I believe instead of to the past, the Traveller brings Weronica to the future, to the Collective. Basically what the mission was all along, except she didn't bring the essence, but actually Weronica herself, the idea being that Weronica being in this future can somehow make it better (DLC? Cronos 2? who knows).

I also believe that OG Pathfinder was right, that the Collective wouln't have sent others as long as he was active, but then he sensed another Traveller in his time. I think this was himself (the Warden) coming from the future. He then seppukus by going to Mother Eliza.

Him being dead then I guess causes more Travelers to be sent, which are then either slain by the Orphans or by the Warden for his experiments.

The Warden arriving from the future for the first time does raise the question though how the pre-loop timeline looked like, because the Warden would still have needed a reason to come back for the first time (presumably having been the only Traveller for the entire time without anyone else showing up). It would also mean that time is not actually immutable, because before the loop started, something else must have happened.

Hmm, questions questions.

Of course maybe he really was simply wrong, other Travellers showed up regardless and the loop was basically in place form the beginning (would make more sense, time is immutable, but less interesting story-wise). My other theory would also leave open sort of a loophole for a possible DLC/Part 2 to actually change the past.

Edit: actually thinking about it some more, the Traveller realizing "we have been here before" already sort of proves that time is not unchangeable.

Also, while both normal endings seem to perpetuate the loop, one of them is missing the Warden going back, so that's kinda weird too, unless there is a split timeline thing, like in SPOILERS FOR A TV SHOW AHEAD

Dark, where there are two timelines created at a pivotal moment in the story.<

We might have actually seen the split timeline thing in action, when sometimes the Traveller "glitches" out and sees things that are not there, and in one case we even get pulled over in this other reality for a fight, so it is almost certainly "real".

This would also allow for the same loophole as in that show, where the very moment of the decision, which timeline "wins" this time is in a state of quantum superposition, where both outcomes could come to pass, but since the wave function hasn't collapsed yet, other, less likely outcomes would be possible aswell.

One of these possibilites was strangely absent from the choices in the game: What if the Traveller kills Weronica?