into a story concerning a civilization which predated the Kerbals. Experiments with interstellar travel resulted in the homeworld of this "precursor civilization" being flung out into an extremely distant orbit. Before they froze to death, they launched monoliths and other messages onto many planets and moons in hopes of seeding intelligent life. Instead, they created Kerbals, not-so-intelligent life.

The planet would not show up in any map and would be too distant to be observed with a telescope, making locating it by chance nearly impossible. However, players would be able to find transmitters beaming out SSTV signals on various bodies, each one of which would provide part of the orbital parameters necessary to locate it. The planet would be a bit smaller than Kerbin, covered in ruined cities and frozen oceans, and perpetually in twilight due to being so far from Kerbol.

The only element of this narrative which made it into the game is the SSTV transmitter on Duna, which transmits an image originally intended to depict 4 members of the precursor civilization standing on their homeworld, with the logo of their government. Had the narrative story been completed, it would also have contained part of the orbital parameters. Because the story was never implemented into the game, this explanation for the SSTV signal's imagery is arguably non-canon.[2]





Miscellaneous

The color of the Kerbals' skin is close to is #BADA55 ( ) in hexadecimal but does not match it exactly. The hexadecimal RGB value spells like “badass” in leetspeak. Some say #84D455 ( ) is the color of a Kerbal which is even further away than #BADA55 . This connection is rumored, because Kerbals can have a BadS flag, which is usually interpreted as badass, and - when creating custom Kerbals - there are checkboxes for "Veteran" and "Badass".

An average of the skin color in Kerbal arm textures compared to the rumored colors

Some of the cockpits have post-it notes and other humorous writings inside them. The writing is somewhat blurry on normal settings and hard to read, but still legible. For transcripts of the notes, see the respective part pages.

When double-clicked on the screen which says "docking mode" in the mk1 cockpit, the IVA view changes to show upwards through the window on the top-back of the cockpit with a flight console. This suggests Kerbals can leave (or rotate?) their seats to make it easier to dock. It should be designed to be used with Inline Clamp-O-Tron.

A comparison between the ladder in-game and the ladder on the A-10.

The PB-NUK radioscope thermoelectric generator discription says ‘not to be used a heating during emergency rover exursions’

This is a reference to The Martian, a book and movie where the main character, Mark Whattney uses a similar generater as a heat source when he drives across the surface of mars.

Loading Screen

While not that much of an Easter Egg instead of a reference, the loading screen makes a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, stating "Answering Ultimate Question" one of the well known phrases from the book.

As of 1.2, there are many more 'witty loading hints'.

One of the loading hints is "Falling With Style...", which may be a reference to Toy Story when Woody says, "That's not flying, that's falling with style!"

Main Menu

One of the two main menu images is that of a Kerbal standing on the Mun's surface, with Kerbin in the background. There is a 1 in 40 chance that a sand castle made of Mun dust can be seen near his feet.

The Mun dust castle.

Other

On the website "Kerbal Maps" - which shows maps of all the planetary bodies in the game - the URL contains the word "finitemonkeys", this being a reference to "The Infinite Monkey Theorum".

Scenarios

During the Space Station One scenario, by zooming out far enough to show the planetary map, a ship by the name of 'Kerbal XX' can be seen orbiting around Duna in a near-equatorial orbit (as of 0.23)

Kerbal XX from the Station 1 scenario.

If you look into the patcher log, before updating, the log says "HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS!"

References

See also