Atlas Interface

The Atlas called me to this interface and yet its purpose remains unclear. It demands worship. It demands obedience. It welcomes me, it knows what I am, it offers the gift of true understanding...

But why? Why does such power and knowledge crave submission? It knows my thoughts before I know them myself. It knows what I will do...

The Atlas asks me to follow its path.

Another Atlas Interface: how many of these constructs exist in the deep void? How long have they been slumbering, waiting for a Traveller?

Have they been expecting me? Am I somehow... chosen? The Atlas crafted this existence. The Gek, the Vy'keen, the Korvax, the stars that fill the skies and the hatred that burns within the deep...

Every world that turns and every form that lives... the Atlas offers it all.

I was born with everything I needed to explore these worlds. My exosuit, my ship, every tool and every impulse led me to scan and give name to whatever I could find.

But this? I can give no name to what I see. Within the orb I see worlds that never were. I see the stirring of something primal and undeniable. I see the death cry of a God, or something approaching it...

It wants me to persist in this journey, seeking fragments of its interface, the stones of the Atlas. It rejoices in my repetition, my compliance, my cloud of unknowing...

I feel the stirring of heresy within my mind. At each Interface, an Atlas Stone awaits me. I am driven to gather them, but to what end?

Why does the omnipotent require my prayer? What is wrong with the heart of existence, that its creator requires this pilgrimage, this dance of grinding stones?

When I dream, I see the Atlas. When I see the Atlas, I am the dream.

I see Sentinels swarm through universes like an infection, emerging from a world of glass. Everything is happy there. Everything will live...

I see the portals, I see the Travellers that walk between them, I see the span of history. I see everything as the Atlas sees it... alone. Abandoned. Terrified.

But what power could instil fear in the heart of the almighty? It asks for something... it wants to know that I understand...

The act of discovery for discovery's sake now seems like a foolish conceit. I have rejected the path of the itinerant. I have rejected the call of the stars.

Only the Atlas matters now. With each encounter, I feel as if I understand a little more.

All of us are what we are. Evil arrives in the individual and goodness is not enough. True greatness lies in sorrow... in the embrace of what we must become...

What is learned can never be unlearned. I am afraid that I have seen too much...

There are glimpses, half-remembered visions of a time before time. I see the birth of the first star. I see the things that dwelt within it, the eyes that watched... I see what the Atlas saw at the moment of its activation.

Atlas Stones are not stones. This station is not a station. I am not what I think I am. I am not even sure that I exist. The Atlas does not care. The Atlas demands its threnody, its repetition sublime...

I have become the servant of this ancient sentience. It guides me through the cosmos, ever searching, never deviating.

Have others come before me? Have others faltered upon the path of the Atlas? Only in ending will revelation arise. Resistance will not be permitted.

The Atlas wishes for me to know what it is like to create. It wishes to share some portion of its being. I sense that it cares deeply about this journey, that it is trying to show me something it cannot articulate through word or demonstration...

I am close to the end.

The truth of the universe is fire. The soul is light. I am the experiment and the observer, all creation constructed for my journey. I see the universe around me and I know that it is good.

I see the universe around me and I know that I shall create my own...

The final interface is revealed. The Atlas beckons.

I am elated, terrified, broken... I have come so very far.

It wishes for me to obey. If I am to hold the power of creation, it will be in chains...

I stand at the interface of the Atlas. I stand at the forge of worlds. This is how it showed me what it was. This is how the Atlas shared the nature of its life, the workings of its mind.

It never required prayer. It never required worship. All that it asked of me, all that it ever wanted... it was just input. I was just a user.

I can feel the seeds, their hidden knowledge, gravitating towards the interface's core. The void is meant to be filled. Nothingness yearns for a soul. If I do this, a star will be born. If I do this, I will become more than I ever thought possible...

There is nothing, and then... then there is everything...

I see a star blaze to life within the void, the spread of life, planets, creatures to give it meaning...

For a moment I am as the Atlas is. For a moment I am the creator of worlds.

The fabric of time and space stands revealed to me, black holes swarming from system to system. The Atlas screams...