Brittle Hollow

Brittle Hollow
Type	Planet
Inhabitants	Riebeck
Location	3rd planet

Brittle Hollow is the third of six planets in the Outer Wilds' solar system. Its surface is largely barren and rocky, and over time it will break apart and fall into a black hole at the center of the planet. Brittle Hollow is home to an enormous Hanging City, the Tower of Quantum Knowledge, the Southern Observatory, a Gravity Cannon, and the Black Hole Forge used by the Nomai to craft the warp cores for the Ash Twin Project.

Details

Features

Brittle Hollow is a highly unstable planet. Its dry, rocky surface is fractured and prone to collapse, and in the 22 minutes of game time the player can observe as most of the planet's crust breaks away and falls into its central black hole. These pieces then emerge at the white hole next to White Hole Station. This collapse is precipitated by the balls of lava ejected from the planet's moon crashing into the surface, coupled with the fact that the planet core has been gutted, either to make way for the work of the Black Hole Forge, or because of the Black Hole Forge. Traversing the planet's precarious remains is a challenging task, but despite the likelihood that a player will slip and fall into the black hole, the fact that White Hole Station lies very close to the black hole's exit point means that the planet's long drops aren't as dangerous as they are simply inconvenient.

Escape Pod 1 resides on the surface, its metal tempered by the heat of its descent to the planet. From the escape pod the player can follow a trail of precarious wooden bridges created to span the gaps between rocks, indicating that the enormous drop towards the planet's core existed millennia ago when the Nomai first entered the system.

The planet's two poles are topped with snow, and the north pole has flowing water. This leads to ice formations beneath the surface into which the Hanging City is built.

The rest of the planet's interior is made up of a mixture of blue metallic and red crystalline rock formations. The geometric lattice of these formations exhibit clear fracture points and planes of weakness, which makes it susceptible to the collapse that the player can witness in action during the game.

Locations

Black Hole Forge

The Black Hole Forge is suspended below the Hanging City, just above the black hole at the planet's center. It's the source of all the Nomai warp cores found around the solar system, including the Advanced Warp Core that powers the Ash Twin Project. The forge itself can be raised and lowered from the control room on the first level of the Hanging City, and accessed via the uppermost level, which itself can only be accessed via the warp portal on Ash Twin. The Black Hole Forge was used to craft the Advanced Warp Core, which powers the Ash Twin Project.

Crossroads

A mural of Brittle Hollow's locations. From the top clockwise, it depicts the Hanging City, the gravity cannon, the Southern Observatory, and the Tower of Quantum knowledge.

The crossroads is a minor location most notable for featuring a map of Brittle Hollow (right) and being adjacent to Riebeck's camp. The player can use the map to see which locations are reachable from where, though centuries of deterioration means some of the pathways have broken down and will continue to do so over the course of the game.

Gravity Cannon

Accessible from the crossroads or the surface, Brittle Hollow's gravity cannon is found on the equator. Its associated shuttle is resting on the Quantum Moon, and the player can recall it to read the notes inside written by a Nomai named Solanum just after landing the shuttle on the Quantum Moon and just before setting foot outside.

The gravity cannon is likely to fall through the black hole near the end of the cycle.

Hollow's Lantern

Brittle Hollow is orbited by the volcanic moon, Hollow's Lantern. The lava level slowly lowers as time goes on. The balls of magma that shoot from the moon crash into the surface of the planet, precipitating the collapse of the planet's crust. The Nomai named Root used the moon's lava to heat-test mineral samples supplied from the Nomai mines on Timber Hearth. These samples were then used to encase the Ash Twin Project.

Original Nomai Settlement

On the equator is a cluster of four dilapidated Nomai structures. One is full of ghost matter, one contains Riebeck's old camp and some of their expedition notes, and one is a gravity crystal workshop with a stairway leading underground to the Crossroads.

Southern Observatory

On the south pole is a domed observatory only accessible from beneath Brittle Hollow's crust. Outside the broken surface entrance, the player can find Riebeck's ship and recorded notes of their plan to search the Nomai ruins on the equator for a path underground.

The gravity pathways to the Southern Observatory are broken from the beginning of the game, and the player needs to jump from broken pathway to broken pathway to get inside.

Next to the entrance is a projection stone of a conversation with the team building the orbital probe cannon on Giant's Deep, who had been using the cyclones to launch parts into orbit only to have one piece unexpectedly driven beneath the ocean's usually-impassable current. To figure out what happened, a Nomai named Spire built two models of Giants Deep cyclones there at the observatory. The models are still present and active.

Additionally, there's a Nomai three-dimensional modeler hooked up to a more sophisticated Eye Signal Locator than the one built on the Attlerock. It can be activated to show the orbits of each planet in the solar system, but is unable to locate the Eye and can only display its many potential orbits. On the same level as the Locator controls are two discussions of the Nomai's ongoing search for the Eye. One covers what they know about the Eye so far and laments their lack of progress finding it. In the other, the Nomai Mallow suggests simply launching a probe into the outermost reaches of the solar system to see if it happens to find the eye. Cassava points out that the odds of randomly firing the probe at the correct trajectory to find the Eye were extremely small, but Conoy points out there's another ongoing project that could take luck out of the equation.

Tower of Quantum Knowledge

See Tower of Quantum Knowledge page.

Gallery

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  Hollow's Lantern

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  Hollow's Lantern nearly depleted of lava

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  Hollow's Lantern and Brittle Hollow just before the supernova

Notes & Trivia

• If you happen to slip and fall towards the black hole, its possible to slingshot yourself around it using your spacesuit's thrusters. There is a conveniently placed gravity lift extending down to black hole's edge, and lucky or skillful players that can maneuver themselves into its path can spare themselves the trek back from White Hole Station. This gravity lift will helpfully deposit the player at Riebeck's camp, which offers a campfire, oxygen, and a fuel tank.

• The many gravity lifts and gravity crystals installed around the interior of the planet indicate that Brittle Hollow was just as precarious during the era of the Nomai. It's unknown what lay at the center of the planet before they crafted the Black Hole Forge.