The Moon is one of "Them".

[Pop Guy]

There are several logical evidences of this:

1) "They" are depicted in the frescoes of the ancients as an omniscient eye. The Moon is literally a large alien eye.

2) "They" are described by Maxwell as being willing to communicate with mortals; not eager to kill humans. They can also give terrible and wonderful knowledge. Gestalts (emanations of the thing that pulsates under the Moon) do not cause physical harm to the survivors, they seem to try to communicate, but what they say seems too much for the human mind; who can't help but lose consciousness.

3) "Return of Them" implies that "they" must be back on the Constant. Since they did not come from the portal into the abyss, to give coherence to the title of the update we must necessarily assume they came from somewhere else. In this case from space. Which would coincide with the vision of "them" as Outer Gods.

4) If the civilization of the ancients was indirectly destroyed by "them" it makes sense that the ancient queen (who seems to have reincarnated in Charlie) wants to take revenge. For now she has clearly absorbed the Gestalts, but her purpose is to somehow kill the Otherworldly Eye. 

(In the image, Wilson in front of some Gestalt, while the otherworldly eye shines in the sky and the storm breaks loose. What a beautiful graphics of the new update !!)

[VouMorrer]

here is a maxwell quote for you:

 ALTERGUARDIAN_PHASE3DEADORB = "This power, it feels like... but it couldn't be...",
 ALTERGUARDIAN_PHASE3DEAD = "I don't know what to believe. All this time, I thought that They were..."

Spoiler

you are absolutely correct in my opinion

 

[Dextops]

47 minutes ago, Pop Guy said:

Which would coincide with the vision of "them" as Outer Gods.

this actually makes sense since by this logic the gnaw could count as one of them and with the new trailer we see the merms turn violent when the moon is awaked since it is also one of Them. this could also mean if not for the gnaw explanation that merms have a relationship with the moon knowing they are a fallen ancient civilization which predated maxwell's reign so either of these explanations could explain why the merms had reacted like so

[Friendly Grass]

I think of “Them” as an ultimate power/knowledge/energy that can manifest in different entities and possibly corrupt them. First the fuel corrupted the ancients and Metheus. The gnaw? And currently the moon.

The “Metheus is here” could suggest that Metheus has now fused into this all-consuming energy.

So I would argue that They aren’t the moon itself but instead a power that has manifested in the moon. Not that I at all know what I’m talking about.

[HowlVoid]

I made this theory before... 

So we know Crab king was betrayed and driven insane. What does he wear? Jewels around his head.

In a mural we see the ancients mining jewels out of a rock that oddly resembles the meteors that come from the moon.

My theory is... What if the moon was syphoning sanity from those that used jewels? The gestals are those fractured pieces of sanity that were taken from others. The moon also siphons sanity from the survivors during dawn, night an especially during a full moon. Maybe that's why nightmares and charlie are trying to kill the survivors. To keep them from feeding the moon any further.

Just a theory, but its full of holes. Not much to go on, haha.

[Dextops]

17 minutes ago, Friendly Grass said:

The gnaw

the gnaw to me makes sense since he is also a higher being and has powers to corrupt kinda like alter. he also correlates to the moon since he is the entire sky in the gorge world so they have some sort of correlation one being in the sky and one actually being the sky

[minespatch]

51 minutes ago, Dextops said:

the gnaw to me makes sense since he is also a higher being

Wilson even called the Gnaw a "Sky god".

[Auth]

I think the moon is just one They. I think there's two. So many chess references over the ages, it makes sense there's a light and dark side to the board. If I remember correctly, in the metheus puzzle, the ancient portal has an eye in it spewing out nightmare fuel, and now we have the moon itself being an eye. But I could be remembering wrong.

[axxel]

I believe into a more bittersweet theory.

Staff guy tries to rescue torch guy. Torch guy was assilimated by Them (the alien). Charlie and the survivors could carry out the plan to bring torch guy back. Otherwise, They would attack and rule other worlds. Maybe the Gnaw is one of them.

 

 

[lemonti]