The Prisoner is the real MVP of Outer Wilds. Without him, nobody would have ever found the Eye and the universe would have just died without a new one forming.
Is it canon that the new universe doesn’t form if a conscious observer doesn’t enter? I just assumed the new universe would be created regardless and the player just influences it by entering the eye.
@@LikeALocofirefly It kinda was there's an imagine at the end of the game with the races but if you didn't encounter Solanum the nomai race isn't there
I remember the first time I saw the prisoner’s second torch vision, where you sail off into the sunset together, and was so confused by it. I didn’t quite understand what it was trying to say, until I said “Well let’s leave.” And then I remembered that I was dead, and the vision clicked for me. I like to think the Prisoner knew that to access the cell, you had to enter the simulation while dead, or maybe gleaned that knowledge during our vision shared to them. To me the second vision always served as an invitation, from one explorer to another, to extinguish our lamp and join the Prisoner in whatever lay beyond that last unexplored frontier.
I have a very similar view of it. In my interpretation it’s more of a “if things had been different, if we had meet at a different time, we would have journeyed to find the mysteries of the universe together” I don’t think they necessarily know you are dead, which makes it more bittersweet in a way. Because you know you both are going on an adventure together- to whatever comes after your existence ends (if the ash twin project wasn’t a thing)
I love the juxtaposition between the Elks and the Nomai. The Nomai traveled and risked everthing to reach the eye. They're a naturally curious species dedicated to learning about everything the universe has to offer, but it's like the universe itself was against them. Constantly being beaten down, like the warp into dark bramble, but they perservered until the final blow was dealt: the interloper. The Elks were fascinated by the eye as well, but as soon as they learned the truth, the hid from it. They tried to lock it away and run forever, but the Prisoner didn't want that. Being an explorer at heart like the Nomai, they set the eye free, if only for that brief moment. I think the gameplay reflects both species perfectly. The base game requires the player to think through their problems. The solution is rarely given to the player directly, and only a natural sense of curiosity and exploration, combined with clever thinking, can get the job done. Contrast that with EotE. Most solutions are told to the player almost directly, with the slide reels in the forbidden archives. The difficulty in EotE doesn't come from innovative puzzles, but instead from fear. There isn't a clever workaround for any one problem. Instead, you have to do what the Elks couldn't and face your fears head-on. It's the kind of storytelling through gameplay that I think makes this game beautiful
I love how the game makes you feel scared by something unknown so you can also associate yourself with the Elks people there and feel what they were afraid of.
I actually did find some clever workarounds and just avoided my fear. For instance, the first two areas I was able to access after everyone there died, by rafting from the third location. Similarly I got to the vault in the third area (accessible from hidden gorge) by deactivating the lights, then going to a different access point and running there from the raft.
I like that when he gets his lantern and reaches out, it first looks like that he thinks you're one of his species, looking pretty mad and angry, but as soon as he sees you, he pulls his hand back, and he kind of looks confused, realizing its not one of his own, but instead, a good boi
It’s quite tragic, they look aggressive, with their mouth hanging open and reaching out aggressively and then they stop and blink a few times as if realizing that they had almost devolved into the aggressive fearful monster like the rest of their species has turned into.
The way I interpreted it was perhaps a yawn + reaching out to see if you were actually real, & upon seeing you pull back in fear he took his hand back to ease you
For my money, the Prisoner was the one who first found the Eye of the Universe through the telescope, and was also responsible for convincing the entire species to pursue it. He's the only one we ever see associated with a telescope, and his poncho matches up. I imagine his horn was cut off as punishment for misleading the civilization. Furthermore, his curiosity of the Eye would have never ended, which explains why their virtual home still had a shrine to the Eye in it , and why they'd try to free it's signal. This also explains why the other Strangers punished the Prisoner so harshly; in their eyes, his is an absolute villain. He not only brings about the destruction of their home planet, but he also attempts to bring about the end of all civilization, including their permanent virtual purgatory, by releasing the Eye's signal. Thus, they burn down his virtual home, lock him away to spend an infinite amount of time alone, and eventually even destroy the written unlock codes to his cell.
First thing I thought during the ending is that its so funny how we show the prisoners entire species corpses rotting, like I know they had a falling out but still a bit morbid to portray that.
@@Kranzio- i agree, he shows that they've reduced to nothing but husks, and that the ring world has basically died off due to there being no caretakers anymore
On the slide reel that depicts the Owlk having a vision seeing another Owlk wither and die, it also depicts a skull slowly being overgrown. The Owlk doesn't see the end of the vision. The end can be seen in the prisoners home. A painting of the overgrown skull sprouting a flower which shoots out new galaxies. Because of this I think the prisoner know the real intend of the eye
This was made before the update. Yes. The prisoner must know. But something I noticed on the reel with the Owlks vision. The one they dont finish and recoil from. If you stop it a frame or two before it fades out. The stuff thats growing around the skull seems to start to wither. Or maybe I was just seeing things. But it may not be a direct continuation. It may be something like "If you watch the vision all the way through you see the flower. If you stop early, life doesnt make it. " But I guess I couldve been seeing things.
Another thing that helps with the theory that is his house burned down in the simulation, is the fact it has one untouched painting. One of the reels showed that when the owlks discover de intention of the eye, one of their skulls was on the ground and slowly cover in moss and grass, that's when they became mad. The painting has this vision, the skull cover in new life, a flower and new galaxies coming from it. It is beautiful.
My personal belief is that the Young Owlk we see in the first Slide reel is the Prisoner. The child has the same colour poncho as the Prisoner and we only see one of the child's antlers. Also we know that the prisoner can remember their home as they are one of the Owlks that physically mourn, We see them place their head in their hands and cry. They were there when the eye was discovered and a child so the hope of their people as they travelled to the eye most likely affected their spirit and personality. If the Prisoner was also the child that might explain the telescope even further as the discovery of the eye would’ve been a huge event in their life and they would have been one of the first of their race to see the eye as they were present at its discovery. I also believe that part of the reason the prisoner freed the eye was due to a level of dissatisfaction with the simulation, all of the other Owlks seem perfectly comfortable to say within the simulation and to live in the lie they have created while the prisoner was not. Perhaps the prisoner's memories of their home are in some way tinted to remember the homeworld in a way that is differnet to the other Owlks, and that same feeling led to their suicide at the end of the DLC. I also feel that if my theory is the case then the prisoner's story may in some way be similar to Solanum's . They already have a connection through being the two optional members of the Quantum orchestra; it would also make sense that their stories might be similar. With them both seeing the eye as a child and coming to different conclusions about the eye to their people. For example the Nomai believed that the eye had called out to them and chosen them. As a child Solanum believed that the eye ahd tricked them, but by the time we meet her on the Quantum moon she tells us that she believes that the eye did not select her people but instead they simply found the signal, that the eye was calling out but not to the Nomai specifically. This idea is very different from Nomai as a whole. This Could Mirror the Prisoner/Child's outlook who as a child may have felt some level of awe and wonder about the eye and then as their people moved to hate it and came to believe the eye had tricked them, the prisoner came to believe that the change that the eye heralded was not necessarily bad. Great video as Usual though, I always love seeing any videos from you!
I hadnt even noticed one of the owlks were smaller than the rest. I did imagine the prisoner was there for that though. The reels seem to depict abstract truths. I just took that as being they called their whole species over to see. And yes. I talk about how the prisoner would not enjoy the simulation compared to reality. But I dont think they committed suicide because they missed home. We have to keep in mind the owlks seem perfectly capable of blowing on artifacts to extinguish them. If they simply missed home they could have done so sooner. No need to wait 280k + years. Im almost positive they deloaded themselves because they had nothing left to persevere and live for after learning the eyes signal was found. I have also drawn some internal parallels between the prisoner and solanum. But I can never tell if its because they are the only two aliens we meet so I imagine similarities. Or because they are actually alike. Its super hard to say with visual story telling.
I was also wondering if the Prisoner was the short Owlk in that first reel, though I can't tell if that one has both antlers or not. It seemed to me that, at the time of the signal release, the prisoner was shorter than the Owlk who "captures" them, and I can't tell if they look younger than the others as the vault is closed, or if that's just a result of their expression. I believe, as you suggested, that the Prisoner snuffed their flame at the end, and not in the intervening 280k+ years in the simulated prison, because they were holding out hope that their sacrifice had not been in vain - that their choice would eventually be validated. Once vindicated, there was no other reason for them to persist. They could not return to the real world, and the simulation was not for them. It's worth noting that the hatchling's vision omitted the part where the universe was dying out around them anyway - which I feel would have provided the Prisoner even deeper vindication.
@@ReverendTed I'd assume the prisoner might know about the supernova(s) because the Owlk ship Stranger does. Funnily enough, Hatchling might not even pay attention to other stars dying - Chert and Vessel chatter mentions these.
@@nevinmyers1245 Well, based on the lack of agriculture on nomai ships and the lack of it on the stranger we can assume that stored food was used for journeys. We also know that one of the Original Nomai that landed in the system invented the warp cores, this means that warp travel for the nomai is a very recent discovery when we see them also it can be assumed that the strangers that we see had a lot of regret and missed their homes more so than someone who had simply heard of it. Finally we know that space in the outer wilds universe is much smaller and timescales are much shorter, we can see evolution works much quicker on the hearthians (Huge variation in sizes of adults, Riebeck's fingers. the length of time between hearthians being fish and them being what we see them in the game) So it's not a huge leap to imagine that intersystem travel takes much less time for them then for us
The prisoner's yelp of glee is so cool to me, because the sound of these things roaring freaked me out big time throughout the whole game. But now, seeing it come from a friend, it's suddenly so cute haha.
Fair enough, it is open to interpretation but I find it looks sort of happy. Well whether it's glee or vindication or sorrow or anguish or whatever exactly he's doing there, I still think it's the cutest fucking thing I've ever seen. I just watched it again (13:37) and it's cracking me up.@@luleoli
My version is that the first elk who found the eye and the prisoner are the same. I know that TP only has one antler, but that might have been caused by a accident. The reason why he was so dissatisfied by the others was that he originally found it. During the trip to our system, a green glow covers the Stranger in what I think is lightened travel. And on the way there, an accident happened leaving TP with one antler. When he learned of the eyes true purpose of restarting life, he either refused to believe it, or didn't care. So he made a plan to deactivate the jammer, he almost executed it perfectly and the signal was released, but someone saw him leave the simulation and followed him. He was captured and locked away, doomed to eternal life on the Sim. The only thought that kept him from blowing out the lantern knowing his body is dead is that he wondered if it was worth it. Which in this case, it was.
One of the big themes here seems to be sacrifice. I assumed the prisoner WAS the one who discovered the eye. The the antler seems like parallel imagery with the trees they chopped down on their home world. It feels implied to me the prisoner's antler was also a "sacrifice" made in reaching the eye. Makes me wonder if there are any super-sneaky clues as to how it happened. But if we assume the elk who "discovered" the eye is the prisoner it is after the voyage that he/she is always shown with a broken antler. It makes sense that the one who sacrificed the most to reach the Eye would also be unwilling to abort their mission at the last moment.
I also think the Prisoner is the Owlk who discovered the Eye. My guess is that through their telescope they understood the Eye, but the others just listened to his biased explanation and didn't double-check with the telescope. And when they arrived at the Outer Wilds system, the other Owlks understood the Eye's signal and their vision was probably what the Prisoner saw back in their home world. But because the Prisoner's explanations back then were tinted in hope and excitation, they thought of it and thought of it as something positive and marvellous, imagining something radically different and misunderstanding the message they saw when the Signal reached the Stranger. It's even possible that they (off-camera) broke the Prisoner's antler to recognize them anytime, even in the low light they often live in. Possibly as a half-punishment for "being duped" by the Eye and leading their species to its demise. Then, when the Owlks blocked the Eye and went to the Simulation, the Prisoner got out and deactivated the dampener because they knew they couldn't convince their shipmates any more, leading to the others giving a more severe punishment, now that the Prisoner acted "against" their common good knowingly.
one of my opinions after all of these events is; we get to know 3 different species in total. when the nomai clan discover the eye, they immediatly tell each other about it and start the effort to learn more about it. the elks do the same, one of them discover and immediatly tells the others. but this is not the case with our hearthian player character. as i was playing the base game, i would occasionally go into town and talk to town's people after learning new significant things about the solar system or the eye. but our player almost never really shares anything very significant with anyone, especially about the eye or the stranger. why does he keep these information to himself? what is his motive?
Ahhh. A simple and innocent explanation really. In our time in game we can tell a few people about the weird things happening to us. We can tell our best friend Hal that the statue opened it eyes and started glowing. We can tell Slate a few of the ways we die. And we can tell gabbro of course. In the first two instances they threaten to medically ground us from flying. Or dismiss it as more or less common chat. Us. “The autopilot flew me into the sun”. Slate. “Ya dummy. It doesn’t do that on purpose. Just make sure it’s not in between you and your target. “. And when gabbro tells hornfells. Hornfell tells them they dreamt it. So even if we tell people they basically think we are insane. And most importantly. Even if we did tell them it’d be useless anyway since well…they’d forget in about 22 minutes anyway.
Something that never occurred to me before... After turning off the signal blocker, was the Prisoner planning to use one of the flying saucer ships and travel to the Eye *himself*? That could explain why the other Owlks freaked out and decided to seal him in the digital world, where he could never threaten to destroy the universe again.
That is probably what they planned. But it doesnt matter. They would have locked them up anyway. Just releasing the signal is making it possible for the vision to come to pass by someone else finding it. So they absolutely have to prevent it from happening again
While watching this, I came up with an interesting theory - one that, if I'm right, makes the Owlks actions even more desperate seeming. If that house does actually belong to the Prisoner, it raises a fairly obvious question: why did only the Prisoner have a house to himself? All the other Owlks lived in these communal homes, but the Prisoner is the only one to have his own home. To me, this tells me that the Prisoner was someone important. That also explains why they kept the Prisoner alive in his confinement, with some relatively nice things. This is where the theory comes in: maybe, the Prisoner was actually the leader of the Owlks. They were the wisest, and most experienced of them. It would explain why they treated them with so much respect even after imprisoning them, rather than simply exiling them, or locking them up in the real world, or - god forbid - killing them. That is why only they realized that, even though what the Eye showed them was horrible, they shouldn't try to silence it. Somewhere else, I made the suggestion that maybe, rather than trying to allow the universe to end, the Prisoner was simply letting others know the Eye existed, so new explorers might find answer that the Owlks did not. Either way, it shows how desperate the other Owlks were. They were so far gone by that point, not even their own leader could convince them to let the Eye broadcast, so they locked him away. That's my theory. What do you think?
Is it possible that the prisoner owlk was the one who initially discovered the eye? I'd need to do my own digging to either confirm/debunk this theory, but I'm at work right now
Oooh! I quite like this! I’m actually writing a fanfic about the events of EOE from the prisoner’s perspective right now and this would be perfect, may I steal this idea?
that's a very interesting theory that might well be true. my headcanon for having their own separate house is that, like he says in the video, they were simply the odd one out and didn't really fit in with the rest
I like your interpretation of why the Prisoner decided to extinguish their flame as it makes a lot of sense with the satisfaction that others made it to explore for the Eye. My interpretations was always that the Prisoner wanted to finally be free of the lie that is the simulation, to finally end what was effectively a hell for them. Like seriously, his whole treatment was basically solitary confinement where he’s forced to be alone in a cramp room with no way out and especially no way to leave the simulation. It was a very cruel fate for the Prisoner that we freed him of. That being said, I also believe he wasn’t the only one among his kind who had sympathies for the Eye especially given the existence of reels to show the archiving and burning of reels along with how these reels tend to be found near the eye symbols in the DLC. It’s just that the Prisoner was the only one to act against the others. This all just speculation given environmental story telling but that seems to be the theme of this entire DLC.
Great analysis, but a video update is almost needed to make mention of the painting that can be found in the burned down house. Seeing that painting gives further insight into what the Prisoner foresaw or fantasised about when he looked upon or analysed the Eye for himself.
That moment in the vision where they change the theme from guitar to banjo is the moment I start crying, such a well thought story telling through music. Also the small detail that they do not end the loop or the game when you see the last Prisoner's vision, you have to make that decision, you have to take that step forward.
When I first saw the telescope in the dream world, I was confused by it. When I saw that the only other place that had one was inside the tomb/prison I realized it was meant to help reference, nod to the idea that the Prisoner was like Galileo "And who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will?" "See now the power of truth; the same experiment which at first glance seemed to show one thing, when more carefully examined, assures us of the contrary" "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." All Galileo quotes, all very applicable to the Prisoner, and Outer Wilds as a whole really
its so crazy watching these old videos of the DLC and then playing the live patch, so much has changed. like the prisoners house for example. its impossible NOT to think its his house in live patch bc its pretty much heavily hinted at the player but watching this old gameplay theres really not that much in the house at all to tie it to him.
There's something you missed in the burned building which also hints towards the Prisoner's motivations. If you look around in there you can open a panel which reveals the missing frame of the animation of the Strangers analyzing the Eye; they were so afraid of it they tried to bury it, but it seems the Prisoner kept it around.
I don't think they cared. If not they wouldn't have built a flame under a potential flooded area. They probably thought: "it will be thousands of years before the dam breaks, by then will we even be sane?"
I think the telescope in the prisoners coffin is meant to be mean. At the prisoners house his telescope is pointed out at the stars, we don’t really know any of the stars in the game but I’m guessing it’s pointed at where the eye would have been back on their moon, just based off the eye symbol in his house and his paintings. The owlks don’t really interact with each other much at all so they probably didn’t realize he was obsessed/sympathetic towards it till they caught him unblocking the signal. So when they built his prison they gave him a telescope, but set up the windows so the only thing he could ever look at through it was the planet so he could remember what was “really important”
Youre correct that its meant to be mean. Not only "this is whats important". After so long in the prison the prisoner would forget they were in prison. They would just think thats reality. But the planet and telescope serve as a reminder that this isnt reality. And that they are in fact being punished!
The eye would have been something the prisoner would have kept very sneakily too. Like they would have known that if the other owlks knew about their feelings towards the eye they would have been imprisoned earlier.
The idea that the burned building in the simulation is the prisoners home makes so much sense and is so tragic! I love that theory so much! On another note, I found something interesting that you might be interested in; I couldn’t find any of the owlks instruments outside of the simulation. Seriously, not one! I’d love to hear your thoughts on why that is. Thank you for making these videos!
I feel like we're missing something important: do you think the Prisoner's plan was to get caught after releasing the signal? Or was it to just go back to the simulation and continue "life" as usual? I think the more likely scenario is that they planned to hop on one of those ships we see in the docking bay and go to the Eye themselves. I might not have just been faithful sacrifice, they might have been driven by curiosity, maybe even greed to some extent (though I'm not sure what _they_ could hope to gain from it, _we_ know that the one who enters the Eye gets to shape the next universe based on their experiences, and that might be seen as a reward by some).
Its hard to say. I have a hard time coming up with motives for thing they did do. Almost impossible to imagine motives for things they didnt do or may have not even planned. I think youre right. I think they probably planned to hop in one of the ships and go try to find it. But honestly I think itd still be for the same reasons. That plan just failed. Then, after they failed, their reality changed and they persevered to see if their actions were meaningful in any way.
I think only the nomai discovered the malleability of the eye of the universe, in various logs we see they make that discover with the quantum moon and quantum objects, deducing that the moon is the satellite of the eye thus the eye itself is quantum, however there isn't a single quantum object in the whole DLC neither there is a signal they noticed the quantum moon
@@juanandresrueda4957 You do have to take into account that you never get access to, like, 99% of their documentation. They may very well have research on the Quantum Moon and the Eye in the archives somewhere, it's just not that relevant. It's definitely reasonable to assume they at least know the basics about the Eye (that it's older than the universe, etc.), considering they got close enough to it to _scan_ it, and they definitely have the motives to hide some of the more... enticing aspects of its nature in case anyone gets too curious. Either way, I don't see how that relates to my previous comment.
I seem to recall also coming across a painting/picture of some kind (that I THINK was in the Prisoner's home inside the simulation) that showed an Owlk skull with a flower blooming out of it. In other words, it's possible that the Prisoner came to the conclusion that while the Eye would bring destruction, new life would bloom from it. That also explains his quote in the Ancient Glade; "Whatever happens next, I do not think it is to be feared."
I think your theory on the house of the prisoner is correct, because there's a picture in that house that shows a lot of galaxies coming out from the owlk skull, basically showing that even though his species would die it would bring more life to the universe, that along with everything you said in that section, I think you were pretty much on the money
Excellent video, just wanted to point out that we shouldn't necessarily assume *all* the owlks know how to bypass the security measures, so they could still be intended for other owlks. Also I feel sort of bad, but I can't help laughing at the idea that the stranger didn't intentionally extinguish his lantern, he just accidentally slipped.
I think what the prisoner is trying to say in the last vision is this. If we take the symbolism of the telescope being one of exploration then the prisoner inviting you onto it with them is them inviting you to follow them in whatever adventure comes after this one. Which would require both of you to go into the water to deload yourself from the simulation, that of course killing you.
Thanks so much for the kind words! If you have any more questions about the game that youre still confused about be sure to share them! I could use ideas for videos! Coming up with them weekly is sort of hard.
I've never cried after beating a game, this was close. I honestly wish u could replay the whole game and reignite that spark for adventure this game put in me. Hopefully it isn't over just yet.........
I don't know if it was added in a later update, but in the prisoner's house there's a painting showing a flower shaped pretty similarly to the Eye, blooming from an Owlk skull and creating galaxies around it
@@TheLoreExplorer thanks for answering in an old video, I've just discovered this game, finished it and discovered your channel in less than a week, I'm totally addicted to the game and your content
I just thought of a new question about the DLC: because of the dying sun, the Stranger automatically leaves the Solar system. But when you remove the warp core and enter the simulation, the ending implies that a *very* long time has passed and that they don't bother hunting you anymore, etc. So how does the Stranger power itself if the sun is gone (and that every other star is dying as well)?
I suppose the Stranger could hop from sun to sun in theory, but by the end of the time loop, all stars are already dead if I'm not wrong, so I don't think it's the right answer. The powerful batteries and/or using the ring rotation seem like reasonable answers and nothing can contradict them I suppose, but I don't find them very satisfactory. The ending states "Time passes, and passes, until your life before is some half-remembered dream. If only you could wake up." as if it was lasting forever (since the universe has no end). I guess we can't really know haha, but thanks for your suggestions anyway! :)
@BNWdotcom The energy the dam would generate would necessarily come from the rotation of the ring, which is what's causing the difference in water levels in the first place. Therefore, the energy for keeping the ring rotating must come from somewhere else, most probably the sun.
Good video! I like your theories and they make sense. I think that when the prisoner released the eyes signal, he wanted someone to find the signal before it was shut off again because he probably knew that at some point the other owlks would wake up and turn the signal off. Also after a few times of going to the burnt house in the simulation, I figured it was the prisoners house because of that little eye symbol, and the telescope. Everyone probably knows and guessed this already, but that’s what I think. Keep on making good videos!
i like to think that the prisoner, despite knowing he and everyone he loved and knew would die one day, that the owlks couldnt stop the inevitable just because they didnt like what they saw. he understood the importance of endings.
The Prisoner being an explorer would also explain why their antler is broken. They probably broke it at some point either on their home moon or while on the Stranger, exploring. Maybe after falling or something as a child. Dont mind me im gonna go cry now
Although everything you said about the reason why the prisonner ended it as soon as he got out, I always thought it was because he couldn't do it into his cell... I'm not sure there is a way of extinguishing the flame without water, our character certainly can't. Maybe this is even why there is water erverywhere around? He knows he can't exit the simulation because his body is dead, that there is nothing for him next, and so at the first opportunity, knowing that his mission is done, he "frees" himself. Does that make sense?
Well, the owlks do simply blow out our artifact when they catch us. So we at least know they can be blown out by owlks. If it works on others I dont see why it wouldnt work on your own.
@@TheLoreExplorer Well, I guess you are 100% right XD completely forgot about that detail... I guess this is why you are the lore explorer! But then why did he had to go to the river to extinguish his flame?
I dont think they did have to. I think the devs did that so they could depict it. No real way to depict them blowing it out if we werent there. And I dont think they wanted that happening in front of the player
Not technically. They all do have codes. We just cant fid the codes. But if you put in the right ones anyway it opens. People found them by searching through the games code.
My interpretation of the prisoner’s final vision is this: while yes we don’t specifically show anything regarding the ash twin project or the supernova, I imagine the prisoner assumed the worst that too much time has passed and that you the player are either dead or about to die, and as such they leave that vision to say “We’re explorers, and we’ve got the prime opportunity to greet a new frontier, so let’s walk into the light and greet a new day… and thank you.. friend.”
I see The Prisoner as an Owlk version of us (the player) and an adventurer at heart. Perhaps this is also why they seemed so sad at being locked in the bell. They never meant any harm, they were just curious.
Thanks for the interaction with the video Ink. Thats something youtube looks for so it does help. Also its very nice to know people enjoy my content so thanks for sharing. Ignore theus.
For those wandering why the Prisoner just 'commit' suicide, firstly if they were alive, at best case the physical Sarcophagus would works similair to 'read-only' Bootable USB stick, each time formating Sarcophagus matching into spartan Cell interior, or in worst case risking this gets restored to original interor design, which might have been mentioned by their Jailers, Geographical features are reflected between physical world and the Simulation, with matching simulation 'access points' , also its having a transtioning loop inbetween areas themselves themselves, and i half suspect that each firepit (& Lantern) is its own independant Simulation devices, whilest the Tower / Vault works as Network ports Secondly, whilest i dont know exactly how big their avarage lifespan is, the vibe that i getting that this is counted in triple digits at least, even longer if artifically being sustained by external/invisible/unreachable lifesupport systems With the intended effect of isolating the Prisoner, with a presumable constant static picture of their homes Night sky, which i believe was unaccessible by the themselves, used as initial/sporadic/final vist of their Jailers, the Prisoner sense of time can be greatly distorted, trying inital chance of instant death on risk of losing the remaining living space
Interesting thing about the burned house in the dreamworld being the Prisoner's house. In one hidden slide real (the one that shows the Starlit Cove's secret entrance), the Owlk with the tablet starts right next to the telescope in the burned down building, and then gives the tablet to another Owlk and shuts down the lights. What significance does this have if that is the prisoner's house? Is there a significance to that telescope for the Owlk to be there, seemingly contemplating something? Maybe showing regret? And second question: If the Prisoner already has his telescope in his house when he was "arrested", why didn't the Owlks just take his own telescope down the Vault, instead of creating a completely new one? What would the Owlks do with the previous telescope? Maybe they still wanted to use it, even if the house was burned down?
You have to remember that this is a simulated reality. The only thing the telescopes would be useful for is being a memento. There arent stars and planets to look at(aside from the ringed one). So theyd have no need to use it or even destroy it. I think this is also why a new one was created. The jailers wanted to take this away from the prisoner so they wouldnt have any comforting items. But a few owlks felt bad and so they made them a new simulated one. And a new simulated ringed planet. People tend to forget we are underground in the prisoners tower. So being able to see the ringed planet out of the window means some one added it for them. They likely added the telescope as well.
@@TheLoreExplorer I agree one of the elks was patting the prisoner on the back maybe it was that one they seem kind and caring like when one of them was crying it embraced the other
I think the prisoner, after some time to ponder and reflect, saw what the eye was really trying to say. That while their time would come to an end, there would be new life that would spring up, life that through the thoughts and feelings and energy they devoted to discovery and bravery and science, would be nurtured into the new generation of explorers and scientists. He understood that what they saw was not only the eventual end, but a new beginning.
It seems like they all understood that to me. It took me a while to realize. (And honestly an interview with the devs.) I’m not sure I’d have realized on my own. But they knew about the heat death. And They depicted that their interaction would rebirth life after some great cataclysmic heat death event. So it seems they knew how it’d work. But as a species they chose to focus on the heat death. While as an individual , the prisoner understood the significance and true meaning of the rebirth . But those are just my thoughts on it. Thank you for sharing yours!
Did anyone else find a rather beautiful painting of the reborn universe (greenery and flowers growing out of an owlk skull with galaxies in the background, like little lights) in the prisoner’s burnt out home? It’s unusual since the vision was seen by the elder and not the prisoner according to the reels. Is it possible the prisoner somehow managed to get the vision / imagined it and realised the end is not to be feared as it is really rebirth of another world?
Yeah. The mural was added in a recent update. My interpretation is that the prisoner snuck back in and watched the vision by themselves. I dont see how else they couldve gotten it or known otherwise.
I would like to add that I think it likely that the prisoner extinguished their lamp when they did because they simply weren't able to before - I have seen nothing in the simulation vault that they could use for that. And in the real world vault, they had no way of leaving; whether they just fall asleep or die, with the fire and artifact with them they would be ushered into the simulation either way.
As I already said somewhere else, this is the problem with visual storytelling - you can tell WHAT has happened, but can only guess at WHY has it happened.
Agreed. What I find odd is they almost wrote in a way around that. And then didnt use it. It wouldnt make lore sense if we could translate the owlk text with our translator. But it would make sense, if the owlk staffs read our mind with light, the staffs would be able to know our language and likely translate the text for us instantly. I think that could have been excellent in an info/knowledge based game. For the first half you wouldnt be able to read any of the text and that would lock you out of end game stuff. But once you realize the staffs can translate the text it would open things up.
@@TheLoreExplorer I think it's also what gives visual storytelling its charm. Because they don't tell us all the "why's", we as the players are allowed to interpret our own meanings to these messages. We don't need to translate the Owlk's language or anything like that. Our own imaginations can fill in the blanks. And being able to share what we've interpreted just adds to that charm.
How do you manage to make snapshots from the 3rd person perspective? Or are they some pictures from the fan community / mobius concept of arts library?
In the vision it was shown that if elks will touch the eye everything will die including the person who touched it. There is one frame that shows a skull of the toucher overgrown with grass. In the prisoner's house there is a painting of the same frame but with a flower growing from the skull and small galaxies seemingly flying from the flower. So it's obvious that prisoner thought that vision is only partial. Elk have seen that everything will die if somebody touches the eye, prisoner thought that everything will die and be reborn. The question is, does touching the eye really destroys everything and remekes it? If so, then it's only ethical to touch it when all the galaxies are dying. So, like, exectly what happened in the game. That's massive luck that elks found the eye and restricted the signal, that prisoner let the signal out just a bit, that nomai missed the warp, that their ash twin project failed, that they found just enough info and that they left enough resource and set up time loop system just for main character to swoop in and do the thing in the best possible moment. Also, it's very lucky that eye remakes the universe based on the one thing that persists through the time loop - memories.
Some one just pointed out to me. In the reel where they discovered the eye. The furthest owlk to the right is shorter when compared to the rest. They are the only one depicted this way. So maybe that was the prisoner. Sadly they stand sideways and we cant see if they have 1 or 2 antlers.
Yes. I have a video showing you how. Or you can find the datamined codes for the seels on reddit. Put the seels in and you dont have to die to get past the third one.
Hey think you could make a video on how Dark Bramble works? Like how do the like Dark Bramble portal things expand to be bigger on the inside like Feldspar says? Or maybe what Dark Bramble was before the seed engulfed it?
@@db5094 Yeah but other than it was an ice planet we don't know anything else. Except the fact it's also the home of the jelly fish. Maybe there was some water in dark bramble to.
side note: i noticed that there was only one elder owlk, and no youth. how long do these creatures live? also side note: we dont have confirmation that time passes the same in the dream state, one could assume based on personal experience that the owlks were in there for what felt like double the time.... or a fraction, who knows. in the end, i felt satisfied and at the same time i felt sorrow. kinda like that final howl
Literally nothing in the game indicates the signal was calling since the beginning of time. In fact it indicates it just started calling out. The owlks already had telescopes and whatnot. But they only heard it at a certain time. And they were the closest to it so theyd be the first to hear it. And anyway, thats not how it works. If they hadnt heard it already they wouldnt have heard it if the prisoner hadnt released a fresh wave. They heard the unblocked signal as clearly shown by the reel.
How did you undo the last lock without killing yourself?? I've always wanted to see the inside of the prisoners "coffin" mainly just out of curiosity, but i just gave up because I thought there was no way
In the game files, there are actual codes to disable the three traps. They can't be found in game, but some people did some datamining and found them. The coffin opening up was actually added in a recent patch and didn't originally happen, since a casual player wouldn't have been able to see it
Someone datamined the codes for the locks to the vault from the ingame files so that people could unlock the vault without having to be dead in the real world. At first, unlocking the vault with the codes and then returning to the real world didn't open it in the real world. However, the developers have recently updated the game so that the real life vault opens and you can now see the Prisoner's corpse. But the codes aren't actually anywhere to be found through gameplay.
@@mrspiffy8587 well i figured it had to be a command line or something, if you disable the locks in the "dream" you can go the the real diving bell and find that they're also disabled in the real world. I was just wondering in case i missed something, maybe like the prisoner had the codes in his cell. I wonder if there are actual working codes for the other 2 besides the invisible bridge
@@jorgeaura2890 i just did a little reddit research, and apparently someone found the code, and when the devs patched the game, they added a nice little detail. If you unlock the vault through brute force, you can see the prisoner's corpse, lantern and all, but apparently if you go back in and free the prisoner, when you come back the lantern will be extinguished implying that the prisoner freed his/herself, metaphorically speaking.
Though we never find the codes to the totoms defending the prisoner in game. They still exist and work! So we can find them by brute forcing every combo! Or , as I think with this community , going into the files to find the answer.
I think in this world, the universe needs a conscious observer at the eye in order to "reset" properly (or at least maintain versions of prior consciousnesses), since it seems the memories of the observer influence what may exist in the new universe. The owlks blocking the signal is an attempt to prevent anyone from finding the eye and doing so. The owlks seemed very "at one with nature" until they found out that observing the eye would lead to their deaths, even though death is a very natural part of the universe. Feeling betrayed by what they worshipped and sacrificed for, they attempted to remove themselves from the natural cycle, but effectively deprived the universe of a proper "reset" in the process. Maybe a conscious observer is necessary for the the "reset" to occur at all, since you need to jump into the eye and exhaust the limitless possibilities at the end sequence. The prisoner felt ashamed for this action and attempted to set things right by allowing the signal out and hoping someone would find it to continue the natural cycle. I think this is why the prisoner was hesitant in the end to be remembered, since remembering them might bring along the same dilemma in the next universe, knowing it may be possible for their kind (or version of) to succeed at keeping the eye hidden from an observer, and breaking the natural cycle.
Heres my only issue with this interpretation. Someone observing the eye doesnt lead to their deaths. The universe ending , and the eye needing an observer and being observed. Are two separate things. When we show up to the eye and observe it. The universe is ALREADY dead. Its not something the observation caused. So , unless they completely misinterpreted the vision , your interpretation makes little sense. In my opinion. It has to be more along the lines of "We went out searching for salvation. And only learned of the natural destruction of things. Which we are scared of. Its probably better if we didnt know this. And lived life in relatively fear free way. Best do what we can to forget" To accomplish this. The Owlks had to silence the eye and build the sim. Otherwise the eyes signal would be like a huge bell ringing. Reminding them the end is nigh. They were a solitary species. And acted in a solitary way. Not caring about the rest of the universe.
@@TheLoreExplorer thanks for responding! yeah I figure the universe would end regardless of the eye's observation, but since the scene 14 billion years later changes based on who you remember, it seems the observer has an impact on the new universe in some way. I only said that there might not be a new universe since Solarus says you need to enter the eye and exhaust the limitless possibilities. But perhaps a new universe would be born regardless, just not with similar consciousness (or consciousness at all)? It's looks like their vision showed an owlk observing the eye and destruction following. I don't think it necessarily triggers the end, but time is kinda screwy around the eye since it represents extreme changability. So maybe it seems like little to no time has passed to observer, when in fact eons have gone by. Since the owlk never actually observed the eye to realize time doesn't work the same there, they may have feared it would end the universe based on the vision they received. I dunno, fun thoughts :)
Youre right about the majority of this. How the eye needs an observer. And how the observers memories change things. How time doesnt exist there. And how the owlks were more of a nature loving species. I just dont think thats why the Owlks did what they did. I think its a much more selfish of a reason. They learned what the eye would do. And with it. They learned the universe was coming to an end. All stars will die. All species will die. And this is something they never knew in their simple nature loving lives. Gazing up at their ringed planet and the stars beyond. And this was after thinking the eye was salvation. And so they did everything they could to forget this truth. It was too much for them to bear. And they probably thought it would be too much for others as well. And they didnt want any other species to learn the horrific fate of everything. Also , to forget this truth they have to silence the eye. Not only so others wont learn the horrid truth. But so its not like a bell. Ringing every 5 seconds to remind them the end is nigh. And if they had wanted to in the past. They couldve lived in ignorant bliss. But instead they followed the eye. So best to let everyone else live in ignorant bliss. Luckily , one of the owlks saw through to the truth of the universe. And realized that ignoring things dont make them go away. And only in great destruction. Can come a great rebirth. Only after many supernova were the materials created that humans formed of. And the prisoner knew they had no right to interfere in that truth of the universe. Im sure I havent thought everything all the way through and may be making some mistakes here and there. And you could just be right. But these are my thoughts on the matter
@@TheLoreExplorer I like your view though. I actually consider it a bit more noble than mine XD with yours, they're just trying to live out their days in ignorant bliss and do the same for others. Whereas my view has more of a " forget the rest of the universe and what our actions cause. We gonna live as long as we can". Kind of a middle finger to what they once worshipped and spent generations trying to reach. I think either view is reasonable on the motives given the information we have :) good video btw. I like your content.
Yeah. Thats one thing about mobius. They give us JUST enough information to understand. And to try to figure out the rest. We have to delve deep into the mindset of these creatures in a wacky universe. But youre right. Either interpretation is as valid as the others. And it took me many conversations to get to the one I have today!
Just one moment - it doesnt matter how brief or not the single was released, only that it was and it will travel in the Universe until somebody receive it (and it not decayed too much)
They are never officially named in game. "owlk" is the community name for them. Since they are half Owl half Elk. People also call them strangers and inhabitants.
I love how the Owlks took one look at the absolute crapshow that is the Hearthian galaxy that instead of exploring it and maybe making a new home, they just make a simulation of their original planet. I probably would too, given how horrible the Hearthian galaxy is.
I don’t think this is the reason they do that. Imagine you get shown the universe is ending soon. All suns are going to explode. Would you be eager to put down roots again. Knowing that it’ll be ripped away any moment? Or would you stay in your mobile ship that already feels a bit like home?
I really hope the developers do a little more to establish what the motives for the Prisoner were, as I know with my playthru when I met them I was half expecting to be bashed on the head by their artifact. All these Owlks that I thought would be friendly were actually confusingly mean and upset, and in their culture they thought this one individual was worth the effort of isolating in so many ways. It came off to me that they were the scariest of the scary, like a final boss. Then they want to read our mind and… it kills itself? There is still so much we don’t know about the Owlks motives in general; what scares them and why? We know the eye scared them, and the prisoner, but then why also did they develop a cloaking device for their ship that only effectively works against objects in the inner solar system? Was there something pre-Noami in system that they were hiding from? Were the Owlks concerned that the Prisoner had an accomplice or followers? Could the Owlks be considered Xenophobic, and if so why?
I dont really understand this. No, there was nothing pre nomai to hide from. They just knew they were going to enter the sim and had to plan for the future. Leaving yourself inside a sim like that leaves you super vulnerable. And its pretty clear what the owlks were afraid of. The eyes vision showed a violent explosion occurring and killing them all. And if this explosion occurs now, it would still kill them. The signal itself is a huge threat. Because freeing the signal can lead to the vision becoming an actuality by someone finding it and entangling with it. And so they lock the prisoner away tightly so they wont be able to free the signal again to cause another chance for the signal to be found. And again, thats why they immediately deloaded us. They are not xenophobic. They are desperately scared us being there will allow us to learn something dangerous.
@@TheLoreExplorer But if you think about it, the Eye was in the outer solar system. Anyone from outside the solar system will see a big black spot, making it very obvious something is out there. That’s actually how we, in the modern era, look for information about other solar systems; we look at suns and check to see when their brightness goes down to indicate a planetoid is blocking part of the view. From a rather limited range we can see the sun actually be completely eclipsed. So the Owlks actually made themselves more obvious and visible to anyone in the outer system and beyond, as anyone looking towards that star will see it disappear or flicker at regular intervals. Meanwhile the only things that wouldn’t see the ship would be inside the solar system. So what were they scared of inside the system, such that they didn’t care about attracting outside attention? As for what they knew and didn’t know about the Eye, that’s a good conversation too. They clearly knew enough to be afraid, but did they ever land on the Eye? Did they have visions just in orbit? Seems kind of silly to travel such a far distance, destroy a home planet, and not go above and beyond to double check things. Makes one wonder if the Prisoner knew something else, and if they were the only ones to ask additional questions.
You're right that thats how we look for things. But imo wrong on the conclusion. To preface, even if it wasnt a cloak, the object would still block the sun like that. But really to see things like that two things have to happen. First, we need to be in plane with that system so we see the objects orbiting directly in front of their sun when they pass. And the object has to be orbiting the sun so we can see it pass the sun and block out light. The stranger isnt orbiting our sun. Its stationary. And its not in the orbital plane of the system either. So neither of those things can really happen. The Owlks have minimized all chances someone would accidentally stumble upon it from every direction except 1-3 degrees in space. And if someone did happen to be within that and see it from outside the system, they would have to be exactly lined up with our probe at the time it took the photo. No where else in space. Chances are that angle gets blocked far enough out. And if no one in the system blocking it is looking, no one will see it. The devs thought it out.
@@TheLoreExplorer Aha - didn’t realize it was stationary, off an orbit. It still seems strange to me that the cloaking device works perfectly on one side, and not another. Do we know if the cloaking device was activated only after the Noami show up? Like time wise wouldn’t most of the Owlks be awake, constructing the prison, when the Noami arrived? Or I suppose there could be a bit of a signal delay as for when the Noami detected the brief Eye symbol. Even with a delay, perhaps the Owlks intentionally wanted to hide themselves from whoever might answer the Prisoner’s brief message. Lots of great thought experiments - which is why I enjoy your channel!
The reel in which the owlks arrive in the system show it being cloaked by a shadow as soon as they get in front of the sun as well. So it’s been on since they parked. I think you’re just overestimating how likely it is for anyone to look there. It’s been in one spot for 280k+ years. For us or the nomai a flight anywhere near there would be pointless. And the chances another system is close enough, aligned perfectly, and just staring at a singular sun in which they can’t see the planets(because they are off plane) to actually see it is literally astronomically low. Like that’s what they made that phrase for lol.
Hey I have a theory that since the ship logs are made of the same materials as the statues found by gabbro which store information that the ship logs are able to retain the information gathered and send them back in time with the loop (and maybe even update the log based off of what you're experiencing but I'm not so sure about that one but I'd like to know your thoughts on this theory). Edit - Just now I was looking at the ship log and there is Nomai text flowing into it from the bottom sometimes ( Edit within edit - I think that happens every time there is an update in the ship log now that I think about it). This is not unlike when the Nomai text flows through the screen when the loop is reset. The text is likely Information or code/data that is being sent to the Ash Twin project in the case of the loop and statues but what if the players log is also connected to the Ash Twin project? It would explain why information is retained between loops but yet again that could be explained as just a gameplay feature so that you don't get lost with thoughts in your head. That's what I though it was up until now.
it's pretty clear that's the intended explanation behind why the ship's log retains data through the loops. hell, it's made from rock chipped from the very same statue that the player character gets tied to.
@@N8crafter Yeah it also ties into to The Lore Explores April fools episode on Gabbro that has some evidence to support it and this theory supports that to since Gabbro was the one who made the ship log with the stone. So maybe Gabbro is helping us reach the eye like he did in the past universe by giving us an easier time at retaining the info we gather. What do you think?
Im pretty sure it wasnt gabbro who made the ship log. A piece of our statue broke off and slate incorporated it into our computer since it stored data. Since its made out of a piece of our statue its connected to us and the atp so it retains info. I dont think gabbro had anything to do with it.
i'm sure the "vision" you show the prisoner doesn't change regardless, but technically i think it should change -depending on what you've discovered so far in that playthrough/save file. Like if you started a new game and went to the prisoner, you wouldn't know the things you know about our solar system.
Was pretty great deducing the 2nd church to be his own house, makes sense! But yno, if the Eye's signal was always cloaked, then how did the Nomai recieve it? Was it really during those moments the prisoner released it (or the waves that eventually made it to the Nomaii, across the vast void)? Would that also be why it was so hard to pinpoint the Eye's location? I don't remember them struggling to recapture the eye's signal during their efforts. It was always broadcasting, but it was just it's exact location hard to find, or so I thought?
Yes. Our reel to the prisoner confirms it was the signals the prisoner released that the nomai received. And the Nomai were looking for signals forever. The signal locators couldnt pin point an area. This could be due to its quantum nature. But it feels like the actual eye has been observed at this point. It has a probe orbiting it which is silencing its signal. It seems certain to be that. So its a good question as to why the signal locators seemed to have found TOO MANY signals. Which made it so it couldnt pinpoint one as the emitting location.
My theory was that the Prisoner saw the eye as a natural phenomenon like any planet or star in the galaxy and admired it's potential to destroy and renew. there are many dangerous things in the world and the galaxy, what's one more natural beautiful thing, and why should it be caged and imprisoned because someone came to the wrong conclusion and came to fear its true capabilities.
the way i see it, the prisoner understood the importance of the eye, that its function would be *necessary* one day. the owlks clearly understood that one day the universe would end, as they planned 300,000 years in advance for the supernova of the sun, to likely in the hopes that their simulation would be able to run for eternity after the rest of the universe had died off. they *knew* that by silencing the eye, they'd be denying all future life the right to exist. of course, i can't blame em for bein afraid of what the eye could do, it'd mean the end of their species, but deciding to seal away the eye till the heat death of the universe was 100% selfish of them to do. the prisoner understood that they can't choose when they're story ends and the next one begins, and that deciding that for all other life in the universe wasn't right. in the time they spent in the simulation, so many species must've come and gone, while they had been living the same life day-in and day-out. it wasn't good to stagnate like that, and there was no reason to force that stagnation on the universe
Did you beat the base game before you played the dlc? I feel like people only feel this way because they know what happens there. Imagine seeing that vision with no prior knowledge of what the eye was. I feel like you wouldnt be able to understand it. Hell, people who have seen the ending dont understand that vision. Ive literally studied the game and I cant say I fully understand it. I suppose the prisoners text at the end suggests they did. Only that they were scared of it. And why else would the prisoner go on worshipping it after they received that vision if they didnt think it were vitally important? Makes some sense if they realized what it did and simply wasnt afraid of dying because thats what the owlks were going to do anyway. Die and enter the sim.
what if the eye represents the knowledge that your story will end and many things will grow from the corpse of your universe? it's the acceptance and embracing of the end of all that you have known so that something else can grow in its place. it is the time that will pass after you are long gone, the universe that will sprout from the fertilizer of ours. thats why it scared the owlks so much, thats why they clung to their simulation so tightly.
Anyone else think about the prisoner any time people say we should stop research in AI? I'd much rather humanity create a race of AI that replaces them, than halt exploration just to stay comfortable.
I'd like to hear your thoughts about why the owlks are hostile and blow out your lantern. If I saw somebody new after hundreds of thousands of years I would be very curious. It also doesn't make sense for it to be a security thing because we can go right back in. If it was for security, they should be taken our lantern so we couldn't deload and interrogated us, especially because we could do more damage to them outside by extinguishing their lanterns (hypothetically). It could be to protect their libraries but again, we could extinguish their lanterns and then go in and access the libraries. Thoughts?
Well....they cant take our lantern. We are in the real world and they are 1's and 0's in a simulation. Nothing they can do will get rid of the lantern we hold in the real world. So we would always be able to just wake up and try again. Blowing them out is simply the best they can do. But Imo Its definitely because they are afraid we will learn about the eye and then find it. So I think they are protecting the libraries and us from finding the prisoner.
@@mikewagner2299 ...this is a good point. They could have taken his lantern while he was in the prison, truly stranding him to suffer forever. Instead, they gave him the lantern. He could always blow it out and end himself. A small mercy on their part. And then the prisoner never even uses it by choice.
I think the purpose of the window planet was that he wished to seek the eye, but they forced him to watch the planet with the rest of them as a punishment.
Ive since had more time to think about it. That planet is a reminder of home. If that planet wasnt there the prisoner would eventually forget they are even in prison.
Technically it could be. But I don’t think it is. I think there’s a better chance the small owlk in that scene is the prisoner. They are the only ones depicted uniquely.
By the way, even though the ringed planet is visible to the naked eye... why wouldn't the prisoner would like to have a closer look on it? Our Moon is visible to the naked eye, still I love looking at it with a telescope. :D I guess looking at the ringed planet's cloud bands could be awesome! Or at least surely better than doing nothing :D Anyway awesome video, keep it up! :)
I think Owlks were right to do what they did, they saw the vision and they truly believed the Eye could destroy the entire universe, they did not know the real truth
Wait how are we ever supposed to see the prisoner's corpse in the real world? Don't you have to die to free him in the first place? (you can't be alive or else the bell pillar things guarding the 3rd seal will wake you up)
the traps actually do have codes. They were burned but if you enter them they still work. People have data mined them. I have a video called "Opening the real world vault" that should explain how to do it if youre interested.
@@TheLoreExplorer oh that's cool, thanks for the info! I like that they put that in the game, even if it doesn't really makes sense it's nice to know they put work into making a feature that could only be discovered by datamining or brute force
@@TheLoreExplorer i meant that as in it doesn't really make sense to spend work on implementing a feature nobody should be able to find. like designing and programming a room that can never be accessed. but they did it anyways, just in case somebody datamines or bruteforces the codes
I can't help but thing that the prisoner's actions were in vain. Since the signal is blocked and the Prisoner decides to unblock it, not that much time goes by, which means that the Nomai would have heard it anyways. The signal has been playing since the beginning of the Universe, a couple of months or years wouldn't have made much of a difference. The Nomai were already developed and exploring the universe so its most probable that the signal they heard was the original signal, not the unblocked one that only lasted for a couple of minutes. Unfortunately, I also think that the prisoner was irresponsible. The owl thought the eye would destroy the universe and clearly the prisoner disagreed but he also doesn't seem to have evidence of the contrary, so he is basically betting the existence of the universe on what appears to be nothing more than a hunch. And at the time he took that decision, the universe wasn't dying so it wasn't a matter of "there's nothing to lose" as it is the player's case.
Literally nothing in the game indicates the signal was calling since the beginning of time. In fact it indicates it just started calling out. The owlks already had telescopes and whatnot. But they only heard the signal at a certain time. And they were the closest to it so theyd be the first to hear it. And I have to imagine there are other species in the universe. If its been calling out forever then someone surely would have heard it by now. And anyway, thats not how it works. If the nomai hadnt heard it already they wouldnt have heard it if the prisoner hadnt released a fresh wave. The old waves would have been long past them. They heard the unblocked signal as shown by the reel.
The trick is, the Owlk ship also hides the physical location of the Eye, except the orbital distance more or less. So if anyone received the signal and came to investigate, they'd face the same problem Nomai had. Though Nomai were a bit silly, they could have built a bunch of wider angle cameras and put them in far orbits to see the Eye instead of one camera at a random location jillion of times - much like Hearthians spotted the Stranger, Nomai would too and the Eye as well. Plus they wouldn't need the Sun Station and Ash Twin Project. They would know they succeeded when Quantum Moon would lock onto one planet - since that means they have full coverage of the solar system. Then again, Nomai did many funny things, like not building dome cities despite being able to.
@@TheLoreExplorer Maybe it wasn't calling since the beginning of time, but it was certainly calling just before they blocked the signal. Presumably it's been calling at least since the owlks discovered it. And there isn't enough of a time gap between the blocking of the signal, subsequent activation by the prisoner and back to being blocked, to realistically matter.
Not to be rude but I just think you dont understand. The entire dlc was meant to explain why the nomai only heard a brief signal. Why it disappeared so fast. Itd make absolutely no sense if the signal they heard was from the original wave and the prisoners actions had no impact. Its as simple as that. And a reply to astral. From the eye we can barely see our sun. Which im sure is at least thousands of times brighter than the eye. Which means, to see the eye from the sun, the sunlight from our sun would have to reach it and bounce off, then travel all the way back to us. Im not entirely sure itd be as easy to see as wed guess. And remember, we only see the stranger because it has the backdrop of our sun behind it from that angle. No angle you reach would be similar with the eye. I dont think that would work.
@@TheLoreExplorer So, how did the Nomai probe find the Eye? It could not just have physically hit it, as it'd be unable to send the location back... The only logical answer is that it has "seen" it or Nomai were wily enough to detect if their signal got changed in a quantum manner; the probe looks like either a laser, a transmitter or a camera. If it needed a pinpoint location does not matter, just makes time to find it by orbiting cameras longer, and the Eye's location would be quantum observed so their observatories would likely get a single location. Still way better than blowing up a sun.
Here my theory.. I thought Why would eh want his whole species to die. It's not like he knew there would be anew universe and he did know he whole universe would die. Imagine some marvel villain is trying to destroy the whole unviserse by getting to some place int he solar system. Can be seen as not much different to the owlks. He was kind of dooming his whole species for no reason. I'm guessing tis because living in the exact same place place thousands of years seems like a sad pointless life. Eventually they'd hate it. Maybe he realized he did not want to be immortal and woke up so he could end the simulation and die and do his species a favor because ebeing immortal even if yoy live like a king would get terrible before long especially living in the same place. Maybe he wanted to interact with the eye and see the enlightenment they were looking for and the rhthyms of the eye just nudged him towards it. The beauty and awe oft he eye. Idk. Bone fo the owlks look happy. Thw simulation just gives melancholy and sad memories
This might be a bit of a reach, but I think the motivations for the Prisoner were religious. He could've belonged to a short faction of owlk people that were still devoted to the eye despite the fear of so many of their own had for it, and saw death as a normal thing everything had to one day come to terms with it. After becoming depressed with the bland virtual reality composed of idyllic memories of a world long-dead, he went to do what his religion told him would be best: Free the signal and let existence takes its way. As punishment, not only was he loaded permanently into the simulation, but was built in an encasement strong enough to resist being extinguished long after the rest had done so, and given no method to extinguish that flame in the virtual prison.
By the time we play the Nomai have been dead for 280k+ years. The owlks were all already dead before they even got here. So we have to add the time the signal took to travel to the nomai. And how long the nomai lived before they perished. And we dont know the exact numbers of the last 2. So adding two probably relatively small unknown numbers to the 280k and my guess is roughly around 300k give or take a couple thousands years.
@@TheLoreExplorer It is possible that it happened much longer ago. I imagine that the signal from the eye travels at the speed of light, and even though the objects in Outer Wilds are much closer than in our universe, it is possible that the Nomais came from another galaxy. At that point, it could have been millions of years possibly before the Nomais detected the signal and used their black hole technology to come.
It couldve been billions of years. I just dont think so. In the reel where the prisoner releases the signal it reaches the other systems really fast. Before they are even caught. Then when showing the nomai receive it the last slide they showed was the distance of the signal being about double the distance of all the systems. But those are reels and you cant really judge time based on them. But they couldve done a lot of things to depict the passage of an immense amount of time. But they really didnt do much to depict that. So I dont think it was millions of years between those two events because they couldve probably depicted that if they wanted to.
@@TheLoreExplorer Note that the time it took for the signal to reach the Nomai vessel was enough time for the ice planet to become Dark Bramble, though gauging by how quickly it spreads on Timber Hearth, that may not have been a terribly long time.
I wouldnt say they killed themselves. I guess most technically they did. But they died a long time ago. So long ago that they barely remember home. In their eyes they werent dying. They were being released from the hell youd go to when you die.
The Prisoner is the real MVP of Outer Wilds. Without him, nobody would have ever found the Eye and the universe would have just died without a new one forming.
Is it canon that the new universe doesn’t form if a conscious observer doesn’t enter? I just assumed the new universe would be created regardless and the player just influences it by entering the eye.
@@LikeALocofirefly I'd assume so, since the new universe doesn't begin unless you jump in the smoke bubble at the end.
@@LikeALocofireflythere might of been one but none of these species would be apart of it
@@lasthopelost9090 that’s what I thought but idk I guess that question isn’t really answered in the game
@@LikeALocofirefly It kinda was there's an imagine at the end of the game with the races but if you didn't encounter Solanum the nomai race isn't there
I remember the first time I saw the prisoner’s second torch vision, where you sail off into the sunset together, and was so confused by it. I didn’t quite understand what it was trying to say, until I said “Well let’s leave.” And then I remembered that I was dead, and the vision clicked for me. I like to think the Prisoner knew that to access the cell, you had to enter the simulation while dead, or maybe gleaned that knowledge during our vision shared to them. To me the second vision always served as an invitation, from one explorer to another, to extinguish our lamp and join the Prisoner in whatever lay beyond that last unexplored frontier.
bro... you hit the nail on the head
you don't need to be dead if you know all the passwords
But all the codes were destroyed, and you can only figure out the invisible bridge's code. Is it possible to brute force the other two codes?
@@Londrino but from the point of view of the prisoner, you entered his prison by using the codes. he does not know you died necesarily
I have a very similar view of it. In my interpretation it’s more of a “if things had been different, if we had meet at a different time, we would have journeyed to find the mysteries of the universe together” I don’t think they necessarily know you are dead, which makes it more bittersweet in a way. Because you know you both are going on an adventure together- to whatever comes after your existence ends (if the ash twin project wasn’t a thing)
I love the juxtaposition between the Elks and the Nomai. The Nomai traveled and risked everthing to reach the eye. They're a naturally curious species dedicated to learning about everything the universe has to offer, but it's like the universe itself was against them. Constantly being beaten down, like the warp into dark bramble, but they perservered until the final blow was dealt: the interloper.
The Elks were fascinated by the eye as well, but as soon as they learned the truth, the hid from it. They tried to lock it away and run forever, but the Prisoner didn't want that. Being an explorer at heart like the Nomai, they set the eye free, if only for that brief moment.
I think the gameplay reflects both species perfectly. The base game requires the player to think through their problems. The solution is rarely given to the player directly, and only a natural sense of curiosity and exploration, combined with clever thinking, can get the job done. Contrast that with EotE. Most solutions are told to the player almost directly, with the slide reels in the forbidden archives. The difficulty in EotE doesn't come from innovative puzzles, but instead from fear. There isn't a clever workaround for any one problem. Instead, you have to do what the Elks couldn't and face your fears head-on. It's the kind of storytelling through gameplay that I think makes this game beautiful
this is awesome
Now I feel bad for "cheating" all the scary parts (I searched how to avoid the encounters)
I love how the game makes you feel scared by something unknown so you can also associate yourself with the Elks people there and feel what they were afraid of.
I actually did find some clever workarounds and just avoided my fear. For instance, the first two areas I was able to access after everyone there died, by rafting from the third location. Similarly I got to the vault in the third area (accessible from hidden gorge) by deactivating the lights, then going to a different access point and running there from the raft.
@@theblackwidower I did the same)
I like that when he gets his lantern and reaches out, it first looks like that he thinks you're one of his species, looking pretty mad and angry, but as soon as he sees you, he pulls his hand back, and he kind of looks confused, realizing its not one of his own, but instead, a good boi
It’s quite tragic, they look aggressive, with their mouth hanging open and reaching out aggressively and then they stop and blink a few times as if realizing that they had almost devolved into the aggressive fearful monster like the rest of their species has turned into.
Good boi? Am... am I good boi? :O
@@DarukaEon Sure. Just don’t be weird about it.
The way I interpreted it was perhaps a yawn + reaching out to see if you were actually real, & upon seeing you pull back in fear he took his hand back to ease you
@@DarukaEon yes boy.
I like how the Owlk version of the Eye symbol is subtly more organic and branch-like than the more rigid geometric symbol Nomai use.
That may be because the Nomai determined how the Eye looked like using the quantum moon without actually seeing the eye
@@UrosFred isn't that just the signal the nomai received?
they said that "the signal looked like an eye"
For my money, the Prisoner was the one who first found the Eye of the Universe through the telescope, and was also responsible for convincing the entire species to pursue it. He's the only one we ever see associated with a telescope, and his poncho matches up. I imagine his horn was cut off as punishment for misleading the civilization. Furthermore, his curiosity of the Eye would have never ended, which explains why their virtual home still had a shrine to the Eye in it , and why they'd try to free it's signal.
This also explains why the other Strangers punished the Prisoner so harshly; in their eyes, his is an absolute villain. He not only brings about the destruction of their home planet, but he also attempts to bring about the end of all civilization, including their permanent virtual purgatory, by releasing the Eye's signal. Thus, they burn down his virtual home, lock him away to spend an infinite amount of time alone, and eventually even destroy the written unlock codes to his cell.
First thing I thought during the ending is that its so funny how we show the prisoners entire species corpses rotting, like I know they had a falling out but still a bit morbid to portray that.
It’s a visual representation of the time that has passed since the Stranger’s had gone into the simulation moreso than “your bros are dead lol.”
@@Kranzio- i agree, he shows that they've reduced to nothing but husks, and that the ring world has basically died off due to there being no caretakers anymore
On the slide reel that depicts the Owlk having a vision seeing another Owlk wither and die, it also depicts a skull slowly being overgrown. The Owlk doesn't see the end of the vision.
The end can be seen in the prisoners home. A painting of the overgrown skull sprouting a flower which shoots out new galaxies.
Because of this I think the prisoner know the real intend of the eye
This was made before the update. Yes. The prisoner must know. But something I noticed on the reel with the Owlks vision. The one they dont finish and recoil from. If you stop it a frame or two before it fades out. The stuff thats growing around the skull seems to start to wither. Or maybe I was just seeing things. But it may not be a direct continuation. It may be something like "If you watch the vision all the way through you see the flower. If you stop early, life doesnt make it. " But I guess I couldve been seeing things.
Another thing that helps with the theory that is his house burned down in the simulation, is the fact it has one untouched painting. One of the reels showed that when the owlks discover de intention of the eye, one of their skulls was on the ground and slowly cover in moss and grass, that's when they became mad. The painting has this vision, the skull cover in new life, a flower and new galaxies coming from it. It is beautiful.
I was hoping someone else noticed this too
My personal belief is that the Young Owlk we see in the first Slide reel is the Prisoner. The child has the same colour poncho as the Prisoner and we only see one of the child's antlers. Also we know that the prisoner can remember their home as they are one of the Owlks that physically mourn, We see them place their head in their hands and cry.
They were there when the eye was discovered and a child so the hope of their people as they travelled to the eye most likely affected their spirit and personality. If the Prisoner was also the child that might explain the telescope even further as the discovery of the eye would’ve been a huge event in their life and they would have been one of the first of their race to see the eye as they were present at its discovery.
I also believe that part of the reason the prisoner freed the eye was due to a level of dissatisfaction with the simulation, all of the other Owlks seem perfectly comfortable to say within the simulation and to live in the lie they have created while the prisoner was not. Perhaps the prisoner's memories of their home are in some way tinted to remember the homeworld in a way that is differnet to the other Owlks, and that same feeling led to their suicide at the end of the DLC.
I also feel that if my theory is the case then the prisoner's story may in some way be similar to Solanum's . They already have a connection through being the two optional members of the Quantum orchestra; it would also make sense that their stories might be similar. With them both seeing the eye as a child and coming to different conclusions about the eye to their people.
For example the Nomai believed that the eye had called out to them and chosen them. As a child Solanum believed that the eye ahd tricked them, but by the time we meet her on the Quantum moon she tells us that she believes that the eye did not select her people but instead they simply found the signal, that the eye was calling out but not to the Nomai specifically. This idea is very different from Nomai as a whole.
This Could Mirror the Prisoner/Child's outlook who as a child may have felt some level of awe and wonder about the eye and then as their people moved to hate it and came to believe the eye had tricked them, the prisoner came to believe that the change that the eye heralded was not necessarily bad.
Great video as Usual though, I always love seeing any videos from you!
I hadnt even noticed one of the owlks were smaller than the rest. I did imagine the prisoner was there for that though. The reels seem to depict abstract truths. I just took that as being they called their whole species over to see. And yes. I talk about how the prisoner would not enjoy the simulation compared to reality. But I dont think they committed suicide because they missed home. We have to keep in mind the owlks seem perfectly capable of blowing on artifacts to extinguish them. If they simply missed home they could have done so sooner. No need to wait 280k + years. Im almost positive they deloaded themselves because they had nothing left to persevere and live for after learning the eyes signal was found. I have also drawn some internal parallels between the prisoner and solanum. But I can never tell if its because they are the only two aliens we meet so I imagine similarities. Or because they are actually alike. Its super hard to say with visual story telling.
I was also wondering if the Prisoner was the short Owlk in that first reel, though I can't tell if that one has both antlers or not. It seemed to me that, at the time of the signal release, the prisoner was shorter than the Owlk who "captures" them, and I can't tell if they look younger than the others as the vault is closed, or if that's just a result of their expression.
I believe, as you suggested, that the Prisoner snuffed their flame at the end, and not in the intervening 280k+ years in the simulated prison, because they were holding out hope that their sacrifice had not been in vain - that their choice would eventually be validated. Once vindicated, there was no other reason for them to persist. They could not return to the real world, and the simulation was not for them. It's worth noting that the hatchling's vision omitted the part where the universe was dying out around them anyway - which I feel would have provided the Prisoner even deeper vindication.
@@ReverendTed I'd assume the prisoner might know about the supernova(s) because the Owlk ship Stranger does. Funnily enough, Hatchling might not even pay attention to other stars dying - Chert and Vessel chatter mentions these.
I love the implication that their lifespans are longer than the time needed to travel between star systems
@@nevinmyers1245 Well, based on the lack of agriculture on nomai ships and the lack of it on the stranger we can assume that stored food was used for journeys.
We also know that one of the Original Nomai that landed in the system invented the warp cores, this means that warp travel for the nomai is a very recent discovery when we see them also it can be assumed that the strangers that we see had a lot of regret and missed their homes more so than someone who had simply heard of it.
Finally we know that space in the outer wilds universe is much smaller and timescales are much shorter, we can see evolution works much quicker on the hearthians (Huge variation in sizes of adults, Riebeck's fingers. the length of time between hearthians being fish and them being what we see them in the game) So it's not a huge leap to imagine that intersystem travel takes much less time for them then for us
The prisoner's yelp of glee is so cool to me, because the sound of these things roaring freaked me out big time throughout the whole game. But now, seeing it come from a friend, it's suddenly so cute haha.
Glee is an interesting way to put it. Id say a ton of emotions go into that scream. not just happiness. I wouldnt call it glee tbh
It’s interesting that that’s how you interpreted it-I always saw it as anguish
Fair enough, it is open to interpretation but I find it looks sort of happy. Well whether it's glee or vindication or sorrow or anguish or whatever exactly he's doing there, I still think it's the cutest fucking thing I've ever seen. I just watched it again (13:37) and it's cracking me up.@@luleoli
My version is that the first elk who found the eye and the prisoner are the same. I know that TP only has one antler, but that might have been caused by a accident. The reason why he was so dissatisfied by the others was that he originally found it. During the trip to our system, a green glow covers the Stranger in what I think is lightened travel. And on the way there, an accident happened leaving TP with one antler. When he learned of the eyes true purpose of restarting life, he either refused to believe it, or didn't care. So he made a plan to deactivate the jammer, he almost executed it perfectly and the signal was released, but someone saw him leave the simulation and followed him. He was captured and locked away, doomed to eternal life on the Sim. The only thought that kept him from blowing out the lantern knowing his body is dead is that he wondered if it was worth it. Which in this case, it was.
I think the prisoner not knowing is out of the question, considering their dialog at the ancient glade.
One of the big themes here seems to be sacrifice.
I assumed the prisoner WAS the one who discovered the eye.
The the antler seems like parallel imagery with the trees they chopped down on their home world. It feels implied to me the prisoner's antler was also a "sacrifice" made in reaching the eye. Makes me wonder if there are any super-sneaky clues as to how it happened. But if we assume the elk who "discovered" the eye is the prisoner it is after the voyage that he/she is always shown with a broken antler.
It makes sense that the one who sacrificed the most to reach the Eye would also be unwilling to abort their mission at the last moment.
I also think the Prisoner is the Owlk who discovered the Eye.
My guess is that through their telescope they understood the Eye, but the others just listened to his biased explanation and didn't double-check with the telescope.
And when they arrived at the Outer Wilds system, the other Owlks understood the Eye's signal and their vision was probably what the Prisoner saw back in their home world.
But because the Prisoner's explanations back then were tinted in hope and excitation, they thought of it and thought of it as something positive and marvellous, imagining something radically different and misunderstanding the message they saw when the Signal reached the Stranger. It's even possible that they (off-camera) broke the Prisoner's antler to recognize them anytime, even in the low light they often live in. Possibly as a half-punishment for "being duped" by the Eye and leading their species to its demise.
Then, when the Owlks blocked the Eye and went to the Simulation, the Prisoner got out and deactivated the dampener because they knew they couldn't convince their shipmates any more, leading to the others giving a more severe punishment, now that the Prisoner acted "against" their common good knowingly.
I believe the green you see in the travel reel is the ship turning around, & the green sails facing towards you for that moment
I just noticed at 0:20 the prisoner reaches out like he though it was another one of the Owlks visiting him. but stops when he realizes its not.
Interesting. maybe the other owlks visited him from time to time?
@@enzolisp8091 Probably to make sure he hadn't escaped.
one of my opinions after all of these events is; we get to know 3 different species in total. when the nomai clan discover the eye, they immediatly tell each other about it and start the effort to learn more about it. the elks do the same, one of them discover and immediatly tells the others. but this is not the case with our hearthian player character. as i was playing the base game, i would occasionally go into town and talk to town's people after learning new significant things about the solar system or the eye. but our player almost never really shares anything very significant with anyone, especially about the eye or the stranger. why does he keep these information to himself? what is his motive?
Ahhh. A simple and innocent explanation really. In our time in game we can tell a few people about the weird things happening to us. We can tell our best friend Hal that the statue opened it eyes and started glowing. We can tell Slate a few of the ways we die. And we can tell gabbro of course. In the first two instances they threaten to medically ground us from flying. Or dismiss it as more or less common chat. Us. “The autopilot flew me into the sun”. Slate. “Ya dummy. It doesn’t do that on purpose. Just make sure it’s not in between you and your target. “. And when gabbro tells hornfells. Hornfell tells them they dreamt it. So even if we tell people they basically think we are insane. And most importantly. Even if we did tell them it’d be useless anyway since well…they’d forget in about 22 minutes anyway.
Something that never occurred to me before... After turning off the signal blocker, was the Prisoner planning to use one of the flying saucer ships and travel to the Eye *himself*? That could explain why the other Owlks freaked out and decided to seal him in the digital world, where he could never threaten to destroy the universe again.
That is probably what they planned. But it doesnt matter. They would have locked them up anyway. Just releasing the signal is making it possible for the vision to come to pass by someone else finding it. So they absolutely have to prevent it from happening again
when we told the prisoner about their current state and the state of their people..... chills. large scale passages of time always get to me
While watching this, I came up with an interesting theory - one that, if I'm right, makes the Owlks actions even more desperate seeming.
If that house does actually belong to the Prisoner, it raises a fairly obvious question: why did only the Prisoner have a house to himself? All the other Owlks lived in these communal homes, but the Prisoner is the only one to have his own home.
To me, this tells me that the Prisoner was someone important. That also explains why they kept the Prisoner alive in his confinement, with some relatively nice things.
This is where the theory comes in: maybe, the Prisoner was actually the leader of the Owlks. They were the wisest, and most experienced of them. It would explain why they treated them with so much respect even after imprisoning them, rather than simply exiling them, or locking them up in the real world, or - god forbid - killing them.
That is why only they realized that, even though what the Eye showed them was horrible, they shouldn't try to silence it. Somewhere else, I made the suggestion that maybe, rather than trying to allow the universe to end, the Prisoner was simply letting others know the Eye existed, so new explorers might find answer that the Owlks did not.
Either way, it shows how desperate the other Owlks were. They were so far gone by that point, not even their own leader could convince them to let the Eye broadcast, so they locked him away.
That's my theory. What do you think?
Is it possible that the prisoner owlk was the one who initially discovered the eye? I'd need to do my own digging to either confirm/debunk this theory, but I'm at work right now
Oooh! I quite like this! I’m actually writing a fanfic about the events of EOE from the prisoner’s perspective right now and this would be perfect, may I steal this idea?
@@noizepusher7594 Sure! I love inspiring others!
that's a very interesting theory that might well be true. my headcanon for having their own separate house is that, like he says in the video, they were simply the odd one out and didn't really fit in with the rest
The house was in the simulation. It didn’t actually exist.
When I found that reel showing an old person dying but still getting into the simulation made me really happy
I like your interpretation of why the Prisoner decided to extinguish their flame as it makes a lot of sense with the satisfaction that others made it to explore for the Eye. My interpretations was always that the Prisoner wanted to finally be free of the lie that is the simulation, to finally end what was effectively a hell for them. Like seriously, his whole treatment was basically solitary confinement where he’s forced to be alone in a cramp room with no way out and especially no way to leave the simulation. It was a very cruel fate for the Prisoner that we freed him of.
That being said, I also believe he wasn’t the only one among his kind who had sympathies for the Eye especially given the existence of reels to show the archiving and burning of reels along with how these reels tend to be found near the eye symbols in the DLC. It’s just that the Prisoner was the only one to act against the others. This all just speculation given environmental story telling but that seems to be the theme of this entire DLC.
If he just wanted to escape the simulation... surely he can blow out his own flame? I don't see why not.
"...but if we dig deeper, I think we can come to reasonable enough conclusion..." I love you man.
Great analysis, but a video update is almost needed to make mention of the painting that can be found in the burned down house. Seeing that painting gives further insight into what the Prisoner foresaw or fantasised about when he looked upon or analysed the Eye for himself.
That moment in the vision where they change the theme from guitar to banjo is the moment I start crying, such a well thought story telling through music.
Also the small detail that they do not end the loop or the game when you see the last Prisoner's vision, you have to make that decision, you have to take that step forward.
When I first saw the telescope in the dream world, I was confused by it. When I saw that the only other place that had one was inside the tomb/prison I realized it was meant to help reference, nod to the idea that the Prisoner was like Galileo
"And who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will?"
"See now the power of truth; the same experiment which at first glance seemed to show one thing, when more carefully examined, assures us of the contrary"
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."
All Galileo quotes, all very applicable to the Prisoner, and Outer Wilds as a whole really
Thats a pretty apt comparison I never considered! Thank you for commenting!
its so crazy watching these old videos of the DLC and then playing the live patch, so much has changed. like the prisoners house for example. its impossible NOT to think its his house in live patch bc its pretty much heavily hinted at the player but watching this old gameplay theres really not that much in the house at all to tie it to him.
There's something you missed in the burned building which also hints towards the Prisoner's motivations. If you look around in there you can open a panel which reveals the missing frame of the animation of the Strangers analyzing the Eye; they were so afraid of it they tried to bury it, but it seems the Prisoner kept it around.
And even if they stayed alive, two-thirds of their compatriots were going to be dead (again) very soon anyway.
Actually thats a good point. Maybe they would have been pretty safe in the sim because most of them deload and the only owlks left are in the hotel.
I don't think they cared. If not they wouldn't have built a flame under a potential flooded area. They probably thought: "it will be thousands of years before the dam breaks, by then will we even be sane?"
I think the telescope in the prisoners coffin is meant to be mean. At the prisoners house his telescope is pointed out at the stars, we don’t really know any of the stars in the game but I’m guessing it’s pointed at where the eye would have been back on their moon, just based off the eye symbol in his house and his paintings. The owlks don’t really interact with each other much at all so they probably didn’t realize he was obsessed/sympathetic towards it till they caught him unblocking the signal. So when they built his prison they gave him a telescope, but set up the windows so the only thing he could ever look at through it was the planet so he could remember what was “really important”
Youre correct that its meant to be mean. Not only "this is whats important". After so long in the prison the prisoner would forget they were in prison. They would just think thats reality. But the planet and telescope serve as a reminder that this isnt reality. And that they are in fact being punished!
The eye would have been something the prisoner would have kept very sneakily too. Like they would have known that if the other owlks knew about their feelings towards the eye they would have been imprisoned earlier.
The idea that the burned building in the simulation is the prisoners home makes so much sense and is so tragic! I love that theory so much! On another note, I found something interesting that you might be interested in; I couldn’t find any of the owlks instruments outside of the simulation. Seriously, not one! I’d love to hear your thoughts on why that is. Thank you for making these videos!
I feel like we're missing something important: do you think the Prisoner's plan was to get caught after releasing the signal? Or was it to just go back to the simulation and continue "life" as usual? I think the more likely scenario is that they planned to hop on one of those ships we see in the docking bay and go to the Eye themselves. I might not have just been faithful sacrifice, they might have been driven by curiosity, maybe even greed to some extent (though I'm not sure what _they_ could hope to gain from it, _we_ know that the one who enters the Eye gets to shape the next universe based on their experiences, and that might be seen as a reward by some).
Its hard to say. I have a hard time coming up with motives for thing they did do. Almost impossible to imagine motives for things they didnt do or may have not even planned. I think youre right. I think they probably planned to hop in one of the ships and go try to find it. But honestly I think itd still be for the same reasons. That plan just failed. Then, after they failed, their reality changed and they persevered to see if their actions were meaningful in any way.
I think only the nomai discovered the malleability of the eye of the universe, in various logs we see they make that discover with the quantum moon and quantum objects, deducing that the moon is the satellite of the eye thus the eye itself is quantum, however there isn't a single quantum object in the whole DLC neither there is a signal they noticed the quantum moon
@@juanandresrueda4957 You do have to take into account that you never get access to, like, 99% of their documentation. They may very well have research on the Quantum Moon and the Eye in the archives somewhere, it's just not that relevant. It's definitely reasonable to assume they at least know the basics about the Eye (that it's older than the universe, etc.), considering they got close enough to it to _scan_ it, and they definitely have the motives to hide some of the more... enticing aspects of its nature in case anyone gets too curious. Either way, I don't see how that relates to my previous comment.
I seem to recall also coming across a painting/picture of some kind (that I THINK was in the Prisoner's home inside the simulation) that showed an Owlk skull with a flower blooming out of it. In other words, it's possible that the Prisoner came to the conclusion that while the Eye would bring destruction, new life would bloom from it. That also explains his quote in the Ancient Glade; "Whatever happens next, I do not think it is to be feared."
I think your theory on the house of the prisoner is correct, because there's a picture in that house that shows a lot of galaxies coming out from the owlk skull, basically showing that even though his species would die it would bring more life to the universe, that along with everything you said in that section, I think you were pretty much on the money
Excellent video, just wanted to point out that we shouldn't necessarily assume *all* the owlks know how to bypass the security measures, so they could still be intended for other owlks.
Also I feel sort of bad, but I can't help laughing at the idea that the stranger didn't intentionally extinguish his lantern, he just accidentally slipped.
I think what the prisoner is trying to say in the last vision is this. If we take the symbolism of the telescope being one of exploration then the prisoner inviting you onto it with them is them inviting you to follow them in whatever adventure comes after this one. Which would require both of you to go into the water to deload yourself from the simulation, that of course killing you.
Dude your channel gives me such satisfying explanations for questions I still had
That makes me happy to hear bud
@@TheLoreExplorer love your content man, keep up the amazing work!
Thanks so much for the kind words! If you have any more questions about the game that youre still confused about be sure to share them! I could use ideas for videos! Coming up with them weekly is sort of hard.
Prisoner first scene be like: “you dare disturb my- oh damn, didnt know you were chill like that bro”
I also like to think they were sailing into the sunrise. The start of a new day, sailing into the unknown.
I've never cried after beating a game, this was close. I honestly wish u could replay the whole game and reignite that spark for adventure this game put in me. Hopefully it isn't over just yet.........
I don't know if it was added in a later update, but in the prisoner's house there's a painting showing a flower shaped pretty similarly to the Eye, blooming from an Owlk skull and creating galaxies around it
yeah. It was added in a recent update. Wish I had waited to make the video. But I think it mostly holds up! Just now with more meaning!
@@TheLoreExplorer thanks for answering in an old video, I've just discovered this game, finished it and discovered your channel in less than a week, I'm totally addicted to the game and your content
Youre welcome friend! I try to answer all questions so if you have any others feel free to ask!
I just thought of a new question about the DLC: because of the dying sun, the Stranger automatically leaves the Solar system. But when you remove the warp core and enter the simulation, the ending implies that a *very* long time has passed and that they don't bother hunting you anymore, etc. So how does the Stranger power itself if the sun is gone (and that every other star is dying as well)?
They would probably use the rotation of the ring to generate energy, until It stops
They probably have very good batteries.
The ship cold have gone in search of a different sun, and hop between suns as they explode.
I suppose the Stranger could hop from sun to sun in theory, but by the end of the time loop, all stars are already dead if I'm not wrong, so I don't think it's the right answer. The powerful batteries and/or using the ring rotation seem like reasonable answers and nothing can contradict them I suppose, but I don't find them very satisfactory. The ending states "Time passes, and passes, until your life before is some half-remembered dream. If only you could wake up." as if it was lasting forever (since the universe has no end). I guess we can't really know haha, but thanks for your suggestions anyway! :)
@BNWdotcom The energy the dam would generate would necessarily come from the rotation of the ring, which is what's causing the difference in water levels in the first place. Therefore, the energy for keeping the ring rotating must come from somewhere else, most probably the sun.
Good video! I like your theories and they make sense. I think that when the prisoner released the eyes signal, he wanted someone to find the signal before it was shut off again because he probably knew that at some point the other owlks would wake up and turn the signal off. Also after a few times of going to the burnt house in the simulation, I figured it was the prisoners house because of that little eye symbol, and the telescope.
Everyone probably knows and guessed this already, but that’s what I think. Keep on making good videos!
i like to think that the prisoner, despite knowing he and everyone he loved and knew would die one day, that the owlks couldnt stop the inevitable just because they didnt like what they saw. he understood the importance of endings.
The Prisoner being an explorer would also explain why their antler is broken. They probably broke it at some point either on their home moon or while on the Stranger, exploring. Maybe after falling or something as a child.
Dont mind me im gonna go cry now
i finished the dlc time to binge your eoe content
Although everything you said about the reason why the prisonner ended it as soon as he got out, I always thought it was because he couldn't do it into his cell... I'm not sure there is a way of extinguishing the flame without water, our character certainly can't. Maybe this is even why there is water erverywhere around? He knows he can't exit the simulation because his body is dead, that there is nothing for him next, and so at the first opportunity, knowing that his mission is done, he "frees" himself. Does that make sense?
BTW, fantastic video as usual, thanks The Lore Explorer!
Well, the owlks do simply blow out our artifact when they catch us. So we at least know they can be blown out by owlks. If it works on others I dont see why it wouldnt work on your own.
@@TheLoreExplorer Well, I guess you are 100% right XD completely forgot about that detail... I guess this is why you are the lore explorer! But then why did he had to go to the river to extinguish his flame?
I dont think they did have to. I think the devs did that so they could depict it. No real way to depict them blowing it out if we werent there. And I dont think they wanted that happening in front of the player
@@TheLoreExplorer did you see what happens if conceal the flame or put the artifact down they'll just break your neck it's bruatal
Spoilers :
I'm a bit late, but in 12:35, how can we wake up after opening the safe?
Don't you have to die to remove one of the three seals?
Not technically. They all do have codes. We just cant fid the codes.
But if you put in the right ones anyway it opens. People found them by searching through the games code.
@@TheLoreExplorer Ho ok!
Seems logic now
Thank you :)
My interpretation of the prisoner’s final vision is this: while yes we don’t specifically show anything regarding the ash twin project or the supernova, I imagine the prisoner assumed the worst that too much time has passed and that you the player are either dead or about to die, and as such they leave that vision to say “We’re explorers, and we’ve got the prime opportunity to greet a new frontier, so let’s walk into the light and greet a new day… and thank you.. friend.”
I see The Prisoner as an Owlk version of us (the player) and an adventurer at heart. Perhaps this is also why they seemed so sad at being locked in the bell. They never meant any harm, they were just curious.
Oooph. This video brought a tear to my eye again. What an amazing game, let alone the lore.
Day 10 of reminding Lore that his videos make my day
dude, cmom
Thanks for the interaction with the video Ink. Thats something youtube looks for so it does help. Also its very nice to know people enjoy my content so thanks for sharing. Ignore theus.
@@TheLoreExplorer i love your videos, they make the Game even beter
So if you aver feel down remember that that your videos make my Life 3x better
For those wandering why the Prisoner just 'commit' suicide, firstly if they were alive, at best case the physical Sarcophagus would works similair to 'read-only' Bootable USB stick, each time formating Sarcophagus matching into spartan Cell interior, or in worst case risking this gets restored to original interor design, which might have been mentioned by their Jailers,
Geographical features are reflected between physical world and the Simulation, with matching simulation 'access points' , also its having a transtioning loop inbetween areas themselves themselves, and i half suspect that each firepit (& Lantern) is its own independant Simulation devices, whilest the Tower / Vault works as Network ports
Secondly, whilest i dont know exactly how big their avarage lifespan is, the vibe that i getting that this is counted in triple digits at least,
even longer if artifically being sustained by external/invisible/unreachable lifesupport systems
With the intended effect of isolating the Prisoner, with a presumable constant static picture of their homes Night sky, which i believe was unaccessible by the themselves, used as initial/sporadic/final vist of their Jailers, the Prisoner sense of time can be greatly distorted, trying inital chance of instant death on risk of losing the remaining living space
This game is amazing. Soon I will make a video about it too
Interesting thing about the burned house in the dreamworld being the Prisoner's house. In one hidden slide real (the one that shows the Starlit Cove's secret entrance), the Owlk with the tablet starts right next to the telescope in the burned down building, and then gives the tablet to another Owlk and shuts down the lights. What significance does this have if that is the prisoner's house? Is there a significance to that telescope for the Owlk to be there, seemingly contemplating something? Maybe showing regret?
And second question: If the Prisoner already has his telescope in his house when he was "arrested", why didn't the Owlks just take his own telescope down the Vault, instead of creating a completely new one? What would the Owlks do with the previous telescope? Maybe they still wanted to use it, even if the house was burned down?
You have to remember that this is a simulated reality. The only thing the telescopes would be useful for is being a memento. There arent stars and planets to look at(aside from the ringed one). So theyd have no need to use it or even destroy it.
I think this is also why a new one was created. The jailers wanted to take this away from the prisoner so they wouldnt have any comforting items. But a few owlks felt bad and so they made them a new simulated one. And a new simulated ringed planet.
People tend to forget we are underground in the prisoners tower. So being able to see the ringed planet out of the window means some one added it for them. They likely added the telescope as well.
@@TheLoreExplorer I agree one of the elks was patting the prisoner on the back maybe it was that one they seem kind and caring like when one of them was crying it embraced the other
The Lore Explorer missed the crucial painting in the "prisioners house" in the dream world
It was added in an update after this video. I touch on it in later videos ::D
I think the prisoner, after some time to ponder and reflect, saw what the eye was really trying to say. That while their time would come to an end, there would be new life that would spring up, life that through the thoughts and feelings and energy they devoted to discovery and bravery and science, would be nurtured into the new generation of explorers and scientists. He understood that what they saw was not only the eventual end, but a new beginning.
It seems like they all understood that to me. It took me a while to realize. (And honestly an interview with the devs.) I’m not sure I’d have realized on my own. But they knew about the heat death. And They depicted that their interaction would rebirth life after some great cataclysmic heat death event. So it seems they knew how it’d work. But as a species they chose to focus on the heat death. While as an individual ,
the prisoner understood the significance and true meaning of the rebirth . But those are just my thoughts on it. Thank you for sharing yours!
Did anyone else find a rather beautiful painting of the reborn universe (greenery and flowers growing out of an owlk skull with galaxies in the background, like little lights) in the prisoner’s burnt out home? It’s unusual since the vision was seen by the elder and not the prisoner according to the reels. Is it possible the prisoner somehow managed to get the vision / imagined it and realised the end is not to be feared as it is really rebirth of another world?
Yeah. The mural was added in a recent update. My interpretation is that the prisoner snuck back in and watched the vision by themselves. I dont see how else they couldve gotten it or known otherwise.
I would like to add that I think it likely that the prisoner extinguished their lamp when they did because they simply weren't able to before - I have seen nothing in the simulation vault that they could use for that. And in the real world vault, they had no way of leaving; whether they just fall asleep or die, with the fire and artifact with them they would be ushered into the simulation either way.
I always thought the telescope in the vault was used to send the vision with his staff to the surface when you open it slightly with chains still on.
As I already said somewhere else, this is the problem with visual storytelling - you can tell WHAT has happened, but can only guess at WHY has it happened.
Agreed. What I find odd is they almost wrote in a way around that. And then didnt use it. It wouldnt make lore sense if we could translate the owlk text with our translator. But it would make sense, if the owlk staffs read our mind with light, the staffs would be able to know our language and likely translate the text for us instantly. I think that could have been excellent in an info/knowledge based game. For the first half you wouldnt be able to read any of the text and that would lock you out of end game stuff. But once you realize the staffs can translate the text it would open things up.
@@TheLoreExplorer I think it's also what gives visual storytelling its charm. Because they don't tell us all the "why's", we as the players are allowed to interpret our own meanings to these messages. We don't need to translate the Owlk's language or anything like that. Our own imaginations can fill in the blanks. And being able to share what we've interpreted just adds to that charm.
How do you manage to make snapshots from the 3rd person perspective? Or are they some pictures from the fan community / mobius concept of arts library?
Mods
In the vision it was shown that if elks will touch the eye everything will die including the person who touched it. There is one frame that shows a skull of the toucher overgrown with grass.
In the prisoner's house there is a painting of the same frame but with a flower growing from the skull and small galaxies seemingly flying from the flower.
So it's obvious that prisoner thought that vision is only partial. Elk have seen that everything will die if somebody touches the eye, prisoner thought that everything will die and be reborn.
The question is, does touching the eye really destroys everything and remekes it? If so, then it's only ethical to touch it when all the galaxies are dying. So, like, exectly what happened in the game.
That's massive luck that elks found the eye and restricted the signal, that prisoner let the signal out just a bit, that nomai missed the warp, that their ash twin project failed, that they found just enough info and that they left enough resource and set up time loop system just for main character to swoop in and do the thing in the best possible moment.
Also, it's very lucky that eye remakes the universe based on the one thing that persists through the time loop - memories.
I wonder if the Prisoner was the one who initially discovered the Eye.
Or, if the one who discovered it acted as a mentor figure to the prisoner.
Some one just pointed out to me. In the reel where they discovered the eye. The furthest owlk to the right is shorter when compared to the rest. They are the only one depicted this way. So maybe that was the prisoner. Sadly they stand sideways and we cant see if they have 1 or 2 antlers.
@@TheLoreExplorer Neat! Love the details in this game. ♥️
Is it possible to unlock the vault without killing yourself ? How do you get past the 2 alarm guards otherwise..
Yes. I have a video showing you how. Or you can find the datamined codes for the seels on reddit. Put the seels in and you dont have to die to get past the third one.
Hey think you could make a video on how Dark Bramble works? Like how do the like Dark Bramble portal things expand to be bigger on the inside like Feldspar says? Or maybe what Dark Bramble was before the seed engulfed it?
Ive made that already. Dark bramble explained.
@@TheLoreExplorer Yeah I saw it but I still don't get it lol.
Dark bramble was a planet made of ice. All bramble seeds are dimensionally connected to another larger space.
@@db5094 Yeah but other than it was an ice planet we don't know anything else. Except the fact it's also the home of the jelly fish. Maybe there was some water in dark bramble to.
@@FranklinThe1 yeah? And? There's nothing else to know
side note: i noticed that there was only one elder owlk, and no youth. how long do these creatures live? also side note: we dont have confirmation that time passes the same in the dream state, one could assume based on personal experience that the owlks were in there for what felt like double the time.... or a fraction, who knows. in the end, i felt satisfied and at the same time i felt sorrow. kinda like that final howl
Literally nothing in the game indicates the signal was calling since the beginning of time. In fact it indicates it just started calling out. The owlks already had telescopes and whatnot. But they only heard it at a certain time. And they were the closest to it so theyd be the first to hear it. And anyway, thats not how it works. If they hadnt heard it already they wouldnt have heard it if the prisoner hadnt released a fresh wave. They heard the unblocked signal as clearly shown by the reel.
Sorry. youtube glitched and sent my reply to you instead of someone else.
How did you undo the last lock without killing yourself?? I've always wanted to see the inside of the prisoners "coffin" mainly just out of curiosity, but i just gave up because I thought there was no way
In the game files, there are actual codes to disable the three traps. They can't be found in game, but some people did some datamining and found them. The coffin opening up was actually added in a recent patch and didn't originally happen, since a casual player wouldn't have been able to see it
Someone datamined the codes for the locks to the vault from the ingame files so that people could unlock the vault without having to be dead in the real world. At first, unlocking the vault with the codes and then returning to the real world didn't open it in the real world. However, the developers have recently updated the game so that the real life vault opens and you can now see the Prisoner's corpse. But the codes aren't actually anywhere to be found through gameplay.
@@mrspiffy8587 well i figured it had to be a command line or something, if you disable the locks in the "dream" you can go the the real diving bell and find that they're also disabled in the real world. I was just wondering in case i missed something, maybe like the prisoner had the codes in his cell. I wonder if there are actual working codes for the other 2 besides the invisible bridge
@@jorgeaura2890 i just did a little reddit research, and apparently someone found the code, and when the devs patched the game, they added a nice little detail. If you unlock the vault through brute force, you can see the prisoner's corpse, lantern and all, but apparently if you go back in and free the prisoner, when you come back the lantern will be extinguished implying that the prisoner freed his/herself, metaphorically speaking.
12:34
How can you wake up? Aren't you supposed to die to reach the prisoner?
Thats the usual path. But the totems do actually have codes. You cant find them in game. But they still work if you put them in :D
12:30 huh? How did you do that in-game? I thought you had to be dead irl to get into the vault?
Though we never find the codes to the totoms defending the prisoner in game. They still exist and work! So we can find them by brute forcing every combo! Or , as I think with this community , going into the files to find the answer.
Sharp analysis, thank you!
I think in this world, the universe needs a conscious observer at the eye in order to "reset" properly (or at least maintain versions of prior consciousnesses), since it seems the memories of the observer influence what may exist in the new universe. The owlks blocking the signal is an attempt to prevent anyone from finding the eye and doing so. The owlks seemed very "at one with nature" until they found out that observing the eye would lead to their deaths, even though death is a very natural part of the universe. Feeling betrayed by what they worshipped and sacrificed for, they attempted to remove themselves from the natural cycle, but effectively deprived the universe of a proper "reset" in the process. Maybe a conscious observer is necessary for the the "reset" to occur at all, since you need to jump into the eye and exhaust the limitless possibilities at the end sequence.
The prisoner felt ashamed for this action and attempted to set things right by allowing the signal out and hoping someone would find it to continue the natural cycle. I think this is why the prisoner was hesitant in the end to be remembered, since remembering them might bring along the same dilemma in the next universe, knowing it may be possible for their kind (or version of) to succeed at keeping the eye hidden from an observer, and breaking the natural cycle.
Heres my only issue with this interpretation. Someone observing the eye doesnt lead to their deaths. The universe ending , and the eye needing an observer and being observed. Are two separate things. When we show up to the eye and observe it. The universe is ALREADY dead. Its not something the observation caused. So , unless they completely misinterpreted the vision , your interpretation makes little sense.
In my opinion. It has to be more along the lines of "We went out searching for salvation. And only learned of the natural destruction of things. Which we are scared of. Its probably better if we didnt know this. And lived life in relatively fear free way. Best do what we can to forget"
To accomplish this. The Owlks had to silence the eye and build the sim. Otherwise the eyes signal would be like a huge bell ringing. Reminding them the end is nigh. They were a solitary species. And acted in a solitary way. Not caring about the rest of the universe.
@@TheLoreExplorer thanks for responding! yeah I figure the universe would end regardless of the eye's observation, but since the scene 14 billion years later changes based on who you remember, it seems the observer has an impact on the new universe in some way. I only said that there might not be a new universe since Solarus says you need to enter the eye and exhaust the limitless possibilities. But perhaps a new universe would be born regardless, just not with similar consciousness (or consciousness at all)?
It's looks like their vision showed an owlk observing the eye and destruction following. I don't think it necessarily triggers the end, but time is kinda screwy around the eye since it represents extreme changability. So maybe it seems like little to no time has passed to observer, when in fact eons have gone by.
Since the owlk never actually observed the eye to realize time doesn't work the same there, they may have feared it would end the universe based on the vision they received.
I dunno, fun thoughts :)
Youre right about the majority of this. How the eye needs an observer. And how the observers memories change things. How time doesnt exist there. And how the owlks were more of a nature loving species. I just dont think thats why the Owlks did what they did. I think its a much more selfish of a reason. They learned what the eye would do. And with it. They learned the universe was coming to an end. All stars will die. All species will die. And this is something they never knew in their simple nature loving lives. Gazing up at their ringed planet and the stars beyond. And this was after thinking the eye was salvation.
And so they did everything they could to forget this truth. It was too much for them to bear. And they probably thought it would be too much for others as well. And they didnt want any other species to learn the horrific fate of everything. Also , to forget this truth they have to silence the eye. Not only so others wont learn the horrid truth. But so its not like a bell. Ringing every 5 seconds to remind them the end is nigh. And if they had wanted to in the past. They couldve lived in ignorant bliss. But instead they followed the eye. So best to let everyone else live in ignorant bliss.
Luckily , one of the owlks saw through to the truth of the universe. And realized that ignoring things dont make them go away. And only in great destruction. Can come a great rebirth. Only after many supernova were the materials created that humans formed of. And the prisoner knew they had no right to interfere in that truth of the universe. Im sure I havent thought everything all the way through and may be making some mistakes here and there. And you could just be right. But these are my thoughts on the matter
@@TheLoreExplorer I like your view though. I actually consider it a bit more noble than mine XD with yours, they're just trying to live out their days in ignorant bliss and do the same for others. Whereas my view has more of a " forget the rest of the universe and what our actions cause. We gonna live as long as we can". Kind of a middle finger to what they once worshipped and spent generations trying to reach. I think either view is reasonable on the motives given the information we have :) good video btw. I like your content.
Yeah. Thats one thing about mobius. They give us JUST enough information to understand. And to try to figure out the rest. We have to delve deep into the mindset of these creatures in a wacky universe. But youre right. Either interpretation is as valid as the others. And it took me many conversations to get to the one I have today!
Just one moment - it doesnt matter how brief or not the single was released, only that it was and it will travel in the Universe until somebody receive it (and it not decayed too much)
how do we know they are called owlk? Where is this in the game? I must've missed it
They are never officially named in game. "owlk" is the community name for them. Since they are half Owl half Elk. People also call them strangers and inhabitants.
@@TheLoreExplorer oh wow okay! thank you for the reply, big fan of your videos 🤍
SPOILERS: don't look if don't want spoilers
The prisoners painting is actually the ancient glade, a lategame area.
I love how the Owlks took one look at the absolute crapshow that is the Hearthian galaxy that instead of exploring it and maybe making a new home, they just make a simulation of their original planet. I probably would too, given how horrible the Hearthian galaxy is.
I don’t think this is the reason they do that. Imagine you get shown the universe is ending soon. All suns are going to explode. Would you be eager to put down roots again. Knowing that it’ll be ripped away any moment? Or would you stay in your mobile ship that already feels a bit like home?
I really hope the developers do a little more to establish what the motives for the Prisoner were, as I know with my playthru when I met them I was half expecting to be bashed on the head by their artifact. All these Owlks that I thought would be friendly were actually confusingly mean and upset, and in their culture they thought this one individual was worth the effort of isolating in so many ways. It came off to me that they were the scariest of the scary, like a final boss. Then they want to read our mind and… it kills itself? There is still so much we don’t know about the Owlks motives in general; what scares them and why? We know the eye scared them, and the prisoner, but then why also did they develop a cloaking device for their ship that only effectively works against objects in the inner solar system? Was there something pre-Noami in system that they were hiding from? Were the Owlks concerned that the Prisoner had an accomplice or followers? Could the Owlks be considered Xenophobic, and if so why?
I dont really understand this. No, there was nothing pre nomai to hide from. They just knew they were going to enter the sim and had to plan for the future. Leaving yourself inside a sim like that leaves you super vulnerable. And its pretty clear what the owlks were afraid of. The eyes vision showed a violent explosion occurring and killing them all. And if this explosion occurs now, it would still kill them. The signal itself is a huge threat. Because freeing the signal can lead to the vision becoming an actuality by someone finding it and entangling with it. And so they lock the prisoner away tightly so they wont be able to free the signal again to cause another chance for the signal to be found. And again, thats why they immediately deloaded us. They are not xenophobic. They are desperately scared us being there will allow us to learn something dangerous.
@@TheLoreExplorer But if you think about it, the Eye was in the outer solar system. Anyone from outside the solar system will see a big black spot, making it very obvious something is out there. That’s actually how we, in the modern era, look for information about other solar systems; we look at suns and check to see when their brightness goes down to indicate a planetoid is blocking part of the view. From a rather limited range we can see the sun actually be completely eclipsed. So the Owlks actually made themselves more obvious and visible to anyone in the outer system and beyond, as anyone looking towards that star will see it disappear or flicker at regular intervals. Meanwhile the only things that wouldn’t see the ship would be inside the solar system. So what were they scared of inside the system, such that they didn’t care about attracting outside attention? As for what they knew and didn’t know about the Eye, that’s a good conversation too. They clearly knew enough to be afraid, but did they ever land on the Eye? Did they have visions just in orbit? Seems kind of silly to travel such a far distance, destroy a home planet, and not go above and beyond to double check things. Makes one wonder if the Prisoner knew something else, and if they were the only ones to ask additional questions.
You're right that thats how we look for things. But imo wrong on the conclusion. To preface, even if it wasnt a cloak, the object would still block the sun like that. But really to see things like that two things have to happen. First, we need to be in plane with that system so we see the objects orbiting directly in front of their sun when they pass. And the object has to be orbiting the sun so we can see it pass the sun and block out light. The stranger isnt orbiting our sun. Its stationary. And its not in the orbital plane of the system either. So neither of those things can really happen. The Owlks have minimized all chances someone would accidentally stumble upon it from every direction except 1-3 degrees in space. And if someone did happen to be within that and see it from outside the system, they would have to be exactly lined up with our probe at the time it took the photo. No where else in space. Chances are that angle gets blocked far enough out. And if no one in the system blocking it is looking, no one will see it. The devs thought it out.
@@TheLoreExplorer Aha - didn’t realize it was stationary, off an orbit. It still seems strange to me that the cloaking device works perfectly on one side, and not another. Do we know if the cloaking device was activated only after the Noami show up? Like time wise wouldn’t most of the Owlks be awake, constructing the prison, when the Noami arrived? Or I suppose there could be a bit of a signal delay as for when the Noami detected the brief Eye symbol. Even with a delay, perhaps the Owlks intentionally wanted to hide themselves from whoever might answer the Prisoner’s brief message. Lots of great thought experiments - which is why I enjoy your channel!
The reel in which the owlks arrive in the system show it being cloaked by a shadow as soon as they get in front of the sun as well. So it’s been on since they parked. I think you’re just overestimating how likely it is for anyone to look there. It’s been in one spot for 280k+ years. For us or the nomai a flight anywhere near there would be pointless. And the chances another system is close enough, aligned perfectly, and just staring at a singular sun in which they can’t see the planets(because they are off plane) to actually see it is literally astronomically low. Like that’s what they made that phrase for lol.
Hey I have a theory that since the ship logs are made of the same materials as the statues found by gabbro which store information that the ship logs are able to retain the information gathered and send them back in time with the loop (and maybe even update the log based off of what you're experiencing but I'm not so sure about that one but I'd like to know your thoughts on this theory).
Edit - Just now I was looking at the ship log and there is Nomai text flowing into it from the bottom sometimes ( Edit within edit - I think that happens every time there is an update in the ship log now that I think about it). This is not unlike when the Nomai text flows through the screen when the loop is reset. The text is likely Information or code/data that is being sent to the Ash Twin project in the case of the loop and statues but what if the players log is also connected to the Ash Twin project? It would explain why information is retained between loops but yet again that could be explained as just a gameplay feature so that you don't get lost with thoughts in your head. That's what I though it was up until now.
it's pretty clear that's the intended explanation behind why the ship's log retains data through the loops. hell, it's made from rock chipped from the very same statue that the player character gets tied to.
@@N8crafter Yeah it also ties into to The Lore Explores April fools episode on Gabbro that has some evidence to support it and this theory supports that to since Gabbro was the one who made the ship log with the stone. So maybe Gabbro is helping us reach the eye like he did in the past universe by giving us an easier time at retaining the info we gather. What do you think?
Im pretty sure it wasnt gabbro who made the ship log. A piece of our statue broke off and slate incorporated it into our computer since it stored data. Since its made out of a piece of our statue its connected to us and the atp so it retains info. I dont think gabbro had anything to do with it.
what do the gamefiles call the Owlks? i'm curious what Mobius calls this species.
"Ghostbirds"
+1 for Owlks then, lol
@@GrandNoble what about Owlelk?
i'm sure the "vision" you show the prisoner doesn't change regardless, but technically i think it should change -depending on what you've discovered so far in that playthrough/save file. Like if you started a new game and went to the prisoner, you wouldn't know the things you know about our solar system.
Thats what it does.
Is it possible that the person who discovered the signal is the prisoner?
Was pretty great deducing the 2nd church to be his own house, makes sense!
But yno, if the Eye's signal was always cloaked, then how did the Nomai recieve it? Was it really during those moments the prisoner released it (or the waves that eventually made it to the Nomaii, across the vast void)?
Would that also be why it was so hard to pinpoint the Eye's location? I don't remember them struggling to recapture the eye's signal during their efforts. It was always broadcasting, but it was just it's exact location hard to find, or so I thought?
Yes. Our reel to the prisoner confirms it was the signals the prisoner released that the nomai received. And the Nomai were looking for signals forever. The signal locators couldnt pin point an area. This could be due to its quantum nature. But it feels like the actual eye has been observed at this point. It has a probe orbiting it which is silencing its signal. It seems certain to be that. So its a good question as to why the signal locators seemed to have found TOO MANY signals. Which made it so it couldnt pinpoint one as the emitting location.
My theory was that the Prisoner saw the eye as a natural phenomenon like any planet or star in the galaxy and admired it's potential to destroy and renew. there are many dangerous things in the world and the galaxy, what's one more natural beautiful thing, and why should it be caged and imprisoned because someone came to the wrong conclusion and came to fear its true capabilities.
the way i see it, the prisoner understood the importance of the eye, that its function would be *necessary* one day. the owlks clearly understood that one day the universe would end, as they planned 300,000 years in advance for the supernova of the sun, to likely in the hopes that their simulation would be able to run for eternity after the rest of the universe had died off. they *knew* that by silencing the eye, they'd be denying all future life the right to exist. of course, i can't blame em for bein afraid of what the eye could do, it'd mean the end of their species, but deciding to seal away the eye till the heat death of the universe was 100% selfish of them to do. the prisoner understood that they can't choose when they're story ends and the next one begins, and that deciding that for all other life in the universe wasn't right. in the time they spent in the simulation, so many species must've come and gone, while they had been living the same life day-in and day-out. it wasn't good to stagnate like that, and there was no reason to force that stagnation on the universe
Did you beat the base game before you played the dlc? I feel like people only feel this way because they know what happens there. Imagine seeing that vision with no prior knowledge of what the eye was. I feel like you wouldnt be able to understand it. Hell, people who have seen the ending dont understand that vision. Ive literally studied the game and I cant say I fully understand it. I suppose the prisoners text at the end suggests they did. Only that they were scared of it. And why else would the prisoner go on worshipping it after they received that vision if they didnt think it were vitally important? Makes some sense if they realized what it did and simply wasnt afraid of dying because thats what the owlks were going to do anyway. Die and enter the sim.
I thought they blocked the signal to keep other technological advanced races from messing with it lol I still never found the eye
what if the eye represents the knowledge that your story will end and many things will grow from the corpse of your universe?
it's the acceptance and embracing of the end of all that you have known so that something else can grow in its place.
it is the time that will pass after you are long gone, the universe that will sprout from the fertilizer of ours.
thats why it scared the owlks so much, thats why they clung to their simulation so tightly.
Anyone else think about the prisoner any time people say we should stop research in AI? I'd much rather humanity create a race of AI that replaces them, than halt exploration just to stay comfortable.
I'd like to hear your thoughts about why the owlks are hostile and blow out your lantern. If I saw somebody new after hundreds of thousands of years I would be very curious.
It also doesn't make sense for it to be a security thing because we can go right back in. If it was for security, they should be taken our lantern so we couldn't deload and interrogated us, especially because we could do more damage to them outside by extinguishing their lanterns (hypothetically).
It could be to protect their libraries but again, we could extinguish their lanterns and then go in and access the libraries. Thoughts?
Well....they cant take our lantern. We are in the real world and they are 1's and 0's in a simulation. Nothing they can do will get rid of the lantern we hold in the real world. So we would always be able to just wake up and try again. Blowing them out is simply the best they can do. But Imo Its definitely because they are afraid we will learn about the eye and then find it. So I think they are protecting the libraries and us from finding the prisoner.
@@TheLoreExplorer I guess I meant take our lantern in the simulation so we couldn't blow it out to wake up while they interrogate us.
@@mikewagner2299 ...this is a good point. They could have taken his lantern while he was in the prison, truly stranding him to suffer forever. Instead, they gave him the lantern. He could always blow it out and end himself. A small mercy on their part.
And then the prisoner never even uses it by choice.
I think the purpose of the window planet was that he wished to seek the eye, but they forced him to watch the planet with the rest of them as a punishment.
Ive since had more time to think about it. That planet is a reminder of home. If that planet wasnt there the prisoner would eventually forget they are even in prison.
Could the prisoner be the one who originally saw the eye? That’s the only other time we saw a telescope.
Technically it could be. But I don’t think it is. I think there’s a better chance the small owlk in that scene is the prisoner. They are the only ones depicted uniquely.
By the way, even though the ringed planet is visible to the naked eye... why wouldn't the prisoner would like to have a closer look on it?
Our Moon is visible to the naked eye, still I love looking at it with a telescope. :D
I guess looking at the ringed planet's cloud bands could be awesome! Or at least surely better than doing nothing :D
Anyway awesome video, keep it up! :)
Because in both scenarios its presented to the prisoner the moon only serves to remind them of things.
the prisioner was an eye fanatic
Nice theory!
I think Owlks were right to do what they did, they saw the vision and they truly believed the Eye could destroy the entire universe, they did not know the real truth
Wait how are we ever supposed to see the prisoner's corpse in the real world? Don't you have to die to free him in the first place? (you can't be alive or else the bell pillar things guarding the 3rd seal will wake you up)
the traps actually do have codes. They were burned but if you enter them they still work. People have data mined them. I have a video called "Opening the real world vault" that should explain how to do it if youre interested.
@@TheLoreExplorer oh that's cool, thanks for the info! I like that they put that in the game, even if it doesn't really makes sense it's nice to know they put work into making a feature that could only be discovered by datamining or brute force
Why doesn’t it make sense?
@@TheLoreExplorer i meant that as in it doesn't really make sense to spend work on implementing a feature nobody should be able to find. like designing and programming a room that can never be accessed. but they did it anyways, just in case somebody datamines or bruteforces the codes
I can't help but thing that the prisoner's actions were in vain. Since the signal is blocked and the Prisoner decides to unblock it, not that much time goes by, which means that the Nomai would have heard it anyways. The signal has been playing since the beginning of the Universe, a couple of months or years wouldn't have made much of a difference. The Nomai were already developed and exploring the universe so its most probable that the signal they heard was the original signal, not the unblocked one that only lasted for a couple of minutes.
Unfortunately, I also think that the prisoner was irresponsible. The owl thought the eye would destroy the universe and clearly the prisoner disagreed but he also doesn't seem to have evidence of the contrary, so he is basically betting the existence of the universe on what appears to be nothing more than a hunch. And at the time he took that decision, the universe wasn't dying so it wasn't a matter of "there's nothing to lose" as it is the player's case.
Literally nothing in the game indicates the signal was calling since the beginning of time. In fact it indicates it just started calling out. The owlks already had telescopes and whatnot. But they only heard the signal at a certain time. And they were the closest to it so theyd be the first to hear it. And I have to imagine there are other species in the universe. If its been calling out forever then someone surely would have heard it by now. And anyway, thats not how it works. If the nomai hadnt heard it already they wouldnt have heard it if the prisoner hadnt released a fresh wave. The old waves would have been long past them. They heard the unblocked signal as shown by the reel.
The trick is, the Owlk ship also hides the physical location of the Eye, except the orbital distance more or less. So if anyone received the signal and came to investigate, they'd face the same problem Nomai had. Though Nomai were a bit silly, they could have built a bunch of wider angle cameras and put them in far orbits to see the Eye instead of one camera at a random location jillion of times - much like Hearthians spotted the Stranger, Nomai would too and the Eye as well. Plus they wouldn't need the Sun Station and Ash Twin Project. They would know they succeeded when Quantum Moon would lock onto one planet - since that means they have full coverage of the solar system. Then again, Nomai did many funny things, like not building dome cities despite being able to.
@@TheLoreExplorer Maybe it wasn't calling since the beginning of time, but it was certainly calling just before they blocked the signal. Presumably it's been calling at least since the owlks discovered it. And there isn't enough of a time gap between the blocking of the signal, subsequent activation by the prisoner and back to being blocked, to realistically matter.
Not to be rude but I just think you dont understand. The entire dlc was meant to explain why the nomai only heard a brief signal. Why it disappeared so fast. Itd make absolutely no sense if the signal they heard was from the original wave and the prisoners actions had no impact. Its as simple as that.
And a reply to astral. From the eye we can barely see our sun. Which im sure is at least thousands of times brighter than the eye. Which means, to see the eye from the sun, the sunlight from our sun would have to reach it and bounce off, then travel all the way back to us. Im not entirely sure itd be as easy to see as wed guess. And remember, we only see the stranger because it has the backdrop of our sun behind it from that angle. No angle you reach would be similar with the eye. I dont think that would work.
@@TheLoreExplorer So, how did the Nomai probe find the Eye? It could not just have physically hit it, as it'd be unable to send the location back... The only logical answer is that it has "seen" it or Nomai were wily enough to detect if their signal got changed in a quantum manner; the probe looks like either a laser, a transmitter or a camera. If it needed a pinpoint location does not matter, just makes time to find it by orbiting cameras longer, and the Eye's location would be quantum observed so their observatories would likely get a single location. Still way better than blowing up a sun.
Here my theory.. I thought Why would eh want his whole species to die. It's not like he knew there would be anew universe and he did know he whole universe would die. Imagine some marvel villain is trying to destroy the whole unviserse by getting to some place int he solar system. Can be seen as not much different to the owlks. He was kind of dooming his whole species for no reason. I'm guessing tis because living in the exact same place place thousands of years seems like a sad pointless life. Eventually they'd hate it. Maybe he realized he did not want to be immortal and woke up so he could end the simulation and die and do his species a favor because ebeing immortal even if yoy live like a king would get terrible before long especially living in the same place. Maybe he wanted to interact with the eye and see the enlightenment they were looking for and the rhthyms of the eye just nudged him towards it. The beauty and awe oft he eye. Idk. Bone fo the owlks look happy. Thw simulation just gives melancholy and sad memories
This might be a bit of a reach, but I think the motivations for the Prisoner were religious. He could've belonged to a short faction of owlk people that were still devoted to the eye despite the fear of so many of their own had for it, and saw death as a normal thing everything had to one day come to terms with it. After becoming depressed with the bland virtual reality composed of idyllic memories of a world long-dead, he went to do what his religion told him would be best: Free the signal and let existence takes its way.
As punishment, not only was he loaded permanently into the simulation, but was built in an encasement strong enough to resist being extinguished long after the rest had done so, and given no method to extinguish that flame in the virtual prison.
i felt so bad for the prisoner, but i was glad i freed him.
New vid!!
Here before the bots show up, No I'm not a bot.
@RedDogStudios 🗿
how did you get 300,000 years?
By the time we play the Nomai have been dead for 280k+ years. The owlks were all already dead before they even got here. So we have to add the time the signal took to travel to the nomai. And how long the nomai lived before they perished. And we dont know the exact numbers of the last 2. So adding two probably relatively small unknown numbers to the 280k and my guess is roughly around 300k give or take a couple thousands years.
@@TheLoreExplorer It is possible that it happened much longer ago. I imagine that the signal from the eye travels at the speed of light, and even though the objects in Outer Wilds are much closer than in our universe, it is possible that the Nomais came from another galaxy.
At that point, it could have been millions of years possibly before the Nomais detected the signal and used their black hole technology to come.
It couldve been billions of years. I just dont think so. In the reel where the prisoner releases the signal it reaches the other systems really fast. Before they are even caught. Then when showing the nomai receive it the last slide they showed was the distance of the signal being about double the distance of all the systems. But those are reels and you cant really judge time based on them. But they couldve done a lot of things to depict the passage of an immense amount of time. But they really didnt do much to depict that. So I dont think it was millions of years between those two events because they couldve probably depicted that if they wanted to.
@@TheLoreExplorer It could've been any time. And the reels are just a representation i think.
@@TheLoreExplorer Note that the time it took for the signal to reach the Nomai vessel was enough time for the ice planet to become Dark Bramble, though gauging by how quickly it spreads on Timber Hearth, that may not have been a terribly long time.
I never realized the prisoner... killed himself.😢
I wouldnt say they killed themselves. I guess most technically they did. But they died a long time ago. So long ago that they barely remember home. In their eyes they werent dying. They were being released from the hell youd go to when you die.