After the second enlightenment Murtaugh dedicated his life to restoring the chaos. While the main layers flourished under his word, the third dimension remained broken.
Murtaugh was originally from the third layer, therefore there was nothing he could do to bring it back to the unbroken state. He often spoke about it as being a thorn in his heart. This was consuming him until the day Shiva gave him comfort of knowledge of the future.
Murtaugh was already dying, and just before he drew his last breath - the light came to him and showed him what was to come. We believe he stayed in that moment forever.
This note suggests that layer 3 would be fixed, and that Shiva knew it would be fixed. Also, I think it's possible that the player is the one to fix it.
I'm probably completely wrong about this, but I was thinking that maybe Shiva set up some of the puzzles for the player. I mean, why was the item you needed always there when you needed it? Why were there no dead ends? Maybe Shiva set it up to lead you in a certain direction so you could get to a position where you could fix the third layer.
(But then, why isn't Shiva able to fix the third layer himself?)
Someone has probably thought of this already, but I think it's possible that the player has powers similar to those of Murtaugh, and that's why the player hasn't seen any people. If you remember, I posted earlier that Shiva put the puzzles in place for the player with the end goal of fixing layer 3. Notice that many of the notes explain the consequences of Murtaugh's actions. I'm guessing that the goal of the puzzles was to lead the player to areas that contain the notes. This way, the player would be able to learn from Murtaugh's mistakes. Also, the player may not be fully aware of the extent of their powers, and the notes in Sub10 may explain to the player what they are capable of.
I have an idea that might be worth discussing, although again, I'm not sure whether anyone has thought of this or already disproved it. That's the problem with not having been here for very long- I don't know what you've discussed and what you haven't.
I'm guessing the green karma portal in Sub7 took you into 742 years into the future, and that's how we were able to have conversations with Murtaugh in the earlier games and later find out that he had been dead for a long time. Also, if I understand correctly, green portals are believed to exist in multiple layers. Is it possible that the green portal in Sub7 passed through layer 8 as well as the 7 main layers? If time is frozen in layer 8 as evidenced by the note in Sub9, would it be possible to use layer 8 as a means of time travel? Also, if that's true, and my idea about the player having powers like Murtaugh's is also correct,does that then mean the player could create portals that pass through layer 8 and access any point in time?
I also think I mentioned at one point that Shiva might have had powers like Murtaugh's, but he had been able to learn more about them and was therefore more powerful. If not, I'm mentioning it now.
If all of my ideas are correct, or even if only most of them are, I think we can go somewhere very interesting with this.
What if in the future, the player eventually becomes Shiva and uses the time travel I discussed earlier to go back and set up the puzzles? If Shiva is a human and not a god, then it would make a lot of sense for time travel to be involved, because Shiva was able to give him knowledge of the future. Also, the note says that "the light came to him," which means that Layer 8 is involved in some way, which again fits with my idea of time travel through Layer 8.
This also answers a question that doesn't seem to have been resolved: If Murtaugh caused so much destruction, then why would Shiva grant him his powers in the first place? My guess is that the player is supposed to learn from Murtaugh's example and develop his powers enough to become Shiva in the future. If the player did not have an example to learn from, they would probably misuse their powers the same way that Murtaugh did, potentially causing even worse damage.
Also, if Shiva is someone else, there's a hole in my theory that I specifically pointed out earlier: If Shiva wants layer 3 to be fixed, why isn't he able to fix it himself?