Friends, I have been working hard on this long post for some time and I am very excited to share it with you, the eighth in my Something in the Sky series on the mysteries of No Man's Sky.

Believers in mysteries, unite!

Something in the Sky v8 -

NMS's Biggest Easter Egg

Revealed

When it comes to mysteries in No Man's Sky, I am a believer. I believe there is a hidden mystery in the game waiting for us to find it. I know there are skeptics, and I am thankful for them. The skeptics challenge us believers to think, which makes us whole persons, not just idle dreamers. Skeptics drive believers to be thoughtful, grounded and real. And when we believers find something, our job is to present what we find openly and thoughtfully while challenging the skeptics to do what they need to do to be whole persons - set aside cynicism and feel wonder and hope.

So as a believer who has been working hard to find the mysteries in No Man's Sky, I share with you this report of something I have found. First I relate my journey to this discovery, then share what I found, next set out questions for the ongoing mystery and then invite you to join me on an adventure.

My Journey to a Discovery

I have played NMS almost every day since midnight on launch night. I loved the game from the get go, largely unaffected by the tsunami of negativity that crashed into Hello Games and Sean Murray in the weeks following its debut. As I continued to play, I sought out streamers and online communities of Fellow Travelers to feel positive connection and love. I made my way slowly and steadily toward the center of the Euclid Galaxy, excited to join the hunt for mysteries there.

The invisible stars in the Haze Zone appeared a week and a half before I arrived, and then in early October, two days before I got to the edge of the Haze Zone, news of Stiikzz's discovery of the center on the PS4 spread like wildfire among my community of streamers. I was in the "he actually did it" camp and not in the "it must be a glitch" camp and began looking for clues to how Stiikzz reached the center. When news broke a couple of weeks later that the discovery was indeed an upload glitch, I was disappointed and hopeful; disappointed because it turned out to be a glitch, and hopeful because I still believed that an authentic mystery remains to be discovered.

I carried on, doggedly exploring, searching for clues, chasing vague leads and following wild ideas. I am a reasonably intelligent guy, but not a mathematical genius, so I needed lots of trial and error to make my way. And in my searches, I gathered data, and the data began to show me something.

I began to see this something when I stopped chasing wild ideas and set out for myself two guiding principles: one, if there is a mystery in the game, it has to be placed using the means with which the game was made - something woven into the procedural generation of the game and not a single place or lone object dropped like a needle in a galactic haystack for us to find among countless stars and planets; two, if the mystery is there, its discovery has to be possible with the game mechanics we have in hand.

Here is the something the data showed me. It has four interrelated parts.

What I Found

Part 1 - The Hidden Center

At the core of the Euclid Galaxy (and it seems every galaxy in No Man's Sky) is a vacant cube of space known as the Haze Zone, full of colorful gaseous formations but no star systems for some 6000 light years from side to side. In the cube is the bright shining center, visible even from the edge of the galaxy hundreds of thousands of light years away. The Galaxy Center can only be selected from the Path to the Galactic Core waypoint system in the galactic map. And when selected, it shows its linear distance as 6000+ light years, a distance that makes no sense given the easily determined dimensions of the Haze Zone. Even more strangely, a Traveler with a fully fueled warp drive can "warp" this distance, even though the maximum linear distance for warp travel everywhere else in the galaxy is 1600+ light years (now 2500+ light years with the Path Finder Update if you have a fully equipped S class Explorer ship). And infamously, if you make the jump, you do not travel to the system at the center but instead travel to the edge of a new galaxy to start your journey over again (if you choose to initialize), with your ship crashed and your technology broken.

When the invisible stars appeared in the Haze Zone starting in late September, a handful of people noted that one system showed its distance from the center as 0.0 light years and its linear distance as 3000+ light years. But the Haze Zone was thought to be glitchy, invisible star systems there seemed to come and go at random, and so no one made much of it.

This star system 0.0 light years from the center and 3000+ light years linear distance from the Haze Zone edge is called Likholuningri, and it appears consistently on the PS4 if you know where and how to look.

When you are in a specific section of the Haze Zone (the x-axis 07FF/2053 wall in the galactic coordinate system), travel to a star system as close to the center as you can find. Then, in the galactic map, select the Path to the Core waypoint and follow the path to the galaxy center, thereby selecting it. Then hit the Scan for Discoveries button. Sometimes you hear the chime for a discovery right away, sometimes it takes a few minutes, and then Likholuningri consistently appears. Its system card shows it is 0.0 light years from the center and 3000+ light years in linear distance from your location, measurements which place it at the actual center of the Euclid Haze Zone.

Part 2 - The Strange Anomolies Along the Path to the Galactic Core

Around the Haze Zone at certain set points identifiable by the galactic sector coordinate system, the path to the core does something curious - it terminates. Follow the Path to the Galactic Core in these sectors and they will take you to a particular star, usually closest to the center. Then from that star, chose the Path to the Galactic Core waypoint, and it will not take you to the center. It will not take you anywhere. The Path just terminates. I have identified eleven sectors of space around the Euclid Haze Zone where this happens, along with a twelfth sector where the path strangely turns away from the core. These twelve sectors are geometrically arranged.

Part 3 - The Arrangement of the Terminal Systems

The arrangement of the twelve points in two dimensions when looking up or down from the Z axis is this figure. Not very interesting. But when you look at the arrangement from the x axis, this figure appears.

Now, this figure can be rendered for each of the four walls of the x and y axes of the Haze Zone cube. As it turns out, Likholuningri is discoverable from only one of these walls. So in sequence by discoverability along the four walls, this is how the figures arrange.

This is a representation of the Atlas written in the galactic map with the twelve terminal Path to the Galactic Core systems and a hidden center, all set among the stars at the edge of the Haze Zone of the Euclid Galaxy. This is the Biggest Easter Egg in No Man's Sky.

Part 4 - The Timing of the Appearance of the Invisble Stars

Lastly, when you look at the discovery dates of these twelve systems, there is a possible correlation with the appearance of the invisble stars in the Euclid Galaxy Haze Zone. On September 8, 2016, the eighth of these systems was discovered by an eighth different traveler ("viralentity.com" in Region: Dohjainowag Boundary; Discovered by dirkzegel on 09/08/2016 (11:21); Class G6pf//2 Planets). Not long thereafter, the invisble stars appeared, and with them the hidden center.

The Ongoing Mystery

This data came together as I travelled across hundreds of star systems, experimenting with multiple theories and ideas. Following those theories led me to take my launch night NMS game into the Hilbert Dimension and its Haze Zone. I first found the twelve terminal points there, discovering four of them. Curiously, two of the twelve points lead the traveler away from their sector of space along the Path to the Core. And no invisble stars are discoverable as yet in the Hilbert Dimension Haze Zone. This lead me to take a second game I am running still in the Euclid Galaxy to the center. There I found all twelve systems having already identified four of them. I learned that one of them also leads the traveler away instead of terminating.

There is an ongoing mystery to all this, the Biggest Easter Egg in No Man's Sky. Here are some questions for us to seek answers to:

Did the discovery of the eighth terminal system by an eighth different traveler last September trigger the appearance of the invisible stars in the Euclid Galaxy?

Why does one of the twelve systems around the Euclid Galaxy Haze Zone and two of the twelve systems around the Hilbert Dimension Haze Zone not terminate the Path to the Galactic Core but instead lead the traveler off to a different sector of space?

Are there more terminal star systems around the Euclid Haze Zone than the twelve identified?

Is the Calypso Haze Zone arranged like the Euclid's and so discovery of eight of the twelve terminal systems by eight different travelers will reveal the invisble stars and the hidden center in the Calypso Galaxy?

Have I unintentionally closed off the revealing of the invisible stars and the hidden center in the Hilbert Dimension by discovering four of the twelve terminal systems such that only seven different travelers discovered these systems?

A Call to Adventure

So friends, there is more to study, more to understand, but there is also an adventure ahead for Travelers willing to undertake the journey. I am now making my way to the Calypso Galaxy center with my launch night NMS game. Will you join me around the Calypso Haze Zone and be one of the eight discoverers of the terminal systems there?

At this time,...

...I do not know that the pattern from the Euclid Galaxy will hold in the Calypso Galaxy.

...I do not know if having eight different Travelers discover eight of the terminal systems around the Calypso Galaxy Haze Zone will reveal the invisble stars and make accessible the hidden center there.

...I do not know, if we do reveal the hidden center, whether it will be the same star system, Likholuningri, but a little closer, or whether it will be in the same place and still inaccessible to our warp drives or whether it will be a different system altogether.

But won't it be an amazing journey to find out?

Come warp with me into mystery!

Thank you for reading Something in the Sky v8. If you enjoyed it, please check out the other posts in the series:

v1 - Who am I?

v2 - The Atlas

v3 - The Sentinels

v4 - Strange Fellow Travelers - Nada and Polo

v5 - The Long Dead Traveler

v6 - Mysteries of the Races

v7 - Strange Places - Portals, the Center and the Haze Zone