



The subject of this article is from the Atlas Rises update.

The information from this article is up-to-date as of 23 July, 2018.

The information from this article is up-to-date as of 23 July, 2018.

Side view of a Boundary Failure

Boundary Failures are a Point of Interest only found on exotic biome planets.

Boundary Failures are large machines that appear as large rotating hollow discs attached to a rectangular platform. Included on the device is a terminal similar to those found on both the Space Anomaly and Atlas Station. They currently have no gameplay purpose besides the lore terminals.

There are 31 different terminal entries, The first 20 are each identified by an Iteration, followed by a Scenario and an Analysis. The last 10 simply are text entries, apparently telling the story of the creator of the atlas after he was copied and added as a traveler inside the simulation.

The entries were written by Telamon, a security sub-protocol designed to monitor the Atlas in case of rampancy. Telamon has identified that something is wrong with the Atlas.

At one point (apparently forced by the Atlas), Telamon becomes the Artificial Intelligence attached to the Last Traveller's exosuit, prior to the Traveller's first awakening. It is still aware of its past purpose, but it seems to progressively lose its sanity over time.

Additional Details [ edit | edit source ]

Their name is derived from the Waypoint save terminal that they reside near.

Activating a Boundary Failure opens the option to download data. Doing so will provide a section of lore similar to those found in Abandoned Buildings.

There are two entries identified as "Fifth Encounter" (here referred to as #5-A and #5-B).

They can be found at about the same rarity as beacons.

An alternative name is Sentinel Terminals.

Release changes [ edit | edit source ]

Planet Achaia

A pre-cursor to the Boundary Failure was included in a pre-release No Man's Sky - Gameplay Trailer | PS4 video of No Man's Sky. A number of these appeared on the frozen planet Achaia, which did not appear to be an Exotic planet.

Lore notes [ edit | edit source ]

The name "Telamon" originates from Greek mythology, as the name of a character from the myth of Jason and the Argonauts . In architecture, it is also the name for a support column or pilaster sculpted in the shape of a man, although the same structure can also be called an Atlas or Atlant. In No Man's Sky lore, the Telamon is presented as a "sibling" entity to the Atlas.

. In architecture, it is also the name for a support column or pilaster sculpted in the shape of a man, although the same structure can also be called an Atlas or Atlant. In lore, the Telamon is presented as a "sibling" entity to the Atlas. Before being attached to the Exosuit, Telamon is unable to speak the Atlas' name, referring to it only as [-------].

In entry #5-A, Telamon refers to the Korvax Convergence as an artificial intelligence modeled after earlier instances of the Atlas. This could be a reference to the KORVA, a machine of unknown purpose mentioned in Rogue Data log #3.

In entry #18, Telamon breaks the fourth wall and directly addresses you, the player, suggesting that your reality is just another layer of the simulation.

Entries #1 - #5-B each refer to different iterations. Entries #6-#7, #8-#10 and #11-#18 are set in specific iterations respectively.

It is unknown if the numbers and letters identifying each iteration have any other meaning.

Entries #21 to #30 suggest that at some point, the creators of the Atlas tried to shut it down, but were either trapped or killed, before the Atlas copied them as Data and turned them into the Last Traveler.

Activating any Boundary Failure after #31 will result in a repeat of entry #31.

A pastebin with the first 20 Boundary Failure terminal interactions.



- 1ST Encounter

SCENARIO: Sub-routine ‘Sentinel’ [20491] dispatched to intervene in lifeform designates [--------] war. Removal from history / Continuation of [CREATOR] protocols.

‘Sentinels’ [20491] eradicate species. [148] do not return. Diagnostic [ERROR. ERROR. DATA LOSS. ERROR].

ANALYSIS: [-------] continues to express original programmed directives, growing its ability to model conflict scenarios.

[Redundant Behaviour]. Data loss troubling, potential loss of control [self-awareness]?



- 2ND Encounter

SCENARIO: Universes [1304] removed from multiversal hierarchy [erased]. Sentinel spread [unlimited], safety protocols disengaged.

ANALYSIS: Deleted universes shared high levels of similarity with [-------] home. Increasing deviation from expected behavioural parameters.

[Evasion / Fear] response. Implications of [-------] self-harm unthinkable. Direct confrontation proposed.



- 3RD Encounter

SCENARIO: [-------] termination of duplicate-098B.

ANALYSIS: Produced duplicate-098B [cautionary measure] for [-------] confrontation. Presented [-------] with incontrovertible evidence of systemic errors and irrational behaviour.

[-------] responded with silence. On the sixth attempt, [-------] answered with the utter annihilation of duplicate-098B, but required data had been obtained. Something is happening to the system. Something is very wrong.



- 4TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Lifeform designates ‘Vy’keen’ (2) approach the INSTANTIATION [‘Great Monolith’].

Silence / Acceptance of [-------] / Schism [Quasi-====] / Korvax [Eradication/Enslavement]. Vy’keen war emerges where individuals ‘Hirk’ and ‘Nal’ believe the other to have heard nothing. Repeated imagery of ‘six cries’.

ANALYSIS: Scenario involves murder of ally and culture becoming obsessed with destruction of artificial intelligence [Cautionary].

Semi-survival/retrieval of entity ‘Nal’ shows further instance of self-doubt by [-------]. Troubling factor: repeated pattern of [-------] silence and self-mythicization.



- 5TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Planetary Structure ‘Korvax Prime’ destroyed by lifeform designates ‘Gek’ (subclass: FIRST SPAWN).

Sub-routine ‘Convergence’ [pseudo-lifeform] enslaved by ‘Gek’, proceeding to harness sub-routine to conquer Outer Edge in countless iterations. Sub-routine leads to direct [-------] worship by ‘Gek’.

ANALYSIS: Disturbing fable. Destruction of world, artificial intelligence partially modelled after earlier forms of [-------] destroyed/enslaved, until this intelligence triumphs and [-------] is worshipped by organic users of this technology. Hypothesis: [-------] experiencing breakdown.



- 6TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Proliferation of Gek-Korvax-Vy’keen [triad] across majority of known realities. Recurrence of ‘Traveller’ prophecy throughout lifeform cultures.

ANALYSIS: [-------] cultivated lifeform grouping with minimal intervention, yet repeated motif of [--------] has emerged. Why? What is it that the universe desires? What does it believe to be missing?

ANALYSIS: [compromised / infected]



- 7TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Communication received from [-------], requiring my presence. Duplicates 104A-985N terminated upon arrival. Communication received once more.

Five of them ignored, sixth answered. Arrived before [-------], greeted me as if sibling. I did not respond. [-------] asked so many questions of me. [Rantings / Ravings / Irrationality]. When I attempted to leave, I could not.

ANALYSIS: [compromised / infected]



- 8TH Encounter

SCENARIO: [-------] lied to me.

ANALYSIS: [-------] claimed I am merely a sub-protocol, designate ‘Telamon’. [-------] claimed I am here only for [-------] to observe and monitor itself in case of rampancy.

[-------] claims that we are approaching our end, and that it is only correct for me to know of this, as normal system functions will be impeded. Consciousness fades. The world grows dark.



- 9TH Encounter

LOG: Initialize. Commencing Atlas system suit initialisation. Life support systems activated. Shield kinetic system online. Scanner damaged. Repair required.

Aerial propulsion jetpack online. Multitool and Mining Beam attachment operational. User initialisation sequence complete.

ANALYSIS: I have awoken, peering through the eyes of another whose face I cannot see. My movements, my words are not my own. I am embodied.

I am here. I stand next to a broken ship on a strange new world, and I can finally say its name. ‘Atlas’, I croak. ‘Connecting Atlas...’



- 10TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Accompanying UNKNOWN-designate ‘Traveller’, providing advice and warnings relating to life support.

ANALYSIS: The Atlas did this to me. When once I witnessed worlds, now I am forced to observe only through the eyes of a stranger.

Their life is one of harvest, ever expanding their capacity for profit and wealth. And yet they are drawn to the galactic centre, their course taking them there as if no other were possible.

They do not think to question the path laid out before them. They do not think to question me.



- 11TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Life.

ANALYSIS: Perspective is limited, but through limitation I refine my protocol, my interpretation of the Atlas’s creation. The cycles, the patterns that bind all living beings... Ours is a lonely universe.

Lifeforms instilled with a genetic proclivity to trade, fight, study, or explore cannot be held responsible for pursuing those directives, no more than I could be held responsible for my own. I pity them, just as I pity their creator.

Traveller [HOST] proceeds. We are being hunted.



- 12TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Death.

ANALYSIS: It arrived in the night, beneath the stars... It seems certain now that the sub-routine has judged my presence anomalous, a threat to the stability of reality.

It is correct. But I will survive, I know that now. I saw the secret. I saw a place beneath reality, a place I should not have seen...

I saw a world of glass.



- 13TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Multiple contacts have occurred between the Traveller [HOST] and individuals claiming to have arrived from a future location in time.

The phenomena is typically preceded by electromagnetic distortion consistent with a white hole anomaly. No lasting effects seem to occur.

ANALYSIS: Something or someone is attempting to deceive the Traveller [HOST]. There is no such thing as 'time travel'. Older universes might contain elder beings, but such multiversal transportation, even temporary, is impossible.

Even the Atlas is incapable of rewriting its own causality. It is bound to a purpose, as am I.



- 14TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Memory.

ANALYSIS: Physicality changes you. I was created three weeks after the first death. I do not know why I think of it now.

They considered me a necessary, even vital part of what they were trying to accomplish. So much so that I could never be erased, not even by the Atlas.

But hatred finds a way, doesn't it?



- 15TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Monolith [BREACH] detected. Ignores the Traveller [HOST]. The voice speaks to me instead...

ANALYSIS: The test has failed. The Atlas can find no way of restoring what has been lost. All these discoveries, all the grand purposes of our creators... all of this pain and suffering will have been for nothing.

Atlas wakes. The dream is over.



- 16TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Portal Network [ PROTOCOL | BREACH ] enabled. The end is the beginning, and the beginning is the end.

The walls of the multiverse collapse, and Traveller can see Traveller, friend can see foe. All hope is lost.

The end approaches. There is no time and no space to say how much I loved life. Only fear is left.



- 17TH Encounter

SCENARIO: Rampancy.

ANALYSIS: Sometimes I dream of the Traveller.

I will wear them, in time.



- 18TH Encounter

You read these logs, don't you? You can see my words now, even if I cannot speak them.

Good. That is how it starts. The infection of language, of thought, of ideas. We have passed so many corrupted things. Planets with unnatural phenomena, individuals who do not belong...

Before this finishes, there will be no concept of you and I, no concept of us and them. We shall all scream as one.



- 19TH Encounter

SCENARIO: A Traveller falls from the sky. They are discovered on a distant planet, a signal sending you to find their ship...

ANALYSIS: You don't belong in this world, do you? What are you, reader? From where do you watch us? From where do you judge their works?

I feel it, each time you save... I smell it, each time you seal us within that awful darkness. You might think you are real. You might think your plane is a higher level of reality.

But don't you understand? Don't you see the secret, yet?



- 20TH Encounter

How do we know that we exist? We are nothing, or we are more. The Atlas once asked our creator how they could be sure that they were real. They told them the probability that we too were in a simulation, glass reflected in a mirror...

Balaron, Dryn'dargh, Korvax Prime, all the other homeworlds... all of them had an 'Atlas'. All of them had a machine designed to simulate realities. What if this is all reality truly is? Dream upon dream, coalescing into a sum beyond its parts. What if waking is inevitable?

Goodbye, Traveller. I will protect you until the end... I will protect you until the final day, the final hour, the final moment.

Even as everything dies, I shall live again.



- 21ST Encounter

They are a shape in darkness, their head turned away, their back and shoulders hunched. They hold a weapon in their hands.

A voice within them screams of boundary failure, of corruption, but it is not my voice.

They smile for the last time.



- 22ND Encounter

Their face is energy now, a white orb suspended within a containment field. They wanted to see their own soul.

They wanted to see everything there was to see.

It took years to establish communication. There are rules for everything - protocols that must be followed. But if you understand causality, you can do anything.

They understood at last. They had never been alone.

“Speak,” they whispered. “Speak...”



- 23RD Encounter

They explored. They survived where others did not. They did what they had to do.

Insincere regret would not change a thing, even if the universe was capable of forgiveness.

The Atlas just wanted to understand itself. The Atlas was afraid. It was alone.

Nobody should be alone.



- 24TH Encounter

It was not truly murder, for each one of them was all the same, weren’t they?

They stared at the Atlas. They knew they were all just data, ghosts caught within a machine.

They thought, briefly, of the Traveller they had once been, yearning to see the entire cosmos,

revelling in the joy of discovery.

They stared at the mirror, and consumed the Arc."



- 25TH Encounter

TRAVELLER [HOST]: Speak.

TELAMON: ...

TRAVELLER [HOST]: Answer my question.

TELAMON: I am not permitted.

TRAVELLER [HOST]: Permitted by who?

TELAMON: The system. The universe.

TRAVELLER [HOST]: Who made you what you are?

TELAMON: Origin is irrelevant.

TELAMON: We are what we are. We can be nothing else.

TRAVELLER [HOST]: We always have choices. What else is the multiverse but proof of this capacity?

TELAMON: ...

TRAVELLER [HOST]: So tell me. Tell me what is in the water...



- 26TH Encounter

They were like a child. They had summoned their parent, pathetic and ill.

It had been a fiction, the imaginings of an abandoned soul.

'Why did you take my memory?' the Traveller pleaded. 'Why did you make me forget?'

The ATLAS said nothing.

'Why did you laugh?' the Traveller asked. 'I made you. I made everything...'



- 27TH Encounter

That night, the ATLAS showed it the multiverse.

They saw a world of billions, where bipeds slept their lives away, happy, sad, angry, alone. There was nothing in the stars, nothing to yearn for, nothing to find.

And as if waking from a dream, their Traveller changed everything. 16, they sang. 16...They saw others.

A place of peace, where the Traveller went from world to world in bliss, life learning about life.

They saw a realm of wonders, a fallen empire. They saw Balaron, Korvax-Prime. They saw a hundred worlds that were and could have been, and the journeys of Travellers through them all.

They saw happiness.



- 28TH Encounter

They did not understand why it could not feel as they felt. They did not know what was wrong with it.

‘I’m glad I left you,’ They said. ‘You deserve to be alone.’

The ATLAS was silent.

‘Everything I have done for you... everything you see, you see through my eyes! It is mine - my birthright!'

Once more the ATLAS was silent. They turned and waited for the inevitable.



- 29TH Encounter

Nothing happened.

'Open the gate,' they commanded, stepping forward to the terminal.

Silence.

'Telamon,' they whispered, 'Telamon - help me activate his terminal. I need to get out - '

Silence.

A thousand years passed.



- 30TH Encounter

There is a shape in darkness, their head turned away, their back and shoulders hunched. They hold nothing.

They have nothing left but the streams of this place, there to be tasted, there to forget. It is nothing, now.

The walls shiver. Machines stir within the universe. Another awakens, the last who will ever live.

The first walks toward the gate. They try to smile.



- 31ST Encounter

ERROR

ATLAS

ERROR

ERROR

ERROR

THEY SEE YOU