Plot holes (spoilers, obviously)

[animaniac]

So I get that the loop starts because the probe finally located the eye, triggering the statue into pairing with anyone. The fact that this person is a pilot about to take off is already an unlikely coincidence, adding to the fact that the supernova happens at a time when they have a space program, yet no knowledge about the star being about to die. Moving to actual plot holes:

- First, can the probe actually do anything in 22 minutes? Since it's possible to catch up with it, it's not like it will cover any significant distance before being sent again.

- Next, ghost matter. According to Fandom, it's a ghost matter burst from the interloper that wiped out the Nomai. But Nomai encountered Heartian ancestors, why weren't these wiped out?

- Finally, why would Brittle hollow start to collapse with the loop? It's the only planet to decay (the twins' sand is supposed to go back at some point), and there's no reason to believe its moon just started spewing meteors.

I know the mechanics are for the game's sake, but it's bugging me.

[Nert]

They do have knowledge about the stars dying, hence the exhibit about it, they just got the calculations wrong about when. Chert themselves confirms that by updating their charts during the loop they realise how wrong their estimates were

引用自 "Chert"：

I have no idea! Massive stars go supernova when they reach the end of their life spans, so it's possible that the stars are older than we realized. Or maybe our models are wrong and they don't live as long as we expected.
Honestly, I'm not fond of either option! If our charts are wrong, what else is wrong? And our sun...
No, I shouldn't jump to conclusions. I- I'm probably overlooking something. That's it, I just need to collect more data.

It’s the stars, you see. All the other stars are dying out. Oh, why did we have to be born at the end of the universe? And our sun, it...
The star charts! Why? Why did I want to update them so badly? I didn’t have to know, but no, oh no, I had to update the star charts! I had to go looking for things I shouldn’t have! And now our sun is about to... about to... oh...

The probe did exactly what it's meant to, find the Eye - they knew the Eye was in distant orbit around the sun, reasoning then it must be within a 22 minute window of travel, but no idea in what direction. The developers confirmed they wanted it to be technically possible for you to fly directly to the Eye just near impossible to get the right direction (unless you could get the codes and into space quick enough to follow the very first probe of our game), but the engine doesn't support doing that in the way they wanted

Re: Interloper, that's not fandom, you can explore the Interloper yourself, and talk to Riebeck about it!

引用自 "Riebeck"：

Oh, wow. Wow. So that’s how the Nomai died?
That’s... really sad, isn’t it? I know it was a long time ago, but still...
Stars above, it’s lucky we hadn’t evolved to live on land yet.
To think, if the comet hadn’t killed them, our species might have coexisted in this solar system. That would have been amazing.

Ghost Matter is inert in water, you can also discover this on Giant's Deep, after splashing down from orbit the cave full of it near Gabbro's camp goes underwater and you can swim right through it! It also explains why the jellyfish survived, the Anglerfish may have survived just because Bramble is Bramble, but it does also have a thin watery atmosphere, having upsurped an entire water/ice planet probably helped..

The Lantern has been spewing meteors since the Nomai's age - they mention them - but likely not as frequently. Common theory is the sun's increased solar activity somehow is affecting the lantern, sending it into overdrive and hammering BH far more than it has for thousands of years, finally overwhelming whatever balance or damage absorbtion the surface had. Though pieces have already broken off before the loop starts and looking at the wedge shape of the sections, once one has fallen, the rest will start to follow

Similarly Timber Hearth's gysers seem a lot more frequent and violent than would easily support our evolution, and there's probably some good reasons why none of our evolved race ever found the murals the Nomai left for us that're down there

[not madattak]

Came here looking to ask about the second one as I was a little confused at first, but realised maybe it makes sense. The game is supposed to be set hundreds of thousands of years after the Nomai (...don't question why we can still find their intact skeletons and remains in various places after all that time), so presumably the Hearthians were protected by living in the caves near the Hearth's core and only came to the surface after most of it had decayed away

Edit: Got Ninja'd with a better explanation

[animaniac]

it was a fun little thing to do, but now this giant cannon feels absurd to a launch a probe that could have been self-propelled.

[Nert]

They didn't have any propulsion technology, at least not after the Crash. None of the shuttles have any, all they can do is be launched out of a cannon and slowly try to land with the gravity rings at the back

The gravity cannons pull the probe up and out of the barrel, like a railgun, because pretty much all they have in this solar system to work with is sandstone and gravity crystals