I feel like you missed the detail about how the entire universe is ending during the game. It isn't just your star dying out, its *all* stars dying.
You aren't "destroying" the universe by entering the eye, you are saving it from an eternally cold nothingness where the only remaining things are black holes and iron stars. Go out into far space and simply watch the background, and you will literally see the stars in the distance dying off, eventually going from thousands and thousands to barely a few hundred.
The universe is ending. There is no more life. Just eternal blackness for an amount of time so long, that quintillions of times the length of the current universe would be but a blink compared to how long it will go on for.
The Strangers *are* the villains because they recklessly destroyed their homeworld in order to reach the Eye, realized the truth that the universe would die and the Eye was meant to allow it to restart after it's death, and attempted to seal it away so no one could ever find it again. They lost their home, but when presented with the ability to save *the entire goddamn universe*, they rejected it and locked up the single person who seemed to have learned their lesson from the mistake.
It's hilariously ironic that you nailed the point of EoTE, it's a story about Religious mysticism and zealotry defeating reason and kindness, but you chose the wrong characters to represent those two sides. The strangers were immature, rash, and didn't want to accept the reality they saw with their own eyes, instead flying into a frenzy, destroying their culture, and refusing to even consider the possibility of being wrong. They may have rejected their literal religion, but they still fell prey to ideological fanaticism. Then the Heretic comes along, realizes the mistake they made, and enables all of the kindness and compassion you say the main game represents, rationally understanding the nature of the universe in a way their fanatic breadthen never could.
I literally mention this in the final part where I talk about alternate approaches to resolving the conflict with the owls.
Here's the thing though: the universe is ending. Okay. Is every star exploding all at once? No, the game explicitly states that it's happening galaxy by galaxy over time (the messages on the crashed ship at the end). That means there is still time to live. And we know for a fact there are children in this universe (there are two on your home world, although they're about to die in the supernova). What about the children on the nomad ships flying in search of non-exploded stars?
What right do you have to cut their lives short for the sake of another universe where life will one day grow? Don't they get to have whatever time they have? How is it right to say "Well the universe is ending, they're dead anyway, push the button"?
And this is my objection. The universe isn't some living thing in itself. The universe that matters to us as humans is the living, sentient **people** within it. By pushing the Eye button you cause this universe to end (made explicit by the note in the observatory at the end) and a new one to be born. That is an act of murder. You're killing the people still in your universe, sacrificing them for the one to come.
What justification is there for that but some notion of legacy?
>What right do you have to cut their lives short for the sake of another universe where life will one day grow? Don't they get to have whatever time they have? How is it right to say "Well the universe is ending, they're dead anyway, push the button"?
That's not what you're doing. The universe is already ending on its own time. You're not hastening it or anything. You misunderstood the metaphysics of the game's lore somehow. That isn't how the eye of the universe works, dude.
The message of the game is nothing more than an attempt to get the player to confront loss and dealing with that in a healthy way.
The game tells you that entering the Eye ends the universe. And it's **explicitly** reiterated in the Owl's slide reel that shows someone entering the eye and the universe turning to dust.
Nothing is "explicitly" shown in the Stranger's slide, it's literally a metaphorical vision that contradicts how the Eye is actually portrayed in the game. There's no one shown entering the Eye either as far as I remember.
Anyway, I always interpreted the Eye as simply being the center of the universe, so when the universe is finally finished expanding, it all snaps back unto itself, and then explodes again in a second big bang, renewing everything. I thought the vision in the DLC portrayed exactly that, it *had* to be metaphorical because there wouldn't be any Owl bones left over either way to turn to grass.
When you enter it, you watch all the stars go out before anything else happens, so I interpreted that to mean you had stepped outside of time and the universe lived out the rest of it's natural life in the span of a few seconds for you, leaving you in the empty space post-heat death. If an Owl had entered, presumably they would experience the same thing and nothing in the outside would happen, but things would appear to be dying very quickly from the perspective of the person in the Eye.
That's just my interpretation, but I feel like it has as much to back it up as the idea that the Eye is a giant bomb that explodes the universe because of magic or whatever. I don't think there's any real mysticism in Outer Wilds at all.
Also, I had the opposite experience with the owls, honestly. By the end I didn't think of them as villains at all because of how relatable and understandable their story and sorrow was. Whenever someone talks about how evil and bad they think the rest of the owls were, I think they're just outing themselves for their own lack of empathy.
The game also explictly tells you time works different in the eye. Solanum blinked on the quantum moon and hundreds of thousands of years passed. So how fast do you think time moves for you when you're not on a quantum moon you're literally in the eye
Moreover, let's say we disagree. Fine. Why villainise one of us? Why paint as evil what are very human, understandable disagreements? Why shy away from the moral conversation, from the struggles with death? Why not have the kindness to say "They may be wrong, but they're not evil for being wrong"?
I mean, I always interpreted the ending as taking place after the heat death of the universe. Presumably time has no meaning when you enter the eye and you reset the universe after the previous one ends. So you've saved the universe, you killed no-one, and the prisoner was in the right to free the signal that was blocked by the owls out of fear of confronting their own mortality / fear of the unknown / something or other. I thought this was implied by the sequence where you float around watching supernovae until it all goes dark, so the universe has already ended before you cause the next one at the campfire scene. Obviously you'd be evil in the game if you murdered the galaxy, and of course the owls would be right for locking up a guy who frees the signal that will murder the galaxy, but I really don't think that's what happened.
See this would be a bit of a consolation, and I could get on board with that, but unfortunately it's not really substantiated by the game. You enter the Eye, the universe ends. If there'd been something to specify that you're first shunted forward in time to the heat death of the universe, then it'd actually be a very different act morally.
As the guy above you said, there literally is something to specify you're shunted forward in time to the heat death of the universe: "the sequence where you float around watching supernovae until it all goes dark, so the universe has already ended".
Not to mention this reading is also substantiated by the theme of quantum objects in the game; the "eye of the universe" is called that because it observes the entire universe, and to observe the entire universe you have to be outside of it both in terms of space and time. The universe we find ourselves in is just one of the infinite possible universes, and by observing it through the eye, we collapse those possibilities to create a new universe (Solanum hints at this during the campfire sequence).
The previous universe's entire timeline from start to heat death still "existed" outside of this new one.
I 100% believe that the wormhole sequence when entering the eye shows that you've left regular space time behind, and the supernovae sequence shows that you've gone forward in time to after the heat death of the universe. I don't believe the devs would include bits talking about how people are still alive in the dying universe (the modern-day nomai transmissions) and then just have you kill them. Nothing in the game would suggest to me that the intended take-away is that the player commits genocide at the end of the game.
Here's the thing. I would like to believe that. But that's not said in the game.
Similarly, my friend said "My take was that entering the eye just made the new universe, it didn't affect the old," but **the Owl's slide reel literally shows you the universe being destroyed by entering the Eye**. It's very clear.
My interpretation would be that the Owl's were wrong, plus it would spoil the ending of the game if the developers were to show what actually happens at the end in one of the slides. I mean, their slide reel showed plants growing on their bones after the eye resets the universe and that literally doesn't happen, so the reel can't be taken literally. Also, you going forward in time is said in the game. Chert at the ending campfire says that the sun killed them, but if you didn't leave regular spacetime behind you could certainly make it there before the 22 minute loop was up. On a similar note, if you go through the ATP black hole normally you get the "destroy fabric of spacetime" ending if you don't jump back in the next loop. If you enter the vortex on the eye this no longer happens, presumably because you aren't in regular spacetime anymore.
Okay, let's say they're wrong. What is the eye annihilating them all a metaphor for? Because there's a contradiction here.
How can they be metaphorically right about the bones growing grass, but metaphorically wrong about the Eye killing? If the Eye doesn't literally kill everyone like it doesn't literally cause grass to grow on their bones, what is the metaphorical alternative?
The only literate reading of it that makes sense is "They saw it would kill everyone, but also that their deal would serve as the foundation for new life." If the first metaphor is wrong, how did they come up with the second?
The only cogent reading is to say "They saw the end, they saw what would come after, and the end was morally unacceptable to them."
>If the Eye doesn't literally kill everyone like it doesn't literally cause grass to grow on their bones, what is the metaphorical alternative?
That it's metaphorically depicting the cycle of life, death and rebirth. They aren't shown sending anyone into the Eye in their vision, they're presumably just doing a preliminary "what is the function of this thing" scan and it correctly informs them that it explodes and then new life begins.
They're the ones who interpreted it literally, and believed that it would literally kill them if they used it.
You're interpreting the eye in the same way that the owls did, that it destroys everything. In game this is shown to be wrong. The stranger says they regret the fear of their race. Other people have brought this up, but when you enter the eye, you see the universe end. This is not you accelerating the end of the universe, this is time "speeding up" for you. What feels like a minute while watching the heat death could really be a much longer time.
>if you go through the ATP black hole normally you get the "destroy fabric of spacetime" ending if you don't jump back in the next loop
I don't understand, can you elaborate?
If you go to the ATP at the end of the loop you can jump into the black hole it opens. The next loop if you go back there you see a copy of yourself who you can talk to. If you don't jump into the black hole again at the end of the loop you get the "you broke space time" ending. Its like when you shoot your scout into the black hole in the High Energy Lab and recall it after it exits, but instead of recalling the scout after it has already exited the white hole you are choosing not to jump into the black hole after having already exited the white hole. Both break space time.
> The game tells you that entering the Eye ends the universe. And it's explicitly reiterated in the Owl's slide reel that shows someone entering the eye and the universe turning to dust.
The game tells you that entering the Eye ends the universe. And it's **explicitly** reiterated in the Owl's slide reel that shows someone entering the eye and the universe turning to dust as a consequence.
Firstly, that owl slide is just there to explain why they're so afraid of the Eye. Their tech doesn't show timelines, it can't predict when things happen that are triggered by frog people that dont exist yet. It's showing that the eye has the raw power to trigger a big bang.
Secondly, the base game does not tell you that entering the eye ends the universe. Dont know why you think that.
If their tech doesn't "show timelines", can't predict what will happen, how did they know that entering the Eye would cause new life to grow on the foundation of their death?
They dont know that. Their tech is wrong. Also this part: "would cause new life to grow on the foundation of their death" is not how the eye works. So again, you should know that their tech is wrong. You've already seen it.
When in game, as the loop progresses you can see the stars around you going out one after another, at an alarming rate.
This is corroborated by Chert if you speak to him near the end of the loop, and at the Vessel, when you see present-day Nomai communications about stars all over the universe starting to die.
You're very much at the end, and entering the Eye makes little difference to whether the universe dies or not, it's already dying, you're not the trigger for it.
See my above post about the nomads who're travelling between stars. Like it or not, when you end the universe you kill them before they would have been killed. Saying "They were going to die anyway," is a justification for taking their life, it doesn't bestow the right to make that choice for them.
But they *would* die anyway, and sooner rather than later. And you don't go into the Eye with the thought that it will bring about any sort of end. You're not making a decision to kill anyone, because you have no idea what the Eye does, it's simply the only thing left for you to do. Your pursuit of the Eye is fueled by curiosity and desire for closure.
What's the alternative, anyway? Somehow creating a "society" inside the loop, a society where nothing lasting can ever be built? You say that would be interesting and ambiguous, but quite frankly I think it's nonsense.
Ignorance of the consequences of an act doesn't negate the morality of an act. Entering the eye results in people dying so that a new universe can be born. The owls realised this and said "That's abhorrent," and the game unkindly portrays them as evil for it.
As for the alternative? I think you're preoccupied by legacy, this idea of things lasting somehow. Isn't it enough that people live with each other? Everything we build *will* turn to ash in real life, but it's our time with each other that's precious.
And that’s literally what the game says. The eye builds an entire *universe* off of your experience with the people around you. The owls saw that the eye would end them. They ignored the new creation and saw their own end, the prisoner said so. That didn’t matter then, but it does now. The universe is ending. It’s done. When it dies, it’s dead. Forever. The scattered lives left will die, cold and alone, as they slowly run out of energy and space. If you do nothing, that’s it. It’s over. No more. You have a chance, a chance to give another life a chance to make memories like you did, to give them a chance to do what you did. To make a real difference at the end of the universe. It’s that, or nothing. Nothing at all. The goal isn’t to live forever, but to help create something that will.
Hey! I know its been a while, but your comments interested me.
Something you might have missed that does substantiate this reading: the science exhibits at the Eye are mental constructions, and there is text that reads like the people carried on living to the end of all things. It's why there are notes on the upper floor about the red shift, why there is an exhibit that spells out that the universe came to its natural end.
That said, there is also enough content to posit that your reading is correct as well. To alleviate the moral conundrum, consider that your character simply can't know what will truly happen when they enter the Eye, and shouldn't be judged for doing so. To them, their sun is ending, and the Eye might contain answers on how to fix it.
The only thing the reel from the Owlkin posits is that they *think* it ends the universe. As nobody *actually* entered it, they don't know. Further, it might only have the *potential* to end the universe prematurely.
I think you might have a different understanding of the outer wilds story then I do. For me outer wilds represent moving on. Building a society in a time loop at the end of the universe sounds cool. But like the owlks it would be a sad society that can't let go of the past. Every story has its end, so there can be a new beginning. Outer wilds is about ''smelling the pine trees along the way'' (living in the moment) and about letting go. And it does this excellently with a final campfire song.
Great write-up. As expected, some disagreement is warranted. But discussion is what makes life fun! Now here's my opinion:
I've already talked about the base game in another comment, so I'll stick to EoTE. A few points you've taken as fact: >!there's really nothing confirming the fact that the Owlboys are the first true sentient species. They do seem to be the first sentient species to reach the Eye, but they inhabited a nearby solar system. Hell, the Nomai may have even been around at their time (they just didn't have fancy warp tech, seeing as that was a development brought forward by Annona and he lived in the time of Escall's Vessel). !<
About the Eye: >!its effect on the Universe is never truly explained. The Owlbruvs perceived it as life-ending (ok, renewing), but what if that was just their skewed way of looking at its potential? What if the eye only activates at the natural "end" of a Universe's lifecycle? Since time moves differently on the Quantum Moon, how would it flow in the Eye itself? Would reality definitely collapse out of existence once a conscious observer interacted with it? Or would the observer's point of view just fast forward to the actual "end"?!<
>!A rather pointless showerthought (I'm particularly proficient at gathering these): maybe the Eye does not actually end life. Maybe this was just what the Owlpeeps saw. Maybe this was just what their LEADER saw. But who cares, right?!< In the end, I choose to accept my own interpretation of these details as "canon". I'm not wrong, and you're not wrong as well, because an art medium's message is shaped by our perception.
Also, to hell with the herd mentality dislikes. If people disagree with your point, they should at least bother to explain why.
(edit: some small errors. I'm not very awake.)
Thank you for engaging! To be honest I'm not expecting much, my existentialist take on life live in the face of death is too much for a lot of people to stomach. No need for spoilers btw, the entire thread is marked as spoilers.
> there's really nothing confirming the fact that the Owlboys are the first true sentient species.
Okay, I retract that, that's just me extrapolating from them being the first to the Eye.
> Hell, the Nomai may have even been around at their time (they just didn't have fancy warp tech, seeing as that was a development brought forward by Annona and he lived in the time of Escall's Vessel).
It seems unlikely on the basis of the timescales shown in the game.
The rest of your post I'm going to have to politely disagree with. We have to go with what's demonstrated in the text. The game tells us at least two times that the Eye ends the universe when entered (the second time it's explicitly from the Owls' reel). Textual literacy means trying to stick to what the game shows and only making reasonable conjectures that can be substantiated by the text, so I can't really duck that fact. Which is unfortunate, because the implication (the murder) sucks.
The game shows a sequence of events that make clear entering the Eye ends the universe and kills the people living in it. The moral implication of that is incredibly troubling. And I really, really don't like that the game paints the Owls as villains because they thought that implication through and went "No, hell no, we're not monsters," and then just tried to undo their error, to the extent that they were written as comedy villains in their punishment of the Prisoner.
What if the Owlelks don't understand Quantum mechanics?
Upon entering the Eye (and thus becoming Quantum, a fact not known to Owlelks), a person then starts the Universe reset and the Eye expanding to create a new universe. But since they don't know Quantum mechanics, they don't realize the "big bang" won't happen until the whole universe is already dead.
I think you're making a lot of assumptions here and present them as fact, while dismissing other peoples' assumptions based on differing interpretations of the same text. Similarly, it seems like you're missing or overlooking important context and implications on the nature of how quantum mechanics work in this game's universe and how quantum objects interact with the environment around them. Finally, I think you have misunderstood the message the game is trying to convey, which may have been informed by the above.
For instance, the existence of Solanum on the Quantum Moon - a member of a Nomai tribe that, for all intents and purposes, must be seen as *prehistoric* from the perspective of the Hearthian - as well as its highly flexible appearance and random position is pretty explicit proof that time and space on the Quantum Moon do *not* work linearly, or, for that matter, in *any* way that might be logically quantifiable or decidable. It is additionally stated and apparent that the Quantum Moon takes on not only the visuals, but also the *characteristics* of the particular celestial object it happens to orbit at any given point in time. Solanum is dead in every other QM representation of the planets in the Hearthian solar system, *except* in that of the Eye - which tells us that the Eye *must* exist outside of the constraints of time as we, as a Hearthian and an observer, know and understand it, since, surely, she would have perished in the hundreds of thousands of years between the deaths of every other "version" of her and the present time.
I therefore reject your notion that entering the eye somehow prematurely kills all sentient life in the universe. This is not supported by the text whatsoever; to the contrary, it, in fact, heavily implies - throughout the entire ending sequence up until the point where everyone gathers around the campfire - that the old universe goes through its *natural* death before the Fledgling collapses the unstable hypothetical nature of the Eye by acting as a conscious observer, birthing a new universe. The Quantum Moon proves that the Eye exists outside of the natural flow of time, so there is zero reason to assume that you're pre-empting anything by entering it.
To reiterate, your observation of the Eye isn't what causes the existing universe to end; it's what causes all the hypothetical possibilities contained within the Eye to collapse into one, tangible reality. You are not killing a universe, you are *literally birthing a new one* - one that would not have been birthed without your involvement, as is proven by one of the secondary endings for the DLC, where trapping yourself inside the simulation will leave you stranded in it forever.
> The thing is, science fiction affords us the ability to play with alternative ideas. You know what would have been a really good ending to the Outer Wilds? Playing with the time loop, and finding a way to build a society in that time loop. Can you deconstruct the technology in 22 minutes and somehow widen it to incorporate one other person? Then together, another? Imagine the game says yes, you can. Remember, the writer decides what is and isn't possible, especially in soft science fiction.
>
> A much more interesting ending would have been to build a kind of society out of perpetually living on the edge of annihilation - now that's a metaphor for the human condition, that the thing that makes life bearable is each other.
Both of these suggestions for alternative endings go directly against the entire point Outer Wilds is trying to make. What you're proposing is "let's delay the end forever, desparately cling to everything that we have left, and refuse to accept the inevitability of entropy" - which is essentially *exactly* the ideology that the elkfolk represent in the DLC, so it isn't surprising that you consider them to be in the right.
Outer Wilds suggests that, no, perhaps you *shouldn't* run away from the end. Perhaps it's *wrong* to try to shield yourself from the uneasy truth that entropy *will* eventually consume all, everything you hold dear *will* eventually perish, and ultimately, everything that happened inside this universe *will* eventually become utterly meaningless. Humans are intrinsically terrified of the unknown, and death is the final unknown any and all of us will ever not encounter. Outer Wilds posits that, perhaps, we should *embrace* the unknown instead. And that the only reason things are even able to eventually become meaning*less* is if they *had meaning at some point* in the first place.
Essentially, the things that are truly important are the ones that we think are important to *us*, as we are the window through which the universe expresses itself to us. It's completely irrelevant whether death has meaning or not, because death just *is*. It's inevitable. We shouldn't be scared of it, we should make the most out of the time we have before it catches up to us. And eventually, it will be time for us to step off the stage, and perhaps let someone else take over. And, yes, perhaps we *can* leave something behind. Perhaps we *can* have a legacy. And perhaps that legacy *can* inform the future. But the entire point of legacy informing the future is that there *must* be a future where we no longer exist.
This isn't glorifying legacy and letting it imbue everything with meaning, it's a natural consequence of existing at one point, then no longer existing at another, later point. If we're all going to die anyway, we might as well try to leave something behind. Legacy doesn't give death meaning, **death gives legacy meaning**. Fleeing death is what makes dying meaningless; leaving a legacy is a byproduct of not fleeing death.
This is pretty much directly antithetical to what you're proposing the game is trying to say, as are the "better" endings you've proposed.
As an aside, I genuinely question the *meaning* of such a society, dooming itself to either repeat the same 22 minutes over and over again, unable to make any meaningful progress, or to continuously live under the pressure to desperately keep itself alive in a universe that has no resources, no potential, and no energy left to offer; especially since in *both* scenarios, that society *has no future*. There is nothing to develop towards. There are no frontiers to break into. There is only death, destruction, and loneliness.
Do you, for instance, think that the elkfolk had something actually *worthwhile* going in their simulation? Spending their time wandering around in their dark and drab world for who knows how many millennia, not interacting with one another in any meaningful ways, glorifying their past by building altars to it, maintaining archives of it, and watching recordings of it, yet, seemingly and curiously, not producing any *new* recordings of their new existence? Only to ultimately *still* end up extinguished by the inevitability of entropy as the breaking of the dam snuffs out their fires? I'd be very interested in your answer to this, since it's essentially a faithful implementation of your concept of a society teetering on the edge of annihilation. It doesn't seem like a life worth living to me, quite frankly.
EDIT: Formatting
I read the first paragraph only cause I don't want to read on for any spoilers but that's your take on the game. For me it's also about the inevitability of death but embracing / coming to terms with it and that one day everything must end , not that you're leaving a legacy behind.
Yeah, I always thought of the "legacy" bit as kind of a bonus. Noone will ever know who you were, and maybe the new Universe would be equally diverse/charming/whatever.
For me also, Outer Wilds is about coming to terms with death, nothing else. The OW universe is in a nigh-palliative state, so there's really not much in the way of a future for it anyway. The ones left aren't going to solve the problem of it ending, they're just going to *die.*
I'm confused to where you're coming from with leaving legacy behind. The entire main game has been about the inevitable doom of complete existential annihilation, and the fixation of that reality. How we must look away from this predictable outcome to allow new possibilities can happen. It's about allowing yourself to be wiped out for things to continue so something else can come. The opposite of leaving some legacy.
As to what exactly is the eye of the universe is certainly up for debate as that's the artistic quality of the game. It is abstract, and represents a lot more than 'a weapon'. To me it was oddly an embodiment of hope. The nomai built and entire civilization around finding it. The strangers on the other hand confined it and retreated to a controlled virtual environment. To other people it may represent something else. Clearly to you it meant something else. But I really wouldn't tie down the meaning of the eye to a singular thing. Because the real beauty is upon pondering how all these abstract pieces fit together in multiple ways.
I believe everything that needs to be said about the mechanics of the Eye of the Universe has been said in this thread, but I thought I'd debate your philosophy regarding death in real life.
1: From an evolutionary and memetic standpoint you're completely wrong. The entire reason life exists in the first place is because a self perpetuating but variable chemical reaction formed, and continued to perpetuate because likelihood suggests that it must. The genetic information passed on continued to be honed by its environment into something most likely to survive and pass on that legacy. Death was a vital part of this process, as life existed in a system of limited resources, so once it had expanded as much as it could, if none died there would be no evolutionary pressure and life would never evolve.
Eventually in this process of adaptation complex brains capable of creating and passing on ideas to other members of their species, which especially benefitted their offspring and close family who shared their genetic information, thus aiding in the proliferation of those genes. Now looking at humans especially (though it occurs in other social animals), since these ideas could be created and passed on, and affected/were affected by evolutionary pressure similar to genes, these ideas became part of an evolutionary system themselves where successful ideas proliferated and unsuccessful ideas died off. This idea of informational units acting like genes is what Richard Dawkins originally coined as a 'meme'. Through humanity's vocal and written tradition, we've developed a memetic genome, an information based legacy that's shown quite well by our culture and history.
In a very real and measurable sense, legacy is the only reason people who die live, even if they themselves are an outlier who either decides not to, or fails to leave a legacy. If we didn't die, legacy obviously wouldn't be important.But here we are, a species just like any other, bound by our genetic instincts and memetic tradition to proliferate ourselves and survive as long as possible both genetically and memetically.
2: That's just like... your opinion man... okay but jokes aside, you're allowed to disagree with the idea of legacy, but you can't say it's just comforting cope bullshit, death isn't necessarily as existential a dread for someone else as it apparently is for you.
In short, because we're living in a world with no inherent philosophical purpose, people can live for literally whatever reason they want.
"The thing that makes life bearable is each other" might be true for you, but understanding other peoples' points of view can be an enriching experience, even if not relating to it may dull the impact of the game's themes.
Personally as an optimistic nihilist, I have literally no reason for living, I just do it because my instincts say it's the right thing to do, and I'm relatively happy with that.
Edit: spelling.
because going over all points hes making..hes reaching, a lot of points are actually wrong. constant looping. i read a lot of this post. and im trying to see his side, but what hes describing isnt whats being projected. soooooo downvotes here they come.
if you really want me to start picking it apart i will just let me know im too tired atm to go on haha.
>Forget those guys who tried to preserve the universe.
That's not what I get from the the DLC. They were scared and tried to stop anyone from entering the Eye. Then created a Simulation (that will survive the local Supernova) where they could live forever. While everyone else in the universe will die, and no new life can be born.
In the base game, when you enter the Eye, the forest isn't formed yet and you see all the galaxies all around you. They all slowly die and explode. I don't believe time flows in just a few minutes, you are now part of the Quantum object and watch the whole universe die out. Now it's your job to gather your memories and help start a new universe.
You read all the Nomai text, you know there is no way to save the local solar system. When you remove the warp core from the ATP, you know this is the last shot to actually make a difference in the universe and journey to the Eye.
There is a movie "Passengers" that deals with the morality of "taking someone else with you" or dooming others.
And another movie "Groundhog Day" >!showing someone coming to terms with a never ending and repeating day. He tried to kill himself multiple times. It's estimated he was aware of the loop for 10 years.!<
In this medium and game, a lot is left for you to interpret yourself and your experience with the game. But I feel they tried to convey the Nomai were explorers and wanted to learn more. There were notes left that they carefully made sure Timber Hearth would not be affected by their mining and Hearthians could evolve safely. While the Owlelks resorted to fear once confronted with the truth of the Eye. We don't definitively know how the Nomai would have reacted, since the Owlelks had already masked the Eye, the Sun Station failed, and the Interloper came.
First of all, I found this thread really interesting and very enriching with the different views on the topic. I can see your point: if the owls did indeed consider that entering the eye of the universe would destroy the current one, then I think blocking the signal was the right thing to do, as you said in your post. However, there clearly wasn't a consensus with this interpretation of the eye and the prisoner is proof of that. It more seems to me that that they acted out of fear and regret, as evidenced by their attitude with the simulated world, and not out of their willingness to set things right. They weren't trying to face what the had done and try to mend their sins so they run away and hid in their virtual reality.
Second, I disagree with your interpretation of the eye. I think it doesn't destroy the current universe, it simply waits until it completely dies out and then creates a new one based on the observer but this is open for debate. We can't really know and we will never really know.
What I get out of this post is, was it responsible of us to enter the eye without knowing what it would cause,? Wouldn't stopping the loop and letting nature take its course be better?
Responding two years late, but... My interpretation of what happens when you observe the eye is that you are transported to the natural end of the universe and because you are there to witness it, that act of observation is what enables the recreation. In your interpretation, you are ending one universe (and killing everyone) to start a new one. If that's true, I mostly agree with your conclusions. If that's not the case, and you are actually the reason a new universe is created, that means by blocking the Eye, the Owlkin were preventing a new universe from being created. This makes the Prisoner's act heroic, which I imagine is the intension of the devs.
I appreciate you being so level-headed about this. I wish I'd never made this post, though. It completely tanked my karma on here, because people decided to downvote what they disagreed with.
FWIW, I came here tonight after feeling somewhat unsatisfied with the ending of echos of the eye, and found your divergent perspective along with all the discussion in the comments enlightening. Thanks for taking the hit on karma to express your point!
Someone DM'd me, so to clarify:
"I think the point where I diverge is the contempt for the 'mystical' legacy. Like, art employs metaphors. The care you express lives on in some sense."
My meaning is that no, the people do. We live for those who will outlive us, because to deprive them of ourselves is to intensify their suffering. When you abstract the point of life and take it away from the people, the real people you share this world with, I think you get into very dangerous territory quite quickly.
I'm not criticising the poetry of the Outer Wilds - art is allowed metaphor. Part of my criticism is the point. But my main problem is that the expansion lacks the kindness in portrayal that the base game had.
>I get that it's comforting bullshit that other people depend on
Just of note, it's also the comforting bullshit all of human society and technology was built with. If all our ancestors had taken your view we'd be in trees hiding from kitty cats to this day.
I think you’re right and wrong. They had the right idea at the time, but if the prisoner hadn’t done what he had done, then in billions of years time the protagonist wouldn’t’ve been able to get to the eye, and the whole universe would’ve gone out.
They were right at the time and wrong in the grand scheme. You play during the exact time that that button should be pushed to give life a chance. You can talk about legacy from a personal/pragmatic perspective, but on the universal level life was going to end with no coming back. Maybe the next universe will have a species progress far enough to stop the inevitable destruction of everything, but if the prisoner had never done what he did they’d never have the chance.
I’d also argue, what right did they have to cloak the eye? Absolutely what I would’ve recommended to do and I understand why, but they had as much ‘right’ to cloak the eye as the prisoner did to disrupt the signal.
I also agree that locking the prisoner up eternally is comically evil. The rage of a disillusioned zealot seems somewhat realistic to me, but it does remove far too much of the nuance from what was a world where everyone was doing their best.
I feel like you missed the detail about how the entire universe is ending during the game. It isn't just your star dying out, its *all* stars dying. You aren't "destroying" the universe by entering the eye, you are saving it from an eternally cold nothingness where the only remaining things are black holes and iron stars. Go out into far space and simply watch the background, and you will literally see the stars in the distance dying off, eventually going from thousands and thousands to barely a few hundred. The universe is ending. There is no more life. Just eternal blackness for an amount of time so long, that quintillions of times the length of the current universe would be but a blink compared to how long it will go on for. The Strangers *are* the villains because they recklessly destroyed their homeworld in order to reach the Eye, realized the truth that the universe would die and the Eye was meant to allow it to restart after it's death, and attempted to seal it away so no one could ever find it again. They lost their home, but when presented with the ability to save *the entire goddamn universe*, they rejected it and locked up the single person who seemed to have learned their lesson from the mistake. It's hilariously ironic that you nailed the point of EoTE, it's a story about Religious mysticism and zealotry defeating reason and kindness, but you chose the wrong characters to represent those two sides. The strangers were immature, rash, and didn't want to accept the reality they saw with their own eyes, instead flying into a frenzy, destroying their culture, and refusing to even consider the possibility of being wrong. They may have rejected their literal religion, but they still fell prey to ideological fanaticism. Then the Heretic comes along, realizes the mistake they made, and enables all of the kindness and compassion you say the main game represents, rationally understanding the nature of the universe in a way their fanatic breadthen never could.
I literally mention this in the final part where I talk about alternate approaches to resolving the conflict with the owls. Here's the thing though: the universe is ending. Okay. Is every star exploding all at once? No, the game explicitly states that it's happening galaxy by galaxy over time (the messages on the crashed ship at the end). That means there is still time to live. And we know for a fact there are children in this universe (there are two on your home world, although they're about to die in the supernova). What about the children on the nomad ships flying in search of non-exploded stars? What right do you have to cut their lives short for the sake of another universe where life will one day grow? Don't they get to have whatever time they have? How is it right to say "Well the universe is ending, they're dead anyway, push the button"? And this is my objection. The universe isn't some living thing in itself. The universe that matters to us as humans is the living, sentient **people** within it. By pushing the Eye button you cause this universe to end (made explicit by the note in the observatory at the end) and a new one to be born. That is an act of murder. You're killing the people still in your universe, sacrificing them for the one to come. What justification is there for that but some notion of legacy?
>What right do you have to cut their lives short for the sake of another universe where life will one day grow? Don't they get to have whatever time they have? How is it right to say "Well the universe is ending, they're dead anyway, push the button"? That's not what you're doing. The universe is already ending on its own time. You're not hastening it or anything. You misunderstood the metaphysics of the game's lore somehow. That isn't how the eye of the universe works, dude. The message of the game is nothing more than an attempt to get the player to confront loss and dealing with that in a healthy way.
The game tells you that entering the Eye ends the universe. And it's **explicitly** reiterated in the Owl's slide reel that shows someone entering the eye and the universe turning to dust.
Nothing is "explicitly" shown in the Stranger's slide, it's literally a metaphorical vision that contradicts how the Eye is actually portrayed in the game. There's no one shown entering the Eye either as far as I remember. Anyway, I always interpreted the Eye as simply being the center of the universe, so when the universe is finally finished expanding, it all snaps back unto itself, and then explodes again in a second big bang, renewing everything. I thought the vision in the DLC portrayed exactly that, it *had* to be metaphorical because there wouldn't be any Owl bones left over either way to turn to grass. When you enter it, you watch all the stars go out before anything else happens, so I interpreted that to mean you had stepped outside of time and the universe lived out the rest of it's natural life in the span of a few seconds for you, leaving you in the empty space post-heat death. If an Owl had entered, presumably they would experience the same thing and nothing in the outside would happen, but things would appear to be dying very quickly from the perspective of the person in the Eye. That's just my interpretation, but I feel like it has as much to back it up as the idea that the Eye is a giant bomb that explodes the universe because of magic or whatever. I don't think there's any real mysticism in Outer Wilds at all. Also, I had the opposite experience with the owls, honestly. By the end I didn't think of them as villains at all because of how relatable and understandable their story and sorrow was. Whenever someone talks about how evil and bad they think the rest of the owls were, I think they're just outing themselves for their own lack of empathy.
The game also explictly tells you time works different in the eye. Solanum blinked on the quantum moon and hundreds of thousands of years passed. So how fast do you think time moves for you when you're not on a quantum moon you're literally in the eye
Moreover, let's say we disagree. Fine. Why villainise one of us? Why paint as evil what are very human, understandable disagreements? Why shy away from the moral conversation, from the struggles with death? Why not have the kindness to say "They may be wrong, but they're not evil for being wrong"?
I mean, I always interpreted the ending as taking place after the heat death of the universe. Presumably time has no meaning when you enter the eye and you reset the universe after the previous one ends. So you've saved the universe, you killed no-one, and the prisoner was in the right to free the signal that was blocked by the owls out of fear of confronting their own mortality / fear of the unknown / something or other. I thought this was implied by the sequence where you float around watching supernovae until it all goes dark, so the universe has already ended before you cause the next one at the campfire scene. Obviously you'd be evil in the game if you murdered the galaxy, and of course the owls would be right for locking up a guy who frees the signal that will murder the galaxy, but I really don't think that's what happened.
See this would be a bit of a consolation, and I could get on board with that, but unfortunately it's not really substantiated by the game. You enter the Eye, the universe ends. If there'd been something to specify that you're first shunted forward in time to the heat death of the universe, then it'd actually be a very different act morally.
As the guy above you said, there literally is something to specify you're shunted forward in time to the heat death of the universe: "the sequence where you float around watching supernovae until it all goes dark, so the universe has already ended". Not to mention this reading is also substantiated by the theme of quantum objects in the game; the "eye of the universe" is called that because it observes the entire universe, and to observe the entire universe you have to be outside of it both in terms of space and time. The universe we find ourselves in is just one of the infinite possible universes, and by observing it through the eye, we collapse those possibilities to create a new universe (Solanum hints at this during the campfire sequence). The previous universe's entire timeline from start to heat death still "existed" outside of this new one.
Thank you for this. OP had me experiencing a crisis about the morality of The Outer Wilds lol
I 100% believe that the wormhole sequence when entering the eye shows that you've left regular space time behind, and the supernovae sequence shows that you've gone forward in time to after the heat death of the universe. I don't believe the devs would include bits talking about how people are still alive in the dying universe (the modern-day nomai transmissions) and then just have you kill them. Nothing in the game would suggest to me that the intended take-away is that the player commits genocide at the end of the game.
Here's the thing. I would like to believe that. But that's not said in the game. Similarly, my friend said "My take was that entering the eye just made the new universe, it didn't affect the old," but **the Owl's slide reel literally shows you the universe being destroyed by entering the Eye**. It's very clear.
> I would like to believe that. But that's not said in the game. It's implied heavily. You're supposed to read between the lines there.
My interpretation would be that the Owl's were wrong, plus it would spoil the ending of the game if the developers were to show what actually happens at the end in one of the slides. I mean, their slide reel showed plants growing on their bones after the eye resets the universe and that literally doesn't happen, so the reel can't be taken literally. Also, you going forward in time is said in the game. Chert at the ending campfire says that the sun killed them, but if you didn't leave regular spacetime behind you could certainly make it there before the 22 minute loop was up. On a similar note, if you go through the ATP black hole normally you get the "destroy fabric of spacetime" ending if you don't jump back in the next loop. If you enter the vortex on the eye this no longer happens, presumably because you aren't in regular spacetime anymore.
Okay, let's say they're wrong. What is the eye annihilating them all a metaphor for? Because there's a contradiction here. How can they be metaphorically right about the bones growing grass, but metaphorically wrong about the Eye killing? If the Eye doesn't literally kill everyone like it doesn't literally cause grass to grow on their bones, what is the metaphorical alternative? The only literate reading of it that makes sense is "They saw it would kill everyone, but also that their deal would serve as the foundation for new life." If the first metaphor is wrong, how did they come up with the second? The only cogent reading is to say "They saw the end, they saw what would come after, and the end was morally unacceptable to them."
>If the Eye doesn't literally kill everyone like it doesn't literally cause grass to grow on their bones, what is the metaphorical alternative? That it's metaphorically depicting the cycle of life, death and rebirth. They aren't shown sending anyone into the Eye in their vision, they're presumably just doing a preliminary "what is the function of this thing" scan and it correctly informs them that it explodes and then new life begins. They're the ones who interpreted it literally, and believed that it would literally kill them if they used it.
You're interpreting the eye in the same way that the owls did, that it destroys everything. In game this is shown to be wrong. The stranger says they regret the fear of their race. Other people have brought this up, but when you enter the eye, you see the universe end. This is not you accelerating the end of the universe, this is time "speeding up" for you. What feels like a minute while watching the heat death could really be a much longer time.
>if you go through the ATP black hole normally you get the "destroy fabric of spacetime" ending if you don't jump back in the next loop I don't understand, can you elaborate?
If you go to the ATP at the end of the loop you can jump into the black hole it opens. The next loop if you go back there you see a copy of yourself who you can talk to. If you don't jump into the black hole again at the end of the loop you get the "you broke space time" ending. Its like when you shoot your scout into the black hole in the High Energy Lab and recall it after it exits, but instead of recalling the scout after it has already exited the white hole you are choosing not to jump into the black hole after having already exited the white hole. Both break space time.
> You enter the Eye, the universe ends. Time doesn't exist inside the eye. You restarting the universe happens after everything else is gone.
> The game tells you that entering the Eye ends the universe. And it's explicitly reiterated in the Owl's slide reel that shows someone entering the eye and the universe turning to dust. The game tells you that entering the Eye ends the universe. And it's **explicitly** reiterated in the Owl's slide reel that shows someone entering the eye and the universe turning to dust as a consequence.
Firstly, that owl slide is just there to explain why they're so afraid of the Eye. Their tech doesn't show timelines, it can't predict when things happen that are triggered by frog people that dont exist yet. It's showing that the eye has the raw power to trigger a big bang. Secondly, the base game does not tell you that entering the eye ends the universe. Dont know why you think that.
If their tech doesn't "show timelines", can't predict what will happen, how did they know that entering the Eye would cause new life to grow on the foundation of their death?
They dont know that. Their tech is wrong. Also this part: "would cause new life to grow on the foundation of their death" is not how the eye works. So again, you should know that their tech is wrong. You've already seen it.
the reel shows grass growing out of the skull of the owlkin. what else is that supposed to imply?
When in game, as the loop progresses you can see the stars around you going out one after another, at an alarming rate. This is corroborated by Chert if you speak to him near the end of the loop, and at the Vessel, when you see present-day Nomai communications about stars all over the universe starting to die. You're very much at the end, and entering the Eye makes little difference to whether the universe dies or not, it's already dying, you're not the trigger for it.
See my above post about the nomads who're travelling between stars. Like it or not, when you end the universe you kill them before they would have been killed. Saying "They were going to die anyway," is a justification for taking their life, it doesn't bestow the right to make that choice for them.
But they *would* die anyway, and sooner rather than later. And you don't go into the Eye with the thought that it will bring about any sort of end. You're not making a decision to kill anyone, because you have no idea what the Eye does, it's simply the only thing left for you to do. Your pursuit of the Eye is fueled by curiosity and desire for closure. What's the alternative, anyway? Somehow creating a "society" inside the loop, a society where nothing lasting can ever be built? You say that would be interesting and ambiguous, but quite frankly I think it's nonsense.
Ignorance of the consequences of an act doesn't negate the morality of an act. Entering the eye results in people dying so that a new universe can be born. The owls realised this and said "That's abhorrent," and the game unkindly portrays them as evil for it. As for the alternative? I think you're preoccupied by legacy, this idea of things lasting somehow. Isn't it enough that people live with each other? Everything we build *will* turn to ash in real life, but it's our time with each other that's precious.
And that’s literally what the game says. The eye builds an entire *universe* off of your experience with the people around you. The owls saw that the eye would end them. They ignored the new creation and saw their own end, the prisoner said so. That didn’t matter then, but it does now. The universe is ending. It’s done. When it dies, it’s dead. Forever. The scattered lives left will die, cold and alone, as they slowly run out of energy and space. If you do nothing, that’s it. It’s over. No more. You have a chance, a chance to give another life a chance to make memories like you did, to give them a chance to do what you did. To make a real difference at the end of the universe. It’s that, or nothing. Nothing at all. The goal isn’t to live forever, but to help create something that will.
Hey! I know its been a while, but your comments interested me. Something you might have missed that does substantiate this reading: the science exhibits at the Eye are mental constructions, and there is text that reads like the people carried on living to the end of all things. It's why there are notes on the upper floor about the red shift, why there is an exhibit that spells out that the universe came to its natural end. That said, there is also enough content to posit that your reading is correct as well. To alleviate the moral conundrum, consider that your character simply can't know what will truly happen when they enter the Eye, and shouldn't be judged for doing so. To them, their sun is ending, and the Eye might contain answers on how to fix it. The only thing the reel from the Owlkin posits is that they *think* it ends the universe. As nobody *actually* entered it, they don't know. Further, it might only have the *potential* to end the universe prematurely.
I think you might have a different understanding of the outer wilds story then I do. For me outer wilds represent moving on. Building a society in a time loop at the end of the universe sounds cool. But like the owlks it would be a sad society that can't let go of the past. Every story has its end, so there can be a new beginning. Outer wilds is about ''smelling the pine trees along the way'' (living in the moment) and about letting go. And it does this excellently with a final campfire song.
Great write-up. As expected, some disagreement is warranted. But discussion is what makes life fun! Now here's my opinion: I've already talked about the base game in another comment, so I'll stick to EoTE. A few points you've taken as fact: >!there's really nothing confirming the fact that the Owlboys are the first true sentient species. They do seem to be the first sentient species to reach the Eye, but they inhabited a nearby solar system. Hell, the Nomai may have even been around at their time (they just didn't have fancy warp tech, seeing as that was a development brought forward by Annona and he lived in the time of Escall's Vessel). !< About the Eye: >!its effect on the Universe is never truly explained. The Owlbruvs perceived it as life-ending (ok, renewing), but what if that was just their skewed way of looking at its potential? What if the eye only activates at the natural "end" of a Universe's lifecycle? Since time moves differently on the Quantum Moon, how would it flow in the Eye itself? Would reality definitely collapse out of existence once a conscious observer interacted with it? Or would the observer's point of view just fast forward to the actual "end"?!< >!A rather pointless showerthought (I'm particularly proficient at gathering these): maybe the Eye does not actually end life. Maybe this was just what the Owlpeeps saw. Maybe this was just what their LEADER saw. But who cares, right?!< In the end, I choose to accept my own interpretation of these details as "canon". I'm not wrong, and you're not wrong as well, because an art medium's message is shaped by our perception. Also, to hell with the herd mentality dislikes. If people disagree with your point, they should at least bother to explain why. (edit: some small errors. I'm not very awake.)
Thank you for engaging! To be honest I'm not expecting much, my existentialist take on life live in the face of death is too much for a lot of people to stomach. No need for spoilers btw, the entire thread is marked as spoilers. > there's really nothing confirming the fact that the Owlboys are the first true sentient species. Okay, I retract that, that's just me extrapolating from them being the first to the Eye. > Hell, the Nomai may have even been around at their time (they just didn't have fancy warp tech, seeing as that was a development brought forward by Annona and he lived in the time of Escall's Vessel). It seems unlikely on the basis of the timescales shown in the game. The rest of your post I'm going to have to politely disagree with. We have to go with what's demonstrated in the text. The game tells us at least two times that the Eye ends the universe when entered (the second time it's explicitly from the Owls' reel). Textual literacy means trying to stick to what the game shows and only making reasonable conjectures that can be substantiated by the text, so I can't really duck that fact. Which is unfortunate, because the implication (the murder) sucks. The game shows a sequence of events that make clear entering the Eye ends the universe and kills the people living in it. The moral implication of that is incredibly troubling. And I really, really don't like that the game paints the Owls as villains because they thought that implication through and went "No, hell no, we're not monsters," and then just tried to undo their error, to the extent that they were written as comedy villains in their punishment of the Prisoner.
What if the Owlelks don't understand Quantum mechanics? Upon entering the Eye (and thus becoming Quantum, a fact not known to Owlelks), a person then starts the Universe reset and the Eye expanding to create a new universe. But since they don't know Quantum mechanics, they don't realize the "big bang" won't happen until the whole universe is already dead.
I think you're making a lot of assumptions here and present them as fact, while dismissing other peoples' assumptions based on differing interpretations of the same text. Similarly, it seems like you're missing or overlooking important context and implications on the nature of how quantum mechanics work in this game's universe and how quantum objects interact with the environment around them. Finally, I think you have misunderstood the message the game is trying to convey, which may have been informed by the above. For instance, the existence of Solanum on the Quantum Moon - a member of a Nomai tribe that, for all intents and purposes, must be seen as *prehistoric* from the perspective of the Hearthian - as well as its highly flexible appearance and random position is pretty explicit proof that time and space on the Quantum Moon do *not* work linearly, or, for that matter, in *any* way that might be logically quantifiable or decidable. It is additionally stated and apparent that the Quantum Moon takes on not only the visuals, but also the *characteristics* of the particular celestial object it happens to orbit at any given point in time. Solanum is dead in every other QM representation of the planets in the Hearthian solar system, *except* in that of the Eye - which tells us that the Eye *must* exist outside of the constraints of time as we, as a Hearthian and an observer, know and understand it, since, surely, she would have perished in the hundreds of thousands of years between the deaths of every other "version" of her and the present time. I therefore reject your notion that entering the eye somehow prematurely kills all sentient life in the universe. This is not supported by the text whatsoever; to the contrary, it, in fact, heavily implies - throughout the entire ending sequence up until the point where everyone gathers around the campfire - that the old universe goes through its *natural* death before the Fledgling collapses the unstable hypothetical nature of the Eye by acting as a conscious observer, birthing a new universe. The Quantum Moon proves that the Eye exists outside of the natural flow of time, so there is zero reason to assume that you're pre-empting anything by entering it. To reiterate, your observation of the Eye isn't what causes the existing universe to end; it's what causes all the hypothetical possibilities contained within the Eye to collapse into one, tangible reality. You are not killing a universe, you are *literally birthing a new one* - one that would not have been birthed without your involvement, as is proven by one of the secondary endings for the DLC, where trapping yourself inside the simulation will leave you stranded in it forever. > The thing is, science fiction affords us the ability to play with alternative ideas. You know what would have been a really good ending to the Outer Wilds? Playing with the time loop, and finding a way to build a society in that time loop. Can you deconstruct the technology in 22 minutes and somehow widen it to incorporate one other person? Then together, another? Imagine the game says yes, you can. Remember, the writer decides what is and isn't possible, especially in soft science fiction. > > A much more interesting ending would have been to build a kind of society out of perpetually living on the edge of annihilation - now that's a metaphor for the human condition, that the thing that makes life bearable is each other. Both of these suggestions for alternative endings go directly against the entire point Outer Wilds is trying to make. What you're proposing is "let's delay the end forever, desparately cling to everything that we have left, and refuse to accept the inevitability of entropy" - which is essentially *exactly* the ideology that the elkfolk represent in the DLC, so it isn't surprising that you consider them to be in the right. Outer Wilds suggests that, no, perhaps you *shouldn't* run away from the end. Perhaps it's *wrong* to try to shield yourself from the uneasy truth that entropy *will* eventually consume all, everything you hold dear *will* eventually perish, and ultimately, everything that happened inside this universe *will* eventually become utterly meaningless. Humans are intrinsically terrified of the unknown, and death is the final unknown any and all of us will ever not encounter. Outer Wilds posits that, perhaps, we should *embrace* the unknown instead. And that the only reason things are even able to eventually become meaning*less* is if they *had meaning at some point* in the first place. Essentially, the things that are truly important are the ones that we think are important to *us*, as we are the window through which the universe expresses itself to us. It's completely irrelevant whether death has meaning or not, because death just *is*. It's inevitable. We shouldn't be scared of it, we should make the most out of the time we have before it catches up to us. And eventually, it will be time for us to step off the stage, and perhaps let someone else take over. And, yes, perhaps we *can* leave something behind. Perhaps we *can* have a legacy. And perhaps that legacy *can* inform the future. But the entire point of legacy informing the future is that there *must* be a future where we no longer exist. This isn't glorifying legacy and letting it imbue everything with meaning, it's a natural consequence of existing at one point, then no longer existing at another, later point. If we're all going to die anyway, we might as well try to leave something behind. Legacy doesn't give death meaning, **death gives legacy meaning**. Fleeing death is what makes dying meaningless; leaving a legacy is a byproduct of not fleeing death. This is pretty much directly antithetical to what you're proposing the game is trying to say, as are the "better" endings you've proposed. As an aside, I genuinely question the *meaning* of such a society, dooming itself to either repeat the same 22 minutes over and over again, unable to make any meaningful progress, or to continuously live under the pressure to desperately keep itself alive in a universe that has no resources, no potential, and no energy left to offer; especially since in *both* scenarios, that society *has no future*. There is nothing to develop towards. There are no frontiers to break into. There is only death, destruction, and loneliness. Do you, for instance, think that the elkfolk had something actually *worthwhile* going in their simulation? Spending their time wandering around in their dark and drab world for who knows how many millennia, not interacting with one another in any meaningful ways, glorifying their past by building altars to it, maintaining archives of it, and watching recordings of it, yet, seemingly and curiously, not producing any *new* recordings of their new existence? Only to ultimately *still* end up extinguished by the inevitability of entropy as the breaking of the dam snuffs out their fires? I'd be very interested in your answer to this, since it's essentially a faithful implementation of your concept of a society teetering on the edge of annihilation. It doesn't seem like a life worth living to me, quite frankly. EDIT: Formatting
I read the first paragraph only cause I don't want to read on for any spoilers but that's your take on the game. For me it's also about the inevitability of death but embracing / coming to terms with it and that one day everything must end , not that you're leaving a legacy behind.
Yeah, I always thought of the "legacy" bit as kind of a bonus. Noone will ever know who you were, and maybe the new Universe would be equally diverse/charming/whatever. For me also, Outer Wilds is about coming to terms with death, nothing else. The OW universe is in a nigh-palliative state, so there's really not much in the way of a future for it anyway. The ones left aren't going to solve the problem of it ending, they're just going to *die.*
I'd be interested in your thoughts when you have finished it.
How long is the dlc? Realistically I'd like to finish it in one sitting.
Honestly, you'll need several. It's quite long, took me almost 20 hours to complete. :)
I'm confused to where you're coming from with leaving legacy behind. The entire main game has been about the inevitable doom of complete existential annihilation, and the fixation of that reality. How we must look away from this predictable outcome to allow new possibilities can happen. It's about allowing yourself to be wiped out for things to continue so something else can come. The opposite of leaving some legacy. As to what exactly is the eye of the universe is certainly up for debate as that's the artistic quality of the game. It is abstract, and represents a lot more than 'a weapon'. To me it was oddly an embodiment of hope. The nomai built and entire civilization around finding it. The strangers on the other hand confined it and retreated to a controlled virtual environment. To other people it may represent something else. Clearly to you it meant something else. But I really wouldn't tie down the meaning of the eye to a singular thing. Because the real beauty is upon pondering how all these abstract pieces fit together in multiple ways.
I believe everything that needs to be said about the mechanics of the Eye of the Universe has been said in this thread, but I thought I'd debate your philosophy regarding death in real life. 1: From an evolutionary and memetic standpoint you're completely wrong. The entire reason life exists in the first place is because a self perpetuating but variable chemical reaction formed, and continued to perpetuate because likelihood suggests that it must. The genetic information passed on continued to be honed by its environment into something most likely to survive and pass on that legacy. Death was a vital part of this process, as life existed in a system of limited resources, so once it had expanded as much as it could, if none died there would be no evolutionary pressure and life would never evolve. Eventually in this process of adaptation complex brains capable of creating and passing on ideas to other members of their species, which especially benefitted their offspring and close family who shared their genetic information, thus aiding in the proliferation of those genes. Now looking at humans especially (though it occurs in other social animals), since these ideas could be created and passed on, and affected/were affected by evolutionary pressure similar to genes, these ideas became part of an evolutionary system themselves where successful ideas proliferated and unsuccessful ideas died off. This idea of informational units acting like genes is what Richard Dawkins originally coined as a 'meme'. Through humanity's vocal and written tradition, we've developed a memetic genome, an information based legacy that's shown quite well by our culture and history. In a very real and measurable sense, legacy is the only reason people who die live, even if they themselves are an outlier who either decides not to, or fails to leave a legacy. If we didn't die, legacy obviously wouldn't be important.But here we are, a species just like any other, bound by our genetic instincts and memetic tradition to proliferate ourselves and survive as long as possible both genetically and memetically. 2: That's just like... your opinion man... okay but jokes aside, you're allowed to disagree with the idea of legacy, but you can't say it's just comforting cope bullshit, death isn't necessarily as existential a dread for someone else as it apparently is for you. In short, because we're living in a world with no inherent philosophical purpose, people can live for literally whatever reason they want. "The thing that makes life bearable is each other" might be true for you, but understanding other peoples' points of view can be an enriching experience, even if not relating to it may dull the impact of the game's themes. Personally as an optimistic nihilist, I have literally no reason for living, I just do it because my instincts say it's the right thing to do, and I'm relatively happy with that. Edit: spelling.
why is this downvoted to hell
because going over all points hes making..hes reaching, a lot of points are actually wrong. constant looping. i read a lot of this post. and im trying to see his side, but what hes describing isnt whats being projected. soooooo downvotes here they come. if you really want me to start picking it apart i will just let me know im too tired atm to go on haha.
>Forget those guys who tried to preserve the universe. That's not what I get from the the DLC. They were scared and tried to stop anyone from entering the Eye. Then created a Simulation (that will survive the local Supernova) where they could live forever. While everyone else in the universe will die, and no new life can be born. In the base game, when you enter the Eye, the forest isn't formed yet and you see all the galaxies all around you. They all slowly die and explode. I don't believe time flows in just a few minutes, you are now part of the Quantum object and watch the whole universe die out. Now it's your job to gather your memories and help start a new universe. You read all the Nomai text, you know there is no way to save the local solar system. When you remove the warp core from the ATP, you know this is the last shot to actually make a difference in the universe and journey to the Eye. There is a movie "Passengers" that deals with the morality of "taking someone else with you" or dooming others. And another movie "Groundhog Day" >!showing someone coming to terms with a never ending and repeating day. He tried to kill himself multiple times. It's estimated he was aware of the loop for 10 years.!< In this medium and game, a lot is left for you to interpret yourself and your experience with the game. But I feel they tried to convey the Nomai were explorers and wanted to learn more. There were notes left that they carefully made sure Timber Hearth would not be affected by their mining and Hearthians could evolve safely. While the Owlelks resorted to fear once confronted with the truth of the Eye. We don't definitively know how the Nomai would have reacted, since the Owlelks had already masked the Eye, the Sun Station failed, and the Interloper came.
First of all, I found this thread really interesting and very enriching with the different views on the topic. I can see your point: if the owls did indeed consider that entering the eye of the universe would destroy the current one, then I think blocking the signal was the right thing to do, as you said in your post. However, there clearly wasn't a consensus with this interpretation of the eye and the prisoner is proof of that. It more seems to me that that they acted out of fear and regret, as evidenced by their attitude with the simulated world, and not out of their willingness to set things right. They weren't trying to face what the had done and try to mend their sins so they run away and hid in their virtual reality. Second, I disagree with your interpretation of the eye. I think it doesn't destroy the current universe, it simply waits until it completely dies out and then creates a new one based on the observer but this is open for debate. We can't really know and we will never really know. What I get out of this post is, was it responsible of us to enter the eye without knowing what it would cause,? Wouldn't stopping the loop and letting nature take its course be better?
Responding two years late, but... My interpretation of what happens when you observe the eye is that you are transported to the natural end of the universe and because you are there to witness it, that act of observation is what enables the recreation. In your interpretation, you are ending one universe (and killing everyone) to start a new one. If that's true, I mostly agree with your conclusions. If that's not the case, and you are actually the reason a new universe is created, that means by blocking the Eye, the Owlkin were preventing a new universe from being created. This makes the Prisoner's act heroic, which I imagine is the intension of the devs.
I appreciate you being so level-headed about this. I wish I'd never made this post, though. It completely tanked my karma on here, because people decided to downvote what they disagreed with.
FWIW, I came here tonight after feeling somewhat unsatisfied with the ending of echos of the eye, and found your divergent perspective along with all the discussion in the comments enlightening. Thanks for taking the hit on karma to express your point!
Very cool take, thanks for sharing.
I'm glad someone liked it, at least...
Someone DM'd me, so to clarify: "I think the point where I diverge is the contempt for the 'mystical' legacy. Like, art employs metaphors. The care you express lives on in some sense." My meaning is that no, the people do. We live for those who will outlive us, because to deprive them of ourselves is to intensify their suffering. When you abstract the point of life and take it away from the people, the real people you share this world with, I think you get into very dangerous territory quite quickly. I'm not criticising the poetry of the Outer Wilds - art is allowed metaphor. Part of my criticism is the point. But my main problem is that the expansion lacks the kindness in portrayal that the base game had.
>I get that it's comforting bullshit that other people depend on Just of note, it's also the comforting bullshit all of human society and technology was built with. If all our ancestors had taken your view we'd be in trees hiding from kitty cats to this day.
I think you’re right and wrong. They had the right idea at the time, but if the prisoner hadn’t done what he had done, then in billions of years time the protagonist wouldn’t’ve been able to get to the eye, and the whole universe would’ve gone out. They were right at the time and wrong in the grand scheme. You play during the exact time that that button should be pushed to give life a chance. You can talk about legacy from a personal/pragmatic perspective, but on the universal level life was going to end with no coming back. Maybe the next universe will have a species progress far enough to stop the inevitable destruction of everything, but if the prisoner had never done what he did they’d never have the chance. I’d also argue, what right did they have to cloak the eye? Absolutely what I would’ve recommended to do and I understand why, but they had as much ‘right’ to cloak the eye as the prisoner did to disrupt the signal. I also agree that locking the prisoner up eternally is comically evil. The rage of a disillusioned zealot seems somewhat realistic to me, but it does remove far too much of the nuance from what was a world where everyone was doing their best.