Ash Twin Project

Background

A ring-shaped platform spins around the warp core inside a protective spherical shell, its rotation giving artificial gravity; along it are Nomai notes, artwork and Projection Stones, a console surrounded by eight Nomai masks, three of them active, and two sphere consoles that stop the spin and open the shell so the core can be removed. The Nomai built it to use the energy of a supernova, which the Sun Station was meant to trigger, to send data from the Orbital Probe Cannon 22 minutes back, so the cannon could fire probe after probe until one found the Eye of the Universe.

Nomai statues link to the nearest living creature and stream its memories to a mask; one mask is linked to the cannon's Probe Tracking Module instead. At first only the cannon's statue was active, so only the cannon was in a loop; the other statues would wake once the Eye was found, and the Nomai would then have cancelled the Sun Station. The station never worked and the Nomai died, but 281,042 years later the Sun went supernova naturally, powering the project and starting the loop.

The 9,318,054th probe found readings matching the Eye; the statues then paired with the nearest people, and the player, linked to the statue in Timber Hearth's Observatory, began to loop too. The three active masks hold the memories of the player, Gabbro and the Probe Tracking Module. Taking the warp core out shuts the project down and ends the loop until it is put back, and the core is needed to power the Vessel for the intended ending.