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blueisquitetired · 2 days

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Astral Shards AU

TLDR: The Boys are in space and they have a Bad Time. (Lady Sneasler is there too)

(This is technically a No Man's Sky AU, but you don't need to know anything about the game to follow along just fine)

Welcome to the pitch! All art for this AU will get their own posts, so everything here will be in game screenshots. There's also a lot more to this story then just what's written here (As this is, you know, the pitch) so please leave any questions, thoughts, or ideas in my inbox. This bad boy isn't getting a fic anytime soon, so it's tumblr only for now!

(In game models of the boys. I'll post a drawing of their actual designs sometime in the future)

Post proper under ReadMore!

This is honestly half fic if I'm being honest.

Length: ~3,000 words or so. Sorry not sorry.

Disclaimer: I don’t know every single No Man’s Sky lore detail, and I’m not going to scour the wiki for every piece of information and spoil the whole game for myself, so not everything will be 100% lore accurate. And I’ll be ignoring the giant late game twist (if you know you know) because, as cool as it is, it’s very much a twist that consumes all narratives set in this universe, and I’d rather not make my story *also* about that. (Also, as with all AUs not currently written down in fic form, details are subject to change)

Anyway did you know the No Man’s Sky protagonist suffers from amnesia?

Picture this- Ingo wakes up on a frozen planet next to a crashed starship. He's a bit confused and lost- but his space suit is damaged and that kinda takes priority. Because of that, it takes him a hot minute to figure out he has no memories- but as he’s gathering the materials needed to not die he figures it out

The starship recognizes him as its owner and he feels relatively confident in his ability to fix all of this jazz, so he did exist before... but besides that he’s kinda stumped

But this place sucks- he’s constantly freezing to death, stuck either recharging his hazard protection with sodium or siting in his (still wrecked) starship until he warms up enough to go mine stuff with his handy dandy laser again.

And he’s alone

It’s very lonely

(He’s not supposed to be alone)

So the tentative plan is this: fix the starship enough for space flight, launch into space, and then fly to this solar system's space station. (which he has a gut feeling exists. “Every solar system has one” he mutters to himself. He’s not sure how he knows that)

It’s….. slow going. But it’s going

There’s a lot of mining involved, a lot of looting crashed space junk, a lot of mind numbing boredom as he goes to the same spaces over and over and-

And then he sees something weird in the distance.

(This is a monolith. In game it’s used to learn space language words and history and to get l o r e. I’m taking advantage of it)

It’s kinda a hike over there, and it uses up a lot of his sodium reserves, but eventually he comes face to face with….. whatever this is

So he walks around it, trying to figure out what it is, before eventually finding a platform he can interact with.

Stepping up to it, he’s filled with strange sensations and knowledge, a story of an alien race that is familiar yet he hasn’t actually seen yet-

And then the world shatters in front of him

He steps back in shock as a tear in reality forms, a crack in the cosmos widening and fracturing, the sound of breaking glass as everything s h a t t e r s-

And then everything is fine

He stands there, dumbly for a moment, mind reeling….

Until he notices something that wasn’t there before

A shard of purple glass

Carefully, he picks it up, holding it up to his visor-

It whispers

It’s faint, too faint. He can’t hear it well- but it’s important. The whispers are familiar and he needs to know what they’re saying.

So he treks back to his ship, filled with a purpose he hasn’t had in his entire remembered life.

It takes a bit to wire his radio receiver to accept strange reality shards as a valid form of input, but eventually he figures it out. Connecting the last few wires and attaching the shard to it-

“Ingo, where are you? Please respond.”

That’s- that’s- that’s his brother!!!! His TWIN!!! Ingo doesn’t know much but he knows that’s his brother and he’s not supposed to be alone and what happened, why did he crash and why is his twin not here, where did he go? What happened?? He needs to find him!! He needs to find him NOW!

This lights a fire under him

Suddenly it isn’t “hey let’s fix my ship because I have nothing better to do” it’s “I have to fix my ship so I can find my brother” he’s working in overtime

He visits the monolith once or twice too, hoping to get another hint, another clue, maybe even respond- but it has no more answers. Reality is stable, and there are no more shards of glass

It takes forever and the fixed spaceship is…… not great- but at least it flies.

It works well enough, and Ingo has enough oxygen for his life support and enough fuel for his ship to get to the space station- even if it’s on the other end of the solar system.

Ingo…. reeeeaally wishes it was better put together, but this is the best he can do for a previously totaled starship.

So, he lifts off.

And things go great at first!

His radar manages to locate the space station without much trouble, and his pulse engine should get him there fairly quickly.

He charts a course and gets going, little purple shard tucked into his suit. (He’d listened to the message on repeat hundreds of times. Over and over “Ingo, where are you? Please respond.” He’d combed through his ships logs as well, but they were almost all corrupted, left with nothing but fragments of his brother’s voice. This was his only true connection)

And then the engine dies

The engine dies and Ingo is in the middle of nowhere, ages away from any planet, stuck in the middle of empty space with no hope of getting anywhere.

No debris, no friendly ships, no nothing.

He’s going to die out here.

He's going to die out here and his brother will never know, will never see him again, will think he just forgot him-

He has a nice panic, looking at his limited supply of oxygen and mildly freaking out

(Majorly freaking out)

But at least he has his radio.

He doesn’t…. know any frequencies or anything, doesn’t know what to tune it too, but he has to try something.

So he just, turns it on and hopes for the best.

“Hello this is Ingo. I am stranded in deep space and require assistance.” No response. Tune the frequency one more decimal point “Hello this is Ingo. I am stranded in deep space and require assistance.” No response. Turn the dial-

And so on and so forth.

Eventually, his wordy message turns to just a hoarse plea of “help”, and he’s started switching the stations willy nilly, no longer one decimal at a time.

He’s going to die out here.

Hours of this, hours of desperately pleading into the vast depths of space-

The frequency changes without his input.

“….help?” He asks hesitantly, staring blankly at the radio transceiver. How did it do that? Why did it do that? Why was the display filled with random symbols instead of numbers-

“With what?”

Ingo jolts upright in his seat, adrenaline rushing through his veins and his heartbeat in his throat “I am stranded in deep space and require rescue.” He wheezes out, his throat sore and dry

“Oh yeah that’s no good. You sound awful- you must have been stuck there a while.” There’s the sounds of buttons beeping and fingers tapping before- “Ah found you. We’ll open a pocket near your location. Sit tight.”

And then reality warps and-

That’s new

It’s uh…. A bit too far from his ship though. It’s a nice, rational distance away, but his ship can’t move.

But it’s close enough he could probably jet pack over there.

Making sure his shard is close to his chest and firmly secured, he opens up his cockpit and leaps, propelling himself into the docking bay-

And oh

Artificial gravity kicks in, and he falls to the floor in a crumpled heap right by the entrance.

Impossibly, a ship flies in a mere moment later, even though there had been no ships anywhere nearby Ingo before. Several more soar in and out as he ungracefully shuffles to the station proper. Somehow.

And by the stars, is it loud.

(Please imagine this area being far more busy than it is. I took this photo on a weekday, but even on its busiest days it’s still a game that probably maxes out at lobbies of thirty or something. Since, you know, it’s an indie game)

After weeks of total isolation, the sheer hustle and bustle of hundreds of people is far too much to handle, the echoing reverb of ships landing and taking off sending spikes through his skull.

But, as uncomfortable as it is, it’s still people- and Ingo is so so glad to have company

“You okay?” A young voice asks as he clambers up to the parking space nearest to the entrance. “You took quite a tumble there.”

There's a short being on the platform, one that helps Ingo up. It's a youth, maybe female- and she almost seems to be the same species as Ingo. (Ingo has the feeling that he doesn't meet members of his own species much... or ever)

“Everything is operational.” he reassures, standing at full height and towering over the girl. He hunches down slightly, as to not seem intimidating. “I am just relieved that I am no longer trapped out there.”

The girl nods and gestures him forward, walking towards the station proper and expecting him to follow. He does

“Yeah I bet! If your ship wasn’t even working well enough to fly in….” She shakes her head. “Well enough of that. I’m iteration Akari! What’s your name?”

“Ingo.” He replies, a little more directly then he prefers. His voice is still hoarse. “What is this place?”

“The anomaly!” Akari replies, as they get closer to the crowd proper. “I guess this is your first time then?”

“Yes it is.” What in the world is this place? And where are all these people coming from??

“Then you should meet with iteration Adaman and Irida!”

Akari begins leading him past the crowds and towards a curving ramp.

“Iteration?” He asks, noticing the pattern in their titles.

“Oh yeah uhhhh… I’ll let one of them explain that.”

Akari chatters to him as they walk along, pointing out different landmarks and explaining their purpose

Eventually they reach a wide room that seems to overlook the entire station, just as bright and colorful as everything else.

“Hello!” A voice calls, and an alien decked in dark blue greets him. “You took quite the fall there! Are you alright?”

He is iteration Adaman apparently, and iteration Irida stands nearby. She waves when Ingo and Akari approach.

They are the leaders of this place- the founders of the anomaly. A place between dimensions, a safe haven for people like them- one's who are alone in the worlds they inhabit.

They ask about his lack of spaceship and Ingo tells them of his plight, eventually explaining his goal.

“I need to find my twin.” He explains, pulling out his shard of glass. “I remember little, but I know we are not meant to be separated. I fear for his safety.”

“A twin???” Irida sounds completely shocked, the plants she was monitoring forgotten as she turns to the group. “That’s not possible.”

“It could be.” Adaman counters. “In the infinite reaches of spacetime anything is possible.”

“The odds of such a thing are so astronomically low. Do you mean a brother in arms? A family chosen by bond alone?”

“No?” Ingo responds. “He looks like me.” He saw his reflection in the ice, his brother whispering in his ears. They shared a face.

“Impossible. Mathematically impossible”

“Improbable Irida. Not impossible.”

“The odds are far too low-"

“Plenty of people have siblings. And plenty of twins exist.” Ingo interrupts, irritation coloring his voice. “It is not that rare.”

“But not travelers.” Akari pipes up, finally joining the conversation. “Travelers are always alone.”

“Traveler?”

“That’s what you are.” Irida explains. “A traveler. We all are actually- everyone here. A being cursed to wander the stars, one with no home of their own. They may stop and rest, may find a place to settle down- but there is no place that is theirs, no community for them. No sky they rest under calls them its own.”

“Only one can exist at once.” Adaman adds. “Every dimension can only host a single one.”

“Hang on.” Ingo shakes his head. “That does not track. You just said that everyone here is a traveler. Which contradicts your earlier statement.”

“We are in an in-between space.” Irida explains, her tone pitying. “We founded the anomaly so travelers could find each other. So that the iterations could finally interact.”

“So we wouldn’t always be alone.”

“I…. I need to sit down.”

Adaman pulls up a chair and Ingo slumps into it, his head and helmet falling into his hands

“You can stay as long as you need.” Adaman reassures, his tone soft. “Our home is open to all, a bastion of safety.”

“I cannot.” Ingo sighs, before straightening back up. “I must find my brother.”

He holds out his shard of glass, reflections of multicolored light gleaming off it.

“This is the only clue I have”

“May I?” Adaman holds out his hand and Ingo hands it over reluctantly, watching as he holds it up to the light. His face falls as he examines it.

“Oh dear. Irida is this….?”

“Yes.” Irida's tone is grave, somber and mourning. “A shard of the glass world.”

“Your brother is almost certainly gone.”

“No!” Ingo leaps to his feet, his hands clenched in fists. “He is not! He sent me that message-“

“There are many in between spaces.” Irida interrupts. “We are in one, a stable pocket that hides us from the world, from the gaze of the Atlas.”

She frowns.

“Larger ones are far less stable. Refractions, cracks. The-"

“-world of glass.” Adaman finishes for her. “Any living being unlucky enough to fall in there will cut themselves on its fragments, their very being torn to shreds. Your brother would not survive."

“Not necessarily.” Ingo counters, his voice tight. “If I could get him out-”

“He would be nothing like he was before, shattered beyond compare.”

“But he would be THERE!” His voice is loud and booming, his throat stinging in pain. “I refuse to let him suffer and die in there. I refuse to just…. give up on him! I will get him out!”

“It will be difficult.” Adaman hands him his glass back. “To find a way in will be tricky enough, but to find a way out….”

“How do I get in.” Ingo holds the shard to his chest. “How do I find him.”

“Well…."

Adaman frowns, drumming his fingers on his arm.

"Entering the world of glass shouldn't be much trouble. It's a vast space, and opening pockets in spacetime is our specialty."

"But finding him is the actual problem." Irida adds, her face grim.

"Yup. Which makes your encounter at the monolith even more strange." Expression contemplative, Adaman once again holds out his hand. "May I see your message again?"

Tentatively, Ingo places it back in his palm, still reluctant to part with something so precious. Adaman hardly seems to notice, casually turning it back and forth in his hands as he re-examines it- before eventually scanning it with a tool on his table. Data streams onto his screen, and he hands the shard back to Ingo before examining what he received.

The group is silent as he scrolls through the data, a tension in the air.

".... I think you could probably find more of these shards. Going off of your account of the event and the frequency of the shard itself..." He trails off, expression contemplative. "They seem to be... tuned to you somehow. Connected somehow. Maybe it's related to you two being 'twins'."

He hums.

"Maybe your predecessor was split into two. Maybe you are connected more than you know."

Ingo has... questions about that, but he keeps silent for now. Better not to interrupt him and break his train of thought.

"If you can find weak spots in your universe, places where the boundary between the world of the living and the world of glass is thin... Maybe you can find more of these."

"And then what?" Irida asks, her tone annoyed. "What good would more of those do?"

"Why, that's where you come in my dear friend!" Voice light and face playful, Adaman turns to his partner and grins. "With enough data points, I'm sure you can triangulate his location!"

"And send this man on a suicide mission?"

"I will find a way." Ingo interrupts the two before their argument to escalate, his determination swelling. "A way to travel there without losing myself. I will not go in unprepared."

"You heard the man!" Adaman claps his hands merrily and Irida groans. "He's already made up his mind! Better to help him where we can, hmm?"

Irida shakes her head.

“Fine. I’ll rig you up a scanner. A way to find unstable areas.”

"And then you can gather more of those shards!"

“But you’ll need to go all over.” Irida huffes.

“Not just yellow stars. Red, green, blue. You’d need to build an intensive warp drive, which is expensive and requires so much materials and nanites and you don’t even have a ship-”

“We surely have an extra we can spare.” Adaman interruptes, flashing Ingo an apologetic look. “And while the trials will be difficult, I’m sure your determination will see you through. Akari?”

“Yes?” Ingo startles as the girl speaks. He had forgotten she was there.

“Can you check the hangers for a ship we could gift our friend? I’m positive we have a few that have been abandoned.”

“Of course!” Grabbing Ingo’s hand, the girl leads him onward. “Let’s find you something good!”

Unfortunately, ‘something good’ was a tall ask when looking through old abandoned spaceships. Most had been left behind for good reason, old piles of junk that barely flew and would require extensive repairs. Certainly not anything close to the state of the art traveling ship Ingo would require.

“Okay this isn’t looking great,” Akari started, no doubt noticing Ingo’s discouragement. “But you could probably break one of these bad boys down for parts and then buy a better ship? Work your way up?”

“I suppose.” Ingo frowned as he brushed his hand over one of the ships, a part coming off under his hand.

“Or maybe….” The girl trailed off, and Ingo gave her an inquisitive look. “I mean it’s kind of a long shot- but I do know a ship that has all the required technology you’re looking for already.”

“Really?!” Hope bloomed in Ingo’s chest, his hands shaking in excitement.

“Yeah. But uh, don’t get your hopes up too high. She’s really picky.”

“…..she?”

‘She’ was a ship by the name of ‘Lady Sneasler’, a living breathing organism that happened to also be a spaceship. A marvel of biology that was like nothing Ingo had ever seen before, a pure wonder and the most beautiful thing Ingo had ever laid eyes on. And he told her as much.

(Living ships are a very canon thing in game and they are so cool! I'll post some art of Lady Sneasler later, but for right now, here's my personal in game living ship, Darling)

She was flattered, and was even more flattered when Ingo broke into an excited ramble as he examined her thoroughly, reverently running his hands up her flank when she gave him permission. She was a prideful one apparently, and had refused a pilot for centuries- but Ingo’s genuine wonder managed to easily win her over.

And so Ingo got himself a ship.

Thus, the two begin their cosmic journey together, traveling through the galaxy to gather all of Emmet’s messages and eventually save him.

It’s long and arduous, rife with danger and trials... but eventually they manage to force their way into the world of glass, and pull Emmet out.

And boy howdy is he messed up….. but that just means they get a healing arc lol.

But yeah, that’s the basics! Feel free to ask questions if you’re curious, (I have a lot more I haven’t shared yet) and I hope you enjoyed! There’s a very decent chance I might end up writing a fic about this in the future, but that’s so far off that you shouldn’t hold your breath.

Thank you for reading!

#Astral Shards AU #blue’s writing #submas #submas au #subway boss ingo #subway boss emmet

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