Lore Absorbing. Where to Begin? **SPOILERS**

Archive Atlas Rises v1.3
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WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Hello, Citizen Scientists!

Today I finished the Artemis Path, and wow was that a ride. I chose to have Artemis die. Then, when faced with the Atlas at the center, chose not to listen to it and bring and end to the simulation. I’ve been playing since launch, and I heavily participated in both Seasons (so far) of Waking Titan.

I’m a little lost. Not totally lost, just a little.

There is a lot to take in here, and I want to begin the process of absorbing all of it. I’m just not sure where to start. I have area’s I’m strong in, and area’s I’m weak in. I also forget a large portion of the lore from the first part of Waking Titan. I’m going to drop some things here I believe are factual, please feel free to correct me. (And point to any easy to digest sources of the lore if you know of some!)

-The Universe present in No Man’s Sky is a simulation.
-This simulation is powered by the ATLAS; a super AI that can create universes.
-No Man’s Sky the game, is the simulation. Waking Titan is events happening outside of the simulation; in our reality.
-Atlas Corp is the company (of which Elizabeth Leighton is CEO of) that houses ATLAS; the reason for having a universe creating super AI seems lost on me.
-The simulation has been reset many many times (an ATLAS reboot of some kind?), and these resets fix nothing. It always seems to meet the same end, with the ATLAS believing it has 16 minutes remaining. (16 minutes in our reality, being an unknown and possibly colossal amount of time inside the simulation.)
-As stated above, time inside the simulation and time outside of it are substantially different; we do not have a scale.
-The Traveller’s are the fourth race, who travel and see all the Atlas has made. NULL was the first Traveller, and NULL actually managed to see everything in the universe. The Atlas didn’t really seem to care.
-I’m not certain if the simulation resetting is us going to a new galaxy or not; when I reach the center and travel from EUCLID to HILBERT DIMENSION, is this because a Traveler reset the simulation with the ATLAS? This is why we come to in a random location, with each reset?
-I’m not certain why, when the ATLAS has “infinity to work with”, it creates the same 3 races over and over and over again.
-Is Emily the ATLAS? Is the ATLAS a human being turned into an AI?
-As you can see, I completely forget Emily’s role.

I could go on and on and on. A lot of this may not have a specific answer; I feel a lot of it is left to speculation. I suppose one of my most important questions would be:

-Do you think there are more answers to come, as we progress with the Updates and with Waking Titan?

Any places you guys can point me to, to start absorbing all of this as best I can in something resembling a chronological order would be great.

I love it. I love all of this, I find it amazing and intriguing and No Game has ever captivated my mind in the same way this one has. Thanks for any at all possible help Travellers. I’m off to bed, I’ll check back in the AM. Take care!

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Some interesting speculation can be found here, although not in chronological order, still a good read: What is happening to Emily? Theorizing the new Waking Titan storyline (Major Spoilers). I do however think a big part should remain somewhat speculative, as it leaves room for wonder.

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Emilys transcendance is a bit confusing alright, it seems to allude to a lot of Korvax lore but, which came first, the atlas creating the Korvax from the digital copies of bio-organisms brains (of which Emily was one?) or Emily becoming the atlas and creating the Korvax race from peoples brains stored on the mainframes at Atlas corp?

My current theory is, the Atlas needed to communicate with us, it needed our help somehow.

Emily was a real person who may have been terminally ill or close to death in her time. Either of her own choice (perhaps a love of science and wanting to help advance it) she donated her mind to the atlas corp to be uploaded to their databases, or maybe it was a loved one or family member that did this for her… E

Either way, out of all of the “echoes” stored at Atlas Corp, for some reason Atlas used Emilys echo to communicate with us. At some point Atlas Corp must have realised this and put a stop to it, hence her sudden disappearance.

Eventually Atlas found other means of contacting us, informed us of loop16 and got us to reactivate the parts of it that were cut off to keep it detained to Atlas Corp/within the simulation, and that allowed Atlas to take full control and break from its chains. As a thank you, we were greeted once more by the EmilyEcho personality, and to let us know it has much work to do.

A&S revealed there were two endings depending on that final choice… And apparently we chose wrong. Whether we did a good or bad thing by giving the Atlas full control of its destiny, remains to be seen.

If you want to delve into the Lore a bit further or you can only half remember some of the stuff you’ve seen within the simulation, theres some handy transcripts here wonderfully curated and categorised by the hard working @DevilinPixy

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I don’t remember that from the @Anashel responses

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Thank you, everyone!

This is just so incredible. I’ll continue to soak up what I can and make sense of what I can-- it does make me feel better knowing there aren’t 100% answers for everything.

One other point I’d like to raise: I’ve been going onto a friend who has not played NMS or participated in WT whatsoever. All of this… seems so catered to the fans. What I mean is; the No Man’s Sky lore seems less exciting (still cool!) if you did not participate in Waking Titan. Am I wrong in thinking this way?

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The NMS lore has always been a bit unusual but it suddenly grew much more complex with the last update.
The Waking Titan theme was simply mysterious and fun but for many NMS fans it got ‘exciting’ when the two merged. I have enjoyed the crossover quite a bit, with the real world echos/Emily saga linking beautifully with the AI/insane Atlas of NMS.
Now the two are intrinsically linked, the future ARG experience will be facinating to watch unfold.

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//7543 - DEPARTMENT OF NUMINOUS REMEMBRANCE

Transient, Ephemeral, and Fleeting Records Section

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I remember there was a different ending, but nobody said our choice was not the one hoped for.

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I just think of future players. Someone getting into the game now… will the story resonate with them the same, not having participated in WT?

Regardless, I’m looking very much so to the future of all this.

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There’s a lot we still haven’t been told. Huge gaps in the narrative.

In some ways, it might be better to leave it like that. In real life, we never get all the answers - but it’s the search that makes things interesting.

But just to throw in a few questions:

Who or what is Telamon?
What is abyss?
If our universe is also a simulation, what is it running on? What is our Atlas?
What is in the water, and why shouldn’t we drink it?
Where can I buy an Odvinsko drive?

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So exciting. I’ll be honest: being a part of this (NMS, WT, CSD, etc) feels like being a member of the coolest club that no one knows exists. Like, IMO, the MOST INSANE things to happen with a video game practically ever, and all the average joe can muster is: “lmao sean lied”.

Their loss. Is it ever their loss.

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Things are always less exciting when you’re not directly involved, I know some friends who would rather hammer nails in their ears than listen to me talk about NMS or WT.

I do have one friend who just loves lore of all kinds in general and we can just trade tales with eachother.

I think it just requires an appreciation of subtle world building that allows you to feel like you are apart of something and allowed to create your own narrative therein.

Some people find it very boring, they want their big plot points and set pieces filled in with no room for discussion other than “wasn’t that thing cool?”

The great thing about lore with knowledge gaps, it leaves things open to debate and discussion :slight_smile:

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