Summary of the lore (Outer Wilds) - Spoilers

I found the Outer Wilds story a bit confusing at first. So here's my attempt at a succinct summary of the lore. Obviously spoilers.

The Nomai

Some 280 000 years ago, the Nomai arrived on the Hearthian solar system aboard their "Vessel". The Nomai were intergalactic wanderers, split into clans that would reunite regularly to share their discoveries. This clan was attracted to this solar system because of a mysterious signal that was older than the universe itself and which was given the name "the Eye of the Universe".

The Vessel warped directly onto Dark Bramble and was disabled. Two groups of survivors managed to escape on Brittle Hollow and Ember Twin, respectively. The Nomai survived for many generations, eventually building infrastructure and technology to explore and colonise the solar system. They restarted their research on the Eye, which held a strong cultural significance to them. However they were unable to locate it, and the Nomai would send pilgrims to the satellite of the Eye, the Quantum Moon.

The Ash Twin Project

They reinvented warping technology, which had a peculiar property here. Things arrived at the warp receiver a short time before they entered the other side. And the time delay could be increased to 22 minutes by flowing large amounts energy into the warp core. The Nomai then devised the Ash Twin Project, composed of three parts. 1) A Sun Station would trigger the sun to go supernova; 2) a warp core inside Ash Twin (shielded from the supernova using ore from Timber Hearth) would use the supernova energy to send orders 22m in to the past to 3) a probe launcher around Giant's Deep, sending a probe in a random direction to locate the Eye. Inside Ash Twin would also be Nomai masks. Each mask would be coupled to a Nomai statue, which could link with a living creature or the probe, relaying and recording its memories or tracking data to the corresponding mask. Thus, when the sun would go supernova, a probe would be launched 22m in the past, relaying its findings to the mask. The Eye would unlikely be found so the sun would go supernova "again". And 22m before the probe would be launched but in a new direction. This loop would be repeated until the Eye would be found, at which point the Nomai would receive its coordinates, so that they would never trigger the Sun Station. From their POV, the probe would launch by itself a single time and find the Eye. As a fail-safe, when the eye would be found the statues would track and store memories of nearby Nomai and send those into the past as well. This would allow them to relive the time loop, giving them multiple opportunities to stop the Sun Station. It is noted that some Nomai found the project unethical, and that they should prioritise building a Vessel and resuming their nomadic way of life.

The Hearthians

However, the Sun Station failed to trigger a supernova, halting the Ash Twin project. Soon after, the Interloper, full of Ghost Matter, exploded in the system and destroyed most life. The proto-Heartians, living in underwater caves, survived.

Over 280 000 years later, the Heartian have evolved and are starting a space program, discovering artefacts of Nomai civilization while exploring the solar system. But the universe is dying and most stars are going supernova. When the sun explodes, it triggers the Ash Twin Project, setting the time loop until the Eye is found. It does so right at the beginning (from the player's POV, despite looping over 9 million times), when he and Gabbro happen to be near a Nomai statue. They are thus stuck reliving the time loop until the player can figure all this out. Only they can't prevent the supernova from happening.

[TheEpicJavin]

you shoulda said that they ACCIDENTALLY crashed into a vine in dark bramble BECAUSE the signal stopped

[MythoMan]

I know that this was just meant to be the base game, but you did a good job of explaining it. Can you make a guide for EoE as well?

[Bigsy]

@murloc The eye is in quantum fluctuation, much like the moon, and the rocks you find on some planets. You can't figure out the current position at any one time without observing it. It is explained in the brittle hollow 3d planet tracking observatory that when they try and simulate the exact orbit it is taking around the solar system it is, every orbit, all locations, at once. Thus you try and leave the moon, you stop observing the moon, it disappears, you can't observe the eye, it disappears. The best way they figured out was to start a time loop, send a probe in an infinite amount of directions all at once, find the current coordinates of the eye, then warp there, which eventually after 9 million loops, had succeeded and you hijack the plan.

[tuz]

The quantum does come into orbit around the eye. But once there if you try to exit the moon you end up on the Timber Hearth version of the moon. It likely has to do with the observer (the hatchling) but I don't really know.

[murloc]

shouldnt they have been able to reach the eye through the quantum moon somehow?