I see the world of glass as being what’s beneath the simulation. Imagine everything you see in the game is a hologram of sorts, the world of glass is what’s beneath it, what the hologram is born from/reflected off of.
As for the old gek in the world of glass, they’ve been there a long time not because the world of glass is in the past but because its a constant to all iterations of the simulation.
We also know many iterations are run simultaneously, and time happens at such a quick rate within each that this gek could be from an earlier time in an older simulation or it could be from an earlier time in your own iteration, or the Start of a new simulation started after your own.
Although being covered in nanites is similar to what the korvax did to change the gek, I think this is more to signify this gek has been here a long time and the world of glass is slowly consuming him. Think Davey John’s crew in pirates of carribean, longer they’re there the more barnicals grow on them, the more they become part of the ship the harder it is to leave.
There’s nothing to signify this but I also suspect time moves closer to real time in the world of glass, than it does in the simulation. Much closer.
I think the world of glass is also where the sentinels are brought into being.
As for the family of glass that ones a bit harder to visualise or make sense of though for the moment I’m sort of leaning towards, the atlas is dying so core functions and things within atlas’s programs and hardware are misbehaving. Could it be the glass that bares the sentinels and projects the universe has gone a bit, off protocol, and just become malicious and murderous, taking form and trying to lure things to their world or escape it?
I don’t know how the traveller made it to the world of glass, I don’t know how Laylaps got them out. I just know it has something to do with water, the only other thing in the game that reflects the universe off of it 
Nanites clusters are the lifeforce of the universe, figuratively as currency and literally as is mentioned in the game. I believe the world of glass is made of pure nanite cluster and its where all creation in the simulation originates from and where their “code” returns when they “die”
I think the world of glass will be introduced as an end game update. As some mad attempt to escape the simulation and become that form to place a hand on the atlas’s glass, so it will not be alone at the end. I imagine if they built an AI like this then they must have robots or androids or something you could upload a digital mind into?
My other theory on who the atlas predicts will return to them at the end, is their creator.
The species left with a portable version of the Atlas it helped build. They’ve gone to discover the nature of their own universe. We know from the lore that the creators universe is also a simulation.
So im thinking the creator and his species, using the portable atlas, eventually figured out how to unlock “god mode” for lack of a better term [cheats in old games, unlimited ammo, big head mode, multiple skins for Yr character etc, some of you youngsters may know them now as microtransactions] , become immortal and now the creator, feeling empathic to the being it created, has returned to teleport it the funk away from that dying star.
@sheralmyst As for the fleet, I don’t think they are all the crashed freighters though you could assume some are.
One of the crashed freighters you’re sent to as part of story is actually polo’s. Or Nadas. I can’t remember. Also of note is that polo dies, in a lot of iterations, but nada always escapes and meets another polo. That’s why Polo is different looking every time you see them but nadas appearance is constant.
While the family of glass lore is very interesting, I think the base archive lore leading up to this final peice is just as important.
Reading those logs reads as though it’s ourselves, experiencing the game, the features added since launch, and the funny little things that happen sometimes, like travellers not always being travellers at first or upon return etc etc.
We don’t know how nada and polo got the anomaly, though we do know the 16 came after them and sent sentinels to take them out, Killing polo in one instance, so it’s possible the anomaly is born of something from the world of glass as well, something they weren’t supposed to have.
