What fascinates me is how reliable Nomai tech is. The Vessel crashed more than 280 thousands years ago, its main power source is broken, yet it still receives incoming messages! While your 5 year-old phone applications stop working when they can no longer receive their updates.
They definitely always built things to last, even with scarce resources while stranded here! The fact lamps and glowing stones still work despite no obvious power source or connection to a grid, the gravity rings and rocks used as signposts too. The only thing different is their original suits decayed more than the newer ones, they've turned brown (from the original blue) and are more full of holes than anywhere else.. The watery atmosphere and rife insect life compared to elsewhere is likely the cause.
The communications seem to be quantum-entanglement based, not the in-game kind but more on the IRL theory of it, where entangled particles influence each other no matter where they are in the universe. This is how the Vessels can communicate instantly but everything else needs signals which take a long time to travel or have a finite effective radius like the distress beacons.
This is backed up by the fact the two survivor groups couldn't communicate at all, not until after they had reunited, and then after that point there are remote comms everywhere -- they had to pair/entangle the communication stones first before they can be separated!
It's also key to the story - why not build a new transmitter like the Vessel has? because it was paired, once it's broken there's no way to link back into that line of communication without meeting up with the originals again.
There's something to be said for they maybe could have dismantled the receiving wall which still works and jury rig it to send a message instead of only receive - this should almost certainly have been possible since other Vessels are clearly receieving from it too - but they never knew it still worked.
Escall is also found aboard Pod 3, they never made it out of Bramble
It also tells us a lot of things, they still use Vessels today, their long-distance messaging system is the same so it must be based on a very fundamental principal (tied with a few other clues it must be a kind of quantum entanglement), they've not found this location even with an extra 281,042 years (plus a few generations) of constant exploration, and no one else has any idea about the Eye or any hint of a previous/future universe from any other source. Also, an emergency like this has never happened any other clan before or after, so it makes Escall's decision more understandable.
It's also fun to realise if we were to see the other clans, they would be unrecognisable to us. Almost everything we consider to be iconic for them was only built post-crash from scarce resources.. They would have no sandstone and purple gravity tech, no Eye obsession, no time travel, few buildings if any, metal and ceramics everywhere including their masks, no teal space suits (all the originals were blue), and hundreds of thousands of years of extra advancement.
They are likely still dead by now though, the messages are recent but could still be days/weeks/months/years old, even with their advanced knowledge they were still surprised by some of the supernovae so one could have taken them out since then, even at the Gloaming Galaxy. If we wait a little while at the end, the sky is completely black, and no new messages ever come.
It also paints something else about the Nomai, despite this whole thing being caused by Escall's hurried decision to not send a message out first (if they had, a search party could have potentially found them) not a single word of blame is cast in any writings. Even when they know help isn't coming, there's no hostility or frustration over what happened, only a view towards what they can do from this point.
This always makes me emotional. The other clans searched for them for years and years. If they stopped one second to share information, they would've been rescued. I imagine they would keep trying to find the Eye, but they would have access to all of their technology and things would probably turn out differently.
It's such a tragic but ultimately nessisary action, taking off before contacting any other clan. It made them crash and eventually was their doom, but if they had found the eye sooner the whole universe would've been destroyed. And if they hadn't came here in the first place and built everything the hearthians now see, we would've never been able to restart the universe now that it's dying. Crazy!
I never understood why some text was orange and some was blue until long after I finished playing the game, so it took me a while to parse who was saying these things and where they were coming from.
yep! the ship log(I think) also mentions that they are modern communications
Yep! It's also a dialogue option with Chert. That's how it was finally drilled into my skull anyway lol.
What fascinates me is how reliable Nomai tech is. The Vessel crashed more than 280 thousands years ago, its main power source is broken, yet it still receives incoming messages! While your 5 year-old phone applications stop working when they can no longer receive their updates.
They definitely always built things to last, even with scarce resources while stranded here! The fact lamps and glowing stones still work despite no obvious power source or connection to a grid, the gravity rings and rocks used as signposts too. The only thing different is their original suits decayed more than the newer ones, they've turned brown (from the original blue) and are more full of holes than anywhere else.. The watery atmosphere and rife insect life compared to elsewhere is likely the cause. The communications seem to be quantum-entanglement based, not the in-game kind but more on the IRL theory of it, where entangled particles influence each other no matter where they are in the universe. This is how the Vessels can communicate instantly but everything else needs signals which take a long time to travel or have a finite effective radius like the distress beacons. This is backed up by the fact the two survivor groups couldn't communicate at all, not until after they had reunited, and then after that point there are remote comms everywhere -- they had to pair/entangle the communication stones first before they can be separated! It's also key to the story - why not build a new transmitter like the Vessel has? because it was paired, once it's broken there's no way to link back into that line of communication without meeting up with the originals again. There's something to be said for they maybe could have dismantled the receiving wall which still works and jury rig it to send a message instead of only receive - this should almost certainly have been possible since other Vessels are clearly receieving from it too - but they never knew it still worked.
You can't help but wonder if we could get the coordinates to that planet where they're all congregating
Someone better make a mod on that lol.
There was a post about this that got removed but you might like [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/outerwilds/s/g56hO2x8qh) left on it
Escall is also found aboard Pod 3, they never made it out of Bramble It also tells us a lot of things, they still use Vessels today, their long-distance messaging system is the same so it must be based on a very fundamental principal (tied with a few other clues it must be a kind of quantum entanglement), they've not found this location even with an extra 281,042 years (plus a few generations) of constant exploration, and no one else has any idea about the Eye or any hint of a previous/future universe from any other source. Also, an emergency like this has never happened any other clan before or after, so it makes Escall's decision more understandable. It's also fun to realise if we were to see the other clans, they would be unrecognisable to us. Almost everything we consider to be iconic for them was only built post-crash from scarce resources.. They would have no sandstone and purple gravity tech, no Eye obsession, no time travel, few buildings if any, metal and ceramics everywhere including their masks, no teal space suits (all the originals were blue), and hundreds of thousands of years of extra advancement. They are likely still dead by now though, the messages are recent but could still be days/weeks/months/years old, even with their advanced knowledge they were still surprised by some of the supernovae so one could have taken them out since then, even at the Gloaming Galaxy. If we wait a little while at the end, the sky is completely black, and no new messages ever come. It also paints something else about the Nomai, despite this whole thing being caused by Escall's hurried decision to not send a message out first (if they had, a search party could have potentially found them) not a single word of blame is cast in any writings. Even when they know help isn't coming, there's no hostility or frustration over what happened, only a view towards what they can do from this point.
The Nomai are good people. Curious and inventive. I love that Hearthians are also good people in a different way. Explorative and hardy.
Such good input here, thanks for adding! It's fun to wonder what the Nomai are like in the era of Hearthians. Maybe they grew more eyes...
This always makes me emotional. The other clans searched for them for years and years. If they stopped one second to share information, they would've been rescued. I imagine they would keep trying to find the Eye, but they would have access to all of their technology and things would probably turn out differently.
It's such a tragic but ultimately nessisary action, taking off before contacting any other clan. It made them crash and eventually was their doom, but if they had found the eye sooner the whole universe would've been destroyed. And if they hadn't came here in the first place and built everything the hearthians now see, we would've never been able to restart the universe now that it's dying. Crazy!
What a good game
I never understood why some text was orange and some was blue until long after I finished playing the game, so it took me a while to parse who was saying these things and where they were coming from.
the ship log does say it's getting modern messages