Echoes Of The Eye's Story Explained - Episode 1(Spoilers)

hello everyone i am the lore explorer and this is outer wild echoes of the eye and in today's loop i sort of have my hands full in the main game with the nomi we literally had a story to read a story that i was then able to present to you all in an interesting way but with echoes of the eye what we are given is little movies projected onto a screen and the interpretation of our surroundings and through this we have to piece together the story that unfolded here on our own which is actually kind of perfect for my channel so in this episode i will try explaining what happened in echoes of the eye and to the alks in the most cohesive way possible and as always this video will contain spoilers for outer wilds echoes of the eye with all of that said let's get into it some may tend to think that the alks story is quite new and mainly begins when we are introduced to them but to me i see every indication that the alks were an advanced society before they were inspired to go to the stars by the time we are introduced to the alks they already seem to have a lot of their fantastical technology that they use on the stranger or at least some of it by the looks of the telescope we see set up it's essentially part artifact which wouldn't exist yet but the part where we can focus or concentrate the light than part of the staffs that they use the part where they projected information with light to have technology like this i have to imagine that this species were already quite far along in their societal existence or to say it another way they had an old and knowledgeable species and their technology was probably pretty advanced to be able to combine these two crazy technology that we see with the intent of collecting information from the universe and seeing this tech for the first time is where we're actually introduced to the alex as a species the first surviving reel we find of one of them shows one of the alks standing on the edge of a lake they have their telescope with them that is this fancy combination of those two technologies that we talked about and during their astronomical observations they discovered something amazing a strange astronomical body in the neighboring solar system has just begun giving off the weirdest signal they've ever seen or what we as the player know to be the eye of the universe calling out or giving off its signal in awe and with utter excitement the out calls all of their friends to come witness what they were seeing and after seeing it as well all of the elks put their arms up in the sky as if in awe of this object they were even able to see it ringing up just by looking up from the riverside this experience would be a seriously impactful event even if it happened to any species but my guess is the alps were probably able to ascertain just about the same amount of information about the eye as the nomad were able to that this signal is coming from an object that is older than the universe itself or maybe they just intuited that this was very important and impactful but whatever it was that was coming from this light or whatever it conveyed to the alks they all seemed to have agreed that it was very compelling and it was a very impactful experience that they just had one so compelling in fact that it was worth throwing caution to the wind to try to reach this object they seemingly immediately began tearing apart their civilization board by board draining each body of water river by river all to begin construction on a massive interstellar spaceship large enough to house their entire civilization this is just speculation but maybe the alex had some sort of religion in which an event like this was predicted and that's why they were able to destroy their homeworld seemingly immediately without remorse instead of maybe waiting another month and getting the resources from another planet but the facts are simple the alks got this signal from the eye and seemingly immediately used the resources of their home moon to construct an interstellar spacecraft capable of carrying their whole species to the location of this awe-inspiring object and the spacecraft they built to do it is awe-inspiring itself it has a built-in cloaking device it has a flowing river all throughout it and beautiful atmosphere throughout the whole thing at this point i think a lot of the plane buildings we see on the vessel are built and some of them are added later but we will address them as they come it seems the alks created the stranger to be a space as similar to their homeworld as possible and they even assured to project the night sky onto a large screen on the inside of the spacecraft to give the impression of a night sky a lot of them probably spent a lot of their time at stations throughout the ship where they actually controlled things or performed important upkeep to the stranger but they do all seem to have houses in which they would stay in which have like sort of creepy wooden beds but they had temples and churches that they would go to to congregate and interact with each other at we find portraits of entire families children and all so it seems they all lived here i think this dock is like exclusively for fishing they seem to have a decent peaceful life on the stranger in their houses built on stilts or built into ledges on their artificial ring world harmoniously just for such a long time they lived i guess it's hard to know exactly how long it took the stranger to reach our solar system they didn't have warp technology like the gnome i did and this was an entire solar system away it seems reasonable to assume that it took them at least half a generation if not more i don't see any graves on the stranger that indicates a lot of them died on the way there but the devs tend to leave stuff like that out it's hard to say even in the skewed distances of the game how exactly long it took them to reach the eye regardless of how exactly long it took them to reach the eye it's fair to say that they had been waiting a long time for that day and after this long wait they finally made it to the object that had been calling to them since that fateful day on the edge of that lake who i'm assuming to be the leader of the alks grab their staff and comes back to scan the eye we know this staff to be able to read someone's mind and portray thoughts to someone else through light but again this is technology already based on reading light it's hard to know if the eye actually tried to pro tray something to this alk or through the staff and its ability it was able to you know get that from the eye but after scanning the eye this alk had a terrible premonition the vision shows the ouch interacting with the eye they touch it and as soon as they touch it the eye begins to turn red almost as if it were being tainted or indicating evil after the entire eye turns red a blinding white light begins emitting from the hole in the center of the eye it seems as soon as this light reaches past the edges of the eye it again turns red and the eye symbol turns white which is kind of weird to me but this red light then engulfs the entire nearby solar system instantly which just happens to be our solar system in the vision our entire solar system is turned to dust in seconds it doesn't show if the light reaches past our solar system because it just focuses back in on the out who has seemingly also been destroyed by this explosion at the eye they've also been caught in this and turned into the exact same dust as our solar system but then something odd happens after the eye depicts the destruction the eye then depicts new life growing on the remains of this original elk now whatever this vision was really meant to mean or whether the eye dictated that message or whether the alks technology tore it out of it we don't know right now what we do know is the alks didn't take it all so well whatever the reason they set out to find the eye seems to have all been in vain initially the aoku saw the vision fell to their knees out of seeming horror or despair and the reaction right after seems just for that as well not only them but even the alks around them they all turn from sympathetic or shocked to angry and aggressive honestly after scanning the eye it seems like they went mad in the traditional sense they take fuel tanks and nozzles and turn them into flame throwers and using these they torch the building that they use to worship the eye of the universe appalled at the vision that they just received from the eye the alks decided to take it upon themselves to silence the signal that the eye is emitting likely to prevent anyone else from having to go through the same terrible fate that they had just experienced they constructed a probe that would orbit the eye and somehow contain its signal that it sent out and then they sent it out to do its job and they built a control room for someone to keep an eye on and control the probe as they wish but after what they just experienced the alks don't really know what to do with themselves they witnessed an object send out a signal in a neighboring solar system this caused them to destroy their entire home moon simply for the resources needed to construct a spacecraft to reach this object then upon reaching it they learn that interacting with it will only lead to their own demise after that it seems they certainly can't stay at the eye like they may have planned and their actions ensured that they no longer have a home to return to and so after sealing off the signal to the eye the ox find themselves doing the most logical thing leaving and traveling to the nearest star system i mean they're actually in it but they have to come closer to actually be in the solar system and we see them pulling up to our solar system and parking in the spot that we find it hundreds of thousands of years later once they got here and parked it seems a bunch of them gathered in a control room to get a real view of this new star system and after looking at it the majority of them leave to go to a projector room they put in an old reel of their hometown and watch it on repeat while they may not really be doing it deliberately they are definitely comparing their home moon that they knew to the new outer wild solar system that they find themselves in their home is a very serene and peaceful looking environment and we do sort of know that none of the planets in the outer wild solar system are that safe even our planet timber hearth has new craters daily their home moon and the outer wild solar system are just vastly different and it turns out their home system and nostalgia wins over the majority of the alps the very next scene we see something quite amazing it was probably a large project for the alex but the reels show two alks coming together and using their staffs to project their memories above a device this device seems to be either projecting them or recording these memories and converting them into code we are witnessing the birth of the dream world it's a shame to me that we're not able to find this control room or we haven't found it yet but the alks seemed to decide to retreat to a digital space instead of trying to colonize the solar system that they find themselves in the rules we are shown of their story show they immediately go to sleep from here after its construction and they decide to live in their digital world for the most part but i'm pretty sure this decision was probably made out of haste they made the dream world out of grief and they i don't think they fully understood it at this point it was still experimental i think the alks know they were able to convert this information to be passed on through light but i'm not sure they knew how to make it a long lasting thing or maybe make it feel real for the user or as the evidence suggests maybe they didn't even know how to access this dream world at all we find they had an entire lab dedicated to trying to achieve accessing this dream world in a safe way this is surely one of the buildings that was constructed or converted to a new purpose after they reached the eye it seems to be a pretty big lab compared to a lot of the other things on the stranger we find three chambers that each have fire pits at the center of them and all three of these had green fires burning in them at one point and the alks were testing devices which would gain them access to the dream world that they built the first test they simply tried using a normal lantern just one from off the shelf but the base of the fire didn't pass its light over to the lantern as the owl went to sleep which was their goal with this having failed the alks made a base for their lantern which seems to have a standard lens at the front and tried again and again they tried to sleep next to the fire as the first one did but this test didn't go so well just as the elk went to sleep and the lantern finally did light up with the base fire it became unstable and the base fire exploded whatever the connection between these two sources are it seems to be very volatile and this explosion blew a hole straight into the side of the stranger and i'm sure that the elk holding the lantern did not survive their experience it seems like a very powerful explosion but this did not deter the alks they were very committed to achieving this state of virtual reality in fact the lantern lit that time they were positive they were making progress and quitting now would probably be silly and as luck would have it they didn't have too much further to go their final iteration seemed to have one or two additions and one subtraction from the former one they removed the old lantern part entirely it seems and they added the telescope's light concentrator to the front of it i'm not sure whether or not they added the closing mechanism later the one which allowed them to hide the light but what we see in the reel just seems to be a combination of the old lantern's handle and base and the telescope's technology which was able to take the light concentrate it and then convert it to information that the alks were able to read as visions with this final iteration the alks were finally able to achieve what they saw as the out closed their eyes and went to sleep the artifact lit with the fire from the base fire in the room the fire remained stable and the elk was able to actually see their digital world we can see them looking up and seeing the ring planet in the sky even though it's a bit fuzzy all of their hard work finally paid off and they were finally able to convincingly experience the home world that they once left behind this was a significant moment for their species the temples may have been constructed for each town before the digital space was made but it was certainly either built or transformed to function surrounding the digital world the three temples each had a door installed or made that was hidden behind a painting which leads to this simulated world's access point on the floor below we find the fire in the middle just like with the test chambers and surrounding it we find 10 or 11 of what we know to be out beds this is where we pick back up with the initial reel in which we find the elks go right to sleep after completing their dream world but this certainly isn't the end of the elk's story we don't get much more from their initial reels which are meant to be their species story but we can find more reels and buildings all over the stranger which tells us their story has not ended here no matter how hard they tried to hide it or destroy it from history we can still find their story though i think that's a story for another day this episode is going on for a bit too long as it is and in this episode we've really only covered the first three reels that we find from the alex it's amazing how much information the artists and devs were able to depict in only a few minutes of videos and a location for us to explore the more i look into the alks the more i sympathize with them they saw something amazing out in space and despite the amazing challenge of reaching it they put all their faith in this awe-inspiring object and it turned out to not be what they expected looking around they realize that they have left their peaceful and serene home world behind for a dream basically and now all they are left with is a solar system with planets which are all insane to live on none of which really feel like home and so they decide they don't want to start over again as a society they'll apply all their science and technology into letting them experience what they gave up and desperately wish to feel again and they succeed in that mission eventually able to finally relax in and experience what they feel like is home this has to be a great feeling of relief for them but of course there's definitely more to the story here and we will get to it in the next episode if you liked the video and enjoyed the retelling consider liking and subscribing to the channel here i try to study the lore as if it were my job and retell that in a compelling and cohesive way so if you think i did a good job a like does really go a long way on youtube as usual a special thank you to the members here on the channel you've all gone above and beyond in showing me support and i'm very grateful to each and every one of you and as always this is the lore explorer diving deep into the lore so you don't have to thanks for watching and i hope to see you all in the next video

Channel: The Lore Explorer

Views: 39,085

Keywords: Outer Wilds, echoes of the eye, the lore explorer, lore, discussion, echoes of the eye explained, explained

Id: Zzd4ahNWZn4

Length: 18min 13sec (1093 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 13 2021