#idk if this needs some sort of tw/cw so if it does please lmk /gen

[mosspapi]

(I know all of this is technically just game mechanics, but I like to think too deeply abt in-universe explanations for things so let me have my moment lmao)

The lore implications of dead crewmates in Lethal Company being able to contact the autopilot ship is WILD btw. Like. I know technically revival is a thing in-universe bcuz u can respawn, which arguably should be more impressive, but that could pretty easily just be some advanced tech from the future. I can see lots of theoretical scientific/technological explanations for it. What I wanna know is how dead crewmates can contact the ship while dead (PT: while dead).

It's not like their life support going offline immediately notifies the ship, bcuz it doesn't happen automatically. You have to CHOOSE to notify the ship. This implies not only that they have technology that proves the existence of an afterlife and can detect or contact spirits/ghosts/souls/whatever, but also that said entities can reach out first. My initial thought was that it's smth on the other crewmates suits, since you don't have to be near the ship to vote but you always need to be spectating a living crewmate, so they aren't making direct communication with the ship itself. Maybe something like a spirit-box on the other crewmates' suits that the ghosts can interact with, which will send a signal back to the ship. This IS an option. However it would have to be smth that wouldn't get interference from other sources, and I also don't think that flickering thru radio stations is what's happening in outer space on abandoned moons, some of which don't even have telephone lines. Could be some futuristic "radio stations" that aren't actually using our current understanding of how those work, but that still wouldn't account for interference imo. Which leads me to my next thought, which is that it's something directly on the ghosts that they can use to communicate. I have NO idea how this would work, maybe the life support on the suit leaves like an electromagnetic/spiritual/whatever imprint on the ghost as they leave the body, but I have no idea how that could be used to contact the ship, if for lack of better words, it's just an energetic fingerprint or scar. Maybe if it's causing a different or specific frequency/energy field/etc, the ship could detect that, but how the ghosts would be able to change it themselves in order to tell the ship to leave is beyond me. They'd have to be able to mess with their own electromagnetic signals, which sounds like a recipe for accidentally destroying ur entire consciousness or mutating urself into a new species or smth by mistake.

Side note, it also implies the company trains people on how to use whatever this technology is, which is both hilarious and terrifying. Do they just give u a verbal explanation and hope u figure it out the first time you die? Or do they actually make you practice by repeatedly killing you and having you notify the ship, and therefore there may be ghosts of crewmates who couldn't figure it out or who's technology malfunctioned or something just floating around in space.

There's so much to think abt here I could be here for days. I wanna come up with a feasible explanation. It's fascinating to me. I love it.