-null-'s Crime, definite spoilers, you've been warned

[SemperHadley]

Hello all,

I am taking a stab at my own interpretation as to what -null- might have done. It is mostly just me guessing based off of the limited things that we see in the game.

So, I suspected -null- was the problem almost immediately, he offers tech that can record someone's program and recreate their personality and memories. That definitely doesn't make sense even in this simulation as the rules of the universe are still what dies stays dead. So, already, I have a bias against them.

Continuing from there, we get repeated mentions to Travellers making their way to ATLAS' domain. None of them seem to survive, until we help "help" Apollo escape, kinda, I'm not real sure on what we actually did, but Atlas claims we helped him.

Another repeated theme and it isn't exactly clear, but some of the times that different things mention the anomaly that is causing the problem, it speaks about a singular problem at the core of everything.

The last tidbit that has pushed me into what I think happened is -null- "defying" Atlas in order to not only see all of their universe but all the multiverse as well.

All of these vague things have made me think that somehow, the -null- manged to "link" themself to Atlas somehow, giving themself a near infinite amount of time to explore, but it backfired, as portions of Atlas' core functions were now being diverted to -null-. He talks about "all those souls" and how that couldn't have been for nothing, not all he did.

I don't think that they feel grief from a reset of the simulation, I think that the resets are because -null- has corrupted Atlas, and knows that the last 16 minutes that Atlas can remain active are directly because of them, so the lament isn't for the system resets, but for the eventual death of the system as a whole.

Just my thoughts, would love to hear what anyone else thinks, I love fan theories.

[Dirak2012]

I think that null is simply the virtual equivalent of a vampire. He extended his life way beyond it was intended, as travelers are just disposable instruments to gather data.

[BurnedCoffee]

I'm going from my memory so I can't quite remember the specifics, but I feel null's grief is not about the Atlas, but about the futility of his actions. Because this time he's not in the "right layer" so he can't stop the traveller.

I think Null has been genocydal to keep alive.

You know. I think Null is a cool character, bad person. But cool.

[SemperHadley]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

I think that null is simply the virtual equivalent of a vampire. He extended his life way beyond it was intended, as travelers are just disposable instruments to gather data.

My line of reasoning sort of goes with the same thing here except that I think he is siphoning processing power or resources from Atlas itself. They mention a few times that they are being abandoned by Atlas, that Atlas won't speak to them anymore. In that same dialogue, they talk about "everything they did for Atlas", it reads of a weird relationship between the two to me.

[SemperHadley]

Originally posted by BurnedCoffee:

I'm going from my memory so I can't quite remember the specifics, but I feel null's grief is not about the Atlas, but about the futility of his actions. Because this time he's not in the "right layer" so he can't stop the traveller.

I think Null has been genocydal to keep alive.

You know. I think Null is a cool character, bad person. But cool.

One of the things i remember him saying was, roughly, "all those live, all those souls, it CAN'T have been for nothing" but it doesn't clarify beyond that. Definitely agree that the basis of the character is extremely interesting. I alternate between wishing Hello Games was better at writing a story, and being happy with the vagaries of what they provided. Having the clear picture would be nice, but being allowed to speculate, either because they wanted it that way or they suck at writing, is part of the fun in a game like this one.

To both of you that replied at this point, I appreciate your input.