#im not kidding about walls of lightly edited text i got tired of looking at this

[poisonhemloc]

ignore me im putting outer wilds headcanons together rather than write

this is a couple paragraphs of text cause its thoughts and not. edited well for comprehension sorry also spoilers

Hearthians first

It seems like the trend is a handful of kids born at about the same time then no new kids for a while? Oldest are Spinel, Gneiss and Tektite, then the middle agedish group which is Rutile and Esker are oldest, Hornfels, Slate, Gossan and Feldspar all seem about the same age, I’d put Porphy and Gabbro next, then maybe Moraine and Chert, Riebeck and Marl, Hal and the Hatchling, then Galena, Arkose, Tephra and Mica. It is just how I ordered it but. Now I’m wondering if one of the older Hearthians recently passed away so (it’s august i posted this in march) I forgot Tuff. None of y’all noticed and neither did I, but they’re probably either Porphy&Gabbro’s or Gossan&Hornfels’ age. That does ruin the nice neat ‘pairs are born around the same time’ but eh, it was too good to be true or someone from that age range died recently too

The pilot order is Feldspar then Gabbro then Chert then Riebeck. We know Feldspar was first (Gossan stopped traveling they don’t count here), and I feel like Gabbro is the logical second choice because 1) low energy, you know where they are, they aren’t pinballing around the solar system and if you get them to listen they’ll actually go check on equipment if you need someone to vs Feldspar is Exploring, 2) Spacesuits. Gabbro looks like they have a full body suit like Feldspar and Gossan; it’s harder to tell with Riebeck, but I think Chert does have a full body suit but it’s two different materials, top and bottom, and that’s when Outer Wilds Ventures started moving towards keeping the torso/head pressurized and hope your pants are okay. unrelated checking the images again Chert has constellations on their bandana it’s cute. Which leads into Chert probably being third, since similar suit design but also Hornfels and Gossan realizing the overcorrected for Feldspar being Feldspar with Gabbro being Gabbro and luckily the next Hearthian who wanted to go wanted to do actual work, too, with the stars. Then Riebeck, when the Hatchling first gets to them they say something along the lines of “Oh you launched, I guess that means I’ve been out here a while!” And that (...and their suit, their pants look separate from the top bit) makes me think they were the last ones out. With all that, Feldspar is the oldest (Probably a bit past middle aged honestly), then Gabbro is like, equivalent of late thirties early forties, Chert’s early thirties, Riebeck’s late twenties, and our Hatchling is like. Late teens early twenties.

Hal is writing fluent with the Nomai language, since they translated it? Despite some of the Nomai’s stuff saying it’s a recording I think everything is written down as well including on their recorders, but none of the Hearthians are fluent with spoken Nomai. Riebeck is writing fluent too, they were on Timber Hearth when Hal and I think Hornfels and whoever else was free started combing through everything Feldspar brought back and pictures and started figuring the language out.

Nomai stuff-

So there’s a big emphasis on the written word for the Nomai? To the point where they leave writing from the crash near writing from building the ATP. I get the vibe it’s all preserved, somewhere- like, everything is scaled down to make the game manageable (time, planets, writing, etc) and if you tried to make it “realistic” there’d be shelves and shelves full of writing they’ve preserved.

So the point I’m leaning towards, I don’t think deafness is a huge cultural disability for the Nomai? Because everything is written down, and with Solanum we see one of the tools they carry can just project writing wherever. Vs vision issues might be a bigger problem especially until they can get facilities up to make some kind of glasses.

Owl people stuff-

Since it was the entire moon’s worth of Owl people who went to the Eye, I feel like there were several different groups? And that’s represented by the three main areas- the River Lowlands tribe lived more in a swampy type area, the Cinder Isles tribe were islanders, the Hidden Gorge tribe were cliff dwellers.

They were cooperative on the trip, finding out and blocking the Eye, and then making the simulation. Once they went into the simulation, I feel like they rarely travel to the other group’s areas? Everyone reverted back to “my tribe my place I might come check on you but not really” and that’s partially because the simulation is of where each group prefers to live and partially because of the Prisoner from the Cinder Isles group releasing the signal and partially because I think the Owl person who found the signal in the first place and led the charge to build the Stranger was from River Lowlands? And most of the Owls who built the Simulation were from the Hidden Gorge. A couple of them go to check, once the simulation is in daylight, after the night the dam breaks but no one’s really torn up that the other tribes are gone. The Hidden Gorge tower was built explicitly to stay safe in case of dam issues.

The Lowlands tribe tends to have more greenish coloration, the Isles tribe are more blue, and the Gorge tribe is more grey and tend to have more streamlined horns. Lowlands and Isles Owl people generally know how to swim but the Gorge tribe doesn’t- part of why jumping into water was coded put out the artifact because c’mon they did not have to code that in.