More thoughts on the meaning behind the ARGs

by petetheduck, Thursday, February 14, 2013, 08:55 (4082 days ago) @ ExigentContact

Warning: discussion of leaked content follows

Like you, ExigentContact, I also think these messages are from the perspective of the Traveler. I also think that they are related to their corresponding planet, but not necessarily about the planet itself (for example, Day 1 seems to be more about humanity than the moon).

Day 1:
The best voices--voices that truly matter--never
allow themselves be heard. This lesson is worth
learning again and again.

Forever.

Your voice moves as whispers, murmurs and urges
inside larger winds. Only the trusted few can absorb
what is necessary. Wise and sly and perfect, your
instructions drop, leaving nothing but the hard sweet
rime of enlightenment.

The path is set. Your voice is unleashed. Except now
it is gone...

And maybe it never was.

I believe the first two paragraphs are the Traveler's introduction, and it tells us a few things about the Traveler. It is very old, very knowledgeable, and does not communicate.

We learn that humans were just one of many species in the galaxy, and a rather insignificant species at that. Then, either through our own efforts or through a discovery, humanity became a spacefaring race... and was then nearly exterminated.

These are all ideas that the leaked content seems to support.

Day 2:
Life waits inside this world's bones.

Your voice flows across the red rock
and through the dead valleys, speaking in code
and goads.

Ancient volcanoes swell, exploding at their
peaks and splitting wide along their
shoulders. Ash clouds blacken the starved
air. A fossil ocean of ice softens and
collapses; geysers erupt, tall as mountains,
throwing up steam and clouds.

Every moment matters. And from a great
distance, in the midst of a thousand careful
disasters, you watch the transformation
with your own eyes.

The rose has blossomed.

I think this is pretty straight-forward: At some point, we terraformed Mars. What I find interesting about this is that it is written in present tense. If, as the leaked content suggests, there is only one human city left--then there's no way we could currently be terraforming Mars. Either the tense of these messages are irrelevant, or the Traveler has been watching us for a long time.

Day 3:
One face is blistered, the other plunged into
a brutal chill. Is this how it's always been?

You remember hot oceans, nourishing
atmosphere. But something transpired,
kicked what was wet and fertile into space,
stealing away everything of value. Or
perhaps what thrived here for a day or for
ten million years decided to leave, peeling
its wet organics off the bones.

A name offers itself, and another, and a
thousand more.

The answer feels like the iron heart of a
collapsed star, and you realize the union
between the past and the future is now.

There's no reason not to expect this to apply to Mercury. At some point, Mercury supported life--perhaps not human life, though. I'm getting a Reaper vibe--that whatever is attacking humanity has attacked many species (names), and that the union of the past and future is the realization that the cycle is happening again--another species is being exterminated. The iron heart of a collapsed star could refer to a black hole--a truth that cannot be escaped.