As I warp into the system known as The Heart of Unity, it doesn’t seem as if anything special is happening. Five planets and a handful of moons slowly orbit a sun that casts an aquamarine light into the void between. My stellar guides have already entered the orbit of Terra1, a green and blue sphere that, from my vantage amid an asteroid belt, looks pretty Earthlike.
I’ve been invited to tour one tiny portion of No Man’s Sky’s infinite, procedurally-generated universe, where a community project a year in the making flung its doors wide open in a sudden gesture of goodwill. UNity1 is the brainchild of several disparate factions and communities. It originally planned to provide an in-game, faction-neutral meeting ground for politicking, ambassadorial discussions and the arbitration of disagreements. They chose a planet, spent months erecting infrastructure, and looped in the leaders of some of the playerbase’s largest civilisations, such as The United Federation of Traders and Galactic Hub, in anticipation of a big public reveal.
Then the coronavirus pandemic changed everyone’s lives. “In three weeks I met thousands at work, screened countless people and in walking outside the scarcity of human interaction was almost creepy,” says Lillihop. She runs the NMSCafé Discord server and has coordinated much of the planning on UNity1. Outside of No Man’s Sky, she works at a reception at a hospital. “There’s anger and fear, loneliness and loss, and that’s not even the day-to-day.”
Lillihop spoke with friends and peers about what they could offer members of their communities. All of them knew someone who had lost their job or struggled with working from home. Others spoke about being separated from family or friends, as cities, then entire states and countries enacted shelter-in-place orders. They felt like they needed to do something big.
Terra1 isn’t the first planet she and friend DG_Squared planned for my tour. We began with Foundation, a planet in an entirely different system called The Dawn of Unity. It’s a relic of that initial plan: a year-long celebration of the player-created Unification Day to allow builders, explorers, wiki curators, and everyone else a space to express their passion together. We land, appropriately, at a small café built on a hill overlooking a small pond, where I’m allowed to get my bearings while my guides discuss routes. Travelling quickly around the planet means zipping into the thin upper atmosphere of Foundation before arcing back down. I’m shown personalised bases, art projects and edifices to the idea of intergalactic companionship. They’re empty now, and Foundation won’t host any more builds. UNity1’s members raised stakes two weeks ago and immediately began work on preparing The Heart of Unity for the public at large.
“We talked and decided that’s the gift,” Lillihop says. “We wanted it to be from the whole community, and we wanted it to mean something. This is where the unity comes through, in a very human way.”
Back on Terra1, I boost out on my own towards one of the several base markers filling the horizon of my HUD. The seaside cabin I find there is humble compared to the extensive bunkers and soaring temples I’ve seen previously. There are wide windows set into the wooden walls and floors, providing a clear look at both the docks and ocean below. This is AMandy226’s new home, and like an increasing number of players, she found UNity1 when she needed it most.
She started actively playing No Man’s Sky in December, transitioning from a long affair with the free-to-play MMO World of Tanks. The exploration and discovery aspects immediately appealed to her, but those first steps in the universe were rough going. Like many fledgling Travellers, she went online in search of aid and eventually discovered the No Man’s Sky Amino. This networking app might not sling around Twitter or Discord-sized weight, but the official community does boast over 42,000 members.