The Author

The Author is an alias for someone mentioned throughout OneShot. He is credited for inventing a flying machine, writing and illustrating many books, and documenting The World. He also directly helps The Player late in the game.

Background
He was a real person who lived in the Old World. He tried saving the world by converting it into code, creating the The World Machine. Since it needed to borrow the mental processing abilities of a living person, he used himself for it during the testing phases. He did not have enough time to fix an issue and make it stable before the world ended. Its code floated in the void for an unknown period of time "waiting" for a person to install it in their hardware and generate the universe using the code.

Legacy
In the World, the Author is well-known for writing many books, ranging from novels to documentations, illustrations, and sketches. One of said illustrations was the design for Prophetbot. He had also invented a flying machine which allowed him to travel to the different regions of the World to gather materials for his books. He has personally been friends with many of the other characters such as Silver, Alula, Calamus, George, Rachis, and more.

Fate
It is unknown what fate befell the Author, but it is implied that he is still alive but no longer existing in The World (though nothing in-game states what kind of existence this would be). During the non-Solstice route, a written note to The Player states that "I already left the world on my own terms.", confirming that the Author was alive at some point after exiting The World and that he did not die as a result of exiting The World. Further, the Author at first does not know whether resetting the game and bypassing the OneShot mechanic is possible until The Player demonstrates so, at which point the Author communicates with The Player, confirming that he is still alive at the moment the player is playing the game. During the Solstice route, Cedric expresses sadness that the Author is no longer "with us", which could be interpreted as the Author being dead, but could also mean that the Author has exited The World with no way to return. It is also implied during the Solstice route that the Solstice update itself was a patch the Author made to The World Machine's code upon finding out the Player's ability to do more than one run, again confirming that the Author is alive at least at the time of the update.

Trivia

 * In one of the Author's sketches, two consecutive dates are written as 910-45-22 and 910-45-23, which (if interpreted in international date format) confirms that the calendar of The World features at least 45 months per year.