Post by @paul

I've only played a bit more than an hour so far, but I've managed to land my ship once properly and crash it a bunch of more times.
My very first expedition took me to the launch cannon orbiting Giant's Deep. I was actually looking for Gabbro on the planet itself, but got distracted by "Oooh shiny". As I didn't understand that I could dock my ship, I merely brought it close and went the rest of the way in my space suit. I guess the logs there are supposed to be cryptic, but together with what I learned from the Observatory back on Timber Hearth, I'm pretty sure that the Nomai were looking for the center of the universe — The Eye — with this probe launcher. And I'm very proud of myself, for figuring out that what you see when you wake up is the probe being launched. I only had to die twice to put it together. 😅
Speaking about dying... I said I didn't dock the ship, so i t drifted away quite a bit. When I tried to get back to it, I got distracted by another "Oooh what's that?" and got shot into nothing. My little guy ended up suffocating in the middle of nowhere, far away from anything and everything. 😬
On Giant's Deep I found a way into the statue workshop. And now I understand how the statues work and that they record memories. Well... I haven't figured out yet, why it affects my player character and why I can travel through time, back to the launch of the probe. But I'm sure that'll make sense eventually.
I'm taking a lot of notes, but I'm not sure yet if I have to? The ship log seems pretty well equipped to track interesting stuff.
Now let's see if I can find Gabbro already.

...

I think I just had a wild thought. Check my image descriptions to find it. I have an idea about how the memories get recorded for the statues.

Also... Who launched the probe, when all Nomai are supposed to be dead for aeons? 🤔

I explored some more, this time uncovering mining site 2B on Timber Hearth and finding an ominous warp travel Dark Bramble that seems to have swallowed the long missing Feldspar's harmonica.
I've managed to "survive" long enough twice (as in not killing myself by doing stupid shit). The second time I was on the twin planets and that's where it hit me that the sun is dying and that's the hard limit. It's beautiful... but scary. 😬
And the music is just mesmerizing. I bought the Soundtrack on a whim, but now that I listen to it, I'm happy that I got it.
I found a crashed Nomai ship next to a distress beacon and a quantum anomaly stone, so I have two new signals to track through the solar system.
I also landed in a giant volcano moon and on The Interloper. Not sure if there's anything to be done on Interloper, but the atmosphere is scary as shit. 😨
I learned first hand that you shouldn't fall into the core of Brittle Hollow. I found the white anomaly first, so I knew immediately where I went and that I wouldn't see my ship again. 😭
I also found Gabbro and a few more travelers on other planets, including lunar station.
I love flying around. Everything is very janky, but that feels just right for this duct taped together space vessel. 😅 And I've gotten pretty good at it.
Just at the end of my last run, I was exploring a Nomai temple on the usually quite sandy twin planet, but just when I was starting to translate the ancient text, the sun exploded.
I know that the Nomai built something here, some kind of research station, but I haven't figured out how to get into it yet.
I love this game already. 🤩

Okay, theory time!!!

Here's what I think, given the information I got so far.

• I'm now convinced, that my player avatar is acting as a camera for the Nomai memory statues. There's this one line, where a Nomai describes the cameras as eerie or something like that. It sounds innocent at first, but I don't think the rational and scientific Nomai would be bothered by a static camera object being attached around them. Very sure we're talking about living beings.
• The Nomai are actually dead. I was wondering if they were still around, but I don't think they just hang around invisibly. They wouldn't care for their memory statues to be broken apart and transported between planets.
• If we take that as true, it means the Nomai couldn't have launched the probe. Someone else must have done that.

Now here's a stretch, but Feldspar has been missing in action forever. Maybe he got stuck in the time loop and got so frustrated, that he launched the probe, triggering the end of the universe. Or he didn't know that would happen (unlikely if he's like me) and he was just curious where the probe would go.

This is the point where I should admit that I've listened to the Watch out for Fireballs episode about Outer Wilds. I promise that I can't remember anything that was said, but maybe my subconscious picked up on the ideas and is feeding them back to me.

Say or think what you will. For all intents and purposes I'm playing the game blind, because I have zero idea where to go, what to do and I'm 100% honest when I say that all these are just theories. They just feel surprisingly right to me. 🤔

I finally got to explore Brittle Hollow a bit and wouldn't you know... I was sucked into the black hole again. And as I was drifting along, I caught sight of a strange thing near the white hole: White Hole Station.
HOLY SHIT YOU CAN WARP!!!
And not only that, but you gain a microsecond when you do it. 🤔
Now I wonder where the other stations are. And I heard rumors about Sun Station, but I don't know if the Nomai ever built it.
I visited two of the crashed escape pods again and found a way into one of the twin planets. And there I'm currently stuck in a temple built for The Eye. Looks like a dead end to me. 😅
And I was wrong about the center of the universe. The Eye is a signal! Older than the universe!! 🤯
I'm slowly starting to unravel the timeline of the Nomai's project.

@joel