Traveller

The subject of this article is from the Interceptor update.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 6 June, 2023.

A Traveller aboard a freighter.

The Travellers are the fourth alien race.

Summary

The Travellers, also known as the Fourth Race, are an alien race in the No Man's Sky universe, introduced as a whole in the Atlas Rises update. Travellers can be randomly found at space stations, camps and trading posts and can give the location of a Traveller Grave when interacted with. It is possible for two travellers to appear on trading posts and space stations, but one person has found four. They are very rare and difficult to find. They can also be found at freighters, but cannot be interacted with in this case.

A number of specific Travellers can be found aboard the Space Anomaly, as guests of Nada and Polo.

Appearance

Traveller Heads - From left to right and top to bottom: Artemis, Apollo, -null- and the Quicksilver Synthesis Companion

Traveller Heads - From left to right and top to bottom: Big Eyes, Bugface, Cathead, Deep Sea, Deer and Hammerhead

There are 22 different "species" that comprise the Travellers, most Travellers have slim humanoid bodies and the same average height, but besides that their physical features can greatly vary. They have been found with cat-like, bug-like, and amphibious-like facial features, or even entirely alien or with robotic heads. Artemis is a traveller whose appearance is very similar to stereotypical Roswell Grey aliens, while Apollo is a traveller whose body was almost entirely replaced by a mechanical casing, and -null- has a body that seems to be composed of large wires and computer plugs.

All NPC Travellers seem to appear as holographic displays rather than physical bodies, when they guide the player to a grave, it is revealed that the Travellers that gave them the directions are dead.

Lore

The coming of the Travellers, however unlikely, had been predicted ages ago by the Korvax Echoes.

According to a conversation with one of the Travellers, there is only one Traveller per iteration, and the fact that they can see each other and interact is a sign of how the boundaries between realities are falling apart.

The Travellers are entities created by the Atlas with a scan of its Creator's mind. The player character is the last Traveller created. Because of the Atlas' imminent death, the boundaries between realities are starting to fall apart, and now Travellers can see each other from the past, future, or alternate realities, as hologram-like individuals or as glitches. According to the Rogue Data and the last Traveller interaction, the Atlas correctly predicted that, in the final minutes before its death, the Travellers would finally be able to fully interact with each other and explore galaxies together.

Notable individuals

Storyline NPCs

• Artemis
• Apollo
• -null-
• Quicksilver Synthesis Companion

Travellers on the Space Anomaly

• Iteration: Ares
• Iteration: Ariadne
• Iteration: Cronus
• Iteration: Eos
• Iteration: Gemini
• Iteration: Helios
• Iteration: Hesperus
• Iteration: Hyperion
• Iteration: Mercury
• Iteration: Perses
• Iteration: Selene
• Iteration: Tethys

Additional information

• The Fourth Race was hinted at in the game and in the Waking Titan ARG before the release of Atlas Rises.
• The dialogues of the storyline and the related NPCs, like Nada and Polo, refer to the player as a Traveller. While some of these NPCs may not be aware that the player can camouflage their appearance with advanced technology (like the Appearance Modifier), all space stations do have them and both Nada and Polo know about 'the simulation' and the multiverse. There still remains reasonable evidence the player might be part of the Anomaly race as both Nada and Polo do not know the race of the Atlas' creators and all players start as one. Another options is that the term Traveller might be ascribed to all that freely travel the multiverse which like Null and many other iterations vary greatly in their appearance and avatar while being known as the Traveller race. Most of these possibilities have not been confirmed, but can neither be ruled out.
• Hesperus asks the following to the player when they meet them for the first time: "Tell me, stranger. Who exactly are you? A wanderer? A Traveller?". If the player answer that they don't know or that they are a wanderer, Hesperus will reply "Perhaps you have not yet heard the call. It will become irresistible, eventually. You begin to hear it in your dreams, in your heartbeat. Even after... even afterwards." No matter the player's answer, Hesperus will also add "I believe we tread parallel paths, you and I. And yet, quite impossibly, we have met."
• Travelers may only be found after visiting the Anomaly in the story for the first time. Prior to this point, players will not find travelers at space stations, trading posts etc. Found by TheYamiks 07/24/2022 during a live stream. This needs to be verified.
• One rather dark Traveller interaction concerns a mathematical proof that "goodness doesn't exist", a clear reference to George R. Price.
• A list of all Traveller text interactions and possible outcomes. There are 20 unique interactions, and it seems like they follow a linear progression instead of being random.
• A partial list of Travellers that can be found in space stations in two glyph systems can be found here: 2 Glyph Travellers.

• If you encounter two travellers and want to visit both their graves, visit the grave of one before asking for the location of the second or you may not be able to visit the second traveller's grave.

Release history

• Atlas Rises - This race was introduced to the game.

Gallery

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  A Traveller hologram advertises the Rentocniijik Expanse, the region of the original Galactic Hub.

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  Two Travellers chatting on a space station