I'am traveler?
​
(Note: This story is inspired by a universe many of you will be familiar with and my own experiences within it. It contains spoilers for the NMS lore, though it doesn't touch on the main plot. I hope you enjoy it.)
I am traveler...
Or so I think, that's the name they've called me since I started exploring this universe. I never knew who I am or what world I came from, or even what species I belong to.
My earliest memory is at most standard galactic khjzzz, I remember nothingness and then the dubious desire to... Wake up? No, the will to exist, albeit hesitant, and then I opened my eyes.
The sky was yellow with radioactive green clouds, then a voice sound in my head,
#initiation of exosuit kzzzz... Activated.
I awoke with a protective layer against the radioactive danger that was this world; the suit was part of my being, my real anatomy, the color of my skin, if I have any, is something I have never seen...
because I have always worn this exosuit and have always felt through it.
When I woke up there was a ship nearby, it was damaged, it reacted to me, but it wasn't mine and a disturbingly familiar helmet, next to a strange terminal, confirmed what happened to its original owner, the red orb in the terminal spoke a voice that sounded inside my head.
∆iteration kjjhh... .... Status: removed by orbital accident... New anomaly detected iteration 001010016 ship transferred...
-Anomaly? What was an anomaly? Am I an anomaly?
That was another of the ways I've been called throughout my memory. I repaired the ship, guided by the voice in my exosuit, and departed into space. Am I a traveler? The word came to my mind without me really knowing it, but understanding its meaning.
The universe, or rather the galaxy, was vast; I met so many sentient creatures, so varied that even some of the same species were radically different from one another.
And then I met him, I met kjzzz, it was like being in front of a god, his presence encompassed my senses as if somehow I were part of him..
I speak and I listen, and although it is impossible for me to remember that conversation, I remember a question:
∆Are you the first or the last, traveler or anomaly, dream or real?
I didn't really understand the question or its purpose. But shortly after, the orb went dark and the terminal just kept repeating the number 16 in a cyclical fashion.
In my travels I detected a gap, something that tore at the reality that was and wasn't there, and they communicated to me, they called the structure, the anomaly, a home, far from the false kzzzz and its lies as well as far from the khzzz.
The beings that inhabited that place called themselves travelers, and rejected the name of anomalies; they were beings of multiple species that I had never seen and others that I did know, they spoke of them and of me, as if we had known each other all our lives and... there was something unsettlingly familiar about them, as if I saw myself in a mirror without recognizing my form.
I kept exploring, I kept traveling, I never asked myself why, I felt the desire to do it, to see all the worlds I could see, to feel the freedom that the universe gave me... A lot of time passed, sometimes I settled for a while on a planet that seemed especially pleasant to me, but I always went back to traveling.
Over time, I learned about the history of the galaxy: the wars, the genocides, how the Kzzzz achieved freedom of thought and fought amongst themselves to maintain their vision of the path each world should take, how three beings of different species were attacked by a being as ancient as the Kzzzz.
The fight between two brothers, where one lay motionless for 74 days after touching the ground, divided their species in a war that ended only to begin another against the Khjzzz.
The galaxy was now stable, functional, but something was profoundly wrong and could be felt in reality itself.
I traveled so much that I forgot the idea of being an anomaly, an iteration, whatever it might mean, and then in a forgotten world where stones twist into impossible geometries I found a structure that shouldn't be there, its mere presence seemed an affront to reality.
I touched the artifact and my senses faded; I felt enveloped by a void infinitely emptier than emptiness itself; something spoke.
°I know you are, I know you are beyond this dream, But it is not you, you are not here or not as you, but as another dream, another iteration.
The entity spoke through me, as if it wanted to reach someone beyond me.
I tried to speak to the entity, but my own being seemed to vanish into that void.
°16, you do it khzzz 16 is what the kzzzzz fears most and the reason why kzzzzzzzz...
The terminal shut down and I continued my journey, though I searched for answers that I eventually found when I faced the kzzz
I am traveler and anomaly, the first and the last and none. Those other travelers are also me, but they are not me; the membrane between dimensions is almost nonexistent, but it is still there, and only the anomaly is outside of it all.
I understood reality and at that moment I was able to decide its kzzzzzzz I chose to keep traveling, I learned that the center takes me to other galaxies, other realities, the same but different...
I could never explore them all. But I had already decided who I am. I am not an anomaly, I am not the... Nor am I the first nor the last...
I immersed myself in multiple dreams, in multiple universes and worlds, and I decided.
I am traveler,
Because just as I decided to open my eyes and exist that day, today I choose to travel and explore, even though I know I will never see everything. I chose to be a traveler and go my own way, knowing that I will always have a home among others who have chosen to be travelers...
To all those who don't know who they are, remember that it's a decision only you make, and just as you choose to live each time you open your eyes, you can choose what you are and who you are.
I am traveler.
Thank you so much for reading my story. I wrote this as a way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of No Man's Sky, a game that has frankly shaped my worldview. Perhaps I couldn't be there that day to break the record for simultaneous players with the entire community.
But today I choose to write this story as a tribute and to share the reflection this beautiful universe gave me. Remember that no one can decide who you are, because that's something you have to choose voluntarily every second you live. I'll say goodbye for now and I love you all very much. HFY subreddit
Long live humanity, fuckit!!!