After 27 successful flights to the Mun, (out of 892 flights total) and 18 successful landings, the kerbals soon grew bored of the moon.
After 91 successful flights to Duna, the kerbals decided that rust-covered planets are pretty dumb.
After 25 successful landings on Eve, the kerbals found out that more air and more gravity is a terrible, horrible thing. (Landing legs could barely support themselves and parachutes always opened so early that they practically burned up.)
The kerbals went to Dres once. It was pretty stupid.
After going to Moho 32 times, the astute scientists learned that the closest planet to the sun is surprisingly cold. Mostly because there was no atmosphere. Mostly.
The kerbals crashed into Jool, the green gas giant, at least 67 times due to them trying to open their eyes. Turns out, they had no eyelids.
Eeloo, the tiny, icy, little clump of dirt was just that; a tiny, ice, little clump of dirt. It took weeks to get there.
The KSC was in a state of distress. All their lives, all they had known was crashing and flying. And now, they had done both more times than they'd like to! They already tried to build an orbital sun station before one of the secretaries pointed out the fact that they were already on one. He was fired immediately.
The staff turned to their only hope, their last bastion in this confusing situation.
All 300 staff members stood outside of the janitor's door frame, as he stood stock still and wide eyed. (As stated before, they had no eyelids so he couldn't really help it.)
"We need help," they all pleaded in perfect unison.
"With what?" he firmly asked in a scruffy voice.
"We're bored," "There's nothing else to do," "What are we supposed to fly to now?" "I can't find my left shoe!" "My kids are spoiled brats!" "The moon is stupid! Can't we just build a death star or something?" "There's no more planets left to deface!" They all spouted various problems, but the ones that stood out the janitor in particular were the ones where they stated that they had nowhere else to fly.
"Why not a one of those other glowy orbs in the sky?" he responded to their questions with another question as silence fell over the crowd.
Nobody moved. Not even a cricket dared chirp.
"That... that's genius!" an excited voice rang over the horde. The crowd erupted into cheers and the occasional curse word as they rejoiced in the amazing plans they were already forming in their heads.
"Mr. Janitor Man," one of the managers began as he patted the janitor on the back, "I would proudly love to do you the honor of awarding you..." the manager dramatically paused. "this certificate of appreciation," he confidently stated, unrolling a piece of lined paper in front of his face.
YOU'RE FRYRED.
LEAVE THE THINKING TO REEL GENIUZSE
The janitor dropped dead due to complete loss of IQ points.
Situated approximately the distance it takes light three years to travel from Kerbol lay a very peculiar star. The star-gazers who gave the Kerbal Space Program its targets had long known that this star, which they had named (with their race's typical directness) "That Weird Little Star", was quite unusual. It's probably an indication of just how unusual it was that the brain-trust of the Kerbin Institute of Sciences even noticed how weird the star was.
Firstly, unlike most nearby stars, whose position against the sky changed only slightly over the year depending on where Kerbin was in its orbit, this one violently oscillated as if around a non-luminous dense object about once every few dozen Kerbin days. Secondly, it was extremely small. Yellow-white stars like Kerbol tended to be in the order of a million kilometres across whilst this one seemed tiny; comparable in size to Kerbin's next-door neighbour sunward, Eve.
It was a mystery at least as great as "What happens if we fly into Jool's atmosphere at interplanetary speeds without a heat shield?" If there was one thing that the mad geniuses of the Kerbal Space Program were excellent at, it was throwing kerbals and resources at resolving mysteries until either said resources cracked or the mystery cracked.
None of them could possibly know, of course, that The Weird Little Star was known to the ponies living on the planet at their small geocentric solar system's barycentre as 'Solaria' and that it had a personal relationship with the planet's supreme ruler. Even if they did, they wouldn't have cared much. The kerbals were about to meet the ponies of Equis and neither world would ever be the same again!
Would they be friends? Well, the frantic kerbals were hardly examples of the Magic of Friendship but, if there was one thing both races agreed on, it was that war was a silly waste of resources compared to much more interesting things... like, you know, flying rocket-ships in madcap adventures across the void or trying to get your Cutie Marks by synthesising high explosives and using them in place of black powder in fireworks.
Somewhere, somehow, the universe shuddered with a frisson of fearful anticipation.
THE JANITOR! THE JANITOR! THE SOLUTION TO EVERY PROBLEM IN OUR LIVES! HE'S THE ONE WE PLAY AS! HE'S THE ONE WHO CONTROLS THE SHIPS!
cuz he's a genius man, *QUE COOL LOOKIN' PIXELATED THUG LIFE SUNGLASSES ON THE JANITORS FACE!*