Orbs

The red and blue orbs in Dad Loves Mom

The Orbs appear periodically in Dad's Life to make thing happen. They are spherical and approximately 11 cm in diameter. They glow red, or sometimes blue. When they appear and disappear, they make a dinging sound and a flash of light.

**Spoiler Warning!**

**Below contains spoilers for**
Act II, Act III

### Red Orb

The red orb first appears in the very first episode of Dad's Life, Dad Is Awake. He appears to be in some kind of trance until a red orb appears. Once it does, Dad seems to "wake up" from his trance, and the orb disappears. The red orb facilitates the maintenance of Dad's Life via mundane tasks, such as opening a can of FOOD in Dad's Dinner. It also seems to be taking actions to cause problems or "drama" in Mom and Dad's marriage, doing things like making him notice Cheryl's romance novel in Fantasy Story, making the Dad Magazine appear in Neighbor Visits, and making him think about Diane in Dad Loves Mom.

In Act II, the red orb seems to be affecting Mom as well. In Mom's Flowers, when the lilies seem to cause an odd reaction in Mom, the red orb appears to replace the lilies with "fresh-cut lumber", an object that has been heavily associated with Neighbor. In It's Complicated, it makes Dad write Diane's name over and over again without realizing, and it similarly causes Cheryl to write Neighbor's name. In the same episode, it also makes Dad crush candy hearts with his sledge while listing famous couples that have broken up. In Is Sniffing Cheating?, it makes Dad agree to tell Diane dad jokes sometime. It is unclear why the red orb is attempting to make Dad more interested in Diane and Mom more interested in Neighbor.

### Blue Orb

The blue orb first appeared in Dad Loves Mom, in which it seems to make Dad say "Ella" and disappear. This is also the only time in Dad's Life that the red orb and the blue orb appeared at the same time. When the blue orb appears, the red orb flickers and disappears, almost as if the blue orb is overwriting the red orb's command.

The blue orb returns in Little Towels, in which it places pancakes and syrup on a table for Dad. When Dad eats them, Andan temporarily wakes up. It also seems to make Diane call Dad "Andan" in Diane (Video), causing Dad to stare ahead in shock and experience some sort of error. In all cases, the blue orb seems to be trying to wake Andan up from his Dad state.

### Green Orb

The green orb first appears in Bedroom Eyes Remix (MV), hidden in a convenience store freezer. Dadbot Qwelve locates it and begins to carry it out before it disappears from his hands as he dances. It has the ability to take you places you've never been.

### Trivia

* Orbs also appear in Nathan's Dad prestory videos. In Dad Feels Great (Vintage), an orb appears at the very end of the video and seemingly makes Dad disappear. This orb, unlike the others, flashes blue and green, although this likely doesn't have any narrative significance. In THIS CHANNEL NO LONGER EXISTS, a blue orb transports Nathan from his home to a location that looks like the place where some of his previous Dad videos were filmed.
* On August 6, 2019, Carl Millins posted in the Dad Discord confirming that there are only two types of orbs- red and blue.
* Since Nila used an blue orb emoji when communicating in some of the early livestream chats, some theorize that Nila influenced the blue orbs. This would be consistent with her desire to return Andan back to Kepler 22B.
* On December 18, 2019, Lazlo appeared with a red orb on a holiday stream and greeted the chat.
* Secret messages about the orbs appear in two of Dad's videos. In Mom Vacuums, the numbers "15 18 2" briefly appear onscreen. When using a letter-number cipher, this translates to "ORB". In Family Dinner, low contrast text reading "is happy now" appears. Dad later confirms that this was meant to be "orb is happy now".
* In Damage Control, Cheryl says that the Clients are reporting seeing blue orbs and that she thinks that someone is tampering with the Server. This indicates that she did not plan for the blue orbs and supports the theory that Nila helped create them. She also says that she had a brief lapse of consciousness after smelling some flowers and that she didn't write that in the orbs' code, further indicating that she programmed the orbs.
* In Dad Is Dead, a red orb appears to activate Dadbot 69 and plays some backmasked audio. When reversed, this audio says "everything loops".
* In Video Pleasure, one of the videos in the OVA Series, low contrast text appears at the beginning of the video in the bottom-left corner reading "ether neura orb test". A flash of white light appears at the end of the video that seems to put Dad to sleep, similar to the flash that accompanies orbs. This could be an early test of the orbs, and "ether neura orbs" may be their full name.