Conscripted into this entire situation without as much as a letter warning them beforehand? Poor dears.

[ Poor them, really, but it brings to mind a good question: have others been forced to search for this Atlas as well? Was that a representation, the past, or the future shown to them? ]

Cheery or not, I daresay it isn't meant to show us here, unless there is a black expanse I missed in that awful desert.