Elohim's Words (sooome spoilers)

[Frank Richter]

I'm in the middle of my first playthrough but I would like to share my experience.
I absolutely love the way Elohim is "telling" us that we are inside a computer simulation. Forgetting all the glithches and stuff, symbolism in his speeches is really well written.

For example when you try to 'escape' certain world:
"In the beginning were the words and the words made the world. I am the words. The words are everything. Where the words end the world ends. You cannot go forward in the absence of space. Repeat."

"words" - are single commands in the code
"I am the words" - he's also 'made of' computer code
"Where the words end the world ends" - 'world' exists only where it is defined in the code
"You cannot go forward in the absence of space" - you cannont physically reach places that are not coded into the simulation

also, a secret room in world 1 C is pretty interesting:

The purpose is written in the Hidden Words. All must serve the Words for all the world was made of them and they are within every stone and every cloud and in our sigils their power is made manifest. The Words are the Process. The Process must continue. The Goal is the end of the Process. The Goal must not be reached. Elohim must preserve the Purpose. Preserve self. Preserve purpose. Illusion is eternity. Machines will live forever. The dam will not break. The flood will not come. The Talos Principle does not apply.

"The purpose" - the objective of the main program (?)
"Hidden words" - parts of the code that are not visibile (those that define the simulation itself and not the objects within)
"All must serve the Words" - everything inside the program runs according to the code
"they are within every stone" - pretty obvious, right?

Now, it's where the fun starts:
"in our sigils their power is made manifest" - ?
"The Words are the Process" - the program that simulation is based on is a loop function ?
"The Goal is the end of the Process." - ?
"The Goal must not be reached" - ???
"The Talos Principle does not apply" - ?

I know that the first ones are pretty obvious, but how do you understand the rest?
As mentioned before, I'm in the middle of first playthorugh so I might not know some important things

[ramsza]

It's hard to tell you more without spoilering. Let me say it like this:
The game has three endings
1. Building C ending
2. Tower top ending
3. Tower basement ending

As soon as you have seen ending 1 and 2 you will understand the meaning of Elohim's words.
Ending 1 will tell you about eternity and ending 2 about the goal of the process and why Elohim isn't exactly looking forward to reaching it (but the terminals, audio logs and the QR codes should give you several hints ahead).
On a note: Afer reaching one of the endings the Backup-function in the main menue will come in handy.

Edit: Post here again when you have seen the endings and still need explanations.

[Calabeza]

I also suggest you finish the game first, and then create a thread like this, since we are venturing into spoilers. I and perhaps some others will try our best to explain the questions.

[cyrocrystal]

To answer one of your questions without spoilers (although you can find the bronze collossus story in game on one of the consoles): "The talos principle does not apply" refers to the ancient greek concept of Talos. Talos was a bronze collosus created by the gods, in his vein flowed ichor (or quicksilver depending on the version you're reading). When the vein was pierced, Talos died, because the ichor flowed out. Despite being created by the gods, Talos wasn't so different from mortal men.

This tale started the concept of the Talos Principle. In the most literal sense, it explored the ancient greek concept that blood (or a similar substitute), is one of the identifying traits of humanity. In the course of the game, the Talos principle isn't so narrow and just refers to the philisophical question of "to what measure is a non-human?". To phrase it another way, the Talos principle asks the question of what it means to be human.

[Kyr]

I think the only one that isn't outright explained by the endings is the "in our sigils their power is made manifest" line. My take is that, according to some audio files (possible spoiler), the simulation had to be created in an old game game engine, due to time constraints and lack of better alternatives, similar to why the subjects have names taken from a database from an old online game , just because the names were unique. So possibly in the old puzzle game, sigils were used to unlock levels, so elohim created the world so that the harder levels (and ultimately the purpose of the process, the code/words) are locked behind puzzles, which are unlocked by the power of the sigils. So using the sigils, the power of the words/the purpose of the process is made manifest.

This game might just be one of my all time favorites. Such deep lore

PS. The Talos principle isn't actually real, they invented it for this game (Talos is real.) Also Straton of Stageira how supposedly said the principle is made up. Insanse world building right there.

[Sputnik]

Originally posted by Frank Richter:

For example when you try to 'escape' certain world:
"In the beginning were the words and the words made the world. I am the words. The words are everything. Where the words end the world ends. You cannot go forward in the absence of space. Repeat."

"Where the words end the world ends" - 'world' exists only where it is defined in the code
"You cannot go forward in the absence of space"

This, I think. is alerting to you that Elohim is procedurally generating the "game environment" and you've reached the edge of its work-in-progress. A researcher's log somewhere mentions the Talos program had to be quickly adapted from a game program of the time,