Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
OK, what the heck is going on at the moment? Pretty darned sure this can't be the actual afterlife, so best guess is that these are the recorded personalities of the crew, maybe captured by the artifact they were studying. So--why did it do that? So many unanswered questions at the moment.
The ones we see would be the personalities of the crew of the freighter, which was just delivering supplies. It sounds as if the recorded personalities of the Purse's crew were already there under a tree. They were the ones who did the studying. We haven't seen them in this scene quite yet (but may in a few minutes).

I think you're right about it being the artifact that is hosting a simulation that is playing out. It probably learned how to simulate the crew members by hacking their nannies. The artifact may have even used the hacked nannies to make the Purse's crew members attack the freighter and then commit suicide, although I can't give an in-story reason yet for why they wouldn't have blown themselves up in the middle of nowhere or flown into some sun or black hole.