[SPOILERS] Flaw in the Nomai's original plan?

[DannyMcPants]

Outer Wilds has one of my favorite stories in a video game, but something has been bugging me recently.

So let's say that the Nomai's original plan had worked, and the sun station was capable of causing a supernova. The OPC would be fired as usual, and then 22 minutes later, the sun station would cause the supernova to occur, giving the ATP enough energy to send the probe data back 22 minutes. All going as planned.

The OPC must receive the data before it fires, as we know it adjusts its trajectory based on the previous launches. If this is the case then the 2nd launch would receive data about the 1st, the 3rd launch would receive data about the 1st and 2nd, and so on, all the way back to the ~9.3 millionth launch receiving data about every single launch attempted before it. This is the point where the eye is found, and where the OPC, and sun station would have been deactivated by the Nomai.

This is where my problem is though. In what you would consider the "original timeline", the OPC would never need to fire because it would have already collected the data from previous launches, and consequently, the sun station would be deactivated and never cause the sun to go supernova. The point of the ATP was to gather the information before the sun station needed to actually be used. Meaning, in the original timeline, these projects were essentially built to never be used, because otherwise, everyone dies.

Therefore if the Nomai had activated the sun station in the original timeline, they would have been dooming themselves, because at that point it can't be stopped. But, how could a series of loops be started if the probe is never launched and the sun station is never activated. The Nomai would die if they were activated, but the loops couldn't begin if they weren't. Just the fact that the Nomai tried to test the sun station in the first place shows they weren't exactly thinking like this.

What I find cool is that you don't run into a similar problem when examining the natural supernova that actually occurs in game. Technically, the same problem exists, either the loops never start, or the supernova can't be stopped, but since we know that the supernova truly can't be stopped, it makes sense that the loops begin.

Because the sun station never worked anyway, the game never really goes against anything that I've wrote, but I guess what I am saying is that the Nomai's plan was fundamentally flawed from the start, which I don't think was intended to be the case.

Man is it hard to talk about time loops in a cohesive manner, so I hope that makes sense.

I love this game. I would love to see if I'm just being an idiot and there is an answer to this, but this has been bugging me for a little while now.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by DannyMcPants:

Therefore if the Nomai had activated the sun station in the original timeline, they would have been dooming themselves, because at that point it can't be stopped. But, how could a series of loops be started if the probe is never launched and the sun station is never activated. The Nomai would die if they were activated, but the loops couldn't begin if they weren't. Just the fact that the Nomai tried to test the sun station in the first place shows they weren't exactly thinking like this.

I think this might depend on how you interpret the time travel. I think the idea is that they effectively never activate it because they already have the data from all the times it's been activated sent back from the future.

[Sammun Mak]

If you post a topic as spoilers there is no need to spoiler everything in the topic.

I always assumed that the probe fired in a truly random direction. From the perspective of the Nomai, they have infinite tries so it doesn't matter if it is efficient.

Other than that, I don't really get your post, but I think the Nomai's plan works in several of the various ways time travel can work in fiction. We could say that it's not until they turn it on and their plan succeeds that they "snap to" a reality where the eye's location is recorded.

[llefty]

I don't think what you mentioned was a flaw, it just depends on how you interpret time travel. If you think that every loop is basically a separate universe (i.e, one universe's sun explodes every time it occurs) then I guess it's a flawed plan, but there's nothing really to indicate that's the case with how the game's time travel works. I personally agree with what other posters have said that there is no original timeline, and the time travel loop is actually just causing the future to be rewritten in a single timeline hundreds of thousands of times.

[Noodl]

Funny thing about time travel is that it kind of doesn't make sense, ever, and always has loopholes, paradoxes, and glaring fallacies. Dunno what to tell ya bud, but like you said, the plan seems like it was flawed from the start. So I would think it'd be logical to assume the Nomai probably had no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clue what they were trying to do and were just doing the science they mostly believed they understood. The Sun Station never worked, The OPC blew up, and honestly I'm quite surprised they never accidentally broke space time with their experiments in the high energy lab. Or maybe they kinda knew about what they were doing enough to not do that? /shrug

Either way, nothing makes sense, and the universe quite frankly doesn't care either way if any of us ever understands that.

[Fear Ghoul]

The information wouldn't go back to the very first time they fired it, instead it would go back to loop number 9 million whatever. They'd receive the information from the loop just before, while to them it would have just received this information, and known what it meant since they set it all up, so then they would have no need to fire it.

[lieutenantkirtar]

If information went back to the starting loop your ships computer would be fully complete when you start the game. The loops happen successively not concurrently, I think one of the Nomai texts mention it would be "unpleasent" if you had to experience every loop while they searched for the Eye.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by lieutenantkirtar:

If information went back to the starting loop your ships computer would be fully complete when you start the game. The loops happen successively not concurrently, I think one of the Nomai texts mention it would be "unpleasent" if you had to experience every loop while they searched for the Eye.

Can't happen successively when they all start at the same time though.

[lieutenantkirtar]

Each time loop happens during the same time period but not at the same time. Think of it like driving around a circular road, you are looping around the same road multiple times but each of your loops are independent and happen in a specific order.

[Ishy]

Is the way you think about this that the sun station has to be activated before the time loop starts, i.e. before the 22 minutes that the loop consists of? In this case it would be true that once the sun station was activated, it couldn't be "not activated" from inside the loop (though they might still have emergency abort mechanisms in place).

However, the game will tell you inside the Ash Twin Project that this isn't the case. The sun station is (automatically, programmatically) activated at the _end_ of the 22 minute loop, and the command for the probe cannon to fire (along with the launch previous data) is sent 22 minutes back in time. So the idea was that when the project succeeds, the statues will bring the Nomai into the loop at the start point, and they will stop the Sun Station from firing (by simply not activating it, or preventing the automatic activation) at the 22 minute mark.

Of note is that the timing has to be pretty exact for the loop to work, and the amount of data sent back in time must not affect the timing, in order to stay in the "same" 22 minute loop. But I assume that the Nomai had equipment accurate enough to eliminate errors to at least an imperceptible level. Also, I think it's assumed that the activation of the Sun Station blows up the sun "nearly instantly", such that the activation can indeed be done at the end of the loop.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Ishy:

Is the way you think about this that the sun station has to be activated before the time loop starts, i.e. before the 22 minutes that the loop consists of? In this case it would be true that once the sun station was activated, it couldn't be "not activated" from inside the loop (though they might still have emergency abort mechanisms in place).

However, the game will tell you inside the Ash Twin Project that this isn't the case. The sun station is (automatically, programmatically) activated at the _end_ of the 22 minute loop, and the command for the probe cannon to fire (along with the launch previous data) is sent 22 minutes back in time. So the idea was that when the project succeeds, the statues will bring the Nomai into the loop at the start point, and they will stop the Sun Station from firing (by simply not activating it, or preventing the automatic activation) at the 22 minute mark.

Of note is that the timing has to be pretty exact for the loop to work, and the amount of data sent back in time must not affect the timing, in order to stay in the "same" 22 minute loop. But I assume that the Nomai had equipment accurate enough to eliminate errors to at least an imperceptible level. Also, I think it's assumed that the activation of the Sun Station blows up the sun "nearly instantly", such that the activation can indeed be done at the end of the loop.

I assumed it took a little while for the sun station to work and it was activated manually, but if it takes 15 minutes or so it doesn't really matter anyway - the key point is that once the eye is found the statues activate. So that the Nomai just don't activate Sun station once they're remember the last loop and they're safe.

[Ishy]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

I assumed it took a little while for the sun station to work and it was activated manually, but if it takes 15 minutes or so it doesn't really matter anyway - the key point is that once the eye is found the statues activate. So that the Nomai just don't activate Sun station once they're remember the last loop and they're safe.

Yea, as long as the interval from activation to supernova is less than 22 minutes (and maybe some safety margins), it shouldn't really matter. It's the specific wording in the ATP describing the process (something along the lines of "At exactly 22 minutes after the probe cannon has fired, the Sun Station will trigger the star to go supernova") that made me think the process is quick and automated, though it would probably make more sense to activate the Sun Station manually.

I was trying to imagine how the OP thought that the Nomai's plans were flawed, since I couldn't see it. But re-reading his post I think what I described was not the issue, but rather the idea of "the loop not beginning because it has already succeeded" being paradoxical. And in a sense the paradox is real, it can be thought of "information being born out of nothing". However, Outer Wilds seems to let information transfer slide, as long as matter isn't transferred (since transferring matter in the loop and then breaking the loop _will_ cause teardown of the fabric of the universe, whereas similar behavior doesn't occur with just memory transfer).

[Hyoiza]

You are absolutely right! (I'm suuuper late to the party but i just couldn't help myself) Outer Wilds introduced the concept of breaking the fabric of spacetime into the game, where if you removed the cause of existence of any type of matter, it breaks the fundamental law of conservation of energy. We see this in HEL where having 2 probes in the same time breaks stuff.

Then we see another "rule" being broken in ATP where if the player goes through the black hole during the supernova, our character physically goes back in time, but we still wake up near the campfire. This does not immediately cause space time to collapse because the cause of the matter (our other self) that exists now can still be created using the black hole that will activate at the 22nd minute mark. Space time only breaks IF we do not go through the black hole again, for our other self to exist in the next loop (However, for the game to be consistent with it's laws, spacetime should also break if we remove the warp core when 2 of us are present. I haven't tried this, but if it doesn't, welp, it's just a game).

So with the spacetime laws the game has set for it's universe, yes, if the Nomai succeeded in exploding the sun and launched the space probe with enthusiasm 9 million times over, they should not under any circumstances deactivate the sun station. If they do, the universe would collapse, so the only way to not break time is for them to get the coordinates and skeddadle out of the solar system before the sun station activates.

And there's also one thing. With the rules we are given, the ATP should not be deactivated as well, since the data that the masks holds is also energy from the future that only exists because of the warp core. The only way to "safely" time travel is physically going back in time and not interact with whatever caused your time trip, yourself and anyone that knows you. So yea, Outer Wilds true ending is to be forever stuck in a time loop or break spacetime.

[Errors On]

I assume their probe cannon would fire, if they received the data from previous launches then the order for the OPC to fire would also come through, they're essentially receiving data from 9 million splinter timelines that never happened. IT's also definitely not meant to be analyzed too closely, time travel in fictional media seldom is, but it's lampshaded well enough

[Tribersman_FR]

Short take on it:
It's is never a loop.
It's a loooooooong succession of alternate timeline.
Each time, we are adding data obtained by means that will never exist.
Since the probe is launched in a different direction it cannot obtain the data you received.
So it doesn't matter if you stop creating alternate timeline this time, they existed in your past = adequacy achieved.

However,
You can do action that force it to BECOME a loop, and it's a BAD END.
Jump into the portal that appear at the center of the device, then come back to it.
If you do you'll meet yourself and cause a paradox if you do not jump into the portal the next time it open.