What happens to SPOILER if you “mess around” too much?
NOTE: As I was writing this, I figured out the answer myself and now I feel stupid for not understanding it. This game has made me feel so dumb so often, it’s incredible. (I also didn’t know that the centre of a planet would have zero gravity)
Major endgame spoilers ahead!
In the “Self” ending, you jump through a black hole in the ATP and you suddenly exist in two places at once.
The “PC” version, who you play as and wakes up at the campfire
And your “Self”, a future version of you who emerges from the white hole in the ATP at the start of the loop.
The PC must now enter the black hole again, so that Self can exist. Otherwise, to an outside observer, Self just emerged from a white hole without ever entering a black hole, breaking causality and spacetime.
This has been explained to death, and I understand this. My question is, what happens to Self after PC jumps through the black hole? Does he just die in the supernova? Would the new Self not find the old bodies of his past versions in the ATP?
*Okay so, I realised how this works a little too late so you might as well laugh with me. To an outside observer, the events in ATP are:
- At the start of the loop, Self emerges from a white hole.
- Later, PC, his past self enters ATP and proceeds to go through the black hole, thus explaining why Self is there. Causality remains unbroken.
- Self remains in ATP and dies there. The loop resets, so ATP is once again empty
- At the start of the loop, Self emerges from a white hole. Etc etc
Now that I wrote it out it’s so obvious. I’m very glad I went into healthcare and didn’t explore that random itch for astrophysics, because between the quantum stuff and the time shenanigans this game has entirely shattered my understanding of the universe. Good night all!