The Many Misconceptions of Outer Wilds

Hello everyone! I thought itd be interesting to go through the games misconceptions and explain them away. It was cool to me how Outer Wilds was so open it was easy to miss a lot of the bigger details. Some of which are important to understanding what happened. Hopefully, even if you know most of these, I was able to clear up something for you!

[InfiniteGreninja]

The first time I got to the quantum moon I crashed into one of the Solanum corpses and I thought for a second I actually killed one of the last living Nomai

[friendperson]

Funny enough, you can tell Riebeck about how the Nomai died. When you do, he will comment about how it was lucky the Hearthians hadn't evolved to live on land when ghost matter blanketed the solar system.

[speedude]

3:41 I always questioned the purpose of putting that tunnel in the game. It just leads to the same place as the other path and is way more obscure, and you already have Bramble Island on Giant's Deep to teach you about ghost matter. This just made me realize that path is the only place in the whole solar system where you can go through ghost matter underwater. They hinted at how the Hearthians survived the explosion with all species being aquatic, and if you ever want to test the theory, there's a convenient path right there for you. These developers are goddamn geniuses.

[LeoninMinecraft]

I actually recently made a post on reddit asking how the nomai died while the hearthians lived. I love incredibly subtle details that answer questions like "the ghost matter cave is safe under water". One of the many reasons I love this game.

[blakkerr]

A little addition to Solanum: I believe that even if she (or the player character after a certain ending) wanted to leave the sixth location, she couldn't. Since there is no alive version of herself in any of the other QM locations, entering the tower and turning the light off would just make her end up on the sixth location again and again, never at any of the other ones.

[Hephaestus_God]

The saddest part of the game is talking to Chert. He has different dialogue depending on when you talk to him (right away, mid game, late, and right when the explosion music starts to play).

He lets you know that he has seen some supernovas in the sky tonight. (you can actually see this as well. If you just watch the stars in the sky slowly and slowly they all start to explode and by the end of the 22 min only a few are left in the sky.)

Right before the sun explodes he freaks out saying "hundreds of stars are dying!!! ours is next!! I wish i didn't know! It's my fault for wanting to update the star charts". And he asks you to sit there with him as the universe dies.

[VideoGameAnimationStudy]

My favourite detail is when you jump into the Quantum Moon version of the Eye, you end up back on the Timber Hearth Quantum Moon, like how when you go through the _actual_ Eye of the Universe, you end up on a quantum version of Timber Heath's museum.

[ShockedLogic]

One interesting thing i like is that since the Eye reads to the Nomai as being older than the universe itself, that imples there have been universes before ours, maybe hundreds or thousands. If you combine that with how Solanum's presense allows for life sentient life in our new universe, that means in most, if not all these previous universes, someone somehow makes it to the Eye.

[tbotalpha]

My thoughts on Solanum changing the end-slide, were that Solanum's presence in the Quantum Glade symbolised the Nomai's academic and scientific culture. Where the Travellers were just singular explorers, seeking answers individually, the Nomai were a people who sought answers collectively. Where the Travellers went to observe, the Nomai actively experimented.

Solanum's little puzzle in the Glade depicts a group of Nomai forming a tower with their bodies, that ultimately transforms into a Nomai shuttle that you ride to find Solanum. I think this represents how all science is built on the collective work and knowledge of all those who came before us. That's why the forest in the end-slide is dark. Without the Nomai to represent intellectual institutions within the new universe, the bug-people lack the capacity to pass on the knowledge and wisdom that they gain over the course of their lives. There's no fire, because no bug-person ever discovered fire. Or if they did, they never passed on the knowledge of how to reproduce it.

In a sense, the Travellers are not enough for a society. It's not enough to just be individually curious, to enjoy life as it happens. A society needs to concern itself with legacy. With passing on knowledge to future generations. With creating structures, be they material or social, that will outlive individuals. Solanum and the Nomai she represents, are the missing piece of the new universe.

[DaveLH]

2:23 -- My impression -- from watching various streams of OW -- is many people don't make the connection that the "Legend of Escall's Clan" the more recent Nomai are discussing refer to the clan in the Hearthians' system. Also, I think it's important to note that the other Nomai clans not only never knew why Escall's Clan vanished, but as far as we know, they never knew that such a thing as the Eye of the Universe ever existed!

[feldsar]

My theory on the backer satellite is that it's from a previous universe just like our scout in the new universe.

[lostfan]

Ghost matter being harmless when in water makes a lot of sense since it was all originally frozen in a comet.

[rockerrock]

Excellent. I had never considered how an observer actually occupies all orbits of the quantum moon simultaneously and that those dead Nomai on the south pole were actually Solanum from the ghost matter explosion, and you share her fate by being in the sixth location during the supernova. Just a really consistent game with incredible Lore to Explore.

[ChewingGumFlavor]

3:54 HOLY SMOKES you can go through ghost matters under water? The devs really thought of everything for this game!

[rynoever]

Honestly, going into that sun station was the saddest moment in the game for me.

[DarwinAwardWinner]

My interpretation of why the Vessel ended up in Dark Bramble is that the Nomai were rushing to warp to the Hearthian star system as quickly as they could before the Eye's signal disappeared. Hence, they didn't have the eye's exact coordinates, and they instead basically just jumped to a random point in the star system. Since space is big and planets are small, the Nomai assumed they would most likely pop out somewhere in interplanetary space, after which they could re-assess the situation. However, Dark Bramble contains an extremely large warped space inside it, so it turns out unlike most areas of space, in the Hearthian system 99.9% of randomly chosen points are *inside* Dark Bramble, not out in space. So, that's where the Vessel ended up with their warp to a randomly chosen point. Essentially, Dark Bramble's warped interior space acts as a trap for incoming warps that don't have a precisely specified destination (unlike the warp pads used to travel between planets, which always have a well-defined destination point).

[vVAstrAVv]

One good explanation ive heard for the founder satelite is just that humans were in the last universe and launched it into the eye like you can do to your probe at the end.
Even the quantum signal is a very human sounding choir.

[HydropolisCity]

6:00 I always figured the canon reason for the backer satellite being in game was that the Voyager made it to the eye of the universe and to the next universe, just like our probe does when you fire it there as well. Canonically then, this would be the universe after humanity.

[masterzoroark]

I chuckled a bit at the irony of that the AshTwin project started to work right before all the universe started to die.
A road to all possibilites opened right when all current ones started to die

[strangemoosey]

If you die before you link with your statue in the game, the credits roll.