Story of Oxygen not Included!

[abhiraz]

hello guys , so outbreak update is here and everyone seems to working up in their bases .

has anyone figure out the story behind the cute guys , what on earth these guys are doing in an asteroid and how they get here .

suggestion and theory welcome.

[FloomRide]

Haven't seen much but my headcanon says that the printing pod is the last invention of a group of human scientists stranded in the asteroid as a means of keeping their legacy alive ("Duplicants" are printed using the DNA template of someone from the original crew long after they met their timely demise)

[Michi01]

Yep I'm getting that impression too, the duplicants can open the security doors so they must be duplicates of the ones who originally used them

[watermelen671]

Well, from what I found...

(I put it in a spoiler area because I'm considerate. :3)

Spoiler

 

The company behind this is The Gravitas Facility, and apart from having Casual Fridays, they appeared to have been experimenting with cloning. (well no sh*t shirlock.)

As you all probably know with cloning is that they're genetically identical to "the prime", or original version. So maybe they were using themselves as the template, since they refer to the duplicants as "subjects".

If you look at the neural whatcha maholic, the log states:

"fascinating that memories are not already inherent in our subjects; however, none as of yet have shown signs of recognition when introduced to familiar stimuli."

"the memories need to be physically embedded within the subject's brainmap..."

So here's my theory. The Gravitas Facility was researching cloning on the asteroid, using the printing pod to make dupes and researching the mental and physical effects of cloning on a subject. And in some way, they all died out, but since the printing pod is still functioning, (or maybe the only survivor turned it on,) your dupes popped out of it, without any memory of how they got here, because they're clones, and as such are incapable of remembering anything prior to them being printed. 

Who knows? Maybe that survivor's looking for your aid on getting off of the asteroid, and that's why they activated the printing pod once again.

 

 

[Michi01]

I wrote a bunch of stuff and put it in a spoiler as well:

 

On 25.8.2017 at 7:02 PM, watermelen671 said:

The company behind this is The Gravitas Facility

I think the company's name is just Gravitas and their facility is called that.

On 25.8.2017 at 7:02 PM, watermelen671 said:

So maybe they were using themselves as the template, since they refer to the duplicants as "subjects".

The dupes have to be clones of former Gravitas employees, as they can open the facility's security doors.

On 25.8.2017 at 7:02 PM, watermelen671 said:

And in some way, they all died out, but since the printing pod is still functioning, (or maybe the only survivor turned it on,) your dupes popped out of it

Someone must've intentionally set it up, it's a bit weird for the starting area to be so intact while all the ruins are deteriorated and someone must've placed the rations there.

Okay so my theory is:
Gravitas was researching cloning. Why they did this on a deep space asteroid remains a mystery, perhaps it's illegal on whatever planet they came from and perhaps its technology is advanced enough for someone with a lot of money to be able to afford traveling to an asteroid and building a research facility there. The message from inspecting the vending machine states that it is from ADMIN@GRAVITASFACILITY.NOVA. Since nova means new, there must have been another facility in the past, probably the one that they were in before they moved to the asteroid.
Some event must have happened that made everyone disappear or die. Either they all uploaded their DNA to a database to save themselves from this or it was in one already because they were researching on clones of themselves.
Either way, the printing pod was definitely set up intentionally to allow the printing of duplicates of the original employees after whatever event caused them to disappear. It is conveniently placed in the only biome that they could survive in for some time and has a ration box with food next to it and there's also no ruins surrounding it, so it probably wasn't part of the facility.
It is possible that it was the employees themselves before they all disappeared while they already knew that something bad was going to happen, as they were probably interested in saving themselves, but the printing pod area appears to be in too good of a shape to be as old as the ruins in the asteroid. It's still possible though, since the machines in the ruins are still intact and the nutrient bars in the ruins are also still edible and maybe the printing pod area just doesn't look as old as it is.
So if this is the case the story goes as follows: Gravitas researches on the asteroid, something happens that makes everyone disappear, they set up the printing pod before it happens and set a timer on it to activate once enough time has passed for the asteroid to be safe again and now that the game begins the duplicants that don't have the memories of the originals try to survive and find out what happened.
Now the neural vacillators must've been an attempt to store memories. This was either during research to find a way to give clones the memories of their originals, or the if the theory above is true, they might've wanted to save their memories because they knew they can't save them with the printing pod and so they were hoping for their duplicates to find them and regain their memories.
However, it is possible that they didn't manage to set up the printing pod and someone else did it, which would explain why its area is in such good shape. If this was the case, it might've been the admin that is mentioned when inspecting the vending machine and the lockers. Even if this isn't the case, I think the admin plays some important role in the backstory. It's possible that the player represents someone who set up the printing pod and is controlling the dupes, perhaps via implants in their brains, to use them for some kind of goal. If this is the case, this person might be the admin. The dupes don't seem very controlled in the outbreak short, but maybe they're being controlled subtly and made believe that what they're being told to do is what they want to do.

Alright that's enough theorizing from me for now, whatever the truth is, I'm expecting that we'll have a cinematic explaining it in the future similar to Don't Starve. Maybe we'll need to follow hints or codes hidden in ruins that will be added in a future update to gain access to the video, maybe there will be hidden words in trailers.. Only time will tell. Or Kris but I don't think she'd reveal the lore she wrote for no reason.