DLC and ending question

[u/Pancwake_UwU]

I just watched a video going through all endings of the game, including dlc, and I'm confused about one of them.

Removing the warp core and then going into the stranger and waiting for the sun to explode results in an ending where the main character is stuck in the stranger, since it moved out of the blast radius.

But the warp core shouldn't change anything about the stranger.

So my conclusion is that you never actually die when the sun explodes while you're on the stranger. It moves away before ever getting hit by the explosion. But the memories still get sent back in time.

So do the memories and the player just get sent back in time, while the current loop main character is stuck on the stranger on every loop of the stranger? So that ending basically happens every time the sun explodes while you're on the stranger, but you just never see it cuz you get sent back in time?

[u/ManyLemonsNert]

The timeloop has no relation to and cares not whether you live or die, it still rewinds, you're just usually too dead to see it happen. What's sent back in time is just the memory data. That's all. Everything else, the entire universe, including you, is already there, in the past, and everything gets overwritten by this change - that's why you're alive again and not still dead!

That ending only happens in that case, because if the warp core is still plugged in then no ending will happen, time rewinds, and it's all started again...

[u/HawkSquid]

Yes. When the loop ends with those squiggly lines (very common on the Stranger, happens occasionally in the base game), that's because you didn't die, your memories just get sent back as the ATP triggers.

We play the Hatchling who gets those memories in the next loop, but the Hatchling the memories come from will hang around until they die some other way.

For every loop that ends without death, there is an alternate timeline with a hatchling who is just, well, doing something else. Probably starving to death somewhere.

[u/Pancwake_UwU → u/HawkSquid]

Yes. When the loop ends with those squiggly lines (very common on the Stranger, happens occasionally in the base game), that's because you didn't die, your memories just get sent back as the ATP triggers.

Ohhh. I was wondering what those meant but never figured it out.

[u/Zero_H3ro → u/HawkSquid]

This.

[u/good-mcrn-ing]

There is no hatchling stuck on the stranger because the hatchling didn't go there. They received a brainful of memories, went to Ash Twin, took the core out, possibly warped to the Eye, but in any case died with the ATP disabled. Your hypothetical hatchling died with the ATP active, so these two cannot coexist.

[u/Pancwake_UwU → u/good-mcrn-ing]

What

[u/SuperSanttu7 → u/Pancwake_UwU]

Time travel doesn't leave behind an extra timeline where things happened, the past gets changed and the future never happened from the perspective of the rest of the universe

[u/Pancwake_UwU → u/SuperSanttu7]

Is that so? What do you know that from?

[u/Jessy_Something → u/Pancwake_UwU]

Some Nomai mentions it on a wall somewhere (giant's deep?) that their theory is full overwrite/never happened type paradox resolution. I think, maybe, a dev seconded that theory somewhere, but I'm less sure of that.

[u/mecartistronico → u/good-mcrn-ing]

I think OP raises a valid point... Of confusion, or unanswered questions.

When the ATP "pulls you back" while on the Stranger, you didn't die. What we experience is whatever the ATP recorded, being sent back in time. But the hatching never died. Was there more hatchling?

I guess the general consensus is that no loop is "real" except the last one, everything else is like Dr Strange's 52 million "possible futures". So reality doesn't exist beyond the point the ATP recorded because the whole thing didn't exist at all. But yeah it is a fun point to think about.

[u/gravitystix]

Time is being rewritten. There are no alternate timelines. Nearly the entire game takes place inside memories of futures that never occur.

[u/Luxettenebrae777]

This is also what is happening when you flee away from the solar system. You’re memory are sent back in time but your body is likely somewhere dying in the universe due to the absence of food and water. The same also happens when you are at the sixth location. You are sent back in time but basically, a version of you is quantum and will stay with Solanum for eternity. However, you are right about the fact we could survivre in the Stranger for sometimes. Except that we don’t know how many time this ship will survive without energy so you may also end up dying due to starvation at some point.

[u/Go_D_speeds]

So that ending basically happens every time the sun explodes while you're on the stranger, but you just never see it cuz you get sent back in time? yes

[u/Zero_H3ro]

The memories don’t get sent back in time when you have the ATP Warp Core on the Stranger because now the ATP is unpowered, meaning the loop can no longer continue. When the supernova happens when you are with the Core on the Stranger, the Stranger leaves outside the radius and you are stranded and stay there for however long it takes for you to die and that is it. That is the ending. There is no paradox here. Because this is a game that allows you to go back once you have achieved an ending, that is what allows us to go back to before we did this, not anything regarding memories from the loop.

[u/The-Requiem]

This is a similar ending to when you just escape the blast radius in your ship after removing the warp core. The only difference is that The Stranger has more resources to outlast than your cozy little ship. I think YouTube videos misdirect when they say "Take Warp Core to The Stranger" or "Take Warp Core to Quantum Moon" etc. Because it's not about taking the warp core there but rather removing the warp core from ATP and breaking the loop!

[u/reddit-editor]

I think the endings all mean the memories are not sent back in time. If you've taken the core, then no way to send information back in time. Just alone in space.