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22 MINUTES
— The realization hits the Hatchling harder than the supernova they're experienced dozen, hundreds, maybe even thousands of times by now: the Stranger is escaping the supernova each loop, which means that theoretically, they can save their people.
— Of course, it’s not possible for them to get everyone to the Stranger in one loop—they don’t have enough space on their ship or enough time for that. Not if they don’t have help.
— But Gabbro remembers every loop. Maybe if the Hatchling brings a few others to the remaining statues, they can be in on the plan. They have five statues to work with: one in the workshop, two in the Sun Station, one in the Ash Twin Project, and one in the Black Hole Forge.
— They go to Gabbro and run their idea by them. Gabbro points out that there are sixteen people on Timber Hearth, seventeen when they include Esker on the Attlerock. They’ll need more than one ship and possibly more than one trip back and forth to manage it. Feldspar’s ship is out of commission, too, which makes things trickier.
— But first, pairing people to the statues. Who should they pick and which site should they bring them to? The other travelers are clear choices—they have the ships, after all. They’ll also need the most practice if they want to pull the rescue off. The Hatchling has died countless times. They know the margin for success is narrow. Practice will, they hope, make perfect (they hope. They know how chaotic the universe is, even one they’ve been trapped in for an eternity).
— Chert, they decide, will pair with the statue in the Black Hole Forge. Setting up the Forge takes time, but once the path is open, it will be a quick hop over to Ash Twin to get Chert there. They contemplate when to pair them up with it, given their tendency to go catatonic as the loop progresses. They decide that under no circumstances can they tell Chert how to get to the Ash Twin Project’s core. What if they, in their despair, rip out the core before they’re all ready? They hope that by giving Chert the chance to survive and save their people, this will turn their terror into determination.
— Riebeck will pair with the Ash Twin Project’s statue. They would never do anything to damage the Nomai’s greatest creation, and this would fulfill their dream: to learn the Nomai’s full history.
— Feldspar will pair with the statue in the workshop. It will be a pain to get them out of Dark Bramble, so going to the easiest statue to access will balance the difficulty out.
— That leaves the two statues in the Sun Station. Those, they decide, will pair with Hornfels and Hal. The Hatchling will have to take them one at a time on different loops, with each of them using the suit in the mine. Hornfels will have the tough job of organizing everyone to evacuate onto the ships. Hal, meanwhile, needs to see if they can figure out what the Nomai’s coordinates for Timber Hearth are. The easiest way to do this is to ferry Hal to Solanum. As an expert in the language, they might be able to write to her to get the information. If the evacuation to the Stranger goes wrong, they would then be able to warp the Vessel to Timber Hearth to pick everyone up instead. It’s always good to have a Plan B.
— And so they begin the process of looping everyone in. And Riebeck, upon learning about the Inhabitants, asks, “What about them? They’re getting wiped out by the flood. Isn’t there something we can do to help them?”
— The flood happens thirteen minutes into the loop. It might not be possible to rescue the first group of Inhabitants. Taking their lamps out of the range of their campfire might also extinguish them or erase them from the simulation. Still, Riebeck wants to try. “What else are we supposed to do once we get there?”
— So the Hatchling and Riebeck take a few loops to try. They discover that the Inhabitants do vanish from the simulation once removed from their campfire’s range, but reappear when added to another. So long as the lamps aren’t extinguished, the Inhabitants are okay. “Grumpy folks,” Riebeck admits, “but I’m not sure they should die for it.”
— The Hatchling wonders what the Prisoner might say about that. They certainly don’t intend to release the Prisoner without backup in the simulation. The Hatchling understands why the Prisoner wants to kill themself—they’ve been there, too—but maybe once they see how many people want to befriend them, they will have something to live for. Together, maybe they can address the trauma and isolation that the Prisoner has been through.
— Chert looks at the numbers and realizes that saving the Inhabitants makes their jobs significantly harder. “I’ll get Gabbro to their ship,” they decide, “and then we’ll get Riebeck to theirs. Riebeck, you need to get to your campsite on the surface for this to work.”
— “What about Feldspar?” the group asks the Hatchling. “How are we rescuing them?”
— The Hatchling winces. “Oh, they have to get themselves out of trouble.”
— Feldspar: “So you’re telling me I need to take my oxygen canisters with me, leave Dark Bramble through a portal, go back in, fly into that red light, float through a nest of anglerfish—which will know I’m there the second I use my boosters—and then meet you at the Vessel you found?” The Hatchling: “That about sums it up, yeah.” Feldspar: “That’s insane. I’m in!”
— The Hatchling, of course, can try to pick them up on the way, but it will be easier if Feldspar gets as close to the Vessel as they can first.
— And so they all start practicing (and doing some free-style exploring when they need a break from the frustration. Their solar system will be gone after this is over, after all. Might as well enjoy the views while they can). Feldspar gets eaten countless times. Riebeck falls into the black hole more than once. During a few terrible loops, Chert screams hysterically at the Hearthians that they’re all going to die if they don’t get in to the ships already, and Gabbro leads them through meditation exercises to calm them down. Hal pieces together the coordinates the Vessel needs to reach Timber Hearth, and catches on to the fact that the Hatchling is infatuated with Solanum in the process.
— “What are we going to do about your crush?” Hal asks the Hatchling, who nearly chokes on a perfectly roasted marshmallow.
— When a quantum object is observed, only a single possibility for it remains. They cannot take Solanum away from the Quantum Moon before the supernova happens. Doing so would finalize her death, because she is dead in all other versions of the moon, except for the one closest to the Eye. “She’ll be the last person we rescue,” the Hatchling says. “Once our universe is gone, only the living version of her will be left. We’ll bring the Vessel to her when we go to the Eye, and then we’ll join you at the Stranger.”
— “And what about the Eye?” Hal asks. “Are you going to it?”
— Going to the Eye will destroy the universe. The Stranger showed the Hatchling that, didn’t it? But it also showed grass growing on the ashes and bones of what it destroyed, so perhaps that destruction won’t be the end of everything. As it is, the universe is dying—that’s undeniable. So it might be a mercy to bring it to a close someday. But that is a decision for another day, perhaps one closer to the end of their natural lifespans. Besides, if they can rescue Solanum, maybe they can get in touch with the Nomai in the Gloaming Galaxy. Maybe she won’t have to be the only one of her kind left. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
— And so the practices come to an end. They have one shot to get it right. “And whatever you do, DON’T FORGET ESKER!”
— And so they go. And while there are many close calls, they pull it off. The Hatchling retrieves the core. Feldspar drifts into the heart of Dark Bramble. Chert, Riebeck, and Gabbro collect their people. They hurry them onto the Stranger and take two boats, one group to the village and the other to the tower. They wrench the lamps free from mummified hands and go to the cliffs. They settle the lamps around the high green campfire, then go outside to watch the flood. Chert, Riebeck, and Gabbro play their instruments to pass the time. Esker whistles along with the melody. They wait.
— The Hatchling and Feldspar make it to the Vessel and input the coordinates to the Eye. They arrive, stare out the bay windows at it, and then realize, “You know, we never did figure out how to fly this thing.” Eventually they figure out how to open the door and go to the Hatchling’s ship, which they jammed into the open corridor of the Vessel. They then go to the Quantum Moon, pick up Solanum, and lock on to the Outer Wilds frequency with their signalscope, following the music to the Stranger.
— With the Prisoner’s help (because a stream of over twenty friendly aliens, visiting them three at a time, are enough to convince them to give life another chance), they learn how to pilot the Stranger and begin repairs. They park near the Eye and dock with the Vessel. Solanum goes over to her ancestors’ ship and does what she can to repair it, though much of it is beyond her. However, together, she and Hal get the communications system running again. Contact is made with the last survivors of the universe, including the modern Nomai clans, who are ecstatic to hear from the descendant of Escall’s clan. They send engineers to repair the Vessel and welcome them all into the community of the Gloaming Galaxy.
— And so everyone gathers. Decades pass and the last stars fade away. Eventually, it’s time for someone to go down to the Eye, because there is no sense in putting it off any longer. And while everyone assumes it’s the Hatchling who will go down to learn the answer to the universe’s final mystery, they shake their head and turn to Solanum.
— “This was your clan’s dream. You should be the one who sees it through,” they say with a smile.
— They are all old and grey now. They’ve shared their lives together. The Hatchling, Solanum, Hal, and the Prisoner—whose name, they’ve since learned, is Kaepora—are particularly close. They all want her to take this last step, though Solanum didn’t think she would be the one to do it. She always assumed it would be the Hatchling in the end.
— “I am honored, my friends. Of all the possible ways our journey could have gone, I am glad that I was able to spend this time with you. I will do my best to make you proud.”
— As if they weren’t already so proud of her.
— And so Solanum goes down to the Eye, playing their campfire song with them as she descends, until her signal fades away into static…and not long afterwards, the Eye ignites, washing them away in a blast of fire, light, and music, billions of times more powerful than the supernova they escaped so long ago. But it’s okay. They accepted that this would happen. They had their time, after all.
— Now it’s time for something new.
— A new universe unfolds, and with it so many new possibilities and so much life. On one of the new worlds, more than two peoples explore the forests and rivers together. And as different as they are, they all enjoy sharing a campfire, a song, and toasted marshmallows under the stars.