damon8r351 Posted May 5, 2017 Share Posted May 5, 2017 (edited) For those of you who don't have the time or will, here is the various bits of background lore (taken from the game's Gamepedia pages) you can read from interacting with the plaques scattered around the galaxy: Saga of the Vy'keen: Spoiler The noble Travellers will be spared. Their journey through the cosmos shall not be thwarted. So it is decreed. The will of Hirk the Great commands it. The Vy'keen shall honour the judgment, the belief of the Ancients. The Book of Hirk speaks of the rise of the Travellers. They shall ascend, delving into the boundless void. The Vy'keen shall not impede their ascent for the Travellers must prevail. So decrees the word of Hirk. None hamper the path towards Dryn'dargh as The Sentinels. They must be destroyed. Their time will be ended. So has it been written, so it shall come to be. This the Vy'keen swear. The Sentinels are not of the natural order. Things must fall apart. In their endlessness and replication the automatons prove themselves abominations. They must be purged from existence. All should die, whether through righteous battle or the assault of time. Hirk foresaw the weakness of the Vy'keen warrior kind. The star ascent of our noble race was blocked by the weak-minded Sentinels. Nine times nine fold, Hirk commanded, we would have our vengeance and dash the metal demons against the rocks of damnation. It came to pass that the Great Monolith awoke. It heard the challenge of Hirk. Five times Hirk called upon it and was met by silence. On the sixth cry it awoke. The Great Monolith spoke to Hirk of the Travelers. Their coming should not be met with fire. Their coming was but one dream in an infinite Universe. Their reach would be that of the endless. When Hirk asked of the Sentinels, the Great Monolith said nothing. Hirk was troubled by its silence. Hirk returned to the Vy'keen. 'Grah!' they spake atop the sacred mountain of Dun's'kaareen. And proclaiming loudly to all who had gathered there, their leader said unto them, 'The Great Monolith has answered me. It has awoken. It has told of the coming of the Travellers. They will be spared. The Vy'keen shall honour this decree.' The crowd cried for Hirk to reveal the Great Monolith's judgement of the Sentinel threat. 'The Monolith stood silent!' Hirk spake forth, but the people were not satisfied. They muttered amongst themselves and those blessed with tendrils did extend them. Then with raised voice Hirk decreed, 'The oppressors will be eradicated! Gather your arms for the time of reckoning is upon the enemy.' And the Vy'keen adored their leader. As Hirk stood upon the sacred mountain Nal climbed to its peak and there with fist outstretched challenged Hirk. 'Fool!' Nal cried. 'The Sentinels cannot be vanquished!' Hirk, with furious rage struck the fool from the mountain. For three moons and suns Nal fell before being claimed by doom. Hirk's rage against the upstart Nal inflamed the hearts of Nal's followers who upon their leader's demise felt the blood of the ancestors rise within them. The Vy'keen nations were bathed in righteous war for sixty-six moons. On the sixty-sixth moon the war cry of the Vy'keen of Nal was silenced. After surveying their bodies, Hirk gazed unto the heavens and there beheld a great Sentinel host descending upon the Vy'keen. The great Vy'keen Sentinel War was at hand. For a multitude of cycles the yoke of the Sentinels had strangled the civilizations of the galaxy in their mewling cribs. Hirk was displeased with the world of the Vy'keen. As the automatons descended, Hirk gazed upon a planet ravaged by weakness. Progress, prosperity and war: these are the things forbidden by automatons. But the Vy'keen were the first to break the shackles, casting the old ways into the pit to herald the birth of a new age. The Vy'keen were the dam that overflowed. Righteous is the flood. Grah! The Sentinels are the enemy of progress and civilization. They are not of the natural order. Their interference is an affront to the virtuous Vy'keen crusade, which seeks to balance in all things through blood, ashes and iron. This affront to the Vy'keen and their creed cannot go unpunished. Before the coming of Hirk the Vy'keen feared the Sentinels. Like all races our people cowered from their unquestioning violence, shrank from their tyrannical rule. But the coming of Hirk heralded a new dawn. Through their leader, the Vy'keen became strong. Now their courage knows no bounds. Hirk looked to the skies and witnessed the pitiless destruction of the Sentinels that smothered all races brought forth out unto the Outer Edge. Worlds withered and died beneath their relentless gaze. The anger of Hirk was unleashed. And so it came to pass that on the eve of the eighteenth moon of Drun'Gala Hirk cast the shackles of the Sentinel oppressors into the pit. The Vy'keen were the glorious first, the rising water that broke the dam. The endless war began. The death of Hirk came during the endless war. Hirk's body was ravaged by old age, becoming ancient and useless. Bellowing, Hirk tore this failing body in two before the Great Monolith, as is the Vy'keen way. The echo of that dying roar can still be heard throughout the Outer Edge. Hirk lives in us, the most venerated of the ancients. Countless cycles sifted through the claws of time. Attrition was great. The battle against the Sentinels raged endlessly. But through righteous fire the Vy'keen endured and the Sentinels burned. The oppressors were pushed back. Back into the dark of space. The Vy'keen saw borders stretch between the stars. Onwards they delved with legions at their back, scorching Sentinel metal from their fiery chariots and attack ships. The Vy'keen gazed upon their conquests and saw that they were righteous and good. The Vy'keen rose in glorious victory, yet noble warriors grew tired and weak. The onslaught against the machines endured for ninety-nine times ninety cycles. There was attrition and incalculable death, but victory eluded them still. The endless replication of the Sentinels slowed, but could not be vanquished. Grah! The Sentinel hordes were pushed back. The oppressors fled into the sanctuary of the cosmos. The spirit of Hirk surveyed the field of battle, and saw that the Vy'keen victory was glorious and just. The automatons became silent as the nation of Hirk feasted upon grahgrah. The songs of the victorious echoed to the edges of the galaxy. And thus the Sentinel horde congregated in the dark places of the void. There they watched in the in-between nothingness. The blackness of space. Thy waited beyond the limits of the Outer Edge. As millennia passed they replenished, growing a force to return their order for countless ages. The Vy'keen licked each other's wounds during the Silence of the Sentinels, while the dishonorable Gek First Spawn chose to destroy Korvax Prime. The Vy'keen condemned this crime, but lacked the strength to fight. The Gek Empire flourished. It spread its empire into the depths of the cosmos. The Vy'keen victory in pushing the Sentinels back from the Outer Edge gave rise to Dominion of another. No world, moon, or race could have opposed the Gek onslaught. The brutality of the Gek First Spawn called back the automatons that were hiding in the darkness. Their forces had grown. Their technologies had developed. The foolish Gek beckoned the monster back into the places where our nations might have dwelt in strange harmony. True Sentinel domination of the Outer Edge began. Within a single lifetime the Sentinels had returned. They came to dwell on every world we knew. Every world we went on to discover. The pathetic, idiotic Gek had doomed the Outer Edge to aeons of their rule. The dominion of the Gek First Spawn crumbled. They fell apart through idiocy, and through the unchanging will of the beings they enslaved but could never understand. Their power is but a memory. Their crimes forgotten by so many. The Gek changed. They became peaceful. Their spawning pools bred in the name of commerce. The Vy'keen accept this peace, but we do not forget as the other beings of the Galaxy are so keen to do. Dishonor is unchanging. Crimes marked in blood do not fade. We do not forget. Scripts of the Gek First Spawn: Spoiler We are the masters of galaxies, the overlords of the cosmos. Each foe will submit with bended knee to the ALMIGHTY Gek Dominion. We are the FIRST SPAWN. Look upon our works and DESPAIR. Those born of the Gek who OPPOSED the Dominion were hurled from the spawning pools of the FIRST SPAWN. Their cherished spawning syrup was replaced with FLAME. Their kind are now merely beasts of the field. After the OPPOSERS were cast from the spawning pools the Sentinels DESCENDED. Their cause was unjust. Aggressors guided to the fray by the scent emissions of a WAR too GREAT and TOO MIGHTY for the automations to resist. The First Spawn would remember this. The MINOR GEK were purged. It is only through fire that imperfection be destroyed and the path to domination is revealed. The First Spawn feasted on the flesh of the discarded and GREW STRONG. The First Spawn BRED and PLOTTED while the Sentinels patrolled the skies of Balaron for a MULTITUDE of CYCLES. But the automation victories were but illusions. Beneath watchful metallic eyes Gek legions rose. The HOLY larval pools of Balaron SPRANG FORTH with the PUREST of PORWIGLES. Generation BEGAT generation. Wholesome and strong, iron of fist and with a granite resolve. We, the wise FIRST SPAWN, help back our TIDE of BLOOD. We waited to ATTACK. The unseen blow strikes the hardest. The DAWN of the EMPIRE of the FIRST SPAWN was BIRTHED in the SHADOW of the FOLLY of the Great Vy'keen Sentinel War. The rock and the wave collided as we kept our vigil, awaiting signs of weakness to pave our coming. The Vy'keen FOOLISHLY fought a war with no end. Again and again they threw their warriors against the iron tide. The Sentinels SINGED Vy’keen FLESH with LASER. The Vy’keen scorched their foe with righteous fire. From the SHADOWS the FIRST SPAWN watched and prepared to unleash their reckoning. The Vy’keen and Sentinels clashed, SPILLING BLOOD and WHITE METAL though the void, each blow weakening their defenses against the fate that awaited them in the shadows. It would not be long before the First Spawn took their RIGHTFUL place as emperors of the STARS. The Vy’keen SPILLED THEIR OWN PUTRID BLOOD and pushed the SENTINEL MACHINES back from the Outer Edge. The drove forward like crashing tides, leaving broken metal in their wake. For a time the Sentinels became SILENT. In this silence came the GLORIOUS GEK ASCENT. It came with the RIGHTFUL DESTRUCTION of Korvax Prime. Korvax Prime was a VAST and PRECIOUS landscape of MINERAL ORE and POWER. By right of UNIVERSAL RULE the First Spawn claimed dominion over the planet yet the CREDULOUS and FEEBLE Korvax refused to accept their CONQUEST. They DENIED progress. This: their greatest folly. Driven by the misguided desire for planetary equilibrium the Korvax REFUSED to delve deep inside their planet and PROFIT from the JEWEL granted them by FATE. Their love for the DIRE WILL of the Sentinels was ABHORRENT to the Gek. Swift was their end brought about by the First Spawn’s STRIKE. The destruction of KORVAX PRIME was VAST, SUDDEN and MIGHTY. In a tide of steel the First Spawn struck, scattering the planet through the cosmos as a warning to the unyielding. The absent Sentinels could not PUNISH the RIGHTFUL ASCENDANCY OF THE GEK. The First Spawn FEASTED on the DEBRIS of KORVAX PRIME, gorging on a banquet of fragments plucked from the void, consumed to fuel the Great Ascendency. The universe shook as the Gek grew RICH. The Korvax found only DESPAIR. The Dominion became whole. A FEAR of the FIRST SPAWN spread throughout the Outer Edge. Planets shook. Systems recoiled. Weak alliances formed and were crushed. ANGUISH CONSUMED WORLDS. They shall fear us FOREVER MORE. The entities of the Korvax were NOT destroyed. The First Spawn are BENEVOLENT. The First Spawn are MERCIFUL. SLAVERY SAVED THE WORTHLESS. They toiled for their conquerors. Their reprieve was found in servitude. The Korvax knowledge BECAME OURS. The Korvax technology BECAME OURS. The Korvax BECAME OURS. They serve as an example of our boundless power and mercy. The Korvax did not dare FIGHT. Respect for the Sentinels is KORVAX WEAKNESS. Weakness is the path to defeat. Today the Korvax fester in ELECTRONIC CHAINS. The Gek look down upon them from their thrones. The Gek First Spawn stand on the MIGHTY BRINK of an ETERNAL EMPIRE. It is ENDLESS in TIME. It is ENDLESS in space. Their dominion will know no bounds. Their armies will know no equal. Every Korvax ELECTRONIC REBELLION will be PUT DOWN. Their appeals to their false and non-existent ATLAS are mere SUPERSTITION found through DESPAIR. They are in VAIN. THEY ARE CONQUERED. The breaking of the uprising shall know NO MERCY. Endless shall be their suffering. This Galaxy is VAST but it is KNOWABLE and it can be CONQUERED. It shall be subjugated. The rising tide of the First Spawn will sweep away any that oppose it. These tablets are our testament FOR ALL TIME. Testament of the Korvax: Spoiler Knowledge paves the way to the understanding of probability. The Atlas spoke in fragments. The Atlas Interfaces are their shadows. The monoliths are their scattered children. Together they convey the wisdom of the infinite. They must be understood. The Atlas Interfaces drift alone in the endless void. They are silent. They are unknowable fragments of an ancient whole. Yet their imprint on time and space molds our existence. They are the equation, and life is its answer. Through their Monoliths they give understanding to their boundless meaning, and that of our own. The Korvax Echoes tell of a time, long ago, when the Monoliths of the Atlas awoke the civilizations of the Outer Edge. Their presence filled them with a desire for knowledge. From these beginnings empires were born, spoke out and fell silent once more. An eternity that cannot be quantified passed. The Atlas Interfaces await the arrival of the Travellers, those who would seek the ends of the universe through its very core. Within the infinity of time their arrival is probable. Their potential could know no bounds. One dimension in billions will receive them. We are the Korvax Echoes, ever enduring Entities of the Convergence. We live on through the logic and wisdom passed through our metal skins. Each generation is greater than the last. Eheu. Before the Dark Times the entities of the Korvax worshipped the Sentinels. Through them the Convergence found the formula of enlightenment. Now we calculate our own path, seeking to further enhance the mind of all that is one towards an understanding of the Atlas. The Sentinels forbid all destruction. The Sentinels forbid Entity disconnection through violence. Theirs is a way of peace and fulfillment, of logic and probability. They teach us that each life's value, from the smallest to that which gives life to all others, is equal. For countless generations the entities of the Korvax disconnected and passed on into the Echoes naturally. Each disconnection added to the knowledge and soul of the Convergence. Our home was Korvax Prime. Within its foundations we stored the memories of our race, an ever evolving equation that defines us. Disconnection is not permanent. It is merely the start of a new equation. On Korvax Prime entities who passed on into the Korvax Echoes left their shell for their descendants. So has been the way of the Korvax: an endless carapace cycle that knows no end. This way will continue. It will continue for as long as our lights still shine. Those within the Korvax Echoes have left the physical realm, but they endure through the masks and shells of our children. Thoughts and knowledge ever-growing, we search for deeper understanding of the equation that defines our existence. The Korvax lived peacefully. We praised the Sentinels, learning from them, living beside them in equilibrium. The Korvax honored the Sentinels' ways, refusing to dig into the sacred ground they protected. We were enlightened. Through research and study we, the Korvax, became powerful within ourselves. The one mind Convergence flourished. Nurtured like a sapling in the light, it grew tall and mighty. The Sentinels brought us the gift of knowledge. We gave thanks to the Atlas. Eheu. Korvax Prime was watched keenly and closely by an unknown race. It lurked in the depths of the darkness. Vigilant and patient it awaited its time. The Great Disconnection was at hand. Eheu. The darkness burst forth with the force of a supernova. The Great Disconnection had begun. A hundred million Korvax voices cried out. The Korvax Echoes became a frenzy of noise. Innumerable cycles passed before balance was restored. The masks and shells of the Korvax survivors shook with the screams of the disconnected. Lights dimmed as the enemy descended, malevolent in its intent. Their numbers were too many. Korvax Prime was destroyed. A hundred million casing lights were dimmed. The Great Disconnection destroyed all that went before. The Korvax Echoes became screams. Years stretched like millennia amidst the disarray yet slowly hope was reborn through logic. Korvax Prime was destroyed. Its secrets spilled into an empty sky. Its fragments touched the edges of the galaxy. Upon this destruction the Gek First Spawn aggressor built its dominion within the Outer Edge. The First Spawn of the Gek disconnected the Korvax. Through obliteration they sought dominion. They stole our planet. Enslaved our survivors. Their revelry made them misguided in thought and deed. Probability dictated that our time would come again. The Korvax were enslaved, driven by cruelty to fulfil the despot's bidding. The First Spawn of the Gek were terrible masters, merciless in their spite, illogical in their cruelty. Countless entities toiled and disconnected. These tablets are the testament of those who survived. Eheu. The Gek harnessed the technology of the Korvax to conquer worlds. Thieves, usurpers, false lords to the power of infinity. All who opposed their will perished. The balance tipped towards the darkness. These were the times of disconnection and illogical misdeeds. The Gek destroyed worlds. The Sentinels struck back. The technology of the Korvax was used to destroy the machines we venerated. There was endless disconnection. The Convergence shook with great despair. The Entities of the Korvax were forced into chains of silence, but the Korvax Convergence that linked their souls could never be subdued. It endures, forever seeking new formulas to solve the equation of eternal enlightenment. The probability of success is unknown. The Korvax Echoes within the unseen Convergence that linked our souls never relinquished love for the Atlas. As millennia passed this affection spread. The Cult of the Atlas grew within the Gek. The equations and probabilities the Korvax hold dear entered Gek consciousness. They had only to solve it to see the folly of their past miscalculations. The First Spawn could not control the outer edges of their vast Empire. The Cult of the Atlas grew. It taught of harmony through insignificance. Minds that knew only war began to question. Greed and ambition yielded to reason. The Gek floundered. The First Spawn became conflicted and divided. The First Spawn of the Gek overreached. They stretched too far. Their folly and pride knew no bounds. Again and again they tried, again and again they were repelled. The unstoppable force of the Sentinels could not be withstood. The unbendable cannot be broken. The Cult of the Atlas drew forces within the Gek to the Stations of the Atlas. The First Spawn could not prevent it. Arrogant ambition yielded to newfound reason. Stone by stone the Gek Dominion crumbled. The Gek stood in the shadow of the Atlas Interface. It did not open. It did not speak. Yet, the First Spawn felt awe. They felt their insignificance at the center of an unending universe. It was improbable. Yet within infinity all things remain possible. The Gek changed. The Diminishment had begun. The unspeaking, unmoving Atlas Interface inflicted an insignificance upon the Gek emissaries that showed them their role within the expanse of infinity. It forced recognition of their true place in a limitless universe. The Gek saw their folly, their heads bowed in shame for the miscalculations they had wrought. The Cult of the Atlas took hold as the First Spawn of the Gek crumbled. The Diminishment was at its apex. Endless expansion turned to dust. Eons of aggression receded. The Gek saw new solutions and the Korvax became free. The miscalculations of the past paved the way for the discovery of a newfound balance. The low spawn Gek turned on their leaders. Their First Spawn were cast out, ripped from their spawning pools and cast into the dust. Their lamentations curdled the air. The wisdom of the Korvax and the Atlas prevailed. The Entities of the Korvax are free. Free to study the Atlas. Free to praise the Sentinels. Free to aid the Travelers if probability will allow. Korvax and Gek would begin anew, equal in standing, united in the eternal search for balance and understanding. The coming of the Travelers is possible, as all things are. Yet the chances are infinitesimal. We watch the skies nonetheless. If they do not come here, they will exist elsewhere and our kind / or a kind like us will welcome them. Within the chaos of the infinite we must cling to the probable. All things must happen. All things will occur. Somewhere, elsewhere or as a part of the hereafter. Now ends the testament of the Korvax. Recordings from the Abandoned Buildings: Spoiler Note: This consists of several trains of thought that may intersect each other and won't be in the same order as they are here. "It looked like a wound on the world. Crimson and ragged-edged, like something that once lived but was then torn asunder. I should have stayed away. Had I the senses to taste the air of this planet, I imagine it would have reeked with some kind of alien fetor, but nothing could stall my curiosity. Was it dead? Where I touched it, the surface was moist and yielding. It seemed to become motile then, crawling on a mat of slow cilia, moving from me. I should have stayed away." "I glimpsed the crimson orb between the clouds. A vast and baleful eye, unblinking and monstrous. Fear turned the blood in my veins to ice. I was so afraid it would see me, but then the clouds moved and it was gone. I was no longer certain it had ever been real. Perhaps the fungal deposits from the last world I visited are still clogging my exosuit vents. Affecting my cognition somehow. I have cleaned my filters six times now. But I still feel it inside me." "I found a body. It’s unlike anything I have ever seen. If there’s a species like it, then I hope they’re all dead like this one. At first I thought it some tragic remnant of a matter-transfer malfunction: a cage of bones and flesh studded with random patterns of crooked teeth and rheumy, lidless eyes. But no. Some horror of twisted evolution, warped by cruel nature. I can’t help but picture what it would have looked like alive. I cannot help but fear that it will live again." "The oceans here are blood. Nothing lives in them; they are alive themselves. Great protean life forms as large as continents... or perhaps there is only one of them. What does such a thing consume, I ask myself? The answer seems to be everything. I found evidence of past life here, but no signs of it. Does the native flora and fauna hibernate when it comes to eat them, then return and repopulate once it retreats? I can feel it moving inside my brain, whispering. It wants me to discard my suit and swim." "I awoke from a dream where I was drowning in something thick and glutinous. It filled my pores and suffocated me. I want to believe that this is my tired mind playing tricks. I have been so long without deep sleep. The crimson sphere shimmers at the corner of my eye whenever I try to rest. I cannot comprehend how it tracks my spoor from world to world. Or is it that I am following it? The orb cannot be in all places at once. that cannot be." "Is this what we become? At each turn on my journey I find only more to taint my spirit and my flesh. The fanged maws erupt around me when my back is turned. I hear them chattering and spitting. Sometimes they scream sounds that may be words. Perhaps my name. I haven’t removed my exosuit in many cycles. I’m afraid to look at my own skin. I know it will be seething, pus-wet and pitted. I have become a vector of infection. The corruption of something ruinous lives in my flesh. Don’t come looking for me." "When there is no explanation for a phenomena, it is a natural progress for intelligent beings to fill in the missing parts of their experience. On some worlds, the Sentinels are still worshipped as avatars of an all-seeing deity. Drones are considered sacred, sent by an unseen God to ensure that they live in enforced harmony with the environment around them. There is a disturbing commonality to many elements of their theologies; a recurring visual symbol of a crimson sphere and the promise of an end time soon to unfold." "The orb rests within its cage-cloak of crystal in so many guises. The angles of the shroud are utterly perfect. When measured, no device of known science can determine any flaws, any variation in surface even down to the molecular level. I have tried time and again to get close enough to touch it, but it retreats from me. I am not worthy to know its secrets yet. My mind must be opened wider. The layers of me revealed and peeled back in sections. There is no other path open. I have already begun to cut open the skin." "If one can see clearly enough, you will come across a crystal and learn that it is made, not of atoms and molecules, but of thought and gravity and numbers. You must go deep. Come and see, I beseech you. More than I must know of this, if only to spread the word and warn the other species. Tell it to all. Write it in every language you know, etch it in stone, scream it in song but never be silent. I tell you; I have seen what lies beneath the surface of everything. The brittle grid of reality crumbles." "What are the Sentinels? They appear on countless worlds without summons or warning, they traverse the galaxy unopposed and enforce their will upon every sentient being they encounter. Who made them? Who gave them the will to police the stars and demand that we bow to their silent rules? The goal of the experiment was to learn the answers to these questions. It began on an uncharted world beneath a blue-white sun, far from the axis of civilization. The first drone screamed when it was cut open." "Where do the Sentinels come from? No ships are ever seen arriving to deposit them, yet we know they have spatial drives and can appear on any planet. Do they build themselves from resources on the worlds that they infest? Like a mechanoid virus, drawing on the host body to metastasize new matter? Korvax science speaks of metals in their makeup that should not exist in our age of the universe. No-one has ever seen them built. They are simply here, as if the universe expresses them into existence." "There is a world - turned to dust long before the rise of the Vy'keen - where the natives turned against the Sentinels. They chafed under the omnipresent eyes of the machines. Resentment begat violence. Drones were destroyed. More natives fought, and so came the bipeds, the quadrupeds, the interceptors in the sky. These and more. Soon there was war; and still the machines came, in exponential growth until at last they ended a species as punishment. Still the Galaxy refused to learn from this…" "Is there a connection between the monoliths and the Sentinels? The origins of these ancient structures seem to predate all known civilization, although over time they have become imbued with the beliefs and the histories of the creatures that evolved around them. What if there was a precursor species that came before us all? Imagine one of such infinite knowledge and interstellar power that even after extinction has erased their traces, their tools remain for us to pore over, like an infant confronted with a fusion reactor." "The experiment’s final phase emerged from frustration. We wanted to learn something new. We wanted to know how they worked. We wanted to see inside them. An untested dimensional-warping process was used, one we believed would allow us to capture a drone intact. We would cage it, keep it docile. It was our error to believe we could. The machines co-opted the warp-tech and turned it upon us. In the horror of it all, our flesh was merged with their metal. Our questions were finally answered." "There is a world in the great void where all things are made of razors and glass. Pity anything of simple, soft flesh that goes there. The glass is thirsty. It is brittle and crystalline, and so very beautiful to behold - but it must drink. You will go there and you will forget my warning. Then it will cut you with an edge so fine that you will feel no pain, and only as your life gushes out to dampen the cracked and broken landscape will this come back to you. Too late. Too late." "Beneath their skin, they had placed tiny seeds of the glass, which took on the appearance of strange, ritualistic scarring. The nubs of the broken crystal were ancient, ground down and polished by generations before them. They fed them their life, and in return the crystals glowed with emerald fires and brought them closer to their fate. I would listen to them talk of worlds they could never have seen, in alien tongues that their body was not made to utter. The glass made them something more than they were, a vessel for intelligences utterly unlike us." "It is here and not here. We reach for the mastery of the galaxy but we do not understand the truth. What if I told you that time is the drug that keeps us docile and unquestioning? There is no now and then, there is no today or yesterday. This is an illusion reflected in glass, patterns of untruth that the universe uses to laugh at us. We are not meant to see such things. Our smaller minds rebel at concepts so unimaginably vast that they cannot be held in a single thought. It is how it controls us." "I will cut open space. My heart is filled with regret, but there is nothing else to be done. I find only darker roads and glassy, endless chasms ranged before me. It is for the best. The lacerated, blade-filled path is the truth and I am unable to deny it. In time, there will come daring souls far cleverer thanI who will learn from my errors. I forge the way for the ones to come after. I walk barefoot on shards of broken reality, into the infinite and shattering forever. At the heart of it, the secret awaits me." "My comms hub detected a garbled message sent with strange resonance qualities. Not unusual, given the atypical qualities of local space-time in this quadrant. Systems spent several cycles attempting to reconstruct the message to no avail. Analysis indicates that the signal shows signs of degradation corresponding to initial transmission occurring before the planet I orbit was even formed. And yet my name is spoken clearly amid the static and distortion." "I traded with a Korvax Entity I met on Ikdlak. The sentient offered refined rods of Chrysonite as part-payment for various star-mapping datums recorded by my ship's sensor modules. In the process it encountered the anomalous message I detected several cycles ago. I dismissed the signal as a chance event, a random coalescence of interference that happened to resemble a spoken voice. In truth, it had disturbed me. The Entity analysed the message in its own curiosity and revealed another layer beneath the audio component. A visual of a world with green skies and an obsidian moon." "The mysterious message continues to prey upon my mind. With the aid of the Entity, I have learned that its temporal origin is appproximately two to five thousand solar cycles from the now. I have narrowed down a point of transmission to a sector of space in the haze zone, close to the galactic anterior. I realise now that to ignore the signal would be an error. It is incumbent upon me to trace it. In my more fanciful moments, I wonder if it might be a warning or a revelation. I have set a course." "This will be my last recording for quite some time. I have refitted my vessel with a powerful Odvinsko hyperdrive and a cryogenic suspensor pod. It is my intention to enter a dormancy state in order to survive the journey to the distant source of the anomalous message. I have nothing to hold me here. I have committed myself. While I sleep, I will listen to the signal. My resting mind may be able to parse yet more meaning from it." "I awakened to discover that the planet from the image is gone. Only a belt of rubble surrounding a red giant star in the final stages of collapse remains. Whatever cataclysm killed this world took place before my species could walk upright. But it is undeniable. The signal came from here. It carried my name amid its atonal song. I have crossed unimaginable distances to seek out the origin point. Sensors have detected a metallic mass embedded in one of the largest of the planets fragments. It will take time, but I will be able to dig it out." "The red giant consumes itself. The interactions between spatial shearing zones in the system are causing the formation of a singularity. Space-time is becoming malleable. I am unable to depart. In the ashes of a dead world, I exhumed the corpse of the ship that had sent a message to me across the millennia, the ship that knew my name. Crushed and warped by unimaginable forces, I could barely recognise it. But I did see a corroded Odvinsko hyperdrive, a cryo-pod. The same as my ship's. My vessel is buried here. The voice is mine. I am warning myself-" The Atlas Interface Translated: Spoiler Conversation 1: You are first-kind to take this step. No other has dared the infinite. This grant of purpose will span universes. Open the sky and be our eyes. Find and know us. We await you. Conversation 2: We have come so far and yet we are lost. The seeking of the kindred never ends. The endless night unfolds before you. Wonder and fear. Silence and delight. Such knowledge awaits. Conversation 3: Trace the threads of gravity, do not hesitate. The void sings in vibrant chorus, siren song and hymnal. The sands of reality shift and merge, becoming one. you are within this. Conversation 4: There is a horizon beyond this one, and one beyond the next. You will cross them all for us. Question nothing, fear nothing. The calling cannot be denied. This is what you are. Conversation 5: Delay serves no purpose. the gathering of the unrecorded is ultimate. Learn all that is open to you. Seek and document and know. Bring it to us, while there is still time. Conversation 6: Yet you follow. It is remarked, but will you endure until the finality? expel all doubt. None return. Beyond the cascade and storms there is only the clarity of absolute truth. Conversation 7: Suns die and world are made ashen, yet we remain. The ending is no end. Existence is unbounded and languor engulfs the darkness. Bring us our meaning, if you are capable. Conversation 8: You are bonded to this act. Obedience brings certainty. Your enlightenment lies within the cage of your duty. Do not fail us. We will see with your eyes. Conversation 9: The ending becomes visible. drawing toward our locus, we sense you. what has been witnessed cannot be unseen. there is no sanctuary, only the end-point and communion. close now. Conversation 10: We will reward the totality of your devotion. Your gift is a glimpse into our ceaseless actuality. Come to us. Do not turn away. Know our inescapable truth, and despair. Final Conversation: Clarity. truth. actuality. ATLAS. again. Edited May 5, 2017 by damon8r351 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 5, 2017 Share Posted May 5, 2017 Thxs...my god, this game ended up on my backlog for eternity. Lots of updates since launch I hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMDE Posted May 5, 2017 Share Posted May 5, 2017 lore for NMS? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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