Learn Italian: Non volevo che ognuno scoprisse il clone e il paradosso. - I did not want everyone to discover the clone and the paradox.

In Italian, when the person doing the 'wanting' is different from the person doing the action, you cannot use an infinitive. Since 'I' did not want, but 'everyone' is doing the discovering, you must use che (that) followed by a conjugated verb in the subjunctive mood. Literally, it translates to 'I did not want that everyone discovered'.

Why is scoprisse in the imperfect subjunctive rather than the present subjunctive?

The tense of the subjunctive depends on the main verb. Because the main verb volevo is in a past tense (the imperfect), it forces the dependent verb scoprisse into the past as well. If the sentence were in the present ('I do not want everyone to discover'), you would use the present subjunctive: Non voglio che ognuno scopra.

How do I form the imperfect subjunctive for an -ire verb like scoprire?

For regular verbs, you drop the -re from the infinitive and add the imperfect subjunctive endings. For scoprire, you drop the -re to get the stem scopri-, then add the third-person singular ending -sse to match ognuno. The full conjugation is: scoprissi, scoprissi, scoprisse, scoprissimo, scopriste, scoprissero.

Could I use tutti instead of ognuno here?