Story Discussion - Questions and How I understood it **spoiler alert**

[miguelneto_]

Here is how I understood this game story.

1) 281000 years ago, the Nomai Ecall clan finds the signal of the Eye of The Universe;
2) They warp in "our" solar system but their Vessel is caught by the vines of Dark Tramble and the warp core is destroyed. Also, the Eye is not there;
3) Escape pod 3 is also stuck in Dark Tramble, every Nomai of that pod dies there;
4) The other escape pods land in Ember Twin and Brittle Rock, they reunite, they keep searching for the Eye with no success;
5) Someone has the idea to launch probes for searching the Eye. But it would take too long (lifetimes) to find it. Another one has the idea to create a warp manchine with negative time lapse of 22 minutes, so they would know the location of the Eye before they even launch the probe!
6) For that, they need sun supernova to active the whole manchine. But the sun station fails to do that. In that moment, a comet (the interloper) comes into the solar system.
7) The nomai go there to investigate it; they find a strange rock in there with letal matter. This rock explodes and EVERY NOMAI dies.
8) The ash project stays offline for those 281000 years. The sun dies and goes supernova, which activates the Ash Project. It keeps cycling for 22 minutes for about 400 years (about 9million probes were launched, so it takes about 400 years to launch one every 22 minutes);
9) Somehow (first question) we activate one statue; maybe the probability for us to get close to the statue to activate it is very small, so it would take centuries to activate it. Do you guys think this way too?
10) Our friend gabbro also activates another statue;
11) A third statue is activated in the probe module. Second question: who activated it? It couldn`t be Sollanum. He wasn`t there and he isn`t aware of the time loops. I think it was either Privet or Mallow (both were inside the probe module; also no corpse inside there). But where are they?
12) Meanwhile, 280 thousands years ago, sollanum goes to quantum moon and stays there. He seems to not feel the time passing, nor that his brohters are dead.
13) Back to the solar system we figure out to use the warp core of ash project in the vessel, we travel to Eye, and go inside. After a lot of illusions and romantic philosophy, we really get into the EYe and we... bang... die. After then, 14 billion years later the universe is back with new life.

So:
1) Who activated the third mask and where is he?
2) Do you also agree it took 400 years of probes launching?

This game is underated. It deserves 9,5/10!!!

[Wydamn on Linux]

I'm pretty sure the third mask isn't a person, but rather is for the computer on the orbital probe canon. I'm pretty sure one of the canon modules has a statue with opened eyes.

[Nert]

All the early stuff is correct - though I like to point out that there was a huge gap of time before the separate pods reunited, it's why the only two cities - and indeed gravity cannons - are on those planets, they were only slowly able to rebuild spaceflight over time. We can count at least three generations of Nomai through the texts!

If you check out the statue workshop it explains - the masks will ONLY pair on success of the project, or abject failure - success is finding the eye, failure is if say the probe tracking module gets destroyed. If you either go to the PTM on the very first loop, or deduct your number of deaths/loops from the current probe number you'll see that your statue paired with you exactly when the Eye was found. Same with Gabbro, if you talk to him in the very first loop he'll talk about the statue but be unaware of any looping yet

tldr probe 9018054 launched at the start of the game, and found the eye between when you walked up to talk to Hornfels and when you came back down, you were the first sentient life form to stand in front of the statue after that point

The idea is that the Nomai wouldn't want to sit through 400 years of the same 22 minutes, you'd go insane. They only wanted to be aware of it once the project was completed, or broken (and would never complete, leaving them stuck for eternity, unaware of it), either way the plan would be to go "oh hey the statue paired with me, time to turn off the sun station"

The PTM statue is permanently paired to the probe itself, that's how it keeps track of how many probes it's sent, and if it's found the eye or not, it's not a person but memories of the probe itself

[miguelneto_]

Nice! I hadn`t thought it would be matched with the computer itself.

@Nert: yea dude, it makes sense. I actually thought this way when I first played the game. But what doesn`t make sense is 9 million probes inside that little cannon shooting all these 280 thousand years. Merging the two explanations, let put it this way: 400 years ago the sun goes supernova and the cycling begins. It goes shooting one probe for every 22 minutes. In the day the probe 9million something finds the eye, the project succeeds and we can actually activate one statue and get aware of the problem. I think it fits best now. What do you think?

[Swiss]

I think your post #3 is my interpretation,

The statue pairs with you as you are literally the first person to see it after the eye is found.

The probe tracking station was already "pre-paired" with its mask at the very beginning, and it does not need to be activated by finding the eye. It essentially activates when the sun goes nova. I don't think this is explicitly said anywhere, but this explanation seems most likely to me. This would allow the probe station to count how many times it's fired, and also change it's orientation every single loop.

[Nert]

miguelneto_ původně napsal:

Nice! I hadn`t thought it would be matched with the computer itself.

@Nert: yea dude, it makes sense. I actually thought this way when I first played the game. But what doesn`t make sense is 9 million probes inside that little cannon shooting all these 280 thousand years. Merging the two explanations, let put it this way: 400 years ago the sun goes supernova and the cycling begins. It goes shooting one probe for every 22 minutes. In the day the probe 9million something finds the eye, the project succeeds and we can actually activate one statue and get aware of the problem. I think it fits best now. What do you think?

So if you think about how it was originally meant to go down:

12:22 : Fire sun station!
~~~~~
12:22 : Boom -> power ATP -> send info back 22 minutes
12:00 : get info -> launch probe -> wait 22 mins -> fire sun station
12:22 : Boom -> power ATP -> send info back 22 minutes
12:00 : get info -> launch probe -> wait 22 mins -> fire sun station
~~~~~
Rinse, repeat.

If at any point it finds the eye or detects Big Failure (tm), also wake up the other statues so someone can go turn the sun station off

No probes ever launch without the ATP giving the go-ahead, which won't happen without a supernova, which they never managed to create..

Time is looping, not progressing, those 400 years happened in the blink of an eye to anyone who wasn't having their memories forcefed back to them!

There was only one probe and one probe cannon, they've talked in some places how few resources they have to build things, which is why they've not built a new Vessel yet. The entire reason for a timeloop is so they can fire infinite probes until the Eye is found without themselves losing any time at all

You know from the texts that "it only needs to fire once" and from the arguments over how much power to give it, it will shatter the moment it's fired, which it does.. Every time, over and over, but time rewinds before it fired, so it's fine! That's why you see it explode every time you wake up, and the probe go in a new direction each time

[miguelneto_]

@Nert

Exactly! It took "400"years of time looping, one probe every 22 minutes. But no one ever noticed it. Except when we found the statue, which is activated after the Eye is found.

[rhylser]

The total number of launches (over 9 million) - number of launches to find to eye = number of times you died in game so far.

The statues activate when the eye is finally found. Also no times has passed at all. Instead, what it happens:

- Sun goes supernova, orbital cannon uses the energy to fire a probe.
- 22 min after the probe informs that project that it traveled far enough but still had not found the eye
- The project passes this information back in time 22 min so it will be available BEFORE the orbital cannon launches the probe
- We are back at the supernova start but on this new cycle the cannon launches the probe to a different location
- after 9 million cycles a probe finds the eye. This triggers the statues to activate so the Nomai will know that the project succeed.
- In the original plan, Nomai would stop the Sun station and the order for the sun to explode will never be given. The Sun will still be normal but the Nomai will know the location

From the project's perspective, your character died 9 million times already.
From your perspective, you never died, you just KNOW what could have happened if you were to act in a given way.

[mommy? (STEVE)]

rhylser původně napsal:

The total number of launches (over 9 million) - number of launches to find to eye = number of times you died in game so far.

The statues activate when the eye is finally found. Also no times has passed at all. Instead, what it happens:

- Sun goes supernova, orbital cannon uses the energy to fire a probe.
- 22 min after the probe informs that project that it traveled far enough but still had not found the eye
- The project passes this information back in time 22 min so it will be available BEFORE the orbital cannon launches the probe
- We are back at the supernova start but on this new cycle the cannon launches the probe to a different location
- after 9 million cycles a probe finds the eye. This triggers the statues to activate so the Nomai will know that the project succeed.
- In the original plan, Nomai would stop the Sun station and the order for the sun to explode will never be given. The Sun will still be normal but the Nomai will know the location

From the project's perspective, your character died 9 million times already.
From your perspective, you never died, you just KNOW what could have happened if you were to act in a given way.

Minor correction, orbital cannon does not use the exploding sun as energy, it simply explodes because of the power it uses to launch the probe is too much. It is the ash twin project that is powered via the supernova

[Felinewolfie]

miguelneto_ původně napsal:

Here is how I understood this game story.

1) 281000 years ago, the Nomai Ecall clan finds the signal of the Eye of The Universe;
2) They warp in "our" solar system but their Vessel is caught by the vines of Dark Tramble and the warp core is destroyed. Also, the Eye is not there;
3) Escape pod 3 is also stuck in Dark Tramble, every Nomai of that pod dies there;
4) The other escape pods land in Ember Twin and Brittle Rock, they reunite, they keep searching for the Eye with no success;
5) Someone has the idea to launch probes for searching the Eye. But it would take too long (lifetimes) to find it. Another one has the idea to create a warp manchine with negative time lapse of 22 minutes, so they would know the location of the Eye before they even launch the probe!
6) For that, they need sun supernova to active the whole manchine. But the sun station fails to do that. In that moment, a comet (the interloper) comes into the solar system.
7) The nomai go there to investigate it; they find a strange rock in there with letal matter. This rock explodes and EVERY NOMAI dies.
8) The ash project stays offline for those 281000 years. The sun dies and goes supernova, which activates the Ash Project. It keeps cycling for 22 minutes for about 400 years (about 9million probes were launched, so it takes about 400 years to launch one every 22 minutes);
9) Somehow (first question) we activate one statue; maybe the probability for us to get close to the statue to activate it is very small, so it would take centuries to activate it. Do you guys think this way too?
10) Our friend gabbro also activates another statue;
11) A third statue is activated in the probe module. Second question: who activated it? It couldn`t be Sollanum. He wasn`t there and he isn`t aware of the time loops. I think it was either Privet or Mallow (both were inside the probe module; also no corpse inside there). But where are they?
12) Meanwhile, 280 thousands years ago, sollanum goes to quantum moon and stays there. He seems to not feel the time passing, nor that his brohters are dead.
13) Back to the solar system we figure out to use the warp core of ash project in the vessel, we travel to Eye, and go inside. After a lot of illusions and romantic philosophy, we really get into the EYe and we... bang... die. After then, 14 billion years later the universe is back with new life.

So:
1) Who activated the third mask and where is he?
2) Do you also agree it took 400 years of probes launching?

This game is underated. It deserves 9,5/10!!!

This needs to be pinned :)

[mommy? (STEVE)]

Felinewolfie původně napsal:

miguelneto_ původně napsal:

Here is how I understood this game story.

1) 281000 years ago, the Nomai Ecall clan finds the signal of the Eye of The Universe;
2) They warp in "our" solar system but their Vessel is caught by the vines of Dark Tramble and the warp core is destroyed. Also, the Eye is not there;
3) Escape pod 3 is also stuck in Dark Tramble, every Nomai of that pod dies there;
4) The other escape pods land in Ember Twin and Brittle Rock, they reunite, they keep searching for the Eye with no success;
5) Someone has the idea to launch probes for searching the Eye. But it would take too long (lifetimes) to find it. Another one has the idea to create a warp manchine with negative time lapse of 22 minutes, so they would know the location of the Eye before they even launch the probe!
6) For that, they need sun supernova to active the whole manchine. But the sun station fails to do that. In that moment, a comet (the interloper) comes into the solar system.
7) The nomai go there to investigate it; they find a strange rock in there with letal matter. This rock explodes and EVERY NOMAI dies.
8) The ash project stays offline for those 281000 years. The sun dies and goes supernova, which activates the Ash Project. It keeps cycling for 22 minutes for about 400 years (about 9million probes were launched, so it takes about 400 years to launch one every 22 minutes);
9) Somehow (first question) we activate one statue; maybe the probability for us to get close to the statue to activate it is very small, so it would take centuries to activate it. Do you guys think this way too?
10) Our friend gabbro also activates another statue;
11) A third statue is activated in the probe module. Second question: who activated it? It couldn`t be Sollanum. He wasn`t there and he isn`t aware of the time loops. I think it was either Privet or Mallow (both were inside the probe module; also no corpse inside there). But where are they?
12) Meanwhile, 280 thousands years ago, sollanum goes to quantum moon and stays there. He seems to not feel the time passing, nor that his brohters are dead.
13) Back to the solar system we figure out to use the warp core of ash project in the vessel, we travel to Eye, and go inside. After a lot of illusions and romantic philosophy, we really get into the EYe and we... bang... die. After then, 14 billion years later the universe is back with new life.

So:
1) Who activated the third mask and where is he?
2) Do you also agree it took 400 years of probes launching?

This game is underated. It deserves 9,5/10!!!

This needs to be pinned :)

i hpe not, it has major spoilers :^)

[Zloth]

What still isn't making sense to me is: what's happening to the whole universe? ALL the stars are exploding and a pretty high percentage are gone when our sun goes boom. Also, the process of expanding and then exploding should take millions of years but it happens in about 15 minutes. Something is seriously wrong in the universe. If you talk to the drummer (Chert) near the end of the cycle, he'll also say something is going terribly wrong, so it isn't just a gameplay thing (like your ship computer being able to track previous cycles). In fact, I think the Nomai vessel communications were talking about various galaxies becoming unstable, which might have been why they were all headed out in the first place.

I'm still don't understand the very end. It looks like the same solar system but with DT having taken over all the planets. And some giant bug critters have taken to roasting marshmallows on Timber Hearth now. So I guess the sun didn't explode? But what happened to your race? And the rest of the Nomai in their other vessels? I think we're going to need Outer Wilds 2 to explain a few things!

P.S. I very nearly quit when I got back to the Observatory. I didn't notice the solar system in the center and thought I had just broken the universe. Glad I checked a guide!

[Nert]

Zloth původně napsal:

What still isn't making sense to me is: what's happening to the whole universe? ALL the stars are exploding and a pretty high percentage are gone when our sun goes boom. Also, the process of expanding and then exploding should take millions of years but it happens in about 15 minutes. Something is seriously wrong in the universe. If you talk to the drummer (Chert) near the end of the cycle, he'll also say something is going terribly wrong, so it isn't just a gameplay thing (like your ship computer being able to track previous cycles). In fact, I think the Nomai vessel communications were talking about various galaxies becoming unstable, which might have been why they were all headed out in the first place.

I'm still don't understand the very end. It looks like the same solar system but with DT having taken over all the planets. And some giant bug critters have taken to roasting marshmallows on Timber Hearth now. So I guess the sun didn't explode? But what happened to your race? And the rest of the Nomai in their other vessels? I think we're going to need Outer Wilds 2 to explain a few things!

P.S. I very nearly quit when I got back to the Observatory. I didn't notice the solar system in the center and thought I had just broken the universe. Glad I checked a guide!

It's the heat death of the universe, this isn't just the end of our star's life, but all of them.. (You can argue that the sun shouldn't be able to supernova within 60 seconds but that's just the suspense of belief needed to not require millions of years of gametime per loop)

Chert specifically says he had miscalculated and when you talk to him at the end he's recently looked at the charts again and realised this is exactly what's happening, we were born at the end of this universe's lifespan, that's all there is to it

The vessel is confirming it - specifically that wall talks about how long it's been since this vessel was lost, so we know the conversation is recent, generations after all the Nomai we've known in this solar system died, they've noticed it too, not just our system but all of them are dying

Our Nomai didn't head out because of anything like that, they died hundreds of thousands of years ago, they're here purely because they heard a signal and leapt before they looked


We literally started a new big bang, everyone and everything we knew is gone, you can even watch the supernova from the Eye if you want and wait for the entire universe to fade to nothing.

It's now a new universe, new stars, new planets, billions of years later there is new life showing that it was the end of the universe but also the start of a new one. All of the friends you meet at the end are just your imagination recreating them with the power of the Eye, after all they've already been evaporated by a supernova, some of them even mention that "not me exactly, well, you know" and also suddenly Solanum can speak your language.

If you don't meet Solanum, that race never appears, if you lose your scout in the Eye it'll show up in that scene too, the new universe is to some extent shaped by our consciousness, kickstarted by the Eye -- older than the universe itself because it survives each one

[Zloth]

Errr, that really isn't how heat deaths go but...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2156810930

That makes sense - except you do NOT get your scout back. I tried, thinking I might need to take a picture of the Eye, and never got my scout again. It stayed out of range. (Thank goodness I didn't need it.)

[Nert]

That's.. not what a metaphor is, and we also don't have time travel or gravity crystals for a start!

Zloth původně napsal:

Nert původně napsal:

If you don't meet Solanum, that race never appears, if you lose your scout in the Eye it'll show up in that scene too

That makes sense - except you do NOT get your scout back.

How would you get your scout back when you died billions of years ago?

[miguelneto_]

Zloth původně napsal:

, so it isn't just a gameplay thing (like your ship computer being able to track previous cycles). In fact, I think the Nomai vessel communications were talking about various galaxies becoming unstable, which might have been why they were all headed out in the first place (....)

I think we're going to need Outer Wilds 2 to explain a few things!

Dude, if you keep talking to Hal at the museum, he will say the ship computer was built with nomai statue`s stone. They discovered the statue had some kind of info storaging device and it was used in our ship`s computer to that propperly.