I just finished the “Prayers to the Machine” questline last night and I’d really want to debate some of the more philosophical and theological aspects of this game.

Because boy, does this game run deep.

(Don’t read this post if you just started the game and don’t want spoilers.)

So we know by now that the entire ingame universe of No Man’s Sky is a simulation, run by The Atlas. Some consider the Atlas to be a God. After all, it created the universe and seems to have full control over everything. Except it doesn’t. And the Atlas isn’t a God. It’s an artificial intelligence that might think it’s a God and it seems to be going quite mad because it seems to be sensing its impending death within 16 seconds, minutes, hours or whatever.

Personally, I think this is brilliant and strangely relatable. I personally believe in God, but I struggle with the concept of God as an emotional benevolent entity. I’ve always figured that if God is eternal and loving, He would go mad from the emotional strain. Still, I try.

At the ending of the autophage quest, there were two screens that really caught me in terms of philosophical and theological depths:

(I apologize for the phone-screenshot… screenshotting seems to crash my pc these days…)

When the confrontation with the Atlas culminated into this, I thought: yes, this is it! Information as immortality. One of the core aspects of Reformational philosophy (as I’ve understood it) is that we are known to God: God knows and loves us and this knowledge makes our lives eternal. We cannot be erased, even if we don’t know God.

https://preview.redd.it/oy6d03pcu6sb1.jpg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4684b57c3534cc65f454f7d9a14aef55804a25fe

Another aspect of the Autophage that I really love is how they are fundamental rejects, but return as a sort of saviors and givers of new hope and friendship. There is hope because whatever was destroyed can be rebuild.

I just thought it was really, really awesome that as a player we can give the Atlas hope. Maybe that’s our purpose as humans: wonder, explore, in the deep conviction that there’s always more beauty than we can ever imagine.

During Singularity expedition, we are tasked with forging the Seed of Will, which is “unsuppressable will to exist” taken physical form. When we interact/Resonate with it, it sounds like typical Atlas Interface… except it suddenly starts to sound like an alarm, very melodic one at that.

Now for those who don’t know, No Man’s Sky universe is essentially a simulation run by Atlas. Atlas is the name of the supercomputer who was designed to run these simulations by some unknown race of beings. However, these beings have fled the world which was slowly being eaten by the black hole and left Atlas behind, probably too monumental in its size to be transported easily. This has caused Atlas to develop abandonment issues, depression and existential dread. According to his calculations, he has 16 of something of operational time left (this is why you see number 16 being repeated everywhere throughout the game). Also fun fact – canonically your character is the last iteration of Traveller beings, which were made out of brainscans of Atlas’ creators. It creates Travellers in an attempt to find out why was he abandoned.

Now this is my theory, that the sound we hear while resonating with the Seed of Will is actually what Atlas hears in its room or other chamber where its physical body resides in. The melodic tunes we hear might be an emergency alarm sound as the physical world is slowly being torn apart by the black hole with Atlas being able to do nothing as he dies. The fact that the Seed of Will is described as “unsuppressable will to exist” could mean that Atlas wants to survive in whatever way it can. This also ties into another theory that the Construct we are assembling is actually body of the Atlas itself, which wants to traverse the simulation rather than just simulating it. I believe that this might be actually the way for Atlas to depart on its own terms – to wander around the world he has created rather than feel his body being torn to shreds in complete solitude.