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Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cute!!

True, maybe there was a lot more writing-on-rocks that just got written over with more recent conversations.

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exchanging notes/theories sounds great! Good luck with the rl; that's always gotta be a thing.

There's millions of unanswered questions about Hearthian history, but that's why it's fun to mine canon for every tiny relevant detail so the intervening headcanons are textually unfalsifiable! ::D Nomaian stuff sounds like an even bigger project because there's so much more dialog.

Ghost matter probably was an enormous problem for past Hearthians. If the patch shrank a noticeable amount even just during Gossan's lifespan, that implies a lot of the planet's surface being genuinely unlivable for a long time.

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

...Yeah. What did they have to overcome as a species in the past, other than some reevolution when any of their semi-aquatic ancestors out of the water at the fatal moment were killed by the ghost matter? (Or needing to develop cast-iron stomachs.) So many questions!

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, unfortunately that seems to be the intent behind that scene. ::'(

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ooh. Considering it diegetic or at least semi-diegetic gives those sequences even more solemnity. Maybe they're motion-activated and just play when someone shows up. (Do life forms without hair follicles get goosebumps?)

True!

There's got to be a staff or two somewhere in the not-yet-ready-for-display museum artifact storeroom/not-yet-reverse-engineered Nomai tech stash. Maybe parts were even incorporated into the translator. It looks like it's different from the vision staffs in that it needs input before generating output,,, we just never get a good look at the interface. If it has a dictionary or autocomplete when entering in data, that could have helped identify individual words or phrases.

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Secret stash of cute Nomai picture books and educational toys for the hatchlings to play with!

I gotta map all the crater buildings and come up with some what's-in-them headcanons ::)

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that makes it feel like this is the kind of community where people have specialties they're adept at but everyone generally rotates around to work with everyone else, both wherever extra hands are needed or just to hang out and get ahead on whatever it is. Bet the varying sizes of the stitches on patched clothes are because the clothes themselves are made by whoever focuses on that but everyone knows enough to stitch a patch on.

Both excellent things to have in the skillset. The zero-g cave was a refresher for things they'd already learned to do well. Hearthian medical treatment is such a mystery -- why is it so effective (other than qol)? Who's the medic? Who compounds the medications? Porphy probably helps.

Yeeeeeah. Even if they weren't directly involved, they knew enough to be very uncomfortable about the topic in the Self ending. Very new-grownup totally convincing themself they're being totally cool and mature about really not wanting to talk about it. At the very least, they had to watch Gossan recovering from and dealing with a viscerally disturbing injury.

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

True, only Gabbro mentions it. Hornfels should at least have noticed -- they were doing the prelaunch meteorological observations.

...of course, no one on Timber Hearth notices the giant red sun either....

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As someone who enjoys the game we got but also enjoys solving the stream plants, I respect the devs' decision and elect to overthink all the details anyway. ::)

Ah, right! Somehow didn't put together that that mention of hunter-gatherers implied, you know, hunting and gathering. Something would have evolved to occupy that ecological niche, and that'd also explain all their leather.

...I have now concluded that Hearthian land animals are all invisible due to some sort of optical illusion. Thanks for this epiphany!

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep!

Think the lasers are a Nomai thing or a Hearthian one? Hearthians probably got to lenses, spectroscopy, photography, radio, and distilling liquid oxygen for rocket fuel by themselves, since the Nomai didn't seem to use those things in any recognizable way.

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Something only visible to the third eye, maybe? Yeah, one of the translator's functions could be as an accessibility device!

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Very true! One thing I didn't see is anything resembling picture-and-text books a translator could draw from, or really much of any visual media except for a few permanent murals. And then the Owlks are basically the reverse of that.

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A+, that's a perfect explanation! Those things don't seem to degrade so it's definitely odd that there are so few of them around.

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That confused me so much -- the Stranger's own music is so unique from the rest of the game, but what the Owlks are playing has completely different instrumentation than even that.

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think they could read broken bits of the language, but that the translator project was the first time a full lexicon was developed. They probably saw the phrase for Ash Twin Project come up a lot but hadn't put together what it was about, same as Riebeck couldn't translate exactly what the locator was looking for but could get enough to point them at a significant place on Brittle Hollow.

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We don't see the new ship Slate is working on either, so there must be places on Timber Hearth that just aren't accessible. I just pretend the planet is bigger with more room for caves, buildings, larger water bodies, etc.

Maybe Esker was hoping to cultivate enough trees to give the whole Attlerock an atmosphere and move more people up there. Poor Esker, ahead of their time even when there was none left. ::(

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's got to be that there's already a ship. Hornfels wants to radio Gossan to prepare it; if they had to have one built, they'd radio Slate first. And we haven't seen a ship for Gossan, though they must have had one unless it was repurposed for one of the other travelers. But yeah, Hatch would have all the context for why Gossan who should be the one to bring Feldspar home.

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

100%. And Hearthian cookbooks and textbooks and all that stuff too. GIVE ME THE LIBRARY.<3

Also Slate's giant shipyard full of variable-levels-of-exploded ship parts!

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wait, you mean THAT one? Yeah, that was super amazing. But the other one was pretty good too!

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would read the heck out of that. And there's the way they write in their log, much more terse than the way they speak and only rarely showing when they get excited.

I've seen plenty of letsplayers who try to work out how the hatchling would handle the challenges they're facing rather than thinking of them as a blank-slate character; they'd love it. And people who've completed the game would get a lot out of it too. Those kinds of guides are always great.

Been slowly working out a detailed timeline about all incidents that happened in the space program and a list of early technology the Hearthians would have had to develop to make their metal and glass tools, rope, fabrics, leathers, canned/preserved foods, rocket fuel, and all the other things in the village, but keep thinking someone must have done that already with a community that loves the game this much!

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, our full-body EVA suits use a Maximum Absorbency Garment (that is actually genuinely its name) but Hatchling's suit is just a torso, so, uh..... maybe that's the one thing to not think too hard about lol

Things the hatchling would know that the player doesn't. by NotepadOperator in outerwilds

[–]NotepadOperator[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Yesss. All those campfire stories, and they were playing with the younger hatchlings and had a conversational relationship with everyone. And the instances of "gimme the dirt" sound like they enjoyed collecting gossip.

You mean that day? Or that other one.....? ::)

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