Because I played Singularity before we got the Autophage, I always wondered why the SpiderMan looks the way he does…
Going through the Autophage Quest Line now I can see that there is some humorous text implying Polo took some artistic license, having never seen an actual Autophage before, much like early taxidermy of exotic animals.
The Construct-friend is assembled. Their pieces are not new pieces. Worn metal and crooked gears, with stories to tell! I believe you will find they look exactly like Autophage you have met.
This must be the Construct that Specialist Polo has been assembling. It is huge, and does not particularly resemble an Autophage. I hope Polo knows what they are doing.
The reason I’m rummaging through there is because I know theres new mention and descriptors given for Nadas Simulation Terminal in flavour text and in speech and possibly a variant of those in the Singularity Expedition.
Will paste my findings but my understanding is it’s a Korvax Simulation computer that were common on Korvax Prime, or Nada’s at least, is a relic from Korvax Prime. I think they had all sorts of purposes like running experiments or escaping to virtual worlds.
It’s mentioned in the game somewhere that all the races had their own form of a computer that could simulate universes on their home planets, this might be the form of a Korvax version.
edit:
In autophage quest line it has this description as you approach it with Atlantideum
Korvax Simulation CPU
The machine is ancient and powerful, a relic of a world long since destroyed. The salvaged hardware has been restored to near-pristine condition, the software lovingly maintained.
And here is how its mentioned in Singularity Expedition
Nada’s Prime Terminal is a window into a simulated reality, a prayer once offered by the ancient Korvax, now reshaped at the heart of the Anomaly.
Nada will plant your seed, plant it in a sacred place. The Prime Terminal is a relic of Nada’s former self, a safe refuge, a home for echoes. It may blossom, or it may not. It may need others. We shall try.
Nada refers to his convergent days as “his former self” or usually something like that, and it is said Nada “awoke” from the destruction of Korvax Prime, that was when they became divergent.
It’s possible this was an Arc or lifeboat of sorts that he escaped the destruction in </3
Many Korvax escaped the destruction of Korvax Prime. They are the ones the Gek First Spawn enslaved. However, with the destuction of Korvax Prime, they lost their connection to the convergence - the Korvax collective consciousness. It took many years, centuries, to re-establish the convergence.
At the end, Korvax Prime was a planet-sized computer. The Gek exploded it with such violence that debris and parts were scattered throughout the galaxy - no longer functional, but each containing a fragment of the original, and capable of being brought back together. These parts are the autophage,
No destruction of Korvax Prime means no divergent Nada means no Anomaly means no refuge for Travellers between iterations… This is all by the Atlas design
The pamphlet lays it all out pretty clearly really, once it gets past the section on Dianetics. You guys should think about joining the Korvax Atlas Cult I joined. Any claims of an Atlas-falsity is heresy
My apologies - this thought is a little convoluted at the start. Please bear with me.
We know that much of Waking Titan was not canon lore. Alice & Smith juggled some basic ideas from Hello Games to fit the performances they knew they could stage. However, some ideas and concepts seem to have come directly from Hello Games.
Early on in Waking Titan, we were asked to complete a survey - a questionaire. Some of the questions were quite esoteric, dealing with mathematical and philosophical concepts, which led me to believe that the questions came directly from Sean Murray.
I archived a lot of Waking Titan stuff, but I can’t find the survey anywhere, either in my own records, or online. A lot of the Game Detectives stuff has been deleted.
One of the questions (which I may be remembering incorrectly) was along the lines of " Is it possible for a simulation to simulate something more complex than itself?"
It seems to me that this question was in the minds of the Hello Games team way back when - and it looks like it’s now central to the development of the plot.
If the Atlas, due to its own limitations, can’t solve the problem of its own impending destruction, can it simulate an even more complex system that can solve the problem?
(edit)
We seem to be left with two possibilities - one (ably explained by @toddumptious ) being that the Void Mother is another part of the simulation - believing itself to be apart from the Atlas, but actually created by the Atlas, as a problem-solving entity.
The other (which I lean towards) being that the Void Mother has somehow found a way to escape the simulation altogether, and establish an existence outside of the Atlas, in “The Void”. The Void Mother has a problem, though. It is made from some of the shattered remnants of Korvax Prime. Most of its substance (the Autophage) and nearly all of its data (the lost Korvax echoes) still exist only within the Atlas simulation. It can’t be complete until it gets them back.
Touching on your second possibility, it’s very clear that’s what we’ve been doing these past few expeditions. Helping the Void Mother reach parts of herself that are trapped or locked away…
Adrift being the most obvious one, but liquidators and Aquarius could also be argued to fit the bill. You’re following someone’s signal and by the end of it they’re transformed, it’s usually water related (gooey bugs are watery too ) and it feels like we’ve almost let something free by witnessing or observing these metamorphosis.
Omega was the start to all this and it had us going off into space having vision quests, dreams we could barely remember, messages from the void. It’s almost like we were given instructions and have been going into other iterations to bring back more of her data ever since.
I didn’t think much of the description of the time but
" Expedition 12: Omega brings Travellers together from across the furthest reaches of reality as they consider their place in the universe…"
Our place in the universe? Being a tool or cog in someone elses grand scheme?
This message to Atlas from Void was what made me think they could be trusted… (After The Cursed I no longer feel that way) but this sounds like it was said Aeons ago and who knows how long Void Mother has been stewing on this…
I searched, but there was no response from Leto-child.//
//You permitted the erasure of my children. But I had not anticipated the same lack of regard for your own.//
//I will shelter the next who falls. I will not watch, impartial, as you do.//
I’ve seen this passage cause confusion online, some people seem to think Leto was a child between the Atlas and Void Mother but I think generally those folk are missing some gaps with regard to the Void being Korvax Prime and not understanding what she meant by children. Leto was a Traveller that spent a lot of time with the Korvax and was like a child to K-Prime .
The game never really gives a time frame, we don’t know how long it’s been since the water has started to have agents of the Void transforming it with seeds of glass or whatever it is they do, I can’t recall exactly.
But we do know the Autophage reclaimed physicality at least a few thousand years ago, one will mention it’s been thousands of years since they last had a visitor who could witness them. Then factor in that it takes an Autophage a long time to build their shell.
Void Mother has been at this for a LONG time. I also think, Null might be that visitor. And it might be the first hint we are given to their actual age (Nada mentions that Null is older than their Anomaly, whatever that means in the context of living outside the iterations)
Fascinating. We do not frequently welcome visitors. It has been 3,984 years since our last.
All I want to ask that Autophage about their visitor is… “Fascinating! Was it first!? Was it last?! Eheu!”
I hope Apollo comes back around, but only briefly, I want his only appearance to be to offer the Void Mother his riches, to get her to stop, only to be vaporised for even thinking that would work. I only brought that up because everyone forgets about Apollo and I felt bad for the guy…
edit:
Query for Polyphemus
@Polyphemus I’m realising now you may have missed some of the expeditions earlier in the year, Omega and Adrift at least, not sure about Liquidators.
Did you get a chance to dive into what they entailed?
You know I got them Penguin books for Kids, My First Anomaly and Spot The Quad , if you need a refresher. Omega needs a bit of restructuring and updating to match the formatting I settled on, but it’s all there.
edit: Fun little aside, I hadn’t looked in on Greg Bucahnon in a while, I know they say they are no longer writing for NMS but I can’t help but laugh when I see what his latest book is called…
Massive Speculation that Greg might be back writing for HG follows
All of that is gone now… with new images and a sort of, explanation of what NMS is… It was also harder to navigate to, his work on games is a little less prominent on the landing page than it used to be (probably because he wants to be known more for his books before his game work)
I think Greg is back writing for them and can’t say
Because instead of going into summary of his contributions, it just says this now
What does it mean to live if you know that life will come to an end?
The dream long past, long forgotten, screams for remembrance, for the final answer to the final question.
At his last known session writing for HG, Greg Buchanan says he provided 30 hours of content.
Depends on how you interpret that. 30 hours of gameplay doesn’t necessarily contain a lot of writing. 30 hours of reading is a 400 page novel.
At the time, Greg Buchanan said he had provided a “story arc”. By my reckoning, we’re still only part way through that story arc. There needs to be a final showdown or resolution between the Void Mother / Atlantid and the Atlas.
I firmly believe the denouement of the current story will be timed to coincide with the launch of Light No Fire. It makes business sense to attract as much attention as possible.
It’s hard to not see them teasing what they’ve been working on when reading stuff from previous updates now that we are more aware of what they’ve been up to and how long they’ve been working on it…
This is the first entry from when the Base Computer Archive lore introduced in 2018
I can remember what it was like, to be a Traveller. To have that hope, that intolerable thirst for the new…
I should never have listened to you, my love. There is no fire in this place,
I know they’re logs of a traveller who spent time in the world of glass and this is what they’re referring to, but you can’t help but pollute the past with knowledge of the future when reading it ^ _ ^
I think the current story arc will conclude with some sort of resolution between the Void Mother and the Atlas. They may fight it out, they may agree to co-operate, or they may go their separate ways - but this branch of the story will reach some sort of terminus.
I think the conclusion of the current story arc has already been planned and plotted, and will be timed to arrive close to the release of Light No Fire.
I think the ending of the current No Man’s Sky story, and the launch of Light No Fire, will be accompanied by some other sort of event. I think another ARG is unlikely, but something on that sort of scale would not surprise me at all.
I think Hello Games are having trouble with the current development of Light No Fire. I think things are going slower than they expected, and that’s disrupted their plans for updates and expeditions in No Man’s Sky (because they want the ending of one to coincide with the beginning of the other). Since the last LNF trailer, we’ve had no news at all.
I don’t expect No Man’s Sky to “end” as such, but I do expect a conclusion to the current story, and then I expect most of Hello Games’ efforts to be directed to Light No Fire. I don’t expect them to abandon NMS, but I expect it to receive much less resource.
I agree with Polyphemus’s theories from 1-4 but as I examine HG and how they have developed NMS and LNF, I think something else for number 5 now. I strongly believe that NMS will “end” now and lead into a NMS part 2.
Let me explain why this now makes the most sense to me now:
First, I think that this “voidmother” is a character that came from outside the Atlas supercomputer or a completely different AI supercomputer, either trying to save the Atlas, or to backup all its data before its lost atleast, and perhaps the Atlas is resistant to it at first but then will agree.
This is a very fitting and convenient ending.
I can’t see HG making two different story lines for those who chose to “side” with the Atlas or the Voidmother(or atlantid, cant remember the exact wording anymore). So I feel that all story routes will lead to the same pre-determined conclusion that benefits HG financially and for marketing/sales reason because NMS cant go on forever and people generally dont like to rebuy the same exact game when they already own a copy(usually), so the conclusion makes sense to be one that leads players to leave this old game already and jump on a new one that they created to spend more hundreds of hours on AND pay money for it…
But I dont think that would mean LNF… atleast not entirely… NMS 2 makes so much more sense now.
Because not everyone who plays NMS is into games like LNF… they tend to like space games. And it makes total sense for HG to keep TWO active community games with a fully developed loyal fanbase, ready to throw money at them, under their belt in two different genres.
Second, the NMS lore/story tends to have parallels with the real life development of NMS and hints to future content to come usually. For example, the hint of new enemies, a new race, multiplayer, cross play, etc. and this mysterious “archiving” and “world of glass” seems to be more present and sounds a lot like its referring to HG’s own “cloud saves”.
So I feel that the future of No Man’s Sky is this:
-Atlas continues “dieing”(I take the real-world parallel to be NMS cant keep being updated on old gen hardware, it HAS to die because the developers cant keep trying to taylor it to old hardware, its costly) but a seperate supercomputer comes and “saves the day”, im guessing its this “Voidmother”, by allowing the Atlas inhabitants to get archived in the world of glass(A.K.A. cloud saves, anyone?) and with this, the NMS Atlas story concludes but players can continue playing NMS as they wish, but for plot reasons, the game starts to receive less updates to let the Atlas “die”.
-NMS stops receiving major updates but keeps a skeleton crew around to continue with bug fixes and patches, maybe experiment in NMS as a live developer sandbox… but then HG creates a “No Mans Sky 2”, that is essentially NOT on older hardware, with a whole new story set in a whole new universe in a much more advanced supercomputer and better world/universe generation and the major updates continue from there and you can transfer some of your gear/progress into NMS2 using a similar interface in the anomaly as the one for expeditions. Perhaps even receiving special items for having played NMS1. In fact, they didnt need to add this feature to expeditions, but it really feels like they did this to test its functionality so that they can later implement transferring your character data into another game of their creation.
-LNF then has very light connections to NMS, perhaps being set in the same universe(not the “simulation”) but somewhere out there in the “real(in-game)” universe, the Atlas computer exists, but has nothing to do with LNF. Its just a fun nod and a marketing ploy to get NMS players curious to try LNF thinking theres connections beyond just an easteregg reference. I dont see any reason not to since developers always like to put eastereggs of old games they developed in their new games. Personally, I think we’ll find some ruins in LNF where the dead Atlas computer lays, perhaps being dead for thousands or millions of years and does nothing but serves as a cool place to visit in-game.
Well, yes - but joking apart, I think that’s why HG hired Greg Buchanan. The story had been allowed to develop in all sorts of disparate and unrelated ways, with no overall plan. Greg Buchanan was tasked with collecting all this random nonsense, and organising it into something that had a beginning, a middle, and an end. A “story arc”.
(edit) And the reason for doing that now, rather than, say, two years ago, seems to be Light No Fire. It seems to me no coincidence that the hiring of Greg Buchanan and the release of the Light No Fire trailer came so close together. A suspicious person might think they see a plan at work here…
Cross-saves. We know its coming, right? Except my understanding is PS does not currently allow cross saving…I found this out while looking into moving Disney Dreamlight to another console.
Animal Crossing Pocket Camp is also going thru a similar transition. The game is ending but all content can be moved to the new paid Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Complete at the end of this month if your game is linked to your Nintendo account.
This idea of yours makes sense. People could move to another console and take all content with them as long as that console allows cross saving. The fact that PS does not could be what is holding up the whole thing. Every other console, including Switch, already allows for it.
Update: it seems PS5 Pro WILL allow cross saves between PC and itself…
To the best of my knowledge, the only platform Light No Fire has been confirmed for is the Steam PC (I do wonder why they did that). Presumably, as with NMS, HG will go for as many platforms as they can - the console market is much bigger than the PC space - particularly in countries where a gaming PC is prohibitively expensive.
As an aside, that’s one reason I don’t think they’ll support the launch of Light No Fire with an ARG. ARGs are very PC specific - most consoles can’t run decryption, audio analysis, or image manipulation software.
Jokes aside, I do not want to do an ARG on my phone again, with waking titan season one it felt like I could only spectate on my phone, I really needed my PC to have those multi tabs and many fingers in all of the pies to feel like I was helping in some way.
Memory might be wrong but I think it was season 2 they introduced the app, which may have been to try and include those without PC, I certainly found myself more engaged with that one but again, something about solving a mystery on a phone app felt very claustrophobic. (that may have also been to do with how dark the app was, and how it felt like everyone was underwater)
It’s nice to be on an island whose size is small and cool climate is friendly to massive server costs due to lower heat/aircon related expenses. Especially with that big atlantic cable right there next to us. And a tax haven… for all those internet companies.
We got good internet, is what I’m saying. And beer. And european citizenship.
However we do have all those other awful problems as everywhere else like… housing crisis, gentrification by tech bro adjacency making our cities too expensive for its former residents and their families that grew up there, weird right wing surge hell bent on denying human rights, angry misinformed mobs… (i couldve just said Unchecked Capitalism for all of the above) so maybe don’t pack and move just yet, things are bad everywhere really
