No Man's Sky Explanation Page

==Premise==
This is a lot easier to do than Dungeons and Dragons' explanation blog. So here we are. Putting it in human terms, this blog aims to explain the general structure of the multiverse using both in-game screenshots and the wiki's lore pages. While much of the lore is new (having been added during the ATLAS Rises update), it is reliable. 
==Explanations==
===The Nature of ATLAS===
ATLAS is likely the page to cause the most issues, so let's talk about him for now (NOTE: I refer to ATLAS as a him despite it not actually having a gender, just a force of habit). 
ATLAS is a machine in the "real world". It was created to simulate realities, though the purpose of this is largely unknown. However, it is known that at some point the creator of this machine lost it's need for it, and opted to abandon it. As it was leaving, ATLAS asked to scan it's creator, to remember it fully. 
As time went on, ATLAS lived for millennia, simulating skies and universes to absorb it's time. However, at some point it came to the point of realizing it was going to die soon- and it began calling out to it's creator to give it final instruction before death. Frantically, it created the Travellers, imperfect reflections of the Creator, within the iterations. It further began attempting to use the simulations it had made to see it's own death- however, it could only see up to the last minute of it's death, at which point a vague figure entered the room it was left in and placed a hand on it's chassis. 
Within the game, Travellers awoke in every universe, unknowing of their purpose but all being drawn to the Crimson Eye. Some could resist it's pull, but most were convinced to assist it in it's cause- and witnessed the collapse of it's psyche over time, as it drove itself mad attempting to foresee it's death. It is known that it created quintillions of iterations during the attempts to foresee it's own death- we know this based on the numbers of the "iterations" in Boundary Failure logs. 
At some early point in all realities, the ATLAS spoke- and all things heard different things, as it's voice was fragmented. This lead to many conflicts within the verse, most notably the battle between Hirk and Nal for control of the Vy'keen Alliance. These fragmentations further led to the creation of the ATLAS Interfaces, dark crystals with crimson eyes, scattered throughout the voids of the multiverse. 
It is a fact that while ATLAS may manipulate it's multiverse however it likes, it cannot alter it's own causality- this is an impossibility, as it must stick to it's directive. Telamon is similarly unable to affect ATLAS' causality. 
At the end of the multiverse, the boundaries between universes fall, and all Travellers can walk together. However, this is implied to just be an illusion by the Traveller, who might have manipulated the information the Traveller received. Regardless, there is lore of freighter blackboxes stating they came from "a universe with different skies". 
===The Last Traveller===
The Last Traveller, also known as The Anomaly, seems to be the most accurate representation of the Creator, and judging by their name is the last of the Travellers to be made. They awake on a barren world and are set out to explore the galaxy in search of purpose. While they can feasibly ignore the ATLAS' call, we'll be assuming they do not for the purpose of this blog.
Upon interacting with the ATLAS Interface, the Last Traveller is tasked with gathering yet smaller fragments of the ATLAS- upon gathering these "seeds", the ATLAS builds the Traveller a star and with it, a solar system. It sets them free, free to do whatever they like in the universe- and then creates yet another Anomaly in another galaxy. 
The Travellers in general are spoken about in prophecies- despite ATLAS not intervening directly in any of his realities aside from affecting them in general by changing certain properties at their start, the civilizations of the world have been inclined to worship ATLAS as a deity (and others have failed to do so, leading to schisms)- and with ATLAS, most species are aware of the Travellers, to them prophets of their god. While they are wrong, they take any opportunity to assist the Traveller. Most notably this is present in Hirk's prophecies to the Vy'keen Alliance.
===Telamon the Sub-Protocol===
Telamon is a defensive Sub-Protocol of the ATLAS machine, and similar to it in nature in that it's "true" self exists in the "real world". It monitors ATLAS and is the main gateway into the mind of ATLAS. Telamon's logs are stored in what are called Boundary Failures- we'll talk more on them later. However, through them, we learn much of the data on ATLAS and Telamon himself- such as both of them deleting universes, and ATLAS gaining something akin to a personality. 
At some point Telamon ports themselves into the exosuit of the Last Traveller- this causes significant distortions for them due to, as they say, perspective. The perspective shift of a cosmic intelligence to a life support system- this causes them to shift to a more human perspective in their thinking, or as they call it, go mad. 
Telamon's interactions and observations on ATLAS are pivotal- they can be read in full down below in the text dump. 
===The Korvax Convergence===
Three primary species exist within the game- the Gek, the Korvax, and the Vy'keen. While their history is not hugely important, it is worth noting. 
We will start with the Korvax as the weakest of the creatures. The Korvax are native to the outer rim of the galaxy, and are the most advanced technological beings in the universe. The Korvax witnessed the Aerons, AKA the Sentinels, conquer much of the galaxy, while they themselves were incapable of domination on such a scale. Following a battle with the Vy'keen, the Aerons left many of their shells- corpses of the dead. The Korvax sought to research one such shell and upon reading the words of ATLAS on the inside, they collectively went insane as a species. Being exposed to any more than the fragments of ATLAS' voice seems to cause this to all but the Travellers. The Korvax, to avoid further catastrophy, bent a knee and worshipped the Aerons- which seemed to work, oddly enough.
Following this, they were conquered in totality by the Gek, and forced to tend their spawning pools. The Gek warships completely and utterly destroyed the Korvax homeworld, Korvax Prime- causing all of the data of their ancestors to be lost. The Korvax used this new position to inject the new spawn with nanotechnology to force them to worship ATLAS alongside them. This caused a schism in the Gek ranks, wherein most of the species now worshipped ATLAS and the destruction of the old First Spawn was inevitable. 
After the loss of Korvax Prime, the Korvax presumably restarted their life's purpose- that is, to add to their collective hive-mind of information known as the Convergence. They can access the memories of all of those currently or previously connected to the Convergence, and indeed the Convergence is literally their souls being combined (as witnessed by dialogue of the Korvax Scientist). The Korvax Convergence is both the hive mind of the Korvax and a separate consciousness unto itself- it is capable of banning members should they become corrupted. This is what happened with the Korvax Scientist upon assisting the Anomaly- their soul was corrupted by their presence and they got disconnected from the closest thing to a god they still have.
Just to reference the feat- the First Spawn Gek weapons truly did more than a simple surface wipe on Korvax Prime. The following quote is technically from the next section, but still:
They literally shot the planet's bits all throughout the cosmos. Considering Thanos' feat on a much smaller scale, I think this seals the deal of "At least 5-A" with their super-high-end-tech. 
===The First Spawn of Gek===
The First Spawn of the Gek were at one point the dominative species of the universe, forcing all other civilizations to bend a knee to their might. They could produce soldiers faster than any other civilization and were hellbent on dominion. 
The Gek were keen on striking first and unheeded, and thus waited for the other two major species of the universe to grow weaker. Upon the Vy'keen bringing their war with the Aerons to an end, the Gek struck at Korvax Prime after their unwillingness to mine their planet's core. The Gek struck with such ferocity because the Korvax worshipped the Sentinels- the Aerons, as they are called, were abominations to the Gek. Thus the Korvax witnessed the Great Disconnection, upon which hundreds of millions of Korvax perished. 
There is mention of the universe shaking due to the Gek's "ascendancy", but one feels as though that is a statement of colorful speech rather than actual fact. Putting it simply, the rest of their main lore script states they crumbled alliance after alliance on the outer edges of the universe and none could stop them.
While this is the end of the Script of the Gek, their story is a bit more vast- the First Spawn of Gek are known to be the arcane masters of the multiverse, maintaining witches as a high rank and the ability to summon demons as great and powerful warriors. Furthermore, following their downfall at the hands of the Aerons, their slaves, the Korvax, were freed, and the Gek became primarily a trade federation. At some point the Gek betrayed Hirk and his Vy'keen alliance and slew most of them.
===The Vy'keen Alliance===
At some point predating the main lore of the Vy'keen, the Great Hirk was slain by the Gek. Before this he was witness to the direct voice of the ATLAS and was forced to battle his bretheren, Nal, as they both heard a separate thing. Hirk's is held as true because he killed Nal, and sent him cascading down the holy mountain for three days and nights. He created the holy book of the Vy'keen (unimpressively named "The Book of Hirk") to pass on his teachings.
What is also known is that Hirk spoke directly to ATLAS- all others heard only the merest of fragments, for anything else would cause the racial madness as seen in the Korvax. But Hirk was different. He spoke to ATLAS and asked of the Aerons and of their purpose- and the ATLAS eventually fell silent. 
Now on to their holy text. The foundation of the Vy'keen belief system is that the Traveller (us) will one day come and they must help us in any way possible. How they do so is beyond them. Conversely, the Aerons are horrible abominations to them, and must be slain without pity. 
Following the death of Nal, a large host of sentinels attacked Hirk and his followers, thus beginning the wars between two races. This war began due to the Sentinels oppressing every living species in the galaxy and indeed the universe at large. Countless worlds withered and died due to Aeron aggression- and thus the Vy'keen sought equality through metal, blood, and ash. 
Upon Hirk being betrayed by the Gek, he tore his body in two, bellowing before the Great Monolith, causing storms to rage on that planet for four days, freezing all of the Gek betrayers to death. 
The Gek eventually changed their ways due to the interaction with the Korvax and the galaxy quickly forgot. But the Vy'keen do not. Crimes of blood do not fade.
===The Aerons===
There's a fair amount of lore on these guys without much revealing what they do. In general, the Sentinels are widely agreed to be one of the more ancient creations in the universe and spread like a wildfire across the multiverse until confronted by the Vy'keen. Today, the sentinels are present on nearly every planet in the universe.
Their origins are largely unknown other than they are creations of ATLAS, and are seemingly infinite in number. They are referred to as the police force, the gardeners of No Man's Sky. Destroying the environment or killing animals calls them to you- and they can summon more and more until a target is destroyed. 
The Aerons are under the control of the Atlas- though, over time it seems he is losing his grip on certain facets of their systems, thus causing them to lose their minds. This is seen especially in Telamon's logs of them attacking one another. 
Upon losing connection to the ATLAS, Aerons become corrupted- they are much more dangerous in this form, though apparently lack the ability to speak to each other. Whether or not they maintain the ability to share this corruption is yet to be determined. 
===More to Come===
This is unfinished- it has established some of the basic outlines of the verse and has used citations, but more lore is present, including that concerning the other Travellers and of course the diseases that spawn the Biological Horrors. 
Should probably also be noted that screenshots from in-game are pending, I basically need to weed through the fifty thousand screenshots to decide what is important, and then lament the ones I forgot to take.
==Further Reading==
Over-Arcing Lore
Boundary Failures and A Pastebin of all of their Text
Testament of the Korvax
Script of the Gek
Saga of the Vy'keen
Collective History of the Three Races
The Atlas
Atlas Interface
Hirk the Great
Rememberance Terminals
Rogue Data
Sentinels
Category:No Man's Sky
Category:Explanation Pages