No Man’s Sky first impressions (or How I learned to stop worrying about my inventory and enjoy playing No Man’s Sky)

No Man's Sky is a survival adventure space exploration game published by Hello Games, released worldwide on 10 August 2016.

When I was a kid, I used to love and hate looking at the night sky. I used to stand under it and stare up into its vastness and feel fascinated by all the twinkling stars, the promises of galaxies and stars and suns and planets and the possibility of alien life out there. But I would also feel painfully small and insignificant and sad that I’d never see any of it firsthand. I’d start to feel overwhelmed by that same vastness that had just moments earlier held me transfixed with awe. 

It might seem an odd comparison, but the game I most liken No Man’s Sky to is UbiSoft Montreal’s 2008 sand box shooter, Far Cry 2. Why? Because Far Cry 2 was a game that was way ahead of its time, and thus it was a game that could only really be enjoyed if you began by throwing away your preconceptions of how games are supposed to be played.

If you tried to rush through Far Cry 2 running and gunning your way across its vast open world jumping from objective to objective ticking missions off a to-do list and completing the game in record time so you could brag about it on internet forums, you were in for a really hard time and a thoroughly un-enjoyable experience. Far Cry 2 rewarded patience, calculation, and a thoughtful approach. If you went in guns blazing the (much criticized but incredibly intuitive and in that respect to this day, unmatched) enemy AI would surround and obliterate you. On harder difficulties, playing the game this way was actually impossible.

And here is a point which is key: as with any wildly ambitious game, Far Cry 2’s reach far exceeded its grasp. The developers wanted the game to be a far deeper experience than the finished product ended up being. But what they delivered was a game that was as memorable for its flaws as for what it got right. And what it got right, it got fantastically right. 

I feel the exact same way about No Man’s Sky. 

After about three hours in the game I came to the conclusion that I would have to take the Far Cry 2 approach, but to ridiculous extremes. To truly enjoy No Man’s Sky, you need to immediately throw away all preconceived notions of how you play games. Bin them. Don’t even try to apply them to this game.

And if you’re the type of gamer who needs objectives blinking at you, a sense of being led through a world (even an open one) by constantly needing to hit the next mission and complete it and scratch it off the to-do list (and I want to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with playing games this way), you will hate No Man’s Sky. 

This is my little corner of the universe...and I think someone PEED in it

I began No Man’s Sky by attempting to rush through the first few objectives. I figured hey, it’s a tutorial on how to craft stuff to fix my ship and get off this godforsaken rock I’m stuck on. I needed something called heridium so I could fix my ship’s engine and take off. I had an objective, hoorah fucker, let’s get to it. 

So, I got a bit zap-happy with my mining laser and its charge ran out. You need the same stuff (carbon) to charge it as you use to charge your life support, so I made a snap choice, I'd use my carbon for life support and just smash stuff with my mining gun to harvest the materials. It was slower, yes, but I’m an incredibly patient person (I don’t read magazines or play with my phone while waiting in a doctor’s office, I just sit there and immerse myself in my own thoughts…my girlfriend says this is really unnerving), so I was happy hammering away at small rocks for iron and bashing little red teardrop-shaped flowers for carbon. 

Then I found a massive deposit of heridium and decided it was time to spend a little carbon on my laser so I could get this damn objective over with and get the space exploration show on the road. I stacked my meagre inventory with enough heridium to fix my ship, and just enough carbon and iron to keep my exosuit A-okay for the short walk back to my ship. I set off, and found that what looked like a canyon was blocking my way. No problem, I’ll just use my trusty jet-pack to jump over it and voila, I’ll be on my way. Cue a Homer-Simpson-jumping-the-canyon-moment as halfway across my jetpack fizzled out of fuel and down I went. It was only at the very bottom, staring up at a pinprick of light, that I realised I wasn’t in a canyon. I was in a hole. A very, very deep and decidedly un-metaphorical hole. Attempts to scale the walls using my jetpack failed as each time I came within arm’s reach of the top and the damn jetpack charge ran out. After a few attempts I realised I was screwed so I sat there as my suit very kindly gave me frequent updates that I was slowly dying, and then true to its word, I was dead. I respawned at my damaged ship only to be informed that in order to retrieve my hard-gained heridium I’d need to trek back to my ‘grave’, and there my inventory would be given back to me. No sweat, right? But the problem was my 'grave' was at the bottom of that fucking hole. At this point I became convinced the game was just screwing with me. (Note: I’m still pretty sure it is because even now, hours into the game, it still keeps the ‘grave’ icon there on that first planet, as if taunting me with that rabbit-hole filled with precious, precious heridium). 

Suffice it to say I found another heridium deposit, fixed my ship, and got underway. And by the way, that first blast off into space was a serious goosebumps moment. It’s one of those gaming moments that will stay with me forever. 

Suddenly gettin' the urge to sing Moon over Rygell 7. 
Seriously, space geeks will find a lot to like in No Man's Sky.

Anyway, after another couple hours of objective-chasing to build a hyperdrive I started to realise a different approach was needed. I’m a single-player gamer through-and-through because I almost exclusively play open-world games and I play them agonisingly slowly. I say agonising because that’s what it would be like to watch me play. I can spend hours doing very little and enjoy every moment of it. I knew that in order to really enjoy No Man’s Sky, I was going to have to slow down even further. This is far beyond an open-world game. It’s an open universe. So I threw away the notion of completing objectives and finding the centre of the universe and decided that I don’t care if I ever finish this game. As in life, and in this game more than any other I have ever encountered the old cliche applies: it’s the journey that matters, not the destination. 

Since that decision, my experience with No Man’s Sky has gone from a borderline-frustrating on-the-verge-of-quitting-want-to-love-it-but-can’t-because-it’s-such-a-grind, to a sublime, almost transcendentally-meditative experience. I’ve seen a lot of complaints online about the inventory management being almost impossible. In my first three hours with No Man’s Sky I would have thoroughly agreed with that. Now, my inventory is never full. Never. Because I sit in my little red ship and make a list of exactly what I need and in what quantities, then I go get that stuff using my ship as a base-of-operations, then I craft my upgrade, then I head on up to a space station, sell an inventory slot’s worth of whatever valuable material I found while foraging for my actual supplies, then I just head out to the hanger and hang out (pun intended) for a while, watching the ships come and go, wondering what their pilots are doing and where they are all headed next. 

We ain't in Mos Eisley anymore, R2...

In a lot of ways this game is like some of the esoteric science fiction it’s inspired by. Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey most obviously comes to mind. You don’t have to make sense of it. In fact, it’s more enjoyable if you don’t try to. 

I’m ten hours in and I’ve only discovered two planets: the one I started on, and the one I flew to next. Those two worlds and a space station are the only things I’ve seen so far. But you know what? The planet Earth has about 510 million square kilometres of surface area. So assuming the two worlds are roughly the same size as Earth, that’s over a billion more square kilometres than I’ve visited in any other game I have ever played. That alone is pretty damned impressive. 

I’ve upgraded my laser and my exosuit. I’ve upgraded to a new kick-ass scanner that has more range. I have built my hyperdrive, it’s fuelled and ready to go. But I’m in no hurry to go anywhere. I might go back down to the planet and talk to that alien again, or I might just get in my ship and fly around for a while. I love that this game will let me do that, that I’m not force-fed objectives and punished if I don’t complete them in time.

This guy occasionally stops playing Pokemon Go long enough to talk to you.

This is a game I have been waiting to play without knowing I was waiting to play it. I feel something akin to what Richard Burton felt the first time he set out on his first expedition in Africa. The vast continent was at that time unmapped and unexplored by any Westerner. He wrote in his journal that he was both excited and saddened by the fact that because of its vastness he would never see it all in his brief lifetime. 

I’ll never see all of No Man’s Sky and that doesn’t bother me one bit. Who knows how I’ll feel 30, 50, 100 hours in. But for now I’m amazed and transfixed by this game and the possibilities that lay ahead. Will I just be an explorer, a spacefaring Charles Darwin, cataloguing strange creatures on distant worlds, or will the lure of space-piracy become too much – the urge to become a Han Solo, threading my way through trade routes and conducting shady deals in space station hangers? Who knows? Who cares? It’s going to be one hell of a ride and so far I’m enjoying every damn second of it. 

Letters from the Wasteland - Part 6 - (Fallout 4 fan fiction)

Fallout 4 is the smash hit RPG video game by Bethesda. It was released worldwide on November 10, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. https://www.fallout4.com/ (all screenshots used under creative commons licence or used with permission via PS4 share) 

Go to Part One
Go to Part Two
Go to Part Three
Go to Part Four
Go to Part Five

The only surviving photograph of the Wanderer.

Month unknown, 2288

Dearest Lucy,

This will be the last letter from me for a while. I hope it reaches you safely and gives you some comfort that I am alive and I am okay. There is something I need to tell you, big sister. But bear with me. There’s other things you need to hear first.

There was a world that existed here long before you and I were little girls chasing kittens around the gangplanks above Diamond City. A world where some of the trees stayed green all year round and you could walk from one side of the Commonwealth to the other without carrying a gun and fearing for your life. That world is gone. It was destroyed not by a great god falling through the earth but by us, Luce. Humankind. The fire that consumed the world was lit by our hatred and by our malice and the scars it tore in the earth are now the lands we walk upon.

The day the bombs fell.

Marius took me to the Institute. I can barely describe what I saw there but I will try. With the help of a member of the Minutemen named Sturges, Marius had built a teleportation device that allows access to the Institute. That’s all it was, the Institute being able to spirit people away. Not shadows and magic. Just technology. 

Inside, it was stark, and cold, and clean. Synths everywhere, some of them indistinguishable from you or me. A great glass greenhouse where they grow plants greener than anything I’ve ever seen. Food and water from things they call ‘faucets’ that is so clear it sparkles like crystal. 

We remained there for a few weeks. I stayed in Marius’ room and he let me use the shower. Hot running water from a nozzle and it’s never-ending. The first time, I stood under the warm spray for so long, my eyes closed, just letting it wash the grime from my skin and massage my scalp. It was incredible. 

As I sat on the bed wrapped in a towel, my skin still warm from the shower, Marius told me everything. He lived before the Great War that destroyed the world, with his wife and baby boy. That’s where the old photographs came from. He lived in Sanctuary Hills and was there the day the bombs fell. 

It sounds so crazy, Luce, and I’m sorry. You probably have a million questions but until I understand it all myself I cannot answer them. When I see you again I will tell you everything. But until then, just know that everything we heard about the Institute growing up was a lie, and the truth, well, it’s not much better.

A rare photograph from inside the Institute

On our last day there, Marius said that he made the decisions he made because he thought that somehow the Institute might be able to make the world the way it was. He looked around at all the clean and bright and shiny things and said he had hoped they could bring everything they’ve learned and done here to the surface and let everyone prosper from it.
     ‘That could still happen,’ I told him. ‘Maybe not in our lifetimes but it could be done.’
     ‘I was so wrong, Daphne. They just wanted control like everyone else does. And the Brotherhood? They’ll never understand any of this. They just want to destroy it and everyone who doesn’t agree with their vision for the Commonwealth. They won’t stop fighting. They won’t stop killing. They won’t stop any of it. Nothing ever changes.’
     ‘Some things do,’ I reached for his hand and I was about to tell him but his Pip-Boy buzzed and he looked at it.
     ‘Croup Manor is under attack again,’ he said, taking my hand. ‘Daphne, you can stay here. You’ll be safe. Nothing can reach you here, nothing from out there in the wasteland. Clean water, food, and a safe roof over your head. You once told me that’s all a girl could ask for, right?’
     I wanted to say shutting me away to keep me safe won't change what happened to her. But instead I said ‘This is not my home.’

We were just past Cambridge, making our way along another cracked road through a maze of old houses when the lasers started firing. We barely heard the vertibird descending before the mounted minigun opened fire and we were ambushed in a laneway by two Brotherhood knights. Marius and I opened fire and of course Dogmeat leapt at the first Knight and latched onto his power armor. Marius called to him to let go and he did, and then he turned to me and shouted ‘Run!’ and we did. 

I’ve never run that fast in my life. A bolt from one of the laser rifles whipped past my ear and I could smell burning hair. We were able to keep ahead of the cumbersome knights, and Marius kept fire on the vertibird as we made our escape. Eventually we were able to slow down and we took refuge just outside a settlement called The Slog. The sun was going down, casting angry fire against the dying day.

As we sat there catching our breaths Marius removed his armoured chest piece and I saw the blood. He looked up at me and simply said ‘I’m sorry.’
     He collapsed, and Dogmeat fell to his haunches beside him and started whimpering. I knelt beside him and even through his leathers I could see it was bad.
     ‘I took a few rounds from that goddamn minigun,’ he said, and tried to laugh but just coughed up a mouthful of blood.
     ‘We’ll get you back to the manor,’ I said, ‘You’ll be okay.’
     He grabbed hold of my hand as Dogmeat started licking the blood from his face.
     ‘I’m done, Daphne,’ he said. ‘You have to leave me here and get back to the settlement.’
     I shook my head and said I wouldn’t leave him.
     ‘It’s going to be okay,’ he said. ‘This is the only way it could end for me. I know that now.’
     ‘What are you talking about?’
     ‘I’ve killed so many,’ he said. ‘I saw my wife murdered and I watched my son die, and seeing all that changed me in ways I didn’t know and couldn’t realise. It made me do things I regret. It made me do things in service of a greater good that doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not made for this world. The world I belong to died a long time ago. This world is yours, Daph, and I don’t belong in it.’
     ‘Maybe you didn’t save millions of lives, maybe nothing will change,’ I said. ‘But you saved me, Marius. And there is a child within me who will be born into this world, our world, because of that. You don’t have to save the whole world. You’ve done enough. More than anyone could have asked for.’
     He struggled to speak again but could not, and those deep grey eyes of his filled with swirls of blood like paint poured into water. 
     ‘Go,’ he managed finally. ‘They’ll be tracking us. You have to get out of here.’
     I didn’t want to leave him, but I didn’t want to die. It’s a choice I’ve never had to make before, and one I hope I never have to make again. I could already hear the whirr of the vertibird in the distance.
     ‘Take him with you,’ Marius choked, taking Dogmeat by the collar and gently tousling the fur by his ear.
     I stroked Dogmeat’s fur. ‘I’ll use my last stimpak on him if I have to.’
     ‘I know you will,’ Marius coughed blood again and the pain shut his eyes, but he struggled them open and placed his hand on my belly. ‘He’ll be good around kids too, I know he will.’
     The vertibird shrieked closer, just over the hill to the northeast. My Wanderer looked at me a last time and then his eyes closed and he was gone.
     I stood to leave but Dogmeat paused over his body, sniffing at his master one last time before sitting back on his haunches and howling at the darkening sky. For a moment I thought he would not leave the Wanderer’s side, but soon enough he started following me. He knew the score. It was time to go.

I arrived back at the settlement and the Island had been destroyed and there were laser rifle burns in the fences. Once I got inside the walls I saw there were two graves beneath the stone structure at the centre of the compound. Elise was sitting on the steps of the manor house with her head in her hands. Eliza was at the corn rows, her back turned, going through the motions rather than actually tending the plants. Gerald stood at my post, a pipe pistol in his hand, his white t-shirt stained with blood. He came down the stairs when he saw me and Dogmeat enter the compound. 
     ‘Hey Daph,’ he said.
     ‘Are you okay?’ I asked him.
     He looked down at himself. ‘It’s not my blood.’ He gestured to the graves, marked with small white crosses. ‘Miranda,’ he said of the one on the left. ‘And Skull.’
     I looked at the graves and felt my chest tighten. ‘What happened?’
     ‘Super Mutants,’ Gerald shrugged. ‘I don’t know how many. They came in the middle of the night.’
     ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,’ I could only stare at my own boots.
     ‘We didn’t stand a chance, Daph,’ Gerald said. ‘If you’d been here you’d be in the ground too.’
     He looked at the graves again. ‘We’re alive because of them… Skull was holding them off at the west gate, and Miranda got us all inside the house. She took three grenades from the workshop and headed outside. That was the last time we saw her alive. She took down three of them. The others were too wounded to do much. They retreated back to the mainland.’
     I looked around the compound. Only one turret was unscathed, the others were shattered piles of junk. There was blood everywhere.
     ‘Where are the others?’ I asked.
     Gerald just shrugged. ‘They took off. Said they didn’t feel safe here anymore. Frankly, I don’t blame them.’
     ‘What do you mean?’
     ‘We’re leaving,’ he said. ‘Me and the twins. Gathering what food we can carry and getting the hell out of here. We’ll strike southwest and head for Diamond City.’ He looked down at Dogmeat. ‘The Wanderer?’
     I looked up at him but couldn’t speak. He saw the look in my eyes and knew.
     ‘All the more reason to leave,’ he said. ‘It won’t be long before those big green bastards regroup and hit us again. You should come with us.’
     I stroked Dogmeat’s head and he nuzzled my hand. ‘I’m going to stay here awhile. You should get going though.’
     ‘We’ll wait for you to gather your things,’ Gerald offered. 
     ‘It’s okay,’ I touched his shoulder. ‘Maybe I’ll see you sometime and finally play a game of chess with you.’
     ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

I furiously started writing as Gerald and the twins gathered corn, mutfruit, potatoes and all the water they could carry, slung the packs over their shoulders, and we said our goodbyes. The only thing I asked of Gerald was that he take this letter with him. 

The bomb fell somewhere to the south, so I’m going to head north, up the coast to avoid the roads. I look down now at the wonderful shepherd sitting at my feet, patiently waiting for me. I know he will never leave my side. And I’ll never leave his.  

"Dogmeat ready to follow wherever I lead him."

Someday I’ll come to Diamond, Luce, I promise. But not yet. It’s too much a reminder of the world left behind. Maybe Marius was right, that a relic from the past and a protector of the excess that destroyed it does not belong in a future forged by those who survived to make a new world.

I never knew the world Marius spoke of yet somehow it is a past I feel compelled to forget. If I don’t, then how can I build a life for my child that is not tainted by want of a golden future that was burned to ashes and now can never be? The life I give to my son or my daughter is one I must seek out and find and build on my own. I owe that to them. And I owe that to the sacrifice a man made for us for no reason other than wanting a better world for us all. 

The view north from the settlement, Daphne would have headed this way to avoid the roads.

So I’m going to strike out and find a new little corner of the world to call my own and do my best to make it better. That’s all that can be asked of anyone, I guess.

I love you.

Your little sister, Daph.

------------Note from the Wasteland: It's not clear if Daphne ever made it north or found her new corner of the world there. These letters are all that remains of her, her friends at Croup Manor, and the Wanderer. She included a few extra photographs with her last letter to her sister. I've included them below with her captions.----------------

Miranda, vigilant as always.

Skull showing off his new toy.
I will never forget the sacrifice he and Miranda made to save the others.

The twins Elise and Eliza, watching over our food as we watched over them.

Me posing with my favourite turret. I'll miss this place,
but I hold hope that I'll find a new home out there somewhere. 

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Letters from the Wasteland - Part 5 - (Fallout 4 fan fiction)

Fallout 4 is the smash hit RPG video game by Bethesda. It was released worldwide on November 10, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. https://www.fallout4.com/ (all screenshots used under creative commons licence or used with permission via PS4 share) 

Go to Part One
Go to Part Two
Go to Part Three
Go to Part Four

August, 2288

Dear Lucy,

It’s getting colder. The leaves don’t turn anymore because there are no leaves to turn. Do you remember when we were little girls and there was still some colour left in the world? I recall it now only as I recall dreams, fading like rocks dropped into ponds.

A morning last week, I woke to a sound I thought I’d never hear again. At first I didn’t trust my ears and thought it was some leftover echo from my dreams, so I walked outside but there it was, in the clear skies. A Brotherhood of Steel dropship. Its fusion engines hummed as it made its way across the sky, the docking clamps clunking, pistons firing as the vertibirds clicked off the sides like strange beetles. Four of them descended from the belly of the giant floating black whale and whirred off in different directions, out over the peninsula, to the north and west, and one eventually disappearing to the south, down over Nahant Wharf toward the airport. 

I thought they were gone. I thought the war for the Commonwealth was over and that I was on the winning side. I know you said you’d heard whispers of them. But a show of force like this? I’m worried, Luce. 

A Brotherhood of Steel 'vertibird'

Gerald and Skull play chess downstairs now during their down time. Last week Marius showed up as promised with the gifts from Diamond City. Thank you for explaining the game to me. I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever play, but Gerald has enjoyed carving pieces and teaching us all how to play. 

Daphne's chess playing friend in the compound, Gerald

Miranda got her eight ball. I don’t know what it means to her, but she held it in her palm when he gave it to her, hefted its weight, and wordlessly thanked him. He gave Eliza a dog-eared Grognak the Barbarian comic book and then brought out the real treats: a huge chunk of radstag meat and two bottles of whiskey. That night we had a feast, sis, more food than I have eaten in months, and I loved every mouthful. Elise stewed the radstag in its juices with carrots and potatoes and we sat around a fire and ate huge bowls of the stuff. After that we passed around the whiskey. I had never had it before and it made me dizzy but I liked it.

One of the last photographs taken of Miranda. Despite their sometime-animosity,
Daphne cared very deeply about her outspoken companion on the compound watchtowers.

The Wanderer spent the night again, sis, and I spent the night with him. There, I said it. Skull and Miranda were on night watch so I was sitting by my turret when he came and sat by me. He didn’t say anything, we just watched the stars for a while, and then he reached over and tucked a strand of my hair back behind my ear and kissed me. 

Later we lay together on one of the beds on the upper floor and for a long time we didn’t speak he just held me. Finally I said that I thought he liked Miranda more than he liked me.
     ‘Miranda’s a warrior, but she’s reckless,’ he said ‘She’d see a group of Super Mutants and she’d wade in without a second thought.’
     ‘And you wouldn’t?’
     ‘You have to pick your battles out here. I don’t start battles I can’t win.’
     ‘And Miranda?’
     ‘She doesn’t pick her battles, she just wants to win them all. That’s why she’s up on that tower.’
     ‘And why am I up there on mine?’
     ‘You have a good eye. You’re watchful, cautious. You spotted that guy with the missile launcher before he had a chance to use it. I don’t think anyone else here would have done that. I noticed that about you right away, when you wandered in here, you started looking for exits, weak spots. I do the same thing. You’re a survivor.’
     ‘It was you, in the basement of the Old North Church. The massacre that Miranda told me about.’
     ‘Yeah. It was me. How did you know?’
     ‘The Railroad coat. And I heard you talking to Dogmeat. Why did you do it?’
     ‘When I was in the army, a long time ago, I heard a lot of shit about the ‘greater good’. How one death, or even a lot more than one, can ultimately save millions of lives.’
     ‘So that’s why?’
     ‘Yeah, that’s why. But out here, I’m not so sure that’s true. I don’t feel like I’ve saved anyone.’
     ‘You saved us.’

A Brotherhood 'Knight'. It is unlikely Daphne took this photograph; she never got
very close to the Brotherhood, by this time they were sworn enemies of the Wanderer.

We were interrupted then by the whirr of a vertibird, and we got dressed, grabbed our rifles and headed out onto the balcony. It circled high overhead a few times, just patrolling, before it headed out over the peninsula and dropped off a knight, a scribe and an officer. We tracked them for a while through our scopes before they went out of sight and then we heard the familiar sound of laser rifles, plasma grenades and the crack of return fire from automatic weapons.

Marius slung his rifle and ushered me back inside. We sat on the bed and he took my hand.
     ‘I can never come back here,’ he told me. ‘I’m putting all of you in danger.’
     I asked him what he meant, and couldn’t help a small part of me thinking his timing was terrible.
     ‘I made a choice,’ he said. ‘And that choice turned the Brotherhood against me forever. I wasn’t just there at the Old North Church. I was at the battle of Liberty Prime. Siding with the Institute had consequences. I can’t explain them all right now. But if the Brotherhood find me here they will kill me and everyone they find here with me. So I have to go.’
     ‘So, that’s it,’ I said. ‘You have to go. I understand.’ I looked out onto the balcony and yet again wished I could be that turret out there, with no other want or desire than to mindlessly kill anything that threatened me.
     Marius looked at me for a long time, and then squeezed my hand tighter. 
     ‘I want to show you something,’ he said. ‘I’m going to need you to abandon that post of yours for a while. Just for a while.’
     ‘What do you want to show me?’
     He handed me a bunch of old photos. A place called Sanctuary, but in the photos it looked nothing like any city, town, settlement or ruin I’ve ever seen, Luce. It looked beautiful. 
     ‘That’s where we’ll need to go, for me to show you,’ Marius said. ‘I want to show you the reason I made the choices I made. I want to show you the Institute.’

So I write this on the road, sis. We just passed Cambridge and so far the journey has been mercifully uneventful. What I will find in Sanctuary and beyond is still unclear to me, but I’ll write again as soon as I can. 

Until then I remain as always, your mischievous little sister. Daph. 

One of the pre-war photographs of Sanctuary Hills that amazed Daphne.

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