ERROR: At 13:56 I say "the summer of 3034" and point at 3041. BOTH are wrong. I meant the summer of 3036, where the Zenith line crosses the end of the Extinction Signal line.
Dude, you were exactly right about the date Nemesis sent the signal. Burning Shores proved you right. Walter Londra wrote a datapoint from the 16nth of January 3012, which stated that everything that Nemesis did occurred within 72 hours. Meaning it escaped on January 13nth that year, and must’ve sent the signal on the date you calculated seeing as it still fits in the timeframe the game has officially made cannon
@@filipbitala2624 but Sylens wasn’t there. This piece of evidence is directly from an eyewitness, a primary source, making it way more reliable then the anecdotal info Sykens received from Hades
That is a common quote that literally means an action or event that took place over 72 hrs. It is the shortest time necessary to destroy something that is extremely powerful, by something you want to build up as a bigger danger than what is currently being faced in a story or lore format, and can be defeated by the protagonist, but not necessarily by the protagonist surviving it. In this case, making Nemesis powerful enough to take out the Zeniths, caused everything that has taken place in previous story, but still can be defeated by Aloy when it shows up, but only after a very tough battle, and it is no guarantee that Aloy will survive the fight.@@filipbitala2624
@@lannstarr35 Yeah I feel a major death coming in the 3rd game. The first 2 had big ones. It wouldnt make sense to have a lesser death in the 3rd. Aloy is the only great death that makes sense. Maybe Sylens if he becomes less robotic in emotion?
I felt like his death wasn't necessary, he should have been moved on to the third installment as he had grown so much and I was rooting for him only for his story to end in FW. I've come across atleast one article that expressed the same sentiment.
@@JoshuaDeamhan right! He was open and embracing all that was happening and even if he would've been just injured and benched a bit at the base and still provide support that would've been better. Because none of the other Nora truly was as open as he was. Heck his mama was super uncomfortable outside of Nora lands in DZ. Since she don't have no one to avenge for Carl I doubt we will see her until the end of the third installment. Ugh RIP Varl.
@@DoktorSkill At the end of the video he admits that he's never played either of the Horizon games, thereby reinforcing a common critique of Zero Dawn: the best part of the game was the lore.
This is an S class theory right here, fantastic work. You know a sci-fi story is doing something right when the theorists need to break out a Spacetime Diagram to best make sense of the timeline
As a lore nerd, who hasn't played Forbidden West and Just finished my first Zero Dawn play through, I salute you. A lore nerd no more, I grant you the rank of Scholar.
@@Ariastyr I get it. I like to spoil things for myself when I'm guessing stuff, usually for confirmation. Other times it's just to know what's coming and then see how it will develop, as no spoiler is 100% thorough and complete. And less often, when I think I won't be able to play/watch/read soon enough, I'd rather have a spoiler than nothing at all.
@@hampter8546 it is, but not everyone who wants to play it has the means to do so. I live in a place where people haven't got their own consoles and play in rental places, when they can afford to pay per hours of play. In such cases I can understand auto spoilers.
*spoiler alert* I’m gonna laugh if Nemesis shows up and doesn’t do anything. “Yo I’m here to kill those Far Zenith mofos.” “Yeahhhhh so um… we kinda did that already…😅” “Word? Bet. Well I’m out, see y’all later. Sorry about the extinction signal, it wasn’t personal.”
Bruh i just realized when i read this ... Nemesis wants to kill Zenith's right? So it follows them... Now that the Zenith's on earth is dead... It doesn't have a problem with earth... BUT the far zenith ship is in orbit... That's why it's still headed to earth. It's just passing by to grab some zenith ass then probably head out lol.
@@reaperwtf3432 it does have a problem with earth… NEMESIS was the reason why hades tryed to destroy the world, and guess what, there were NO far zenith on earth at that time, the game said itself that nemesis sees earth as a danger as the far zenith needed it as a sop off point to regroup and or collect new supplies
@@zachall101 Nemesis sent the signal to hades to kill the Zenith before they arrived to earth. Nemesis sees earth as a danger place bcause it is the only planet that the Zenith could live so that is why nemesis wants to destroy the earth. But since The Zenith has been killed. We're wonder what his intentions next..
@@smokeyn9595 either nems decides to spare them, either because a bunch of primitives are not worth the effort or to guide their development, or he decides they are tainted by zenith contact and tries to kill them all. It all comes down to what really is the objective nems follows is and whether nems believes destruction is the only way to accomplish it. Since nems won't have the same beaten dog weakness zenith had we can assume fighting is not really the best option. Just a stop gap to make nems decide it can spare the time to talk if it comes in hot. So either negotiation or programming trickery must end up being the real end game of any interaction with nems. Either would be difficult but not impossible. So I wager part of their efforts to prepare will be regaining a certain amount of technological ability so they can either speak with or override any attempt by nems.
It's always been my assumption that Nemesis will arrive midway through the next game, to be honest- The first part of the game will be about trying to wrangle Hephaestus, or to rig some kind of replacement. I found the idea of Hephaestus willingly coming home to Gaia appealling even if it only agreed to do so because the alternative would be to deal with Nemesis on its own. It would make for a good turning point for the plot, at least.
You know what we don't see in the games? Machine bugs. They could be what Nemesis creates or brings with him, similar to the Specters they'd be mostly higher tech, nano/synthetic machine bugs. Nothing scarier then to suddenly encounter a nano-morphing tarantula in a dark cave. Or wouldn't it be neat that since Hephaestus had access to the FZ database which had a complete Apollo and Heph. downloaded ideas for new combat machines from books say like a dragon? Or a troll?
@@3nigmatikx1 i thought the same thing! Before i played through Singularity i wondered if maybe we'd ever get like a proper dragon-like machine, maybe as the equivalent of a Slaughterspine for Forbidden West and Thunderjaw for Zero Dawn, but for the third game. I thought that would only be possible if Heph somehow got access to Apollo, and I guess in a way he could have done during Singularity. I thought it would be cool if Heph appeared kind of bluish purple next time we see him but I doubt that would happen.
I’m willing to bet once Sylens gets his hands on APOLLO, he’ll start working a way to capture and restore HEPHAESTUS, or make a another version (RIP Lance Reddick)
@@bn-tc2tk As much as I mourn the loss, both of the irreplaceable talent of Lance Reddick and the excellent character of Sylens, I find I also kind of hope he gets a suitably interesting offscreen death. It's always a little ghoulish when a lookalike (soundalike?) actor is brought in to replace someone who's dead, and I'd rather have a slightly awkward bit of writing than listen to someone do their best Sylens impression just to keep the character around.
@@3nigmatikx1tbf heph probably already has knowledge of dragons and such, considering all of the subfunctions know everything that gaia did when she blew up, and that gaia still knew a lot about history and such from lis(without apollo)
I played this game for just over 100 hours to complete every thing I could find to do and get the platinum, honestly loved it. I enjoyed zero dawn as a game but loved forbidden west as an experience. Really hope it gets some dlc to give us more reason to play between now and the next main installment. And really enjoyed the presentation of this video. Was fun to visually and mentally relive parts of the adventure and see it put together
@@albertawheat6832 I'd say the story of Zero Dawn was better overall but the world, gameplay, graphics and character work were better in Forbidden West.
Oh there will be a DLC. If the developers follow the format of zero dawn they'll release a DLC about the Quen just like they did for the Banuk in the first game.
18:10 love how you used Alva in the background when you were talking about how they figured no one would be crazy enough to dig as much as you did and you won a cookie… very appropriate with how excited she gets upon learning more legacy!
This is what you get when you plan out a storyline. It is why stores such as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Song of Fire and Ice do so well. Because the writers don't just write a story, they build an entire world first and then create the story from their own mythology. The foundation is set before the walls even start to be put in place. And yes, that is why GRRM is struggling with Fire and Ice. He kept introducing characters and sub stories and came to realize too late that trying to tie them all together and finish the story in a cohesive fashion turned into quite the mess. If he could go back in time, he would probably make the books twice as thick or cut out half the characters.
Note that I'm simplifying and assuming they pretty much instantly hit their max cruising speed, so the average speed for the journey is also the speed they're traveling at the middle. Assuming a 1G acceleration, that's a reasonably fair assumption (only 4 months are spent accelerating and decelerating), but if they have a lower acceleration the math can start getting complicated. For example, if they have only 0.05G thrust, they have to burn their engines the whole trip, and are travelling at 0.6 C at the time Beta is born. After that the speed steadily drops throughout her childhood, requiring some very messy integrals to figure out her age.
Interesting note for those listening around the 9-10:00 minute mark regarding the jokes around Aloy's birthday. I believe the Nora don't celebrate birthdays based on who was born, but around the Mother's themselves, and spend the entire day with their Mother whether dead or alive. This means, Aloy probably hasn't had a birthday at all as she never knew who her Mother was and Rost most likely didn't celebrate with her for the sake of it. Honestly, I'd love to see her friends get together in the next game, as Erend suggested and throw her a surprise birthday party.
They do celebrate their birthdays. The child gives a gift to their mother on that day. There's a throwaway line in one of the villages of a child talking to his friend about what he's going to make for his mother for his birthday gift to her.
1. Nemesis likely had to build the capacity to travel, and likely is sending a reduced form of itself. 2. Its entirely possible the Zeniths were able to slip away sooner and took Nemesis time to realize they had departed. 3. The fact that the Zeniths were no run down and destroy suggest no space craft existed to chase them in. 4. It is entirely possible Humans left behind sent the signal to kill those that abandoned them. 5. Beta does seem slightly smaller and definitely younger, so 15-16 is a good guess for her age physically, the question on whether they could accelerate her growth so she would be more useful to them is an open question.
Beta also sounds younger. At first, i thought Guerilla made it so we could differ Aloy and Beta but this theory made me think this decision was made on purpose.
Nemesis taking 17.22 years to start travel doesn't make sense to me. Why didn't it pursue zeniths before that? - it's not like earth is their only hope of survival. It doesnt take 17.22 years for an advanced AI to build a ship - especiallt since it doesnt need water or food or oxygen. They may find another planet like earth or Sirius planet. Also, if Nemesis started journey as soon as it received failure signal from Hades, then writers are clearly indicating that it "waited" Why? It would be far too coincidental that ship completion by Nemesis would take similar amount of time as return signal. Either it's a oversight by writers or it will be explained in future. Perhaps the return signal "encouraged" Nemesis to pursue zeniths actively, but it doesn't make sense for Nemesis to just fire a signal and forget zeniths until a return signal is received.
@@krishnav5122 Nemesis didn't pursue because the Hades signal isn't just for waking up Hades, but also preparing him for incoming Zeniths. Thats the reason why Hades knew how to break Zenith shields. Nemesis thought it was enough.
I would bet Nemesis started development of a space craft to carry whatever it's equivalent of servers are as soon as the Far Zenith colonists escaped, a plan B in case the plan A of denying the Far Zenith colonists resupply was unsuccessful. In that case a vessel-equivalent would be ready as soon as the hades handshake failed. It also makes sense it could reach a higher speed before having to decelerate, so squishy meat parts that would get damaged by very high accelerations, the only physical limitations are the material limitations of whatever that nantite crystal metal stuff that makes up the specters is (or some other more exotic material)
The Zenith feld back to earth to escape Nemesis, so it's very likely it never anticipated this action, and was delayed in order to craft a "physical form" because if Nemesis had anticipated them leaving, why not leave sooner and destroy them in space? Also, based on the scope of the Zenith operation, I would put their arrival earlier in ZD (about the time Aloy and Sylens met in person. Which was roughly the same time Sylens headed West to wait for Hadies release) at about 6 months vs 4 the author suggests (which also puts beta at around 14
This was very thought provoking, and well explained. With the information we have at the moment I think this is a solid estimation. Always like to hear what other people are diving into when it comes to the lore, nice work 😁.Being that you haven't played the games, feel free to reach out if you are feeling like bouncing some ideas off someone who has spent entirely too much time in this universe 😅
My wife and I were wondering about Beta's age too and came to the same conclusion of the Zeniths having ordered Beta's creation when seeing the result of the extinction signal. I was already doing the math for that anyway so I threw in relativity, and it only changes Beta's (subjective) age by like 6 or so months.
@@Turalcar Can you provide a reason? They seem to be self-sufficient, and besides acceleration on departure and deceleration on arrival, there's no reason to change speeds while you're traveling through nothing. At the very least, we assume an *average* speed of 0.3c. Since time dilation is proportional to the square root of velocity squared, an average would yield the same result.
@@captaindapper5020 Why couldn't they go faster? I see 2 primary options: 1) Interstellar medium at 0.3c is not "nothing" so this is the fastest the Odyssey could travel without severe damage. The subjective time of travel would be 27.7 years. 2) They accelerated half of the way and decelerated for the second half being only limited by the engine's power output. And no, averaging speed won't work here. If we assume the acceleration to be constant in Odyssey's system the travel will take 27.3 years. Edit: I redid the math. The difference is even smaller
@@Turalcar Hmm. You're right that the subjective time isn't proportional to the true average; I should have seen that one :P Let's assume for simplicity's sake that the Zenith are sufficiently knowledgeable such that interstellar media isn't an issue. We know the journey took 29 years, and we know that it's 8.611 ly away. Therefore, we know the **average** "true" speed to get here was 0.297c ≈ 0.3c. And, if we assume that their acceleration isn't instantaneous, their top speed must be < 0.3c. Interestingly, if we assume they need to accelerate at 1G to live comfy (they probably have antigrav since they float everywhere, but work with me :P), and we assume a constant state of accel (flip around and decel at midpoint), the max speed is quite close to 0.5c. Additionally the subjective time is within a month or so of the naive, constant-speed 0.3c subjective time... I think these coincidences are accidental but it's neat anyway, and the 1G makes sense. It makes Beta ~3 mo younger though, subjectively. 14.25 ish instead of 14.5 ish Here's my Desmos, if you feel like deciphering my spaghetti. lol www.desmos.com/calculator/cqoglhpl6r
One other possibility to factor in. Nemesis is potentially in two places. Primary core still in Sirius, and an exact coppy traveling to earth only a few months after the odysy making it both able to follow the zeniths and be in position to receive the confirmation signal.
You know what's funny to me is, even though I didn't dig into the timeline myself when I saw that conversation between a Aloy and Gaia and heard those times, I thought it sounded funny. Like something seemed off about it. But I just simply chalked it up to that there's going to be more information introduced that we don't know about yet. Also to mention, I know it's not a factor for the information you gave here but when the zeniths arrived to Earth it probably didn't take them long to get set up. It probably even took seconds because do you remember they have fabrication technology that can produce anything they want instantly.
@@danielemoreira1168 well the general issue with time in this game is that it's non-definitive. Apart from the baseline "6 months" at the beginning of the game, their is no accounting of time from that point. It's just a vague offerings of times with no absolutes. So in that mission you mentioned, for all we know it could have been a few months after Aloy was in the forbidden West for a full year. Not to mention the whole other mess of factors like the time Sylens spent interrogating Hades and how long after the last battle in the 1st game that he even collected Hades.
Can we use the dead, rusted Stormbird in the Zenith island to get a rough guess of their arrival? Tilda mentioned they killed a lot of machines when they arrived and afaik that's the oldest looking dead machine in the island.
I was making a timeline in my head the first week or so of all the events. This did a spectacular job of outlining it, and I think you give great evidence for your theory. We'll have to wait and see if any DLCs contradict what it, but it's very solid nonetheless. Hoping RSQ sees this! Also, I LOVE you calling it calling Vulcan! It could just be the "Vulcan Protocol/Project", but it would be interesting to have maybe Beta and Sylens work on making a replacement subfunction called such. I mean, outside anything drastic, having HEPH under wraps of Gaia would mean the end of the franchise past Horizon 3...
I think it would definitely close out the story of Aloy, but I think there’s still more they could do with the world. I mean, in an infinite timeline, anything could happen
As someone who was a bit slow in trying to follow the whole timeline thingy, you helped out a tonne, thank you, and that last twist was on par with the Horizon game's twist
An important thing I think you’ve missed in Beta’s datapoint is that it says that with the workarounds, Gaia should be able to stabilize the biosphere within a year. With what I think is a reasonable assumption that every action along that path gives the planet a bit more time, that means that the worst case scenario that Gaia predicts early on can be safely avoided. That pushes the upper bound on Nemesis’ arrival further put by at least a few months, and at most by a year or more. Aside from that oversight, absolutely excellent analysis and very solid presentation!
OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS SO GOOD. That was one incredible breakdown good sir. I’m 140 hours into HFW, I’ve platinum-ed Zero Dawn and now finally going down the rabbit hole of lore. This was just fantastic.
Fun fact: I've never played either of the games myself (didn't get a PS4 when Zero Dawn came out, then decided to wait for a PS5, now can't get one of those at retail). But I've experienced pretty much all the lore both games have to offer through RUclips videos, and I find this story more engaging than any major movie or series in recent memory. Fascinating work, and definitely looking forward to Horizon III. Seriously hoping with the acquisition of Apollo at the end of FW, Aloy and team are able to finally start fabricating some more, shall we say..."modern" weaponry (beyond the odd plasma cannon Aloy picks up from a fallen machine and lugs around until it's out of ammo). So maybe the third game becomes more like the original Turok: bow and arrows meet high-end sci-fi weaponry. More melee options using higher tech weaponry would also be amazing to see.
Personally I hope this doesn’t happen. I’ve played both games and modern weaponry wouldn’t feel right with the mechanics the game uses. There are machine guns and the like, but those aren’t very common and count as heavy weapons (can’t keep them permanently and those run out of ammo)
@@highadmiraljt5853 My thought is once Nemesis arrives and begins flooding the Earth with its technological nightmares, stronger weaponry will be necessary. At the very least more seriously augmented versions of the weapons they've been using. Imagine Aloy having a bow with a magnetic accelerator on the shaft that effectively turns it into a railgun of sorts. As the higher-tech weapons would likely function on some kind of portable power source, ammo conservation could still be a key factor in situations where Aloy ventures far from the base and isn't able to recharge. That said, it just makes zero sense for her team to retain the use of relatively primitive weaponry going forward with the Zenith's cache of advance knowledge now at their fingertips.
@@KelsonArwhi Said primitive technology is used to destroy giant robots, and Sylens showed that modifying it is good enough to take down the shields of the zeniths (the shredders and the anti zenith shield are very similar). It also fits the games entire aesthetic better. Why would anyone use the other weapon types in the game then? People would complain about the lack of weapon variety.
i was thinking, if Nemesis hacked into a highly advanced entire colony in a clink, maybe not having technology is actually a blessing for earth. Bows and spears might be rudimentary but can't be hacked ajskdnaskjdnd
@@barbarar2216 I had the same thought but by that logic Aloy and company would then need to abandon their Focuses altogether, and boy howdy would THAT change the whole game mechanics.
I appreciate the hell out of the effort this video took. I love Horizon's plot and hearing any speculation/analysis of it is so much fun. Well done!! Would love it if you made more.
Fantastic video! Really appreciated that graph illustration since it helped greatly with the presentation of the theory :) that end twist was also amazing LOL
You played the game too, NBC!? (Or at least followed the plot,) that kinda surprises me, since you're mostly a Zelda content creator, but what did you think of the game?
This kind of games people just think it’s just a normal game and there’s no lore into it but when you try to find lore and secrets it just yeets you into a big big rabbit hole
You fail to take into consideration something rather relevant to your timeline, which is the amount of time the Zeniths would require to build their base. We saw their building capabilities first hand when Haphestos takes over the construction module and constructs a Slaughter Spine in less than 10 seconds, a project that otherwise takes a few minutes with it's prior construction capabilities in the cauldron facilities. Additionally, they are able to construct automated and self guided servitors that would have been able to connect and construct their facilities in a matter of a few hours. Additionally, they used existing ruins as a basis for their construction bones, which also reduces the necessary time for construction as well. They also clearly have programmable matter construction, which means everything can be built to any and all unique and prioritized specifications, as well as being able to seamlessly interconnect parts as they are introduced to the construction. They are considerably more advanced even by current modern standards, and may not even have required this, as they clearly have nano-bot construction capabilities for the weapons and suites they carry on their person.
I was glad to see you mentioned time dilation. At the speeds in question, if the handy time dilation calculator I found online is accurate, it looks like a journey at 1/3rd the speed of light would shave off a little less than two years from the Zeniths' subjective journey time, not enough to significantly impact the figures for Beta.
Was going to comment the same thing - Beta’s age is the only thing affected by time dilation, and it makes less than a year’s difference to her age (putting the lower bound at about 14 years 4 months). I’d also mention that while there aren’t any firm dates given past Aloy’s birth in the games, we do know there was a solstice between them (mentioned by Marad), which meshes with the timeline in the video.
Thats weird because according to my Numbers if we accept it for the travel time between the hades signal and the beginning of betas Ectogenesis till they get to earth it makes beta a week under 19
The word you’re looking for is “relative” (or better yet “proper”) not “subjective”. Time dilation has nothing to do with “subjective time”. It’s all perfectly objective.
And here I thought I was the crazy tryna build up timelines for fandoms I love. Props to you (and others in the comments who added time dilation and other calculations) for this. Needless to say, I'm probably gonna use this video as a reference/base for my theories and headcanons for the Horizon world. Cheers, mate!
Wow amazing work. There are some things in the game that help with the Zeniths base time. The nearby side quest mention the island where Zenith base, just recently lit up and arriving with a short span of time with the shuttle seen launching and reentering earth . There is a large shield wall, that reminds me of the end of map barriers from ARK survival evolve, but I digress. Then they deployed Machine lures not too long ago. It seem they only been on Earth for a short time. Overall the Horizon lore is really interesting.
You are someone after my own heart. I spent over 50 years researching naval armor and how to punch holes in its as a hobby and had unbelievable good luck concerning getting information (the head of the US Navy Ballistics Computation Division at the US Naval Proving Ground during and after WWII retired and gave me all of his files since he thought -- probably correctly given what happened to US Army WWII files of this type -- that they might be thrown awat. So I had virtually EVERYTHING the US Navy knew about armor during WWII. I found, like you, that a major part of the puzzle, in this case the thick Class "A" side armor used in battleships, actually had not been evaluated as a stand-alone material, but just used a modified formula/database used for the soft, ductile Class "B" deck armor material. I had to find out Class "A" armor's rules from scratch, which took up most of my study and I finally solved it by developing a computer program through 70 versions. I am very stubborn and like such challenges. So, it seems, do you.
Thank you for making this video! It was a very thoughtful and clear summary of the timeline thus far. I feel your assumptions were fairly conservative and certainly reasonable. It seems to me that the next installment would logically pick up just before the arrival of Nemesis, with some final preparations (and lots of fighting Hephaestus' machines) before a mid-game arrival. I can't possibly imagine what might happen in the second half of the game, though. One possibility is that because Nemesis is primarily obsessed over killing Far Zenith, it somewhat relents when it discovers that Far Zenith is already dead (unlikely as that is). Another possibility is that the protagonists trick Nemesis into thinking Far Zenith is still alive by launching the Odyssey on an escape trajectory, thus luring Nemesis away from Earth and towards a trap that has been set on board the Odyssey (I mainly suggest this because I think it would be really cool to explore a spaceship in the game).
Everything adds up. I do think the writers have some leeway with the arrival time of Nemesis, it can always go slower then predicted, taking its time to get to Earth.
This is an insanely awesome level of detail, I can really appreciate the effort that went into this video! One interesting thing: in a Burning Shores datapoint called "Dagger in my Boot" Walter Londra mentions they'll have to retrofit the Odyssey ship as they go, acquiring materials along the way to print a faster drive, which suggests they were not travelling at a constant speed the whole time, but this shouldn't have factored into Gaia's calculations at the time. Time dilation estimates: 29 years from observer on earth at .297 speed of light = 27.69 years elapsed for Zeniths onboard the odyssey. 13 years at .662 speed of light = 9.74 years elapsed for Zeniths onboard the odyssey, pulled numbers from a time dilation calculator online idk if that helps us at all or is correct, but probably is not worth it to consider since the only reference frame we care about is time elapsed on earth?
crazy ridiculous theory: in the years waiting for a return signal from earth, back on sirius, Nemesis was hard at work developing and imagining super advanced technology, and came up with a way to receive the return signal slightly earlier through an artificial wormhole, so the signal return on sirius was received in Jan 3028 instead of April 3029, so the 13 years that Gaia estimated it would've taken the Odyssey to reach earth is actually the amount of time it took Nemesis to get there, and it is already hiding on earth in secret, and continued to transmit the signal from sirius for another 1.25 years after it left to not tip anyone off, and the fact Gaia knew this information was received on sirius in 3028, but not why, was because it was hidden within data inside Hades and Nemesis forgot to cover up that detail, and all Gaia knew at the time was when the signal back on Sirius was received, because Gaia says "if they did not set out for earth until they learned of the extinction signals failure, the journey was even faster, a mere 13 years".
What I really like about this analysis is that it's of the timeline the writers might have come up with and not of what may or may not have happened in-game. I find it to be a very compelling line of reasoning on that basis :-)
Idk if you’re right or wrong. But your neurotic deep dive into this subject is hella cool and got a sub from me. If you approach everything you do with this kind of zeal and dedication I definitely want to be around to see what you scour thru next.
What a good content! I just started become a fan of this franchise when the first game was available for free n pre-ordered the 2nd as soon as it's available - that's how good the franchise was. This vid helps a lot to understand the timeline of the story; too much data points can be confusing to keep up😅
This is outstanding work, just brilliant. The twist at the end is worthy of the Horizon writers themselves. If you love lore you really should play both games, though. There is a huge amount of fascinating stuff about the world and history entirely unconnected with the main story. Lots more potential rabbit holes to go down! I hope we get to see more lore videos from you, whether or not you end up playing.
Tremendous work. I love lore (or back story) myself. Zero Dawn was in that respect pretty good. But I was less impressed or convinced by Forbidden West. Your timeline adds something to it, but I still feel that the first game was enough.
Time dilation isn't actually much of a factor at the speeds listed. You don't start getting dilation effects that really make a serious impact until you hit 80% c.
You should do a video that includes the timeline of Elizabet and the end of the world and the events that happened. I think there is enough info about how all that played out but I’m not sure. Would be cool to see that all on one graph! Thanks for the video!
The graph you’ve made is dependent on Nemesis still being on Sirius when it found out the extinction signal failed. I think there was a decent chance it was already on its way after them when it found out.
It would be interesting for you to revisit this based on the new info from the Burning Shores DLC. I'm actually toying with dropping $500 for a console to play a $20 DLC because the Horizon series is THIS GOOD.
This is crazy brilliant. I loved this game it is beautiful to look at, amazing to play, but now due to this crazy analysis, you've added yet another layer of complexity to game. I am totally impressed with the time graph and the analysis. It would be interesting to hear from the developers.
MY JAW WIDE OPEN AT THE LAST TWIST. Ive just got Plat on Forbidden West and already got Plat on Zero Dawn, I really like the lore too but thats crazy im glad youre apart of the community lmao
Nice find! It actually really looks like an oversight... The only thing I'm not fully convinced about is that the Far Zenith created Beta only after they were sure that the original nemesis plan had failed. After finishing the game we know that they left Sirius shortly after Nemesis destroyed their colony (IIRC Tilda said so during the breakfast she had with Aloy), moreover the FZ knew/supposed that the only chance they had to survive Nemesis was to 1) hope that its original plan to use Hades failed (which, thanks to Gaia self-destruction, it did) 2) manage to gather everything they needed on earth in order to escape to another planet and still be able to adapt it to their needs (they need Gaia with all her Functions => they need a clone of Sobeck) As soon as one of these 2 conditions fails they are done-dead-RIP, so there is no point for them to delay Beta's creation. It'd only lead to a less prepared and instructed "tool" in their hands. not only that, I'm also quite confident that Tilda was applying pressure to have an Elisabeth clone on board asap because.. yes. Anyway, great video, one of the best analysis I've seen on this game since... since it came out, GJ!
my thought is that beta is possibly a secondary clone and that there was a primary "alpha" clone made first that either rebelled or was destroyed by some other means
Incredible and detailed breakdown! When I played through the dialog with Gaia I did something similar on graph paper but nowhere near as detailed but came to a similar conclusion regarding Nemesis and it makes a lot of sense when you take into consideration both the in game timeframes as well as the elapsed time between the HZD and HFW.
I salut to you, sir, this is a tremendous work and story telling of yours by considering so many factors and information, while still making it more than solidly comprehensive for everyone. Thanks a lot for this vid! Helped me a lot more to understand the dimension of this game (and probably the next one)
Awesome work man. Thank you for presenting your timeline on this and it was a pleasure watching you plot it all out. Let's revisit this video post the 3rd game and see how spot on or wrong you were. I can't wait for that day now.
I love graphs, and I must say I absolutely love the graph you made to show the timeline of Horizon in such a clear and simple way. Truly brilliant research and graph making.
Jeez I really hope they have more than a year to catch/ally Hephaestus and prep for Nemesis. Hopefully they can integrate Zenith tech also. Idk, if only saving the world from nemesis was as simple as calling up the incoming swarm to say "we killed all the zeniths, and we know your beef was primarily with them so maybe keep on flying right past earth pretty please?"
I love horizon because it’s not a frost person shooter, and it’s not a zombie game it’s an adventure into the unknown it’s a survival, it’s a grow game in the character and it feels that way Skyrim and others like it just feel what do I do now horizon gives direction. And I like it.
It's a generic open world rpg... same as any other thats came out in the past 10 years or more , really look at it and you'll see what I mean , all rpgs are re skins of the same exact game : story sends you to new area of map , you climb a tower then you clear a couple outposts then you do the mission then you collect then the story sends you to a new area of the map , you climb a tower you take out a few outposts..... aaaand you get my point , now take that formula and look at hzd, far cry , the elder scrolls , fallout , mass effect aaaaand you get my point 👉 All modern rpgs are the same as all others , just like shooters or zombie games Is the story unique? Yeah it is but is the game? No its not
One thing regarding the signal travel time (ending at 4:50): if the signal travelling back causes the stoppage, what about the signals already sent? They travel and don’t get cancelled so to speak… those signals take the same time to reach earth as before, hence the math of “half” is incorrect I believe and should be a third Edit: which is exactly what you’re explaining at 7:17
I think the zeniths created Beta earlier, knowing that she at the very least would be a “good to have” once they got to earth, either that or there was a way for them to speed up gestation at least. I think some of Beta’s early frustrations come from being the same age if not older than Aloy and feeling less prepared even though she was born and raised to do what needed to be done. They had the tech to pause their own ageing so knew they could do the same to Beta, so again I think she was born early into their journey back to earth.
Thanks for making this video. I recently finished Forbidden West on Hard and the video makes me admire the writers as they absolutely would've had to graph out everything to make sure no line of dialogue or sidequest conflicted and messed things up. I could only imagine regular meetings just to make sure everything still fit not just within itself but with Zero Dawn as well. Love this series, can't wait to see where it goes.
“OK, enough, you’re making my head spin”. Seriously though, this is amazing stuff and especially so, given your reveal (no spoilers) at the end. Came to this from RSQ’s Discord, where I’m sure it will be well received. 👍
@@MangledPork kind of like how bungo keeps Imperfectly portraying the Destinyverses in Lore scale vs Gameplay showings. (16:51). but as it is a lazy mistake with most other fictional franchises' Lore being translated into the moving visual portrayals already.... with guerrilla and the horizon franchise's Lore, story elements being not too new, yeah.
This was an amazing video. Well done! Very informative, and even if you're not completely accurate, it's very interesting to see. Your first lore video and for me, this is the first of your videos I've seen. You just got yourself a new subscriber because honestly this is one of the best information videos I've seen about a games world and timeline.
I'm watching this video 7 months after you released it, but bravo on the work you've done here! This is SO interesting! I'm just dying to know more about the Zeniths & how they developed their technology. I'm also extremely interested in learning more about Nemesis & what their/its existence has been like for hundreds of years. Assuming it's a single entity, is it insane? Just angry & spiteful? Is it housed in a physical object, or just like, a super-pissed Wi-Fi signal? I gotta know! Guerilla, please tell me this game series is at the very least planned to be a trilogy!
Some helpful other informative: 1. Tilda mentions that their spacecraft was barely fit for flight when they departed. Presumably this means Nemesis had no other craft on the Zenith colony to use and would have had to build one. Also the Zeniths may have needed to stop for repairs/supplies at some point early in the journey. 2. If Nemesis can get to Earth more than twice as fast as the Zeniths do, it has used their collective knowledge to not only steal but also improve upon their technology. That device Sylens made will most likely not work against it anymore, since it created it. 3. Sylens could also be a Zenith if his immortal theory is true (That faceless Peter guy at the beginning of the game could be him). Nemesis could know about this from their memories and be specifically targeting him more than anyone else. Hence why Sylens really wants to leave, but also might want revenge.
This is my first time hearing the Sylens immortality theory. That sounds rad but isn't it pretty much confirmed already that he's just a very smart Banuk?
I do not believe Sylens is a Zenith. But Sylens is not likely Banuk. He claimed to be one but we learn in the Frozen Wilds that the Banuk themselves are suspicious of Sylens' story. They could not find anyone who previously knew Sylens. Banuk elders think Sylens lied and even used Banuk body modification to pose as a shaman to learn sacred knowledge from them, and disappeared once done. Sylens is likely from some unknown tribe that does not matter. He is a self-made man. Everything he accomplished was done naturally, regardless of his tribe of birth. @@yourdad5799
Nice! I began tinkering with time dilation due to ligth speed. At 0.662 speed of ligth time on earth is about 13 years longer than for those how tavels, or only 1.9 years traveling at 0.297 speed of ligth. And here my mind broke... Its somthing with the birth of beata and Eloy. Grate video got the old noging going!
Can't watch video sine haven't played FW, but I will say that a theory me and my wife have had from pretty much the beginning was that the ship that was sent out with the proto-type of Aretimis wasn't really destoryed. She only told people that and faked it so the rest of humanity would push itself harder to finish Gaia. We firmly believe they will come back at some point.
The question about Betas Age gets even more complicated: Time dilation. The faster you go, the closer you get to the speed of light, the less time passes for you travelling on that ship.
at that speed and distance time dilation would be a very mitigating Factor however I would chalk it up to beta being in an unnatural gravity environment another possibility is that there was an alpha clone first and beta is a second clone made by far zenith and something happened to the alpha either rebellion or disaster
@MangledPork Gaming I want to raise another point regarding Beta's age. We know the Far Zenith have learned to manipulate their own DNA to slow down or even halt aging. We could also assume that there is the possibility of accelerated growth/aging. But even if that is not the case there is also another issue that might be interesting. Depending on the speed they have traveled and the way their ship transport system works - time dilation would also affect them. Beta could already have been made when they left Sirius as she would age more slowly in comparison to Alloy depending on the relative speed the spaceship has traveled. This consequence derives from the Lorentz transformation under the special theory of relativity. "The time lapse between two events is not invariant from one observer to another, but is dependent on the relative speeds of the observers' reference frames (e.g., the twin paradox which concerns a twin who flies off in a spaceship traveling near the speed of light and returns to discover that the non-traveling twin sibling has aged much more, the paradox being that at constant velocity we are unable to discern which twin is non-traveling and which twin travels)." [see Wikipedia on Time Dilation for that] So theoretically, time dilation would make it possible for passengers in a fast-moving vehicle to advance further into the future in a short period of their own time. For sufficiently high speeds, the effect is dramatic. Gaia does provide us with the speed the spaceship may have traveled. If you are keen on doing the math you might find out why there is a shift in the timeline or potentially come to a conclusion of Beta's age.
Nice work. That must have taken you some time. I'm saving your video so I can remember this timeline. It's really hard to keep track of not only years, months, weeks and days too. And one last thing from me. Since you liked the lore, you best watch Horizon when it comes out on Netflix. ;). You have a good one. Thumbs up.
Just walking from Vegas to San Fran would be roughly 7.5 days. If you consider the whole area of the map, Forbidden West should be (at least) a six month process). When you throw in all th eactual questing, FB might easily be a 1.5 year peridod.
Just finished this master piece yesterday. The ending was really shocking to me. Thank you for making this video. It will help me understand some stuff I didn't quite get about the ending and history overall. Can't wait for a dlc and sequel 🥰🥰🥰
I love this, it was very detailed and explained very well. I'm also shook by the fact that you've never played the games. They are so good for stories and emotional attachment.
Very cool video! Thank you for sharing your work with everyone! If you are right, we have both the name of the DLC (The Burning Shores) AND the next full game (Nemesis). If anyone is interested, the time dilation rates for a journey that took 29 years for a distance of 8.6 light years makes a velocity of about 30% of the speed of light. According to Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Derivation_and_formulation) make a dilation rate of about 1:1.1. So the 29 year journey only took 26.36 years from the perspective of the people on the ship. Therefore, if they intercepted Hades reply signal 15-16 years ago, it would be 13.6-14.5 years ago from their perspective. So either Beta is 14, the Far Zeniths cloned her BEFORE they received the signal, or the writers didn't include time-dilation. :) It is possible that the Far Zenith's were planning on simply TAKING OVER Gaia using Beta, and they cloned Sobek near the start of their journey. It is also possible Beta is actually closer to 25 and just looks younger because of living her whole life in space. It is likely that the artificial gravity in their ship would be less than 1G - especially if most of them have floaty suits that, so her body might age slower than Aloy. It may be that once they intercepted Hades signal they simply changed their plan to use Beta to help reconstruct Gaia and then leave before Nemesis arrives. I wonder if they planned on abducting any Earth humans to increase their biodiversity on their ship for whatever planet they were headed to!
Well, you answered what I wanted actually: How old was beta. I probably missed a LOT of datalogs, sadly doing a quick scan with the focus won't highlight them and even on a second playthrough using the focus constantly to scan every inch possible of the locales, I still miss a few datalogs. Beta having a few years less than Aloy makes sense, she's a teen yet and now all of her paranoia and fears makes sense. Good. About Nemesis, we still don't know how long it will take for it to arrive earth but I'm sure it can travel as fast as Odissey, maybe even faster if it can use the knowledge it has from the minds of the people inside it. What Nemesis actually is though makes no sense. Even if it was the culmination of a lot of minds, if the project was actually chaotic, meaning the creators knew that the minds were unstable inside of it, why they would never terminate the project? How it became self-aware, and most of all: How does it know so much about how the Zero Dawn system works. There is a file in the game mentioning a crazy IA, and that may be the reason, but who knows at this point? All we can say is that this video of yours is awesome, thanks for it, and I really hope the third game can be done a little faster OR way later than 4 years because I want to be able to buy a fucking PS5 at the time (i know it won't be on the PS4 that's for sure) and right now it's a rip-off where I live(You guys are crazy about Scalpers? What if Sony was actually THE scalper? That's what happens here, a PS4 costs around 1080US Dollars for me, and that's from Sony's official website XD).
10:03 I remember when GAIA told Aloy that Erend proposed to have a birthday party for her... I don't remember if it was before or after she came back from Las Vegas (I'm doing the new game + and I stayed in this part of the game to understand the timeline) so yes, probably if FW was set in 3041, Aloy would be 20 in the middle of the game
This is impossible. in holograms, audios and texts found in San Francisco from Forbidden West, you have an initial date and how much time has passed since it, that is, there's no way Aloy has more than 18 years in the game . Horizon Zero Dawn takes place in 3038 and Horizon Forbidden West in 3039, read my previous comments, look for the texts and audios I highlighted in both games and do the math .
@@daikyozeus Aloy was "Born" on April 21, 3021, GAIA ordered her creation on August 26, 3020 as a last resort, after which GAIA self-destructed due to signal of unknown origin. According to Guerrilla, HZD's story takes place in the year 3039, when she was accepted into the Nora tribe on her 18th birthday. The action of HFW takes place in the year 3040.
@@ladydalida6917 In Horizon Zero Dawn ,I did the calculations for the 355510 days(973 years and 121 days) passed since Elizabeth Solbeck's last scheduled visit to Faro's headquarters was scheduled for November 3, 2064, which is the date of the last hologram of her conversations with the Ted Faro that by the content of the hologram she did not attend, that is, the day that Aloy arrived at Faro's headquarters is March 4, 3038. In Forbidden West ,TEBAS has been active for 50844 weeks ( 355908 days / 974 years and 155 days) , I made calculations and this is some date in 3039 , by the audios/texts in THEBAS it is clear that its activation was before January 2066 . Another detail is that Sylens says in Gaia Prime in the HZD that the explosion of the place happened close to 19 years, if I am correct the ordeal of the Nora in the HZD occurred during the winter solstice of 3037 when Aloy was 16 years old and in the course of events. of HZD she turns 17. And I repeat I did all the calculations with existing data in both games. PS; Aloy 'Born' April 4, 3021
The data I listed is from a text data log from the Eluthia-9 facility in Nora's Mother Mountain. This data log contains all data, such as the offline date of GAIA-Prime, i.e. the date of its self-destruction and all relevant data about Aloy and its history. This data comes directly from the designers. So I don't need any cumbersome calculations about possible time-distance specifications if all relevant data are given by the designers. In addition, the hint also came from Guerilla itself, which plays HFW about 6 months after the events of Meridian. In addition, it must also be considered that the events within HZD are also designed for a period of about 6 months. Just think of the distances she has to travel. I don't want to know how many miles Aloy has covered in HZD alone.
@@ladydalida6917 I also thought I didn't need to do any math, but while playing HZD I found some inconsistencies between the old world dates and the internet claims about Aloy's age and what year the Horizon Zero Dawn game was set in. So I looked inside the game for something that would help with that and the only data I found was an audio that is not part of the datapoints that occurs when Aloy arrives in Maker's End saying that 355510 days have passed. Consequently I ended up making an estimate of how many days pass from the beginning to the end of the HZD which would be during a period around 4 to 7 months. Already in Horizon Forbidden West in Thebas there is a text present in the datapoints written that Thebas is active at 50844 weeks which coincidentally is something close to 6 months longer than the 355510 days mentioned in HZD. And another detail that makes HZD impossible to be in 3039 is that the audio with the dialogue between GAIA and Elizabeth Solbeck that Aloy hears when she finds Solbeck's remains at the end of Horizon Zero Dawn was recorded on February 3, 2066, and this audio is along with the text datapoints related to Elizabeth Solbeck (he is the only text with content blocked even after we finish the game), another detail is that the hologram where Ted Faro kills the alpha prime members of the Zero Dawn project takes place on February 2nd of 2066. Some dialogues with NPCs during HZD show the passage of time within the game, from the day Aloy did the Nora's ordeal until the day she arrives at Meridiana the first time, for example, it's been close to 30 days. After analyzing all the existing dates in HZD, I saw that there was no way for Aloy to be 18 years old during the game and that the most likely year would be 3038, and during the calculation of how many days it took for the entire story of HZD to happen I realized that the game starts in the year 3037 and ends in 3038, something that also occurs in Horizon Forbidden West, the game starts in 3038 and ends in 3039.
ERROR: At 13:56 I say "the summer of 3034" and point at 3041. BOTH are wrong. I meant the summer of 3036, where the Zenith line crosses the end of the Extinction Signal line.
Gotta love spotting errors _after_ things go live... Annotation-corrections FTW?
Lol noticed that
They can’t call it “Horizon III: Nemesis”, because that’s too much like “Resident Evil 3: Nemesis”. 😈
@@crazyman8472 "Horizon III: New Dawn" would be apt and completing full circle.
@@krishnav5122 I like it! 😎
Dude, you were exactly right about the date Nemesis sent the signal. Burning Shores proved you right. Walter Londra wrote a datapoint from the 16nth of January 3012, which stated that everything that Nemesis did occurred within 72 hours. Meaning it escaped on January 13nth that year, and must’ve sent the signal on the date you calculated seeing as it still fits in the timeframe the game has officially made cannon
Pretty sure sylens says that nemesis “destroyed an advanced zenith colony in the matter of hours”
@@filipbitala2624 but Sylens wasn’t there. This piece of evidence is directly from an eyewitness, a primary source, making it way more reliable then the anecdotal info Sykens received from Hades
That is a common quote that literally means an action or event that took place over 72 hrs.
It is the shortest time necessary to destroy something that is extremely powerful, by something you want to build up as a bigger danger than what is currently being faced in a story or lore format, and can be defeated by the protagonist, but not necessarily by the protagonist surviving it.
In this case, making Nemesis powerful enough to take out the Zeniths, caused everything that has taken place in previous story, but still can be defeated by Aloy when it shows up, but only after a very tough battle, and it is no guarantee that Aloy will survive the fight.@@filipbitala2624
@@filipbitala2624He did say that, in the end cutscene, close to the ship.
16th, 13th. where is the "n" coming from?
Okay but the fact we will face nemesis without Varl makes me so sad. I miss him
somehow I feel that the ending of the third game will be a sacrifice by Aloy to somehow save Betas life but I could be completely wrong about that
@@lannstarr35 Yeah I feel a major death coming in the 3rd game. The first 2 had big ones. It wouldnt make sense to have a lesser death in the 3rd. Aloy is the only great death that makes sense. Maybe Sylens if he becomes less robotic in emotion?
I felt like his death wasn't necessary, he should have been moved on to the third installment as he had grown so much and I was rooting for him only for his story to end in FW. I've come across atleast one article that expressed the same sentiment.
@@yellowplumfaerie I agree. I feel like it was forced for emotional sake
@@JoshuaDeamhan right! He was open and embracing all that was happening and even if he would've been just injured and benched a bit at the base and still provide support that would've been better. Because none of the other Nora truly was as open as he was. Heck his mama was super uncomfortable outside of Nora lands in DZ. Since she don't have no one to avenge for Carl I doubt we will see her until the end of the third installment. Ugh RIP Varl.
That last twist is the greatest reveal to top it all off.
Yeah lol.
It got my upthumb.
What Twist?
@@DoktorSkill At the end of the video he admits that he's never played either of the Horizon games, thereby reinforcing a common critique of Zero Dawn: the best part of the game was the lore.
I will work on a graph of how/when he decided to tell us
This is an S class theory right here, fantastic work. You know a sci-fi story is doing something right when the theorists need to break out a Spacetime Diagram to best make sense of the timeline
But they got it wrong tho
@@C0wb0yBebop something right...not everything
As a lore nerd, who hasn't played Forbidden West and Just finished my first Zero Dawn play through, I salute you. A lore nerd no more, I grant you the rank of Scholar.
If you're playing the games, why would you spoil Forbidden West for yourself by watching this? XD
@@Ariastyr I get it. I like to spoil things for myself when I'm guessing stuff, usually for confirmation. Other times it's just to know what's coming and then see how it will develop, as no spoiler is 100% thorough and complete. And less often, when I think I won't be able to play/watch/read soon enough, I'd rather have a spoiler than nothing at all.
It's such a waste to spoil horizon before playing it. Because then the story wont be as interesting
@@hampter8546 it is, but not everyone who wants to play it has the means to do so. I live in a place where people haven't got their own consoles and play in rental places, when they can afford to pay per hours of play. In such cases I can understand auto spoilers.
Lmao messed up dude now HFW will just by a fighting simulator for you
*spoiler alert*
I’m gonna laugh if Nemesis shows up and doesn’t do anything.
“Yo I’m here to kill those Far Zenith mofos.”
“Yeahhhhh so um… we kinda did that already…😅”
“Word? Bet. Well I’m out, see y’all later. Sorry about the extinction signal, it wasn’t personal.”
Bruh i just realized when i read this ... Nemesis wants to kill Zenith's right? So it follows them... Now that the Zenith's on earth is dead... It doesn't have a problem with earth... BUT the far zenith ship is in orbit... That's why it's still headed to earth. It's just passing by to grab some zenith ass then probably head out lol.
@@reaperwtf3432 it does have a problem with earth… NEMESIS was the reason why hades tryed to destroy the world, and guess what, there were NO far zenith on earth at that time, the game said itself that nemesis sees earth as a danger as the far zenith needed it as a sop off point to regroup and or collect new supplies
@@zachall101 Nemesis sent the signal to hades to kill the Zenith before they arrived to earth. Nemesis sees earth as a danger place bcause it is the only planet that the Zenith could live so that is why nemesis wants to destroy the earth. But since The Zenith has been killed. We're wonder what his intentions next..
@@smokeyn9595 either nems decides to spare them, either because a bunch of primitives are not worth the effort or to guide their development, or he decides they are tainted by zenith contact and tries to kill them all. It all comes down to what really is the objective nems follows is and whether nems believes destruction is the only way to accomplish it. Since nems won't have the same beaten dog weakness zenith had we can assume fighting is not really the best option. Just a stop gap to make nems decide it can spare the time to talk if it comes in hot. So either negotiation or programming trickery must end up being the real end game of any interaction with nems. Either would be difficult but not impossible. So I wager part of their efforts to prepare will be regaining a certain amount of technological ability so they can either speak with or override any attempt by nems.
Exactly what I was thinking. Like why Nemesis wants to attack Earth if all zeniths are dead?
It's always been my assumption that Nemesis will arrive midway through the next game, to be honest- The first part of the game will be about trying to wrangle Hephaestus, or to rig some kind of replacement. I found the idea of Hephaestus willingly coming home to Gaia appealling even if it only agreed to do so because the alternative would be to deal with Nemesis on its own. It would make for a good turning point for the plot, at least.
You know what we don't see in the games? Machine bugs. They could be what Nemesis creates or brings with him, similar to the Specters they'd be mostly higher tech, nano/synthetic machine bugs. Nothing scarier then to suddenly encounter a nano-morphing tarantula in a dark cave. Or wouldn't it be neat that since Hephaestus had access to the FZ database which had a complete Apollo and Heph. downloaded ideas for new combat machines from books say like a dragon? Or a troll?
@@3nigmatikx1 i thought the same thing! Before i played through Singularity i wondered if maybe we'd ever get like a proper dragon-like machine, maybe as the equivalent of a Slaughterspine for Forbidden West and Thunderjaw for Zero Dawn, but for the third game. I thought that would only be possible if Heph somehow got access to Apollo, and I guess in a way he could have done during Singularity. I thought it would be cool if Heph appeared kind of bluish purple next time we see him but I doubt that would happen.
I’m willing to bet once Sylens gets his hands on APOLLO, he’ll start working a way to capture and restore HEPHAESTUS, or make a another version (RIP Lance Reddick)
@@bn-tc2tk As much as I mourn the loss, both of the irreplaceable talent of Lance Reddick and the excellent character of Sylens, I find I also kind of hope he gets a suitably interesting offscreen death. It's always a little ghoulish when a lookalike (soundalike?) actor is brought in to replace someone who's dead, and I'd rather have a slightly awkward bit of writing than listen to someone do their best Sylens impression just to keep the character around.
@@3nigmatikx1tbf heph probably already has knowledge of dragons and such, considering all of the subfunctions know everything that gaia did when she blew up, and that gaia still knew a lot about history and such from lis(without apollo)
I played this game for just over 100 hours to complete every thing I could find to do and get the platinum, honestly loved it. I enjoyed zero dawn as a game but loved forbidden west as an experience. Really hope it gets some dlc to give us more reason to play between now and the next main installment.
And really enjoyed the presentation of this video. Was fun to visually and mentally relive parts of the adventure and see it put together
I think you'll be happy to hear that a psvr horizon game is in the works and looks like it's going to release before the next mainline game
Zero Dawn was better, just my opinion.
@@albertawheat6832 I'd say the story of Zero Dawn was better overall but the world, gameplay, graphics and character work were better in Forbidden West.
Oh there will be a DLC. If the developers follow the format of zero dawn they'll release a DLC about the Quen just like they did for the Banuk in the first game.
@@bobjenko no gameplay was much better in the first game but everything else you mentioned was an improvement from the first game.
18:10 love how you used Alva in the background when you were talking about how they figured no one would be crazy enough to dig as much as you did and you won a cookie… very appropriate with how excited she gets upon learning more legacy!
This is what you get when you plan out a storyline. It is why stores such as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Song of Fire and Ice do so well. Because the writers don't just write a story, they build an entire world first and then create the story from their own mythology. The foundation is set before the walls even start to be put in place.
And yes, that is why GRRM is struggling with Fire and Ice. He kept introducing characters and sub stories and came to realize too late that trying to tie them all together and finish the story in a cohesive fashion turned into quite the mess. If he could go back in time, he would probably make the books twice as thick or cut out half the characters.
Very well done!
I just wish Gaia would talk post game. Even if it was recycling the previous conversations.
Can't wait for the big finale!
Time dilation at 0.297 c is 4.725%. Enough to change her age by about 8 months.
Note that I'm simplifying and assuming they pretty much instantly hit their max cruising speed, so the average speed for the journey is also the speed they're traveling at the middle. Assuming a 1G acceleration, that's a reasonably fair assumption (only 4 months are spent accelerating and decelerating), but if they have a lower acceleration the math can start getting complicated. For example, if they have only 0.05G thrust, they have to burn their engines the whole trip, and are travelling at 0.6 C at the time Beta is born. After that the speed steadily drops throughout her childhood, requiring some very messy integrals to figure out her age.
Huh... Guess I should have looked that part up when I was trying to think it through. I just divided it up by .297 xD
Interesting note for those listening around the 9-10:00 minute mark regarding the jokes around Aloy's birthday. I believe the Nora don't celebrate birthdays based on who was born, but around the Mother's themselves, and spend the entire day with their Mother whether dead or alive. This means, Aloy probably hasn't had a birthday at all as she never knew who her Mother was and Rost most likely didn't celebrate with her for the sake of it. Honestly, I'd love to see her friends get together in the next game, as Erend suggested and throw her a surprise birthday party.
Which is probably why she was so infatuated with the “happy birthday Isaac” she saw when she first found her focus as a child.
They do celebrate their birthdays. The child gives a gift to their mother on that day. There's a throwaway line in one of the villages of a child talking to his friend about what he's going to make for his mother for his birthday gift to her.
1. Nemesis likely had to build the capacity to travel, and likely is sending a reduced form of itself.
2. Its entirely possible the Zeniths were able to slip away sooner and took Nemesis time to realize they had departed.
3. The fact that the Zeniths were no run down and destroy suggest no space craft existed to chase them in.
4. It is entirely possible Humans left behind sent the signal to kill those that abandoned them.
5. Beta does seem slightly smaller and definitely younger, so 15-16 is a good guess for her age physically, the question on whether they could accelerate her growth so she would be more useful to them is an open question.
Beta also sounds younger. At first, i thought Guerilla made it so we could differ Aloy and Beta but this theory made me think this decision was made on purpose.
Nemesis taking 17.22 years to start travel doesn't make sense to me. Why didn't it pursue zeniths before that? - it's not like earth is their only hope of survival. It doesnt take 17.22 years for an advanced AI to build a ship - especiallt since it doesnt need water or food or oxygen. They may find another planet like earth or Sirius planet. Also, if Nemesis started journey as soon as it received failure signal from Hades, then writers are clearly indicating that it "waited"
Why? It would be far too coincidental that ship completion by Nemesis would take similar amount of time as return signal. Either it's a oversight by writers or it will be explained in future. Perhaps the return signal "encouraged" Nemesis to pursue zeniths actively, but it doesn't make sense for Nemesis to just fire a signal and forget zeniths until a return signal is received.
@@krishnav5122 Nemesis didn't pursue because the Hades signal isn't just for waking up Hades, but also preparing him for incoming Zeniths. Thats the reason why Hades knew how to break Zenith shields. Nemesis thought it was enough.
I would bet Nemesis started development of a space craft to carry whatever it's equivalent of servers are as soon as the Far Zenith colonists escaped, a plan B in case the plan A of denying the Far Zenith colonists resupply was unsuccessful. In that case a vessel-equivalent would be ready as soon as the hades handshake failed. It also makes sense it could reach a higher speed before having to decelerate, so squishy meat parts that would get damaged by very high accelerations, the only physical limitations are the material limitations of whatever that nantite crystal metal stuff that makes up the specters is (or some other more exotic material)
The Zenith feld back to earth to escape Nemesis, so it's very likely it never anticipated this action, and was delayed in order to craft a "physical form" because if Nemesis had anticipated them leaving, why not leave sooner and destroy them in space?
Also, based on the scope of the Zenith operation, I would put their arrival earlier in ZD (about the time Aloy and Sylens met in person. Which was roughly the same time Sylens headed West to wait for Hadies release) at about 6 months vs 4 the author suggests (which also puts beta at around 14
This was very thought provoking, and well explained. With the information we have at the moment I think this is a solid estimation. Always like to hear what other people are diving into when it comes to the lore, nice work 😁.Being that you haven't played the games, feel free to reach out if you are feeling like bouncing some ideas off someone who has spent entirely too much time in this universe 😅
RSQ, we'd like you take on this lore as well, are there any new videos you're working on now??
Wait, he hast played both games?…
MP: "I just really like lore!"
Me: You really need to get together with RSQ. 😂
My wife and I were wondering about Beta's age too and came to the same conclusion of the Zeniths having ordered Beta's creation when seeing the result of the extinction signal. I was already doing the math for that anyway so I threw in relativity, and it only changes Beta's (subjective) age by like 6 or so months.
Beta's age seems to be the only affected variable if relativity is considered, as it should only apply to the spacecraft
This assumes the speed of Zeniths' spacecraft being relatively constant which is not necessarily the case
@@Turalcar Can you provide a reason? They seem to be self-sufficient, and besides acceleration on departure and deceleration on arrival, there's no reason to change speeds while you're traveling through nothing. At the very least, we assume an *average* speed of 0.3c. Since time dilation is proportional to the square root of velocity squared, an average would yield the same result.
@@captaindapper5020 Why couldn't they go faster? I see 2 primary options:
1) Interstellar medium at 0.3c is not "nothing" so this is the fastest the Odyssey could travel without severe damage. The subjective time of travel would be 27.7 years.
2) They accelerated half of the way and decelerated for the second half being only limited by the engine's power output. And no, averaging speed won't work here. If we assume the acceleration to be constant in Odyssey's system the travel will take 27.3 years.
Edit: I redid the math. The difference is even smaller
@@Turalcar Hmm. You're right that the subjective time isn't proportional to the true average; I should have seen that one :P Let's assume for simplicity's sake that the Zenith are sufficiently knowledgeable such that interstellar media isn't an issue. We know the journey took 29 years, and we know that it's 8.611 ly away. Therefore, we know the **average** "true" speed to get here was 0.297c ≈ 0.3c. And, if we assume that their acceleration isn't instantaneous, their top speed must be < 0.3c.
Interestingly, if we assume they need to accelerate at 1G to live comfy (they probably have antigrav since they float everywhere, but work with me :P), and we assume a constant state of accel (flip around and decel at midpoint), the max speed is quite close to 0.5c. Additionally the subjective time is within a month or so of the naive, constant-speed 0.3c subjective time... I think these coincidences are accidental but it's neat anyway, and the 1G makes sense.
It makes Beta ~3 mo younger though, subjectively. 14.25 ish instead of 14.5 ish
Here's my Desmos, if you feel like deciphering my spaghetti. lol
www.desmos.com/calculator/cqoglhpl6r
One other possibility to factor in.
Nemesis is potentially in two places. Primary core still in Sirius, and an exact coppy traveling to earth only a few months after the odysy making it both able to follow the zeniths and be in position to receive the confirmation signal.
You know what's funny to me is, even though I didn't dig into the timeline myself when I saw that conversation between a Aloy and Gaia and heard those times, I thought it sounded funny. Like something seemed off about it. But I just simply chalked it up to that there's going to be more information introduced that we don't know about yet.
Also to mention, I know it's not a factor for the information you gave here but when the zeniths arrived to Earth it probably didn't take them long to get set up. It probably even took seconds because do you remember they have fabrication technology that can produce anything they want instantly.
yess that's the same feeling I had, like there's something weird about it that doesn't add up after I completed ths game something seem off
The side quest "Valley of the Fallen" gives us a hint of when the Zeniths arrived, since the valley was closed for a few months.
@@danielemoreira1168 well the general issue with time in this game is that it's non-definitive. Apart from the baseline "6 months" at the beginning of the game, their is no accounting of time from that point. It's just a vague offerings of times with no absolutes. So in that mission you mentioned, for all we know it could have been a few months after Aloy was in the forbidden West for a full year. Not to mention the whole other mess of factors like the time Sylens spent interrogating Hades and how long after the last battle in the 1st game that he even collected Hades.
@@firstdondiego It’s true and It’s by design
Can we use the dead, rusted Stormbird in the Zenith island to get a rough guess of their arrival?
Tilda mentioned they killed a lot of machines when they arrived and afaik that's the oldest looking dead machine in the island.
I was making a timeline in my head the first week or so of all the events. This did a spectacular job of outlining it, and I think you give great evidence for your theory. We'll have to wait and see if any DLCs contradict what it, but it's very solid nonetheless. Hoping RSQ sees this!
Also, I LOVE you calling it calling Vulcan! It could just be the "Vulcan Protocol/Project", but it would be interesting to have maybe Beta and Sylens work on making a replacement subfunction called such. I mean, outside anything drastic, having HEPH under wraps of Gaia would mean the end of the franchise past Horizon 3...
I think it would definitely close out the story of Aloy, but I think there’s still more they could do with the world. I mean, in an infinite timeline, anything could happen
Nemesis could have a hand in corrupting some machines. I don't think it would be the end!
@@xiaofha Totally true.
It was very interesting for sure 😁
As someone who was a bit slow in trying to follow the whole timeline thingy, you helped out a tonne, thank you, and that last twist was on par with the Horizon game's twist
An important thing I think you’ve missed in Beta’s datapoint is that it says that with the workarounds, Gaia should be able to stabilize the biosphere within a year. With what I think is a reasonable assumption that every action along that path gives the planet a bit more time, that means that the worst case scenario that Gaia predicts early on can be safely avoided. That pushes the upper bound on Nemesis’ arrival further put by at least a few months, and at most by a year or more. Aside from that oversight, absolutely excellent analysis and very solid presentation!
OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS SO GOOD. That was one incredible breakdown good sir. I’m 140 hours into HFW, I’ve platinum-ed Zero Dawn and now finally going down the rabbit hole of lore. This was just fantastic.
Fun fact: I've never played either of the games myself (didn't get a PS4 when Zero Dawn came out, then decided to wait for a PS5, now can't get one of those at retail). But I've experienced pretty much all the lore both games have to offer through RUclips videos, and I find this story more engaging than any major movie or series in recent memory.
Fascinating work, and definitely looking forward to Horizon III. Seriously hoping with the acquisition of Apollo at the end of FW, Aloy and team are able to finally start fabricating some more, shall we say..."modern" weaponry (beyond the odd plasma cannon Aloy picks up from a fallen machine and lugs around until it's out of ammo). So maybe the third game becomes more like the original Turok: bow and arrows meet high-end sci-fi weaponry. More melee options using higher tech weaponry would also be amazing to see.
Personally I hope this doesn’t happen. I’ve played both games and modern weaponry wouldn’t feel right with the mechanics the game uses. There are machine guns and the like, but those aren’t very common and count as heavy weapons (can’t keep them permanently and those run out of ammo)
@@highadmiraljt5853 My thought is once Nemesis arrives and begins flooding the Earth with its technological nightmares, stronger weaponry will be necessary. At the very least more seriously augmented versions of the weapons they've been using. Imagine Aloy having a bow with a magnetic accelerator on the shaft that effectively turns it into a railgun of sorts.
As the higher-tech weapons would likely function on some kind of portable power source, ammo conservation could still be a key factor in situations where Aloy ventures far from the base and isn't able to recharge. That said, it just makes zero sense for her team to retain the use of relatively primitive weaponry going forward with the Zenith's cache of advance knowledge now at their fingertips.
@@KelsonArwhi
Said primitive technology is used to destroy giant robots, and Sylens showed that modifying it is good enough to take down the shields of the zeniths (the shredders and the anti zenith shield are very similar). It also fits the games entire aesthetic better. Why would anyone use the other weapon types in the game then? People would complain about the lack of weapon variety.
i was thinking, if Nemesis hacked into a highly advanced entire colony in a clink, maybe not having technology is actually a blessing for earth. Bows and spears might be rudimentary but can't be hacked ajskdnaskjdnd
@@barbarar2216 I had the same thought but by that logic Aloy and company would then need to abandon their Focuses altogether, and boy howdy would THAT change the whole game mechanics.
I appreciate the hell out of the effort this video took. I love Horizon's plot and hearing any speculation/analysis of it is so much fun. Well done!! Would love it if you made more.
Fantastic video! Really appreciated that graph illustration since it helped greatly with the presentation of the theory :)
that end twist was also amazing LOL
You played the game too, NBC!? (Or at least followed the plot,) that kinda surprises me, since you're mostly a Zelda content creator, but what did you think of the game?
This kind of games people just think it’s just a normal game and there’s no lore into it but when you try to find lore and secrets it just yeets you into a big big rabbit hole
You fail to take into consideration something rather relevant to your timeline, which is the amount of time the Zeniths would require to build their base. We saw their building capabilities first hand when Haphestos takes over the construction module and constructs a Slaughter Spine in less than 10 seconds, a project that otherwise takes a few minutes with it's prior construction capabilities in the cauldron facilities. Additionally, they are able to construct automated and self guided servitors that would have been able to connect and construct their facilities in a matter of a few hours. Additionally, they used existing ruins as a basis for their construction bones, which also reduces the necessary time for construction as well. They also clearly have programmable matter construction, which means everything can be built to any and all unique and prioritized specifications, as well as being able to seamlessly interconnect parts as they are introduced to the construction. They are considerably more advanced even by current modern standards, and may not even have required this, as they clearly have nano-bot construction capabilities for the weapons and suites they carry on their person.
Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if they built their whole base in 1-2 days.
Hope this goes viral, great fun to have you back.
I was glad to see you mentioned time dilation. At the speeds in question, if the handy time dilation calculator I found online is accurate, it looks like a journey at 1/3rd the speed of light would shave off a little less than two years from the Zeniths' subjective journey time, not enough to significantly impact the figures for Beta.
Was going to comment the same thing - Beta’s age is the only thing affected by time dilation, and it makes less than a year’s difference to her age (putting the lower bound at about 14 years 4 months).
I’d also mention that while there aren’t any firm dates given past Aloy’s birth in the games, we do know there was a solstice between them (mentioned by Marad), which meshes with the timeline in the video.
I like your icon
Thats weird because according to my Numbers if we accept it for the travel time between the hades signal and the beginning of betas Ectogenesis till they get to earth it makes beta a week under 19
The word you’re looking for is “relative” (or better yet “proper”) not “subjective”. Time dilation has nothing to do with “subjective time”. It’s all perfectly objective.
iirc time dilation isnt a big problem until you exceed like 0.6 C
I’m glad you acknowledged time dilation - that was the first thing I thought of when they started mentioning relativistic speeds.
And here I thought I was the crazy tryna build up timelines for fandoms I love. Props to you (and others in the comments who added time dilation and other calculations) for this. Needless to say, I'm probably gonna use this video as a reference/base for my theories and headcanons for the Horizon world. Cheers, mate!
Aloy’s word…. You are making my head spin 😂. Great video thank you for sharing your knowledge!
Wow amazing work. There are some things in the game that help with the Zeniths base time. The nearby side quest mention the island where Zenith base, just recently lit up and arriving with a short span of time with the shuttle seen launching and reentering earth . There is a large shield wall, that reminds me of the end of map barriers from ARK survival evolve, but I digress. Then they deployed Machine lures not too long ago. It seem they only been on Earth for a short time. Overall the Horizon lore is really interesting.
Love this essay analysis direction for you mate. Extremely high quality stuff, great work.
You are someone after my own heart. I spent over 50 years researching naval armor and how to punch holes in its as a hobby and had unbelievable good luck concerning getting information (the head of the US Navy Ballistics Computation Division at the US Naval Proving Ground during and after WWII retired and gave me all of his files since he thought -- probably correctly given what happened to US Army WWII files of this type -- that they might be thrown awat. So I had virtually EVERYTHING the US Navy knew about armor during WWII. I found, like you, that a major part of the puzzle, in this case the thick Class "A" side armor used in battleships, actually had not been evaluated as a stand-alone material, but just used a modified formula/database used for the soft, ductile Class "B" deck armor material. I had to find out Class "A" armor's rules from scratch, which took up most of my study and I finally solved it by developing a computer program through 70 versions. I am very stubborn and like such challenges. So, it seems, do you.
Thank you for making this video! It was a very thoughtful and clear summary of the timeline thus far. I feel your assumptions were fairly conservative and certainly reasonable. It seems to me that the next installment would logically pick up just before the arrival of Nemesis, with some final preparations (and lots of fighting Hephaestus' machines) before a mid-game arrival. I can't possibly imagine what might happen in the second half of the game, though. One possibility is that because Nemesis is primarily obsessed over killing Far Zenith, it somewhat relents when it discovers that Far Zenith is already dead (unlikely as that is). Another possibility is that the protagonists trick Nemesis into thinking Far Zenith is still alive by launching the Odyssey on an escape trajectory, thus luring Nemesis away from Earth and towards a trap that has been set on board the Odyssey (I mainly suggest this because I think it would be really cool to explore a spaceship in the game).
Everything adds up. I do think the writers have some leeway with the arrival time of Nemesis, it can always go slower then predicted, taking its time to get to Earth.
This is an insanely awesome level of detail, I can really appreciate the effort that went into this video! One interesting thing: in a Burning Shores datapoint called "Dagger in my Boot" Walter Londra mentions they'll have to retrofit the Odyssey ship as they go, acquiring materials along the way to print a faster drive, which suggests they were not travelling at a constant speed the whole time, but this shouldn't have factored into Gaia's calculations at the time. Time dilation estimates: 29 years from observer on earth at .297 speed of light = 27.69 years elapsed for Zeniths onboard the odyssey. 13 years at .662 speed of light = 9.74 years elapsed for Zeniths onboard the odyssey, pulled numbers from a time dilation calculator online idk if that helps us at all or is correct, but probably is not worth it to consider since the only reference frame we care about is time elapsed on earth?
crazy ridiculous theory: in the years waiting for a return signal from earth, back on sirius, Nemesis was hard at work developing and imagining super advanced technology, and came up with a way to receive the return signal slightly earlier through an artificial wormhole, so the signal return on sirius was received in Jan 3028 instead of April 3029, so the 13 years that Gaia estimated it would've taken the Odyssey to reach earth is actually the amount of time it took Nemesis to get there, and it is already hiding on earth in secret, and continued to transmit the signal from sirius for another 1.25 years after it left to not tip anyone off, and the fact Gaia knew this information was received on sirius in 3028, but not why, was because it was hidden within data inside Hades and Nemesis forgot to cover up that detail, and all Gaia knew at the time was when the signal back on Sirius was received, because Gaia says "if they did not set out for earth until they learned of the extinction signals failure, the journey was even faster, a mere 13 years".
What I really like about this analysis is that it's of the timeline the writers might have come up with and not of what may or may not have happened in-game. I find it to be a very compelling line of reasoning on that basis :-)
NGL The fact that you made this video without playing the game threw me for quite the loop.
Please play this series. They are a wonder to be held.
Great job, Bentham. Your analytical skills are excellent!
Idk if you’re right or wrong. But your neurotic deep dive into this subject is hella cool and got a sub from me.
If you approach everything you do with this kind of zeal and dedication I definitely want to be around to see what you scour thru next.
What a good content! I just started become a fan of this franchise when the first game was available for free n pre-ordered the 2nd as soon as it's available - that's how good the franchise was. This vid helps a lot to understand the timeline of the story; too much data points can be confusing to keep up😅
So many useless data points wrecked the experience of this game for me....More is not always better.
@@albertawheat6832 somehow i agree😅even if data points related to Old Worlds, keeping it minimum to key/important ones will do
I wonder how they would possibly top the Horus boss fight of "Burning Shores" in the 3rd game...
Wow, excellent work. I wouldn't be surprised if you're spot-on with your Nemesis prediction.
This is outstanding work, just brilliant. The twist at the end is worthy of the Horizon writers themselves. If you love lore you really should play both games, though. There is a huge amount of fascinating stuff about the world and history entirely unconnected with the main story. Lots more potential rabbit holes to go down! I hope we get to see more lore videos from you, whether or not you end up playing.
Tremendous work. I love lore (or back story) myself. Zero Dawn was in that respect pretty good. But I was less impressed or convinced by Forbidden West. Your timeline adds something to it, but I still feel that the first game was enough.
Time dilation isn't actually much of a factor at the speeds listed. You don't start getting dilation effects that really make a serious impact until you hit 80% c.
Given the time scales involved, and the author’s at least down to the year precision, a speed of .26c would it be enough to make a serious impact.
At least, in post apocalypse Earth, imperial measurements have finally been banished in favour of metric.
You should do a video that includes the timeline of Elizabet and the end of the world and the events that happened. I think there is enough info about how all that played out but I’m not sure. Would be cool to see that all on one graph! Thanks for the video!
The graph you’ve made is dependent on Nemesis still being on Sirius when it found out the extinction signal failed. I think there was a decent chance it was already on its way after them when it found out.
if that was the case shouldnt nemesis have arrived on earth by now?
@@ovencake523 that’s saying its the same speed as the zenith ship
It would be interesting for you to revisit this based on the new info from the Burning Shores DLC. I'm actually toying with dropping $500 for a console to play a $20 DLC because the Horizon series is THIS GOOD.
This is crazy brilliant. I loved this game it is beautiful to look at, amazing to play, but now due to this crazy analysis, you've added yet another layer of complexity to game. I am totally impressed with the time graph and the analysis. It would be interesting to hear from the developers.
MY JAW WIDE OPEN AT THE LAST TWIST. Ive just got Plat on Forbidden West and already got Plat on Zero Dawn, I really like the lore too but thats crazy im glad youre apart of the community lmao
Nice find! It actually really looks like an oversight...
The only thing I'm not fully convinced about is that the Far Zenith created Beta only after they were sure that the original nemesis plan had failed.
After finishing the game we know that they left Sirius shortly after Nemesis destroyed their colony (IIRC Tilda said so during the breakfast she had with Aloy), moreover the FZ knew/supposed that the only chance they had to survive Nemesis was to
1) hope that its original plan to use Hades failed (which, thanks to Gaia self-destruction, it did) 2) manage to gather everything they needed on earth in order to escape to another planet and still be able to adapt it to their needs (they need Gaia with all her Functions => they need a clone of Sobeck)
As soon as one of these 2 conditions fails they are done-dead-RIP, so there is no point for them to delay Beta's creation. It'd only lead to a less prepared and instructed "tool" in their hands. not only that, I'm also quite confident that Tilda was applying pressure to have an Elisabeth clone on board asap because.. yes.
Anyway, great video, one of the best analysis I've seen on this game since... since it came out, GJ!
my thought is that beta is possibly a secondary clone and that there was a primary "alpha" clone made first that either rebelled or was destroyed by some other means
Incredible and detailed breakdown!
When I played through the dialog with Gaia I did something similar on graph paper but nowhere near as detailed but came to a similar conclusion regarding Nemesis and it makes a lot of sense when you take into consideration both the in game timeframes as well as the elapsed time between the HZD and HFW.
I salut to you, sir, this is a tremendous work and story telling of yours by considering so many factors and information, while still making it more than solidly comprehensive for everyone. Thanks a lot for this vid! Helped me a lot more to understand the dimension of this game (and probably the next one)
I hope TimeGraphs become more of a thing in sci-fi, and with Time Dilation in general.
It’s so cool.
Congratulations on the Excellent detective work! I was going to make a timeline, too, but you dug much, much deeper than I would have. Thanks!
Awesome work man. Thank you for presenting your timeline on this and it was a pleasure watching you plot it all out. Let's revisit this video post the 3rd game and see how spot on or wrong you were. I can't wait for that day now.
lmao now I gotta watch a Let's Play of Horizon: Forbidden West, this sounds crazy fun
I love graphs, and I must say I absolutely love the graph you made to show the timeline of Horizon in such a clear and simple way. Truly brilliant research and graph making.
Jeez I really hope they have more than a year to catch/ally Hephaestus and prep for Nemesis. Hopefully they can integrate Zenith tech also. Idk, if only saving the world from nemesis was as simple as calling up the incoming swarm to say "we killed all the zeniths, and we know your beef was primarily with them so maybe keep on flying right past earth pretty please?"
Bentham you absolute mad lad, I didn't expect this from you! Glad to know you're a Horizon fan too!
I love horizon because it’s not a frost person shooter, and it’s not a zombie game it’s an adventure into the unknown it’s a survival, it’s a grow game in the character and it feels that way Skyrim and others like it just feel what do I do now horizon gives direction. And I like it.
It's a generic open world rpg... same as any other thats came out in the past 10 years or more , really look at it and you'll see what I mean , all rpgs are re skins of the same exact game : story sends you to new area of map , you climb a tower then you clear a couple outposts then you do the mission then you collect then the story sends you to a new area of the map , you climb a tower you take out a few outposts..... aaaand you get my point , now take that formula and look at hzd, far cry , the elder scrolls , fallout , mass effect aaaaand you get my point 👉
All modern rpgs are the same as all others , just like shooters or zombie games
Is the story unique? Yeah it is but is the game? No its not
I'm not sure I've ever been so interested in a timeline. Good job.
This is amazing! Cheers!
Fascinating! Thank you for taking the time to do this!
One thing regarding the signal travel time (ending at 4:50): if the signal travelling back causes the stoppage, what about the signals already sent? They travel and don’t get cancelled so to speak… those signals take the same time to reach earth as before, hence the math of “half” is incorrect I believe and should be a third
Edit: which is exactly what you’re explaining at 7:17
Well done . Was a pleasure to watch this video.
I think the zeniths created Beta earlier, knowing that she at the very least would be a “good to have” once they got to earth, either that or there was a way for them to speed up gestation at least. I think some of Beta’s early frustrations come from being the same age if not older than Aloy and feeling less prepared even though she was born and raised to do what needed to be done. They had the tech to pause their own ageing so knew they could do the same to Beta, so again I think she was born early into their journey back to earth.
Thanks for making this video. I recently finished Forbidden West on Hard and the video makes me admire the writers as they absolutely would've had to graph out everything to make sure no line of dialogue or sidequest conflicted and messed things up. I could only imagine regular meetings just to make sure everything still fit not just within itself but with Zero Dawn as well. Love this series, can't wait to see where it goes.
“OK, enough, you’re making my head spin”. Seriously though, this is amazing stuff and especially so, given your reveal (no spoilers) at the end. Came to this from RSQ’s Discord, where I’m sure it will be well received. 👍
Thanks!
@@MangledPork kind of like how bungo keeps Imperfectly portraying the Destinyverses in Lore scale vs Gameplay showings. (16:51).
but as it is a lazy mistake with most other fictional franchises' Lore being translated into the moving visual portrayals already....
with guerrilla and the horizon franchise's Lore, story elements being not too new, yeah.
This was an amazing video. Well done! Very informative, and even if you're not completely accurate, it's very interesting to see.
Your first lore video and for me, this is the first of your videos I've seen. You just got yourself a new subscriber because honestly this is one of the best information videos I've seen about a games world and timeline.
I'm watching this video 7 months after you released it, but bravo on the work you've done here! This is SO interesting! I'm just dying to know more about the Zeniths & how they developed their technology. I'm also extremely interested in learning more about Nemesis & what their/its existence has been like for hundreds of years. Assuming it's a single entity, is it insane? Just angry & spiteful? Is it housed in a physical object, or just like, a super-pissed Wi-Fi signal? I gotta know!
Guerilla, please tell me this game series is at the very least planned to be a trilogy!
This video only came up for me recently. This is the first video of yours i've seen. I really love the way this was put together. Nice one.
Some helpful other informative:
1. Tilda mentions that their spacecraft was barely fit for flight when they departed. Presumably this means Nemesis had no other craft on the Zenith colony to use and would have had to build one. Also the Zeniths may have needed to stop for repairs/supplies at some point early in the journey.
2. If Nemesis can get to Earth more than twice as fast as the Zeniths do, it has used their collective knowledge to not only steal but also improve upon their technology. That device Sylens made will most likely not work against it anymore, since it created it.
3. Sylens could also be a Zenith if his immortal theory is true (That faceless Peter guy at the beginning of the game could be him). Nemesis could know about this from their memories and be specifically targeting him more than anyone else. Hence why Sylens really wants to leave, but also might want revenge.
whos peter
2. Sylens device was made to disable the Far Zenith shields and not to fight against Nemisis, 3. what immortality theory and whos peter?
This is my first time hearing the Sylens immortality theory. That sounds rad but isn't it pretty much confirmed already that he's just a very smart Banuk?
I do not believe Sylens is a Zenith. But Sylens is not likely Banuk. He claimed to be one but we learn in the Frozen Wilds that the Banuk themselves are suspicious of Sylens' story. They could not find anyone who previously knew Sylens. Banuk elders think Sylens lied and even used Banuk body modification to pose as a shaman to learn sacred knowledge from them, and disappeared once done.
Sylens is likely from some unknown tribe that does not matter. He is a self-made man. Everything he accomplished was done naturally, regardless of his tribe of birth. @@yourdad5799
Nice! I began tinkering with time dilation due to ligth speed. At 0.662 speed of ligth time on earth is about 13 years longer than for those how tavels, or only 1.9 years traveling at 0.297 speed of ligth. And here my mind broke... Its somthing with the birth of beata and Eloy.
Grate video got the old noging going!
Can't watch video sine haven't played FW, but I will say that a theory me and my wife have had from pretty much the beginning was that the ship that was sent out with the proto-type of Aretimis wasn't really destoryed. She only told people that and faked it so the rest of humanity would push itself harder to finish Gaia. We firmly believe they will come back at some point.
Man this is SOLID. Your predictions and evidence really shows it.
Damn it Beb, this sounds super interesting, but I haven't finished the games yet. Well, watch later it is.
Glad to see you back with such a great video!
The question about Betas Age gets even more complicated: Time dilation. The faster you go, the closer you get to the speed of light, the less time passes for you travelling on that ship.
13:59 😛
@@MangledPork My apologies, I overlooked that footnote.
at that speed and distance time dilation would be a very mitigating Factor however I would chalk it up to beta being in an unnatural gravity environment another possibility is that there was an alpha clone first and beta is a second clone made by far zenith and something happened to the alpha either rebellion or disaster
@@lannstarr35 alpha is the OG sobek. They call her alpha prime.
@MangledPork Gaming
I want to raise another point regarding Beta's age. We know the Far Zenith have learned to manipulate their own DNA to slow down or even halt aging. We could also assume that there is the possibility of accelerated growth/aging.
But even if that is not the case there is also another issue that might be interesting. Depending on the speed they have traveled and the way their ship transport system works - time dilation would also affect them. Beta could already have been made when they left Sirius as she would age more slowly in comparison to Alloy depending on the relative speed the spaceship has traveled.
This consequence derives from the Lorentz transformation under the special theory of relativity.
"The time lapse between two events is not invariant from one observer to another, but is dependent on the relative speeds of the observers' reference frames (e.g., the twin paradox which concerns a twin who flies off in a spaceship traveling near the speed of light and returns to discover that the non-traveling twin sibling has aged much more, the paradox being that at constant velocity we are unable to discern which twin is non-traveling and which twin travels)." [see Wikipedia on Time Dilation for that]
So theoretically, time dilation would make it possible for passengers in a fast-moving vehicle to advance further into the future in a short period of their own time. For sufficiently high speeds, the effect is dramatic.
Gaia does provide us with the speed the spaceship may have traveled. If you are keen on doing the math you might find out why there is a shift in the timeline or potentially come to a conclusion of Beta's age.
Extremely impressive!
Nice work. That must have taken you some time. I'm saving your video so I can remember this timeline. It's really hard to keep track of not only years, months, weeks and days too.
And one last thing from me. Since you liked the lore, you best watch Horizon when it comes out on Netflix. ;).
You have a good one. Thumbs up.
Just walking from Vegas to San Fran would be roughly 7.5 days. If you consider the whole area of the map, Forbidden West should be (at least) a six month process). When you throw in all th eactual questing, FB might easily be a 1.5 year peridod.
Aloys too impatient to walk. She would have mounted machine.
This is so awesome... Gr8 work brother.. was not expecting the twist at the end..that came out of nowhere 😳😅😂
Just finished this master piece yesterday. The ending was really shocking to me. Thank you for making this video. It will help me understand some stuff I didn't quite get about the ending and history overall. Can't wait for a dlc and sequel 🥰🥰🥰
I love this, it was very detailed and explained very well. I'm also shook by the fact that you've never played the games. They are so good for stories and emotional attachment.
Interesting. When I first head the Zenith exposition from Gaia I broke out my graph paper and made a very similar chart.
Remarkable work! Thank you for this! Whether it's correct or thereabout, it's still all very interesting.
Very cool video! Thank you for sharing your work with everyone! If you are right, we have both the name of the DLC (The Burning Shores) AND the next full game (Nemesis).
If anyone is interested, the time dilation rates for a journey that took 29 years for a distance of 8.6 light years makes a velocity of about 30% of the speed of light. According to Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Derivation_and_formulation) make a dilation rate of about 1:1.1. So the 29 year journey only took 26.36 years from the perspective of the people on the ship.
Therefore, if they intercepted Hades reply signal 15-16 years ago, it would be 13.6-14.5 years ago from their perspective. So either Beta is 14, the Far Zeniths cloned her BEFORE they received the signal, or the writers didn't include time-dilation. :)
It is possible that the Far Zenith's were planning on simply TAKING OVER Gaia using Beta, and they cloned Sobek near the start of their journey. It is also possible Beta is actually closer to 25 and just looks younger because of living her whole life in space. It is likely that the artificial gravity in their ship would be less than 1G - especially if most of them have floaty suits that, so her body might age slower than Aloy. It may be that once they intercepted Hades signal they simply changed their plan to use Beta to help reconstruct Gaia and then leave before Nemesis arrives. I wonder if they planned on abducting any Earth humans to increase their biodiversity on their ship for whatever planet they were headed to!
More precisely, the factor is ~1,059, making the journey ~27,38 years.
Well done mate. This is great fun to watch and very professional!
Well, you answered what I wanted actually: How old was beta. I probably missed a LOT of datalogs, sadly doing a quick scan with the focus won't highlight them and even on a second playthrough using the focus constantly to scan every inch possible of the locales, I still miss a few datalogs. Beta having a few years less than Aloy makes sense, she's a teen yet and now all of her paranoia and fears makes sense. Good.
About Nemesis, we still don't know how long it will take for it to arrive earth but I'm sure it can travel as fast as Odissey, maybe even faster if it can use the knowledge it has from the minds of the people inside it.
What Nemesis actually is though makes no sense. Even if it was the culmination of a lot of minds, if the project was actually chaotic, meaning the creators knew that the minds were unstable inside of it, why they would never terminate the project? How it became self-aware, and most of all: How does it know so much about how the Zero Dawn system works. There is a file in the game mentioning a crazy IA, and that may be the reason, but who knows at this point? All we can say is that this video of yours is awesome, thanks for it, and I really hope the third game can be done a little faster OR way later than 4 years because I want to be able to buy a fucking PS5 at the time (i know it won't be on the PS4 that's for sure) and right now it's a rip-off where I live(You guys are crazy about Scalpers? What if Sony was actually THE scalper? That's what happens here, a PS4 costs around 1080US Dollars for me, and that's from Sony's official website XD).
Crazy AI it's Vast Silver?
Nemesis may not contain just the brain scans of the Zeniths
I do have some theories about the nature of Nemesis, I think we should be wary of trusting the already vague explanation Tilda gave us.
Really cool vid man, wish I had the patience to do projects like this-so illuminating and interesting!
Interesting deep dive. I love the lore in this game.
I love these sorts of lore deep dives. Well done!
10:03 I remember when GAIA told Aloy that Erend proposed to have a birthday party for her... I don't remember if it was before or after she came back from Las Vegas (I'm doing the new game + and I stayed in this part of the game to understand the timeline) so yes, probably if FW was set in 3041, Aloy would be 20 in the middle of the game
This is impossible. in holograms, audios and texts found in San Francisco from Forbidden West, you have an initial date and how much time has passed since it, that is, there's no way Aloy has more than 18 years in the game . Horizon Zero Dawn takes place in 3038 and Horizon Forbidden West in 3039, read my previous comments, look for the texts and audios I highlighted in both games and do the math .
@@daikyozeus Aloy was "Born" on April 21, 3021, GAIA ordered her creation on August 26, 3020 as a last resort, after which GAIA self-destructed due to signal of unknown origin.
According to Guerrilla, HZD's story takes place in the year 3039, when she was accepted into the Nora tribe on her 18th birthday.
The action of HFW takes place in the year 3040.
@@ladydalida6917 In Horizon Zero Dawn ,I did the calculations for the 355510 days(973 years and 121 days) passed since Elizabeth Solbeck's last scheduled visit to Faro's headquarters was scheduled for November 3, 2064, which is the date of the last hologram of her conversations with the Ted Faro that by the content of the hologram she did not attend, that is, the day that Aloy arrived at Faro's headquarters is March 4, 3038.
In Forbidden West ,TEBAS has been active for 50844 weeks ( 355908 days / 974 years and 155 days) , I made calculations and this is some date in 3039 , by the audios/texts in THEBAS it is clear that its activation was before January 2066 .
Another detail is that Sylens says in Gaia Prime in the HZD that the explosion of the place happened close to 19 years, if I am correct the ordeal of the Nora in the HZD occurred during the winter solstice of 3037 when Aloy was 16 years old and in the course of events. of HZD she turns 17. And I repeat I did all the calculations with existing data in both games.
PS; Aloy 'Born' April 4, 3021
The data I listed is from a text data log from the Eluthia-9 facility in Nora's Mother Mountain. This data log contains all data, such as the offline date of GAIA-Prime, i.e. the date of its self-destruction and all relevant data about Aloy and its history. This data comes directly from the designers. So I don't need any cumbersome calculations about possible time-distance specifications if all relevant data are given by the designers.
In addition, the hint also came from Guerilla itself, which plays HFW about 6 months after the events of Meridian. In addition, it must also be considered that the events within HZD are also designed for a period of about 6 months. Just think of the distances she has to travel.
I don't want to know how many miles Aloy has covered in HZD alone.
@@ladydalida6917 I also thought I didn't need to do any math, but while playing HZD I found some inconsistencies between the old world dates and the internet claims about Aloy's age and what year the Horizon Zero Dawn game was set in. So I looked inside the game for something that would help with that and the only data I found was an audio that is not part of the datapoints that occurs when Aloy arrives in Maker's End saying that 355510 days have passed. Consequently I ended up making an estimate of how many days pass from the beginning to the end of the HZD which would be during a period around 4 to 7 months. Already in Horizon Forbidden West in Thebas there is a text present in the datapoints written that Thebas is active at 50844 weeks which coincidentally is something close to 6 months longer than the 355510 days mentioned in HZD. And another detail that makes HZD impossible to be in 3039 is that the audio with the dialogue between GAIA and Elizabeth Solbeck that Aloy hears when she finds Solbeck's remains at the end of Horizon Zero Dawn was recorded on February 3, 2066, and this audio is along with the text datapoints related to Elizabeth Solbeck (he is the only text with content blocked even after we finish the game), another detail is that the hologram where Ted Faro kills the alpha prime members of the Zero Dawn project takes place on February 2nd of 2066. Some dialogues with NPCs during HZD show the passage of time within the game, from the day Aloy did the Nora's ordeal until the day she arrives at Meridiana the first time, for example, it's been close to 30 days. After analyzing all the existing dates in HZD, I saw that there was no way for Aloy to be 18 years old during the game and that the most likely year would be 3038, and during the calculation of how many days it took for the entire story of HZD to happen I realized that the game starts in the year 3037 and ends in 3038, something that also occurs in Horizon Forbidden West, the game starts in 3038 and ends in 3039.
Back after your warning and completing story!! Thank you for that.