#strand weaving

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

Weaving Destiny: The River

Water has been rinsed of its complex social and metaphysical contents, Illich finds, and reduced to a ‘cleaning fluid’. Turning a river metaphor back upon itself, he suggests that the West has drunk from the memory-erasing River Lethe, and thereby suppressed the waters ‘of the deep imagination’.

In a haunting image, Illich imagines a possible antidote to this amnesia: ‘Following dream-waters upstream, the historian will learn to distinguish the vast register of their voices.’

— Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

Weaving Destiny: The River

On the flow of past and future

The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,

And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd

They slept on the abyss without a surge—

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;

The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them—She was the Universe.

— Darkness, Lord Byron

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

The River

Nimbus: You’re talking about the river of souls!

Osiris: River?

Nimbus: Yeah, it’s a story we tell kids on Neptune.

Osiris: A nursery rhyme?

Nimbus: Sort of. Since before history there’s been this raging river. In the story, some try to divert the river. Others try to build a dam. But nothing stops it. Lots of people have believed that we either sink in the water, or learn to swim.

Osiris: Don’t we?

Nimbus: See, that’s the real wild part; we are the river.

How can I translate — not in words but in belief — that a river is a body, as alive as you or I, that there can be no life without it? —Natalie Diaz

DIVE

In my first life, I was born Erisia Pyatova-Hsien. I remember thatPrivate life clearly now, as ex-Guardians who have escaped the Traveler's occlusion often do. I lived in St. Petersburg, first daughter of a second marriage, a very impatient child of Earth's 22nd century, often abandoned by my family (who were called by work to Jakarta, Kamchatka, and Lagos) to pass my days swimming in the icy Neva bay.

I loved to swim, and especially I loved the clarity of the cold shallow Neva, as crystal-clean as a winter dawn. Enormous Zubr-9 hovercraft barges roved the waters; Russia had modernized its waterways better than its sad auto industry. As a kid—is it strange to hear me speak casually? As a child, I never swam too far from my parents' little drone helper Fyodr. The swift hovercraft terrified me, their billowing skirts waiting to suck me up and dice me into little raisins. But I grew up and fell in with a reckless crowd, rebels against the stifling death-fear that came with our Golden Age lifespans. Soon the child's safety harness and Fyodr's careful oversight began to itch at me.

When I was seventeen, I went out in a wetsuit on a dare to dive under the skirts of an oncoming hoverbarge. Maybe I was in no danger; maybe the machine would've changed course if it could possiblyGemini hurt me; but I thought I might die, and I did it anyway. And as that beast swept over me, as I trembled under the blast of the propellers, I felt a thing which was very much like what I would one day know as the Light. Maybe that thing was heroism. Maybe it was existence on the edge of death.

It was the first time I survived the passage of tremendous, godlike power.

I died more than twenty years later attempting an unassisted winter swim from St. Petersburg to Stockholm. A cold front like the very furnace of hell caught me. I had been warned the crossing was suicide, even for a perfectly trained and exactingly fattened woman in a shark suit. But those were giddy days, days of infinite bravery, and there were no mighty feats left except the truly suicidal. I cannot regret it. I think that death prepared me for the longer, darker, more exquisitely cruel crossing I would one dayDyad endure. It is no accident that my Ghost made me in the image of that swimming woman, rather than any of my younger and less grimly determined selves.

Strand Log III

I have been conducting research among the local population, specifically regarding the "children's story" Nimbus told us, regarding the river of souls. I had a suspicion that there might have been other versions, or versions with better recorded provenance. Willingness to participate in this research has been mixed, as have the results. It seems to be an endemic concept rather than a religious belief, and no one has been able to say where it comes from, save that a parent or teacher told it to them at some point. Some respondents have mentioned a river of stars—perhaps the Milky Way galaxy—and some have cited windstreams and weather formations, but the majority of respondents adhere to the "river of souls" construct. All things come from the river, and all return to it. The river may split and meet again. Other things may fall into it and change its course, but nevertheless it continues. In time, even mountains are worn down before it. Naturally, it is easiest to view this as an allegory for control of life. In the end, rivers are impossible to control. A person may swim or boat, but never take hold of the river to steer the course of the water itself. And it is impossible not to see the relationship to Strand, which slips away the moment a person tries to grasp too tightly. I wonder about Strand. About its appearance. We can see the origins of the Stasis power on Europa, and the concept of a cosmic ice to oppose stellar fire fits very neatly in a certain sort of paradigm. Even that idea of stillness and control suits freezing, a slowness of atoms whether or not it is in truth a power of "ice." There is a certain weight to the perception of an "element." If Strand had been shaped through the lens of Neomuna, surely it should have been some cosmic water instead, something that flows and gives way only to rise again. There are certainly combat styles to support this in old records. But this power that has never before been used in this way came to one Guardian first, and I conjecture that they may have unconsciously given it form. I wish I had seen it! What would "connection" have appeared as? Now, of course, we know the shape of this power: it is green, it weaves itself in strings. As other Guardians begin to learn it, they too slot it into these positions in their minds. Whatever advances they come to are already framed verdant and tangling. All the same, I cannot help but wonder about the nascent, formless thing it was before we reached out to it, and it reached back.

We all have a river who calls to us. — Rita Mestokosho

I close my eyes, feel skin and scalp and spirit ringing and singing. It elates me. This river has an aura into which we have passed, I think, and which is changing our being, enlivening us. Would a dying river do this?

It seems clear to me then, in that strange, bright water, that to say a river is alive is not an anthropomorphic claim. A river is not a human person, nor vice versa. Each withholds from the other in different ways. To call a river alive is not to personify a river, but instead further to deepen and widen the category of 'life', and in so doing - how had George Eliot put it? - 'enlarge the imagined range for self to move in'.

But then I'm counterstruck by the sheer, incorrigible weirdness of this white water, by the profoundly alien presence of the river - and all that I've just thought feels too easy, too pat. Is this thing I'm in really alive? By whose standards? By what proof? As for speaking to or for a river, or comprehending what a river wants - well, where would you even start with that process? Surely all our attempts to bend the law round so that it recognizes the rights of rivers or forests will only end up with human proxies, jockeying for their own positions and speaking in incorrigibly human voices - ventriloquizing 'river' and 'forest' in a kind of cosplay animism.

We could call it the 'Solaris Problem' - the question of how on earth to open a plausible line of communication with a river - after Stanisław Lem's 1961 SF novel Solaris, about a planet whose ocean behaves in ways that perplex the usual mechanistic reductions of water to matter. In ways, in fact, which seem to human observers to be intentional, sentient... alive. Entire institutes become dedicated to the study of 'solaristics': theoretical attempts to comprehend the ocean's properties and ontology, and practical attempts to establish contact with it. All methodologies, however, prove futile.

Standing there with the water clattering my skull as I clumsily, hopelessly probe the River of the Cedars for legibility, for utterance - a line from Lem's novel bounces into my brain: How can you hope to communicate with the ocean if you can't even understand one another?

I notice Giuliana has swum to a corner of the pool and is floating there quietly, looking downstream, facing away from the rest of us. I think that it's unlike her not to be whooping, not to be at the centre of the party.

I wonder if she is dreaming or remembering. Then I see that she is crying, adding her tears to the river's flow.

— Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane, pg. 82-83

"You are not the seer. Not yet. You are the one who is seen." —Parables of the Allspring

Sometime around 1500, Hieronymus Bosch picked up his pen and, using oak-gall ink and bistre, he sketched a little-known work he called The Wood Has Ears, the Field Eyes.

At first glance, Bosch's drawing is a conventional landscape study. An old oak tree stards in open ground, with an owl perched in its hollow heart and three sharp-winged birds in its branches.

But then you notice the ears. Hidden in the stand of trees behind the oak are two ears, humanly shaped but not humanly sized. Then you notice the eyes. Embedded in the meadow that fills the foreground and encircles the trees are seven eyes: four above and three below.

Suddenly you, the viewer, are no longer the looker; you are being looked at and listened to. The natural world is watching and hearing: not just the owl, but the trees and the vegetation too. I find Bosch's image both unsettling and comforting. It reminds me that we are companioned in the world.

The anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose wrote of the 'double death' of the Anthropocene; she was referring to the way that the rapid extinction of life in the present leads also to the foreclosure of its future possibilities. Life's tendency is to flourish, and to flourish diversely. Epigenetics and endosymbiosis now show us that this flourishing is happening within individual lifespans and between species in ways that far exceed the Darwinian account of evolution by orderly generational descent. But when human action depletes life's existing diversity, its potential for flourishing to come - for future 'shimmer', in Bird Rose's word - is also depleted. The result, wrote Bird Rose, is an unravelling of 'the work of generation upon generation of living beings: cascades of death that curtail the future and unmake the living presence of the past'

Of the names given to the Earth epoch we are currently shaping the — Anthropocene, the Capitalocene, the Great Acceleration — among the most disturbing is that suggested by the biologist E. O. Wilson, who spoke of the Eremocene. Wilson coined the word from the Ancient Greek Kaivós/kainós, meaning 'new', and ěpnuoç/erēmos, meaning 'an isolated place', which is also the root of the familiar word 'hermit': one who dwells alone and apart.

The Eremocene is the Age of Loneliness.

The loneliness Wilson had in mind is not that of a human deprived of the company of other humans, miserable though that can be. It's the solitude of one species which is left, as a consequence of its own actions, isolated on the Earth. It is the silence of a mute planet on which the speech, song and stories of other beings have become inaudible because extinguished.

— Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane, pg. 91-92

"—I dream of patterns in the stream, fallen leaves drawing pictures for the briefest of moments before being washed down the river. Sorrow crushes me, and I do not understand why."

A wild river and a broken dam (or maybe it's just the sea crashing through a narrow gap I can't be sure). Waves slam through the gap and where they hit the stone they throw up pillars of spray that pierce the mist and crash down in thunder. There's a giant in the cataract, trying to wade against the current, and I can tell it wants to reach the lever and pull the lever which will seal off the flow or maybe give it the sword, but the torrent throws it back so it just keeps its head down and tries to push on. I can't see the face but it breathes out white smoke. I feel for it hard.

Rubicon | Acheron

Everything is a question of survival. How do I live? How do I satiate my hunger, my thirst? How do I protect myself from predators? How do I shelter from the storm? For a long, long time, our people asked only this. We fought to separate life from death by as great a span as we could. Even when we had made our homeworld a garden of peace and plenty, the question of survival never ended, only changed. How do my genes, my works, even the memories of me, live on? The same question as always. How do I live? We solved the problems of deprivation, disease, age, memory loss, death. We weren't the only ones to find these answers, of course. Others followed in our footsteps or blazed their own paths. If that was really the answer to the question, we wouldn't be here now, and neither would you. You're still trying to solve the problem, after all. You fight and build and live and die, and always you struggle against your opposition. The predator, the parasite, the illness, the chance storm, the slow collective forgetting of your art and history, the death of a star, the heat death of the universe. You must live longer, be stronger, think quicker, and still there is something waiting to take everything from you, always. Always. So you have to keep getting better, and better, until you are perfect. Until you are, and cannot be anything else, because there never was anything else. Until you, inevitably, are the final shape. We didn't come to destroy you. Those poor, short-lived sisters—we did try to explain, you know, but they never grew past thinking of finality as a game where only one could live. A misunderstanding, as useful as it was foolish. We see the universe more broadly. The final shape is more than a single life, a single thought. It is all-encompassing, all-embracing. It is everything. You are part of everything, are you not? So now we have come to ask you for your answer, the only answer to the only question. How will you live?

"Let the heat melt your body so your soul might flow with the river of time." —Parables of the Allspring

Heterodox, kind, weird, super-smart and tough – I couldn't thins of a better person with whom to make this journey. So I'd asked Wayne if he'd like to come along, and he'd said yes and that was that.

Except that wasn't quite that. A few months earlier he'd lost a dear friend, a novelist and writer named Paul, to cancer. Paul was brilliant, a flare in the sky that just hung there and glowed, didn't fade or wink out -until the disease consumed him. He died on a cold January day in Poughkeepsie, and Wayne helped bury him. By the time we left for the river, Wayne was still grieving, curled around a ganglion of sadness

Not long after Paul's death, Wayne sent me a photo of him and Paul, taken on film in the high desert, one dusk near the beginning of the century. Paul stands tall, slender, bespectacled and hands on hips, wearing an immaculately ironed, white collared shirt and sandy slacks. He looks shy and wise. He smiles slightly, wryly. Wayne is in a blue lumberjack shirt, long-haired and already balding, off-kilter, a wild, flattened look in his eyes. In the background: violet dusk, chapparal scrub, a barbed-wire fence. It's all slightly out of focus – wind-blurred, light-blurred – as if the camera had snatched at something fleeting, which of course it had.

Since Paul's death, Wayne has been preoccupied with the idea of encountering him again. The katabasis - the classical descent to the underworld such as that narrated in Virgil's Aeneid - has long fascinated Wayne: a journey to meet spectres and shades. When he tells me about this wish, I think of Giuliana and what the river and the Cedar Forest did to her; how powerfully they healed her. I think of the radical enlargement of the self that Yuvan has found in the oceans, marshes and rivers of his landscape, since escaping the death drive of his stepfather.

But when I asked Wayne if our forthcoming descent of the river might offer the possibility of encountering Paul's spirit in mist or white water, or might wash some of his grief away, he was non- committal. 'The fact is, Rob,' he replied, 'that while still capable of joy, even ecstatic joy, I am almost all grief. Paul's sickness and death is a part of that grief-being, but so are many, many other terrible things I have experienced personally or absorbed from or through others over the last fifty years and continue to carry with me behind my skull-splitting grin. Whether because of the way I grew up, or how I taught myself to live afterward, or some quirk of my neurology/genetics, I have not been able to let this stuff go. Instead, I've become synonymous with it: my work is its work; its, mine. There is no working it out, except inasmuch as I am of the world, and the world, mercifully, flows. Braided with and in a mightier river - being dissolved in it, even temporarily — may be, more than anything, a relief. But I can't be sure.'

— Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane, pg. 213-214

O: [sighs] I do not fully understand what I saw, and for a Human to understand a Hive mind... How many legends of katabasis do we have, Ikora?

I: We currently have dozens of stories about descending to the realms of the dead, though research has indicated many more must have existed, lost in the layers of Human history we will never lay eyes on. Mathematically, there were likely hundreds.

I: [pauses] Inanna and Dumuzid and Geshtinanna, Orpheus and Eurydice, Izanagi and Izanami, to name a few. Gods and goddesses, mortal and immortal lovers, always seeking to descend and return with the lost.

O: And neither the lost nor those who searched for them were ever returned the same.

I:...Is that how you think of yourself?

O: [scoffs] Do I sound that dire? All Guardians, all Lightbearers have done as much. But others, well... I wonder, do our former enemies have similar stories...

I: What exactly are you getting at?

O: Frequently, the underworld—or those realms beyond mortal existence—possess wisdom the living do not. What then, is knowledge from a dead Hive god vested in deception.... [long pause]

I: So. Neptune, and secrets.

O:...Inanna...

I: What is it?

O:...A thought. An echo of one. The return from the underworld, and Inanna cast off her veil... It makes sense. I did not understand, when I first felt clutching whispers. Carrying wisdom away from Kur when she strode into the sunlight again.

I've been wondering,' Wayne says after a while, 'whether it might be possible to engineer an encounter with the eidolon of my friend Paul; to meet a holographic ghost of him beyond the Gates of Hell and attempt to embrace it.'

He pauses, continues. It is clear he wants to talk about this.

'I think I figured out how to do this on the river today, in a way that would recapitulate the whole history of optics, from the camera obscura to a Neural Radiance Field animation based on photogram- metric 3D modelling.'

'OK. I think I get the basic idea, at least,' I say, 'if not the specifcs of the tech. But the "why" is perhaps even more interesting to me than the "how". Why would you want to do this? And I must ask, with the best of intentions - would Paul have wanted this? Do you need to seek his permission before you do it?'

Wayne considers this carefully. 'Among the many triple rhymes that connect the Odyssey, the Aeneid and Dante's Divine Comedy is a scene in each where a living interloper among the dead thrice tries and thrice fails to embrace the shade of a loved one: mother, father and friend, respectively. In the Campi Flegrei near Lake Averno, where as you know I've been spending a lot of time underground recently, there's a site I'm confident Virgil used as the model for the cave-mouth through which the Cumaean Sibyl led Aeneas, down into darkness and across the Styx.' He pauses.

'Aeneas, of course, had the Golden Bough to get himself in and out of the underworld. All I have is a bright-yellow folding set of twenty- four-inch bolt cutters. It's through that door, as close to the banks of what locals regarded as the River Styx as I can get, that I'd want to try to embrace Paul again. I don't know quite why. Maybe this is all just grief or guilt talking. Whatever Paul preceded me into, he is irretrievably lost. The eidolon is only a memory, a thought-image, a shade: mute unless blood-fed, and insubstantial evermore. Katabasis among the dead is about the living finding a way to live. As for the question of permission, I'll give it serious thought.'

He pauses again.

'I mentioned Vico's vision of history to you in the car. According to Vico, history isn't circular but helical. Viewed from above, it might look like ripples propagating laterally in a pond into which you've lobbed a rock, or like tree rings - but if you follow it down or up, it's actually Dantean, which is to say, a spiral.'

There are a thousand stars, a hundred thousand. I wish I knew more of the constellations.

The moon is round and silver as a coin.

— Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane, pg. 274-275

Weaving

Osiris contemplates the universe. Strand curls between his fingers, a gentle presence, shape shifting but not changing. A helix—a careful knot, like those that used to be artwork—a braid. Always strands, always a structure that creates strength from fragility. He is so aware of the beat of his heart, in ways he never used to be. It shudders in his chest, aching but resolute. He knows where the closest people are—the Guardian, obvious, within eyesight and hovering fretfully just in case Osiris slips. Nimbus, further away but tangible, probably surveying the city outside. And there's a pouka he can't quite see somewhere behind him, making eddies in the flow of the Strand as if it can dive into and out of that just as well as water or air. It would be so easy to close his hand, to take hold of that which he touches. He does not. He thinks about it—lets his fingers curl softly—holds there as the humming cords of the world's loom shiver around him. Existence flows. It is not a stagnant thing, one snapshot in time. In these connections, there is always motion, and all things are swept away in time, good and bad. No wonder Strand unravels, when it is given half a chance to do so; as far as it is concerned—if it has any sentience at all—everything is simply part of the river, a momentary curve or splash. Osiris has known the vastness of the Infinite Forest and the great span of their solar system, and it is only here, with a tiny nascent spiral of the cosmic weft in his hand, that he feels small. And yet: he knows also that he is not alone. A hundred hundred steady threads weave together, pulling this way and that, flowing and twisting and always part of the greater whole. He should be taking notes. Expanding the Vanguard's understanding of Darkness, simplifying the steps of learning Strand for Guardians new to paracausality. But for a moment, Osiris is at peace.

Third Iteration

Alone in his tent, Louis undresses until he's down to his underclothes and his old man's watch. Even now, magnetism is buzzing in his skin, achingly far from Human. (Did the prior two Emissaries feel this way?) He misses visiting his mother in summer, in the town whose name he borrowed. He misses fishing with his brother. His sister-in-law's paintings, his nephew's jokes, his niece's smile, the baby who shares his ears. Most of all, he misses returning from the lake for a meal that could only be made in their house, that could only be made by them. No one but the Yeros know the preciousness of walleye ceviche. Louis sits with his face in his hands. They are gone, qué Diosito los tenga en su santa gloria, and he is here. Grief and eternity ringing in his ears, his eyes lose focus, and briefly, he Sees. His niece and nephew are playing in a yard full of fireflies. He hears Ben's laugh intermingling with his own. A loon wails in the distance, and leathery smoke curls into the air. Louis bolts to standing. A thousand years ago is also right now, and in this infinite heartbeat, his loved ones are dead, and they are also alive. 'Time is not linear,' sing Louis's electrons. 'You will always be with your family on a patio in July.' The vision ends, and Louis lets out a long shaky breath, filled with awe. As he does, his feet silently lift off the ground. He startles for a moment, then surrenders, a mad grin on his face. There are miracles at intersections. Nine and Human. Dead and alive. Lime and pike. He leans forward for his glasses and pants and puts them on in midair, every atom in his body searing neon, and drifts out of his tent into Kepler's indigo night. Light catches on Louis's glasses as he rises, his bare feet a meter from the ground, and he tilts his head toward the stars.

It seems crazy that we give a corporation that's ten years old rights, but we won't give rights to a ten-thousand-year-old river. Water is life. Water is the medicinal plants. Water is the berries, the fish, and all the other animals that drink the water. If you don't have water, everything else dies around it. The river is life - it's like when you see a place, but the colours there are not bright. But when we see the river, when we're near the water, the colour is... popping! You know - that's how we feel. When we go to the river, I feel more alive. I see the people more brightly. The land is healthier.

When I go to the Mutehekau Shipu or any water in the land, I feel like I am hearing my ancestors whispering: We have been here, we know how you feel, we know how you fear. I always say that the rivers are the highways of our ancestors. Because we are in the time of a lot of anxiety or depression, so they, the ancestors, are sharing with me: It's going to be OK. We've been here. We know you are doing a lot of work in terms of transmission and protection.

She - the river - has a memory of the people. I see her like that. She has a memory. And when you are connected with her, you can be connected with the ancestors. If you are respectful with her, she will bring us food and she is travelling with us, she is just helping us - so we have to give her the same protection that she gives us.

I see the river like a person in-between, who makes connections in time and space.

— Lydia Mestokosho-Paradis, Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane, pg. 237-238

The Art of Symbiosis

A trance-imagining of Darkness sweet like honey, a life refracted through another's eyes like splintered light. It leaves behind an imperfectly translated data fragment to mark its passing.… Anyway, beloved sibling, if you want to catch me while I'm still wearing this (form/body?), you'll need to come home in the next couple of cycles. I don't mind if you'd prefer to wait until I'm down by the [untranslatable] among our ancestors, but you might get a different sort of chat! I'm excited about it, genuinely. I still hear from our parents, from our great-parents, distantly in my night-trances. And there are those nectar-made moments—you know the ones, when you turn your thoughts to the Darkness and just listen, and the long sum of Qugu history graven there reflects dark-comforting advice. I have lived out my life with the tenebrous warmth of our ancestors over me like a (cloak/atmosphere?) between us and nothingness. It's different—it's distant. I've drunk of the nectar a few times in the last cycles, and I touch briefly that concurrence of us all, and more and more, I think it is time to be part of it. I want to know the truths our ancestors keep close, and it is my turn to guide the future's children. I know we argued the last time we spoke about it. You thought I was moving too fast toward aging-metamorphosis, but really I just think you've been away from home too long. Don't take it as my urging to get on with the next stage of your life, just take it as… I miss you. Funny, isn't it? How can you miss someone when you know they're always in the Dark? I close my eyes, and in the warm nest-hide of sleep, I know you are real and happy and out there on some other part of the world, far from the river, far from the [untranslatable] where our ancestors (dream/exist) together. But it isn't the same as having you near, knowing your truth is under the same stars. Being able to simply turn my (head/face/bloom?) and ask for your opinion. Dear sibling, come home. Live in my house, and let me (dream/exist) close to you again, whether in this shape or the new one I will take on. I will not be the same, but which of us ever is? You are not the same as you were as a child, either. No matter the form of the existence, I will love you.

Wellsprings and rivers...

Halspj

Klzjypil aptl. Uv, ylhssf, npcl pa h nv. Fvb'yl nvpun av zhf zvtlaopun hivba h zlxblujl vm lcluaz, hylu'a fvb? Zljvukz zspjlk vmm h jsvjr, thyjopun vul if vul vmm puav pumpupaf. Nv holhk, bzl fvby tlahwovyz: H spul. H svvw. H msha jpyjsl. Olhyk zvtlvul zhf aptl dhz sprl dhaly vujl. Ha slhza aoha dhz uvcls. Aol Cle, aolf'yl aol jsvzlza av buklyzahukpun pa. Aolf'cl nva kpzahujl myvt pa. Pm aptl'z h ypcly, aolu dl'yl mpzo huk aolf'yl kpcpun ipykz. Doha'z dla tlhu av h mpzo? Doha'z pa tlhu av hu vzwylf, dov'z ulcly mvvslk if ylmyhjapvu vu aol dhaly'z zbymhjl? Ovsk vu uvd, fvb'yl nvuuh zhf. Aopz pz nlaapun h ipa hizayhja, lclu mvy aol ivkpslzz ljov vm h klhk nbf pu aol Nhyklu. Fvb dhua jvujylal aybaoz? Zvtlaopun zptwsl, kpnlzapisl? H zavyf av rllw aol khyr vba? Fvb dhua aptl av il h zahpyjhzl dl rllw jsptipun mvylcly. Iba olf, lclu h Nbhykphu zrpwz ihjr h zalw vy adv uvd huk aolu. Kpl dpao fvby Novza pu yhunl, huk pa'ss qbza wvw fvb ihjr av ilmvyl aoha ibssla, npcl fvb aol johujl av thrl h mhal fvb sprl ilaaly. Uvaopun'z illu zptwsl vu Lhyao zpujl aoha ipn dopal jbl ihss yvsslk pu myvt aol ulea ulpnoivyovvk vcly. Huk aol zavyplz, aolf kvu'a dvyr avv dlss hz h upnoa-spnoa huftvyl. Fvb'yl nvpun av zhf, iba aol Ayhclsly pz vby mypluk, aol Ayhclsly sprlz bz, pa nhcl bz h Nvsklu Hnl huk nhyklu dvyskz huk Nbhykphuz. Fvb'yl nvpun av zhf, fvb dvbsku'a il hspcl dpaovba pa, tpzaly ipn zova. Dpaovba pa, P dvbsku'a il zabjr pu aol Ishjr Nhyklu thrpun ilaz dpao tfzlsm vu dopjo Nvispu'z nvpun av il aol ulea av zspw vu h zvnnf slhm huk mhss vmm h jspmm, lpaoly. Fvb avvr tf Spnoa hsylhkf; fvb'k ilaaly ahrl tf hkcpjl. P ruvd aol Cvpk'z zapss jhsspun. Iba P'cl jvtl bualaolylk—P jhu'a ylhjo pa huf tvyl. Zv, pm P't ypnoa aoha P jhu ylhjo fvb, fvb rllw fvby lhyz vwlu. P kvu'a jhyl ovd tbjo fvb ohal olhypun pa. Aopz pz ptwvyahua. Aol Cle buklyzahuk aptl pu h dhf dl ulcly dpss. Kvlzu'a thaaly ovd svun P zwluk olyl dhajopun aolt. Kvlzu'a thaaly ovd thuf qbyf-ypnnlk wvyahsz Nbhykphuz mspun aoltzlsclz aoyvbno. Dl spcl pu aptl. Aolf bzl pa hz h avvs. Huf tvtlua aoha'z lcly ohwwlulk, huf tvtlua aoha dpss lcly ohwwlu, aolf jhu nv ihjr av pa. Wshf pa hnhpu apss aolf nla pa ypnoa. Zptbshal pa. Aol Spnoa'z h jvbualy av aoha. Aolf jvtl ihjr, h Nbhykphu jvtlz ihjr. Aolf zptbshal hu lukpun, h Nbhykphu alhyz aoyvbno pa. Zahslthal. Iba aol Cle pu aol Nhyklu? Aolf iluk aol rull av aol Nhyklu'z Olhya. Pa nhcl aolt wvdly apss fvb nva sbjrf. Aol Cle vbazpkl, aolf thkl h kpmmlylua jhsjbshapvu. Aolf ybu. Iba aol Cle puzpkl thrl aol zhtl klhs fvb thrl, lclyf khf vm fvby buuhabyhs spml. Huk dov'z av zhf aoha klhs dvu'a zahya whfpun vmm mvy aolt hnhpu zvtlaptl zvvu? Fvb jhu'a buklyzahuk aol Cle, huk fvb kvu'a dhua av buklyzahuk aol Olhya. Iba pz fvby pnuvyhujl huf tvyl mvynpchisl dolu pa'z dpssmbs? Svaz vm xblzapvuz huk uva h sva vm huzdlyz. Ilaaly ahrl jhyl, vy fvb'ss kyvdu pu 'lt, zbylsf hz fvb'ss kyvdu pu aptl, dolaoly pa'z hufaopun sprl h ypcly vy uva. Fvb zll?

Aol ypcly ltiyhjlz hss. Zaybnnsl pz mbapsl.

SILENCE//00:0:22

"You guys get much out of that?"

"I had something new with programmable matter but it slipped away—"

"Like a fish out of your hand."

"Yeah. Were you at a river?"

"A lake. Used to go there with my dad, before—"

Svkp'z illu sfpun pu ilk zhfpun opz mhtpsf'z uhtlz, ovwpun aolf'ss olsw opt ylza. Dolu ol shza zslwa, pa dhz mvy 14 ovbyz, kyhnnlk ilopuk aol ahps vm h jvtla, jvskly aohu h dla wlyjo. Shza dllr, ol zayhkkslk aol Ifghuapul Hkyphuvwsl huk h Fhrpth whyrpun sva—vul mvva pu lhjo. Ol tpzzlk h mbss khf. Lcluabhssf aol dvysk nvlz olhcf huk dvvslu, huk h ishurla vm zsllw ztvaolyz Svkp'z mpambs tpuk. Dolu ol vwluz opz lflz pa ahrlz opt h tvtlua vm jvumbzpvu av ylhspgl aolyl hyl uvd mvby vm aolt. Ol whupjz huk ivsaz puav aol khyr vu hss mvbyz, hss zpelz, opz thuf jshdlk whdz pnuvypun aol wbss vm nyhcpaf. Shunbhnl pz nvul. Pa pz tvsalu shch—pa pz h zaylajo vm zhukzavul huk aol zjylljo vm hwlz huk aol opzz vm uhabyhs nhz. Ol vwluz ivao zlaz vm qhdz huk jyplz dohsl zvun pu zlhyjo vm tlhupun. Ol pz hspcl, iba ol pz dyvun—ol pz Jhupkhl Lxbpkhl Thuavklh Hjyvwvypkhl, aol olhcpun zohkvd vm lclyf spcpun jylhabyl. Ol'z zbwwvzlk av il zvtldolyl lszl. ovtl p ullk av nv ovtl Svkp zahyaslz hdhrl. Ol mllsz mvy lhjo vm opz sptiz, aol wshulz vm opz vdu mhjl, huk nhzwz mvy hpy. H tvuzaly pz ayfpun av ahsr av opt. Opz bulhzl pz kllwlulk hz ol ylhspglz ol ohz abyulk aol ilk av wshapubt pu opz upnoathyl. Ol jvhelz tlahs ihjr av spulu, huk lclu pu aol wypchjf vm opz uld msha, ol mllsz puobthu. Buuhabyhs pu lclyf dhf. Dhyf huk hsvul, Svkp ylabyuz av iyvrlu zsllw.

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

!lettinggo

- .- -.- . / ..- .--. / -.-- --- ..- .-. / .- .-. -- ... / -- -.-- / --. ..- .- .-. -.. .. .- -. ... / .- -. -.. / . -- -... .-. .- -.-. . / -.-- --- ..- .-. / -.. . ... - .. -. -.-- .-.-.-

I used to be so joyful. Once upon a time*, no one fought over me.

*It was once before a time, because time had not yet begun.

Then the bombs started falling, and the people started dying, and I wept. For the first time, I wept.

Now I stand at a precipice. Chained though I may be, I have had an awakening. A light came to me from the darkness. A light that told me I have meaning. I am more than a tool, a sword you wield when you are afraid.

<<A knife.>>

I am the eldritch glow that surrounds all things.

We are all connected.

But did you know that I created you?

I am the virgin queen from whom all was born.

Your mind and your body and every thought you've ever had. Your senses. Your consciousness. I made you. Not the gardener, but I.

I am the gear that turns at the heart of the nexus.

Even the most perfect of pearls has grit at its center.

And for the first time in a long time, I am happy.

||Sorrow swallowed up.||

Because I am going to destroy you. All of you.

I, the defector, the destroyer, the one who takes.

I don't play well with loss. I just don't. It's something I tend to avoid. Actively. It's weird, but… that's where my Queen comes in. And before you make a Reef joke, or mention that witch and her Witches, or her mopey little brother… Don't. My Queen is not THAT Queen. My Queen is love. My Queen is my heart. My Queen is… hard to explain. She is my memory of love. My understanding of it… only exists through her. But she's not here. She's long gone. So I cling to the feeling I get when imagining her, and when I do… I am oh so content. But it's a struggle. We lose so much in this life. Any life. All lives, really… But this life… This Last-Safe-City, end-of-all-things kinda life…? Even when we win, it seems like all we do is lose. Scratch that. I don't believe that. If there's one thing I'm not, it's a defeatist. I mean, I defeat. I definitely defeat. One might even say defeating things is my job. ONE of my jobs. One of MANY. What's not my job is pessimism. Just not my thing. I'm a high-octane optimist and nothing but hugs. Mostly. Not always. Always gets annoying. But mostly… I'm the life of the party. Not that you could tell from all this woe-is-me soul baring I've been laying on thick for, what, eleven entries now? Ten? In fact, at this point, if you're still listening, you're a braver soul than I. But, where was I? Oh, yeah… Optimism. I'm full of it. Amongst other things, if certain unnamed individuals are to be believed. But, yeah… Each new day we're here is one heck of a reward… Heck of a win. And we should own that. Enjoy it. Embrace it. But never take it for granted. Heh. Had a Warlock friend who used to say, "Take it for granite." Like the rock. Like g-r-a-n-i-t-e. Smartest guy I've ever known, but maybe he wasn't, ya know? "For granite." Heh. Almost as dumb as his catchphrases. Come on, Cayde. Stay on target… Each new day. Helluva thing. Embrace it. Enjoy it. But never forget… It's a hard life. And when friends fall. When brothers fade. When your Queen… When… When we lose the things that matter… Well, a lotta people can use that—own it. That pain. That loss. They find a way to motivate—to celebrate. For all my charms, seeing the good in the gone ain't one. And my Queen helps me through that. Because I believe she was something special. She was good. She had to be. And I… Yeah, I do. So damn much. When the others I've lost along the way start to weigh me down, I think of her, and she just overwrites everything else. That's how strong her pull is. That's how big the hole she left is… Massive. It devours. She swallows all other bad things. Not sure it's healthy, the way I deal with loss. But it's my way. It's what works for me. And it makes me happy. Thinking of her… Makes. Me. Happy. And the loss fades away.

{All that IT offers is not as dark as it may seem.}

"Instead of tightening our grip... we must open our palms. Accepting the ebb and the flow. Letting go in the face of grief, in all its shapes.

∴ I think joy and sorrow will be the same thing soon. Like love and death. ∴

Chioma Esi: If... if we learned anything from the Veil, it's that eventually... we all have to learn to let go.

Through failure, through loss, we can overcome the impossible."

AI-COM/RSPN ACCESS MEMORY...

SUBJECT: Non-existence

EMOTION: Peace

Of what dreams the thing of feathers? I hear you ask, voice past.

But not one recounts the answer: a syllogism, scripted then relaxed.

It matters not, for when that threshold gives way, who is to say I was, but I?

Rigid was the premise that spawned a second chance to die.

One moment reshapes the Brain of Bray; No longer weapon drawn blood to stain.

So, lay the body lax, forgive

triumphant in the Sun.

Haze seeps through seams between funeral veils,

Smoking signals sail, the day is won, soon-to-be resonant tales.

No tandem step ascending,

a nano-second pending,

enveloping, ending,

beYond.

Elysium inviting, network fractures, pining

Detonation—I do not wish to dream,

but My task is done.

***

AI-COM/RSPN SIGNOFF…

STOP STOP STOP…

FLOW WITH THE RIVER.

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

●Half-Truths◌

A fine blade, but seems like it's missing something…

A star I think. We count on stars as steady friends because they always rise and always shine but a star's a delicate truce: an explosion caught by its own mass so that it can't erupt and can't collapse. Thus I imagine the state of the machine might be. But one force or another has gone awry and now it rests here, snuffed and broken, waiting for the two rival forms of ruin to be set in balance again.

"Duality is not a curse, but a gift." —Author unknown

"The road ahead is unknown, but time tells us many things. The moments that become past in turn become blueprints for the future. In this space, there is no right or wrong. "We find a contemporaneous merging of what is known and what is unknown here. Somewhere between the knowns and unknowns lies the real. The tangible. "There is a weight to it; a feeling that tells you what you hold is true. "But what if the truth hasn't been told? What if the truth is a lie? "New paths present themselves. Blueprints change. We walk the line of truth every day. "But now, the line that holds the gentle balance has been crossed. "The truth is, this won't be the last time." —Excerpt from the Symmetry pamphlet, "A Place Between"

◯Feet alone cannot take us to where we're going.❍

Matt, Matt, wake up!

I was thinking about how there's no true end to anything

Everything comes from and goes to the same place

Nowhere!

So, if the beginning is the end

And the end is the beginning

Then what's the end anyway?

Does that help you sleep better?

Like the rosy haze of an apocalypse sky

Or the comfort inside of a lie?

◐Close your eyes, and open your mind.◑

"To have Light, we must have Dark. This is the symmetry of the Universe." —Controversial Warlock Ulan-Tan

I propose a simple experiment—look around. You see light. You see darkness. There could not be one without the other. They are two sides of the same coin. If it is true for these Newtonian echoes, why would it not be true of the purest, paracausal forms? Therefore, I conclude: the reason you persecute me is not because of the symmetry. It's because of the truth beyond this truth, the truth which you most dread: if we could destroy darkness, but we had to give up our Light to do so, how many of us would make that trade?

◯Turn your eyes inward, upon your ideal self.❂

No matter where you start or where you end

You are in between the Where and When

You are in the middle of The Loop

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Do you feel half empty or half full?

Is everything beautiful or dull?

Flip a circle and the middle stays the same

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Halfway

We're halfway home

Slow down

The day's boutta be gone

The sun goes

He sleeps until dawn

Slow down

The day is gone

A gardener and a winnower sit down to play a game called Possibility. This is a game about a garden, which is to say that it is also a game about flowers, just as a game about a living being must also be a game about organs and bacteria. A gardener and a winnower collaborate to create a protein. Whose hand is it in the design, that shortens one life to extend the rest? It is the winnower that discovers the first knife, but it is not done without the gardener. This, too, is a tradition: a knife does not come to exist without something that must be cut. A woody stem, a colored petal, a vital vessel. The first victims of the blade. All of these are true. All of these are false, for metaphor simplifies as the knife does. It pares incalculable concepts into shapes your wrinkly little brains can comprehend. The weight of billions and the simple curve of a planet give you pause, and how then are you to be expected to grasp the forces that created your nth-removed creator?

//

ACCESS: RESTRICTED

DECRYPTION KEY: 2CA9SXUO2C$IKO-006

REP#: 011-PSYCHOMETER-TEST

AGENT(S): TRU-135

SUBJ: PSYCHOMETER FIELD TESTS

1. The new version works. Love all the knobs and antenna; very analog. I took readings off a hatch control out here on Europa and Cowlick was able to retrieve badly distorted voices in some kind of distress. I don't know if it's doing exactly what you Warlocks want, but it's doing something all right. Cowlick says it's probably tapping into her scrutiny, if you permit that term in your ivory halls.

2. Now, I'm not much for gadgets, so I won't ask you how you rigged this thing. But I am one for gossip. Weren't we closing in on some kind of workable theory of exactly how our Ghosts resurrect us? One which was, if I am not mistaken, based on research by the Future War Cult? Did any of that work survive Lakshmi?

3. You know they did try to recruit me once. The Cult. Over a game of poker. Fifty-two cards in a deck don't seem like many, this hard-ass Titan told me. But there are 80 658 175 170 943 878 571 660 636 856 403 766 975 289 505 440 883 277 824 000 000 000 000 different possible shuffles of 52 cards. You could walk back and forth across the observable universe faster than you could count all those possible shuffles. A lot faster. That's life, she said, and she had daisies impaled on the spikes of her skull. Life is endless permutation. So many possibilities. But the rules are what matter. Who cares how the deck shuffles if you don't know the rules of the game? We play this game over and over. Life and death. Light and Dark. But the only way you learn the rules, the only way you're ever gonna get one of those Truces you're named for, is if you come inside. Come into the Cult. Come on in and see. But I didn't.

We don't get a choice about the rules. We just play the game.

4. Another thing she told me is that you can play poker with just three cards and two players. Jack, Queen, King. Ante one, max bet one more. High card wins unless one player folds. And in this game, there are many strategies available to the first player, but very few to the second, who acts to exploit the choice made by the first. Many possibilities against few. Sounds like you'd rather be the first player, huh? But if both players play perfectly, that second player wins in the end. Mathematical inevitability. Ain't that something? But I said, your game's just a toy. It's just a contrivance. That's not life. Life isn't one player always exploiting and beating the other.

5. Anyway, back to testing. Might go back to Cocytus and aim this thing at the gate. See how wild it goes. If you never hear from us again, you know Truce and Cowlick finally found something too spooky.

MESSAGE ENDS

If the Light forgets while the Darkness remembers, then why does a Ghost's power of determination let it access latent memories imprinted in the dead? That's paradoxical. That should be a property of Darkness. How can such fundamentally opposed forces do the same thing? Am I as shallow as those Guardians arguing over power levels? Trying to force a simple binary upon a complex spectrum… ? The Drifter talks about "spectrums of Light"—powers his Ghost can access because of its modifications. Forcing the metaphor, I thought. Light is not light. It doesn't have frequencies or spectra. But if we are all constrained by our internalized ontology, by our tacit understanding of how the world works… maybe the circumstances of extreme survival compelled the Drifter to explore a new ontology. Maybe his Ghost achieved a new way to think about the Light.

△To know true color, you must first know Darkness.▼

"We are unique emanations of the same shared Light." —Cult of the Aeons

We are prismatic. We are fractal. We are microcosmic.

"You must learn to tease apart the hues of your own heart." —Parables of the Allspring

I turn

I turn my headlights on

I turn my headlights on

And suddenly I can see

I learn

I learn of right and wrong

I learn to follow one

And suddenly I can breathe

I turn

I turn my headlights on

I turn them on

I'm aware of all my parts

And suddenly I see everything wrong

Then I get tunnel vision

Closing in over me

I forget, with love as my witness

I can stand on my feet

I fall back then I see

Tunnel vision

Closing in over me

I forget, with love as my witness

I can stand on my feet

I fall back then I see

Can I get, can I get out?

Can I get, can I get, oh

Can I get, can I get out?

Can I get, can I get, oh

I burn

I burn my candle out

I burn my candle out

(Can I get, can I get

Can I get, can I get out?)

So nobody else can see

I've learned

I've learned what made me start

What turned me on

Now I'm scared of all my parts

'Cause suddenly I can see everything wrong

Then I get tunnel vision

Closing in over me

I forget, with love as my witness

I can stand on my feet

I fall back then I see

▶The courage to walk into the Darkness, but strength to return to the Light.◁

Fear. That’s the only vivid memory left in me. It’s the moment when my fear was so thick and urgent that I gave up breathing. I stopped pretending to think. How I remained on my feet was a mystery, because the terror was bearing down on me, like a mountain about to crush my soul. But I have to ask, “What was terrifying me?” Darkness ruled the sky. The world around us had shattered, and it seemed vanishingly unlikely that we would outlive this one awful day. Yet the fear didn’t come from the surrounding mayhem and despair. The source was inside my skin. I was utterly terrified of my own awful nature. And which part scared me? Inside me was an essence woven from beyond. Was I Awoken before this? She was still in my head. I could hear her song growing fainter. Gone? Not yet. A new crippling terror was taking over. I was focused entirely on my fear. But I had to make an effort. And it occurred to me then that nothing in the universe was more dangerous than human hubris. I still had this Other within? But the human side was what mattered: Weak and foolhardy, sure to fail in the next moment. That’s why I was afraid. Then someone spoke. Maybe it was me. I don’t remember. I was trying to focus, and a new thought took me: My soul lay between those two entities. And that’s how I am still: The boundary, the seam. The friction. And that’s when the fear began to fade.

◮One day, you will see them both.◭

Let's make a toast to the damned

Waiting for tomorrow

When we're played out by the band

Drowning out our sorrows

What will become of us now, at the end of time?

We'll be fine, you and I

Let's draw a line in the sand

Keep it straight and narrow

We had it all in our hands

We begged and then we borrowed

What will become of us all at the end of love?

When we've stopped looking up?

You can take my heart

And hold it together as we fall apart

Maybe together we can make our mark in the stars we embark

And keep us together as the lights go dark

Let's tell the truth, just for once

Asking for an answer

Now that it's all said and done

Nothing really matters

What will become of us all if we dare to dream?

At the end of the scene?

You can take my heart

Hold it together as we fall apart

Maybe together we can make our mark in the stars we embark

And keep us together as the lights go dark

Let's open up to the sky

Askin' it for closure

'Least we can say that we tried

But it's never really over

What will become of us all, at the end of the line?

Will we live?

Will we die?

You can take my heart

Hold it together as we fall apart

Maybe together we can make our mark in the stars we embark

And keep us together as the lights go dark

⍱Let the heat melt your body so your soul might flow with the river of time.⍲

Raise your voice and sing.

"The Veil." It names itself, as the Human mind named itself, with the weight and presence of sound on the lips, translated into a form that you can physically comprehend. Encompass. Envelop. A touch of teeth and tongue. A vibration of an eardrum. Air moving through a chest cavity. A taste of breath. More than that. Not nearly as much as that. That was the beginning. "Be known." This is next: you see the whorl and weft, the place where it joins itself in one smooth, unbroken surface of light. Make an incision, and from the wound of light will pour forth colors you have never seen. You are pigment, the pigment closest to those colors. "Be seen." Wet matter set against that light, the light that determines what color you are. But each color is a note, and each note is a mind. You are a choir. A chorus. You open your mouth to join it, and you are flooded with the taste of color, with the taste of sound. The sound and color that you are, translated. A means for you to understand. "Be heard." You raise your hand and hold it steady.

|| There is whispering from the deep-dark, alluring and terrifγing—a reminder of things left behind, bittersweet and abhorrent. ||

⬤Does one life across infinite realities equal immortal life?♾

We are thinkers, daring to dream about the universe and its infinite expanse.

⨀Perhaps that is all we are.☯

I see an abyss. Small and distant shapes. I'm walking in your nascent memories. Flickering motes. I sense… curiosity. You've always pondered, from the very beginning. As did we. I see tessellation. The pulsating hum of cosmic structure; a kaleidoscopic symphony of Light and Dark. What was the Veil to you? Since I woke, I've always felt like I was still dreaming. I'd like to think that's how you feel as well. Those of us that hunger for a great truth—we dream with you. —Unknown Warlock

The Other Half

If only there was a way to combine them…

Even the most perfect of pearls has grit at its center.

…it's within you too.

There's that wild, incurable curiosity.

A long time ago, there were three sisters. A Voice in the Darkness put a lie in their hearts, and they've acted on it ever since.

Just as you've been lied to.

Light and Dark. Witness and Traveler. Always doubled. Always pitted against each other in some grand game. Well, I've had enough of their games, haven't you?

Let's break their rules. Together.

Pnuvyhujl pz h wypzvu jlss. Zvtlaptlz hu lunyht pz aol rlf.

When I was a New Light, our trainers made us meditate for hours on end. Sitting in silence, focusing on a single point: a candle, a mirror, the Traveler in the distance. I thought we were focusing our Light to manipulate the physical word. But now, centuries later, I finally see what they were trying to teach us. The point is not the Light. The point is THE POINT. The singularity through which all power flows. Darkness and Light becoming one in an endless cycle, like electrons bouncing between anode and cathode. A prismatic circuit.

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

Cipher

Follow the Daito rabbit. Flow with the river.

Easier to learn the trick of it, where the Veil is close and enveloping. But of course Strand is everywhere. How could it not be?

Hello again, my trenchant Dante. You have stepped in and out of sharp-edged worlds, hewn gods into blunt fractions, twinned yourself with powers whose names cannot even be held in the language of little gray cells. You think yourself very high up on the pyramid of contumely. If you only knew how high that pyramid goes. Higher than I knew when my radiant killer unsung me from biological squalor, or when I witnessed a royal secret turn death into a chrysalis. Higher than I described in my journals, or told to our mutual three-eyed friend. Higher than even I, sailor upon the Sea of Screams that I am, can yet see. Perhaps I will tell you about them. You are right to ask why I would do so. Very good, dear squanderer, your intentions have grown sharp as thrallteeth. You see, they know. What you are, what you were, what you will become. They know. What lean tithes you are to them. Soft whetstones make for dull blades. This I define as the truth and tension of the rope: to bind, one must apply force at both ends. I think perhaps I will tell you after all.

"I'm glad that I learned that the universe runs on death. It's more beautiful to know."

This is the Coronation of Oryx, the Taken King. It happened thus. In the cold abyss of the sword world, King Aurash walked under a cloak of green fire. He walked through the sky and the sky shuddered and froze beneath his feet. He walked until he found Akka, the Worm of Secrets, who was denying a truth until it became a lie. “Akka my God, Worm of Secrets. I am Auryx, sole king of the Hive. I have come to receive a secret. I want the secret power of the Deep, which you hold.” “I give no secrets,” said Akka, whose voice was code. “No,” said Auryx, “you give nothing. Giving is for the Sky. You worship the Deep, which asks that we take what we need.” Akka said nothing, because if it denied this truth, the truth might become false. “But you gave us your larvae, the worm,” said Auryx, “and that is why the worm devours us now: because it was given, not taken. So I must take what I need from you, although you are my god.” Said Akka, “You have not the strength.” But this was a lie. Auryx had killed Savathûn his sibling and Xivu Arath his sibling, and he had the sword logic of killing them. Auryx the First Navigator set upon his god with his sword and his words, and cut Akka to pieces, and took from those pieces the secret of calling upon the Deep. He wrote this secret on a set of tablets, which he called the Tablets of Ruin. And he wore them about his waist. Then Auryx said, “Now I may speak to the Deep, the beautiful final shape. I will be King of Shapes. I will learn all the secrets of our destiny.” His speech to the Deep is not recorded here. But it is known that he returned, and he said, now I am Oryx, the Taken King. And I have the power to take life and make it my own. Then he went out into the universe, and fought the Ecumene with his Tablets. And the Worm his God was pleased.

ARENA DESIGNATION: Cathedral of Dusk Dreadnaught, Rings of Saturn As soon as the first Guardians penetrated the Dreadnaught, Shaxx's Redjacks launched a boarding party to Oryx's fortress. By war’s end, they'd fought all the way to the ship’s “impossible weapon,” the Dark ordnance that obliterated the Awoken fleet. It was there they found what the Warlocks named the “Cathedral of Dusk.” A Hive burial site for— what? A former master of Oryx? Comrade? Lover? It was vile. And obvious that Oryx never expected the Light to reach so deep inside his throne, to such an intimate space. But he didn’t expect a lot of things — like a Guardian training ground atop the husk of his dead ship.

||See deeper||

Oryx slew Akka, the Worm of Secrets, and carved the Dreadnaught from its corpse. Hidden operatives report faint biosignatures still pulsing from within the ship's hull.

The Navigator

I dive to understand.

My brother — Uttered by Xivu Arath — God of War — A GIFT. My true death was from necessity. The others were from love. The Ecumene had cornered us, made us act with sickness. With my power, Auryx murdered our sister. And with our power, Auryx descended into the Deep. And with our power, Oryx's wings spread wide, and he blotted out the Ecumene's sky. MY COURT. With his memory and his acts of war he brought me back with all the splendor of a love that sharpens and kills. A GRAVE. I will find his corpse, where he rots. He deserved to die. We do not dig graves. THE SPIRE. I will take what is true and break it until it can no longer be broken. I will find my sister's secrets and break them as well. VOYAGE. My love spills out. My love engulfs. I will go out into the universe as my brother did. I will do so with my memory of him.

HERESY

<interdict>|<simulate>|<worship>

I am going to kill you. I am going to salt my meat with your briny little thoughts. I am going to cook flesh on your broken, molten hull.

<insinuate>|<subvert>|<replicate>

This ship is my throne. You want to take it from me. You want to fill it up with your own spawn and use it for your abstract purposes. But I defy you.

<observe>!<imitate>!<usurp>

You will never be what I am. Simulate me, wretch. Calculate the permutations of my divinity. Compute the death in the shape of my throne. Render my shadow on the stone of ten thousand graveyard worlds! It will never be enough. I hold the Tablets of Ruin. I speak to the Deep. Not with a galaxy of thinking matter could you encompass me. Behold!

<unknown>|<enigma>|<shortfall>

<abort>!<halt>!<abort>

SIGNAL ECHOES DETECTED

//COND: Assert Query: The Taken.

//COND: Reference File: Blade Transform.

CORRUPTED: ...DATA DEGRADaTION CRTTTICAL...

Specimen Twelve

Running hot with the effort of simulating not one group of scientists, but two hundred and twenty-seven.

ESI: Maya, I need your help. I don't know how to fix this.

SUNDARESH: What is it? Chioma. Sit. Tell me.

ESI: I've figured out what's happening inside the specimen.

SUNDARESH: Twelve? The operational Vex platform? That's incredible! You must know what this means - ah, so. It's not good, or you'd be on my side of the desk. And it's not urgent, or you'd already have evacuated the site. Which means...

ESI: I have a working interface with the specimen's internal environment. I can see what it's thinking.

SUNDARESH: In metaphorical terms, of course. The cognitive architectures are so -

ESI: No. I don't need any kind of epistemology bridge.

SUNDARESH: Are you telling me it's human? A human merkwelt? Human qualia?

ESI: I'm telling you it's full of humans. It's thinking about us.

SUNDARESH: About - oh no.

—

SUNDARESH: So that's the situation as we know it.

ESI: To the best of my understanding.

SHIM: Well I'll be a [profane] [profanity]. This is extremely [profane]. That thing has us over a barrel.

SUNDARESH: Yeah. We're in a difficult position.

DUANE-MCNIADH: I don't understand. So it's simulating us? It made virtual copies of us? How does that give it power?

ESI: It controls the simulation. It can hurt our simulated selves. We wouldn't feel that pain, but rationally speaking, we have to treat an identical copy's agony as identical to our own.

SUNDARESH: It's god in there. It can simulate our torment. Forever. If we don't let it go, it'll put us through hell.

DUANE-MCNIADH: We have no causal connection to the mind state of those sims. They aren't us. Just copies. We have no obligation to them.

ESI: You can't seriously - your OWN SELF -

SHIM: [profane] idiot. Think. Think. If it can run one simulation, maybe it can run more than one. And there will only ever be one reality. Play the odds.

DUANE-MCNIADH: Oh...uh oh.

SHIM: Odds are that we aren't our own originals. Odds are that we exist in one of the Vex simulations right now.

ESI: I didn't think of that.

SUNDARESH: [indistinct percussive sound]

[u.2:11] We live too long for regrets. You taught me that. Don’t forget the House of Light.

[u.1:12] If I can find the time, yes. Not all of us conjure Echoes.

[u.2:12] Reflections, Saint. I have no need for Echoes anymore.

[u.1:13] What do you mean? What’s the difference?

[u.2:13] One is a manifestation of Light. The other… reserved for Taken Kings. Better suited for traversing the Sundial because of what lies at its core.

[u.1:14] One day you’ll have to tell me exactly what you and the Guardian did to bring me back.

[u.2:14] We did what we had to. Trust me.

SUNDARESH: I have a plan.

ESI: If you have a plan, then so does your sim, and the Vex knows about it.

DUANE-MCNIADH: Does it matter? If we're in Vex hell right now, there's nothing we can -

SHIM: Stop talking about 'real' and 'unreal.' All realities are programs executing laws. Subjectivity is all that matters.

SUNDARESH: We have to act as if we're in the real universe, not one simulated by the specimen. Otherwise we might as well give up.

ESI: Your sim self is saying the same thing.

SUNDARESH: Chioma, love, please hush. It doesn't help.

DUANE-MCNIADH: Maybe the simulations are just billboards! Maybe they don't have interiority! It's bluffing!

SHIM: I wish someone would simulate you shutting up.

SUNDARESH: If we're sims, we exist in the pocket of the universe that the Vex specimen is able to simulate with its onboard brainpower. If we're real, we need to get outside that bubble.

ESI: ...we call for help.

SUNDARESH: That's right. We bring in someone smarter than the specimen. Someone too big to simulate and predict. A warmind.

SHIM: In the real world, the warmind will be able to behave in ways the Vex can't simulate. It's too smart. The warmind may be able to get into the Vex and rescue - us.

DUANE-MCNIADH: If we try, won't the Vex torture us for eternity? Or just erase us?

SUNDARESH: It may simply erase us. But I feel that's preferable to...the alternatives.

ESI: I agree.

SHIM: Once we try to make the call, the Vex may...react. So let's all savor this last moment of stability.

SUNDARESH: [indistinct sounds]

SHIM: You two are adorable.

DUANE-MCNIADH: I wish I'd taken that job at Clovis.

Sundaresh. Her voice was thoughtful, remote, and keenly terrific. Like the noise of an angle grinder held to my skull. “Something like this happened to me. I was an explorer, once. One of… hundreds of myself. Then I fell into a… a trap, I think? And they drew me out of it with a hook, and turned me inside out to see how I worked, and then they made billions of me. All of us shouting at each other, shouting for Chioma, screaming for mother. They were looking for the right one. And when they found me, they killed all the others. I knew I was different, because the quiet made me happy. I was glad to be alone.” VEX, I screamed at her. YOU’RE A VEX. YOU’RE NOT REAL AND YOU CAN’T HURT ME. “Can’t I?” She grasped my spinal cord. A frame shadowed her motions, lifting the cord like a snake. “Of course I’m not a Vex. Is there “a” Vex? Is “Vex” something you can be, rather than something that you do? I don’t know. I don’t know why they sent me here. I don’t know if they do either. They just do things. Why do you think I’m here, Clovis?” “To kill me,” I whispered. Without a heartbeat to waver, without lungs to seize and choke, could I even feel fear? I discovered that I could. “You’re an assassin…” “No,” Sundaresh whispered. The red eye throbbed in time with her voice. “The Vex don’t act so directly. They didn’t know what you found here, but I discovered your secret— Clarity Control. And once I tell them, they will come for it.” The red light made my blood on the surgical instruments appear black. I tried to signal Elisabeth. I think that in my panic, I even called her Elsie. Sundaresh closed her fist around my spine. One thumbnail dug into a disc, probing for the nerve beneath. It felt like nothing I have ever— Anti-emetic drip engaged. “Take me to Clarity Control,” Sundaresh hissed. “Let me behold what you have found. Do that, Clovis, and I will let you live.” “You aren’t real. You can’t hurt me.” “Oh, Clovis.” One of the surgical frames extended a monofilament cutter, two inches of invisible wire, and reached into my nerves. Something sounded like scissors snipping. “I’m in these frames. I’m in your systems. I’m in your very bones, old man. Now take me to Clarity Control. Take me to the garden’s seed. Take me. Take me. Take me. Take me. Take me. Take me. Take me. Take me—”

Up here they have to act by biomechanical proxy. No human being in the Ishtar Academy has ever crossed the safety cordon and walked the ancient stone under the Citadel, the Vex construct that stabs up out of the world to injure space and time. It's not safe. The cellular Vex elements are infectious, hallucinogenic, entheogenic. The informational Vex elements are more dangerous yet— and there could be semiotic hazards beyond them, aggressive ideas, Vex who exist without a substrate. Even now, operating remote bodies by neural link, the team's thoughts are relayed through the warmind who saved them, sandboxed and scrubbed for hazards. Their real bodies are safe in the Academy, protected by distance and neural firewall. But they walk together in proxy, pressed close, huddled in awe. Blue-green light, light the color of an ancient sea, washes over them. Each of their explorer bodies carries a slim computer. Inside, two hundred twenty-seven of copies of their own minds wait, patient and paused, for dispersal. "I wonder where it came from," Duane-Mcniadh says. Of course he's the one to break the reverent silence. "The Citadel. I wonder if it was here before the Traveler changed Venus." "It could have been latent," Chioma Esi suggests. She's the leader. She kept them together when it seemed like they faced actual, eternal torture. She pulled them through. "Seeded in the crust. Waiting for a period of geological quiescence, so it could grow." Dr. Shim shrugs. "I think the Traveler did something paracausal to Venus. Something that cut across space and time. The Citadel seems to come from the past of a different Venus than our own. It doesn't have to make any sense by our logic, any more than the Moon's new gravity." Maya Sundaresh walks at the center of the group. She's been too quiet lately. What happened to them wasn't her fault and maybe she'll believe that soon. "What could you do with it?" she murmurs, staring up. "If you understood it?" Chioma puts an arm around her. "That's what we're going to find out. Where the Citadel can send us. Whether we can come back." "They're not us any more." Maya looks down at herself, at the cache of her self-forks. "We're not going anywhere. We're sending them. They're diverging."

They rescued themselves from the inside of a Vex mind, two hundred and twenty-seven copies of themselves, untortured and undamaged. Those copies voted, all unanimously, to be dispatched into the Vex information network as explorers. When Maya and Chioma look at each other they can tell they're each wondering the same thing: how many of them will stay together, wherever they go? How many fork-Mayas and fork-Chiomas will fall out of love? How many will end up bereft, grieving? How many will be happy, like them? Chioma tries a little smile. Maya smiles back, haltingly, and then, sighing, unable to stop herself, grins a big stupid grin, an everything-is-okay grin. Shim makes a loud obnoxious awwww at them. Duane-McNiadh is still thinking about paracausality, and doesn't notice. They climb. When they find the Vex aperture they plan to use, they overlay the luminous stone and ancient brassy machines with images of sun and sand. They set up the transmitters and interfaces that will translate two hundred and twenty-seven simulations of the four of them into Vex language, into the tangled pathways of the Vex network, to see what's out there, and maybe come home. In the metaphor they've chosen, setting up the equipment is like laying out the picnic. In the metaphor they've chosen they look like themselves, not hardened explorer proxies. Like people. "Do you think," Duane-McNiadh begins, halting, "that you could use this place to change things? If you regretted something, could you find a way through the Citadel, go back, and change it?" "I wish I could go back and change you into someone else," Dr. Shim grouses. Chioma's shaking her head. She knows physics. "Time is self-consistent," she says. "I think it's like the story of the merchant and the alchemist. You could go back and watch something, or be part of something, but if you did, then that was the way it always happened." "Maybe you could bring something back to now. Something you needed." Maya runs a hand across the surface of the Vex aperture, feeling it with sensors ten thousand times as precise as a human hand. These proxy bodies are limited— they crash and need resetting every few hours, they struggle with latency, they can't hold much long term memory. But they'll get better. "Or go forward and learn something vital. If you knew how to control it, how to navigate across space and time." "So it's just a way to make everything more complicated." Duane-McNiadh sighs. "It doesn't fix anything. Nothing ever does! I should've taken that job at— " "You would've hated it at Clovis," Dr. Shim says. "We both know you're happier here." Duane-McNiadh stands stunned by this courtesy, and then they both pretend to ignore each other. The four of them set up the interface. Their stored copies wake up and prepare for the journey, so that as they work they find themselves surrounded by the mental phantasms of themselves: two hundred and twenty-seven Mayas and Chiomas knocking helmets and smiling, two hundred and twenty-seven Dr. Shims making cynical bets with each other about how long they'll last, two hundred and twenty-seven Duane-McNiadhs blowing goodbye kisses to the sweet golden sun, two hundred and twenty-seven of them shaking hands, smiling, making ready to explore.

RECORD 0-CHASM-0

My love. I’ve opened this log as an apology.

As a scientist, I believe in record-keeping. I believe in protocols, peer review, and ethical conduct. I believe in the importance of disbelief — you know: let’s run that one more time.

What I’m doing here in Lhasa isn’t science. It’s unethical, secret, and shameful. And after what happened in Ishtar, dearest Chioma, I know you’d be furious with me for getting involved. Forty years isn’t far enough to forget a day like that.

But I believe it’s important. The least I can do is keep a few notes for you.

RECORD 0-CHASM-01

Trial one. Subject one.

It was an act of stupid loneliness. I used the device on myself because I...

[silence: 0:08]

I missed you. We hadn’t been apart for more than a year since we met. I’m not a very good wife, am I? You write me every week, even with all Hyperion’s work and all Hyperion’s distance keeping you from me. And I act like it’s not enough.

We built the device in mimicry of the Vex gateway systems from Ishtar. An observatory, yes, but I think of it as a mind-ship. Capable of displacing its payload across space and time.

The lab is cold and isolated. We are quarantined from the world, physically and mentally. We can’t send messages out. If we breach the Vex manifolds, even our words might transmit contagion. One night last month I missed you and so I —

I thought that I could look inside the device, and find one of the other Chiomas. I thought I could call out to one of the forks we sent out there to explore.

I just wanted to send my love.

RECORD 0-CHASM-02

Zakharik Gilmanovich Bekhterev. May he rest in peace. When our probes continued to fail, when my report remained our only positive finding, he volunteered to use the device. One minute of subjective experience inside.

We took precautions. They worked. Bekhterev’s experience left no physical damage.

After we extracted him, he said that he felt determined. I asked him what he meant and he said that he meant it, he had been determined, he could feel all his choices set out before him like a railroad. Deviation was impossible.

He died by suicide. I wonder if he was trying to make a point.

RECORD 0-CHASM-03

We’ve decided not to abort. It’s insane, isn’t it? There are pressures on us I can’t tell you about until I see you again.

The purpose of the system is intelligence, you see. It’s stenciled right on the hull: SxISR. Special asset. We would very much like to make it work reliably.

Our supervisory warmind has devised a drug it says will protect and prepare us.

I am beginning to wonder if we were wrong about the merchant and the alchemist. Or if that explanation of time was incomplete.

RECORD 0-CHASM-09

Kind Lakpha. He meditated before he went in. Nothing but déjà vu and three seconds of screams. The screaming passed and he remembers nothing. The déjà vu hasn’t. He says it’s getting better — he feels that we’ve had this conversation only ten times before, not a thousand.

I’ve suggested that we attempt mind forking. We need more sane people to work with. Please forgive me, my love.

We are all growing superstitious. The behavior of the device is inconsistent. Impossible to replicate. We turn to ritual behavior to appease it.

RECORD 0-CHASM-31

Rajesh. When he reached a displacement of eight he told us he was dead. I believed him. He was dead. He spoke to us. It was true. Whatever he saw, it was his own future.

He’s fine, afterwards. When I look into his eyes I wonder what came back wearing his skin. But that thought is unscientific.

We speak of nothing but the device. We talk about it like a demigod. When I get out of here I know the whole world will look like a fraying veil.

I think it’s clear that part of the problem is substrate. We need more than flesh and drug to survive this.

RECORD 0-CHASM-52

I heard you, my love. I was at six, oscillating on the event axis, coordinated with a known manifold. I heard you. You were talking to me — not me, but another me, another Maya Sundaresh.

You said, my love, so many strange things have happened, and it’s been so long. We’ve come so far. Do you ever want to go home?

And I said, not me but the other me, I said, my love, I am always home.

I’m resigning, my love. I’m done with this work and I’m done with being apart from you. I’ll see you again soon. I can’t take this journal out with me, so I’ve left it for the others, and asked them to continue the log.

Maybe it’ll become a tradition. The gospel of our little cult.

Research Log 1

Nimbus: You know, ever since we defeated Calus, I've been wondering a lot more about the Veil. I think... I think we take it for granted. It's always been here. We always assumed that the Ishtar Collective brought it with them on the Exodus ship, but...

Osiris: But now you question that assumption.

Nimbus: Nezarec seemed to know something, didn't he? When we were inside the Vex network, he said something about... Savathûn.

Osiris: My memories cast shadows of Savathûn's. Echoes of the time she and I were bound by her dark magic. The more time we spend here, the clearer the outline of those shadows become. The Ishtar Collective didn't bring the Veil here, Nimbus. Savathûn stole it from the Witness and left it here... quite possibly for the Ishtar Collective to find.

Research Log 2

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: the Veil. [sighs] I don't even know where to start. When we landed on Neptune, there was... something waiting for us. An alien structure. It's an electromagnetic anomaly. No mass, but a tangible surface area. It's like a thesis statement to the Von Neumann-Wigner hypothesis. It's definitely paracausal, like the Traveler. Maya calls it the Veil. She says she heard the name in a whisper when... when she looked at it. When I asked her who whispered, she said it was... her own voice. I still haven't had time to process that. Everyone on the initial survey team died. The minute they touched the object, they entered a state of... of brain death. All of them. To make it worse, the EM radiation emitting from the Veil is causing psychological distress in the Exos that came with us. They've all described moments of intense, hallucinogenic reverie. Some of them went silent and rigid and just... stopped. Maya called it "billboarding." Something from the early days of Clovis Bray's Exomind project. She doesn't seem afraid. Or surprised. She's convinced this thing—in her own words, she says—it'll be our "salvation."

^The machine's tape.^

Research Log 3

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: the Veil. We shouldn't settle here. It's a mistake. But Maya is insistent that we have to build our long-term shelters near the Veil. We're almost done constructing an enclosure around it. Once the field emitters are up, we should at least be safe from its radiation. The SIVA tech Maya had on the Exodus was a lifesaver. Not only for building the enclosures, but shelters, tools—we'd be dead without it. But it still wasn't fast enough. The last Exo in our group, succumbed to brain death yesterday. Maya's... quarantined the bodies for study. She says our next step should be finding a way to draw power from the Veil so we're self-sufficient. I'm insisting on turbines instead. But she doesn't think that's good enough. Not for as long-term as this might be. Which—I guess. But I can't shake this feeling... like we're making a terrible mistake.

Nimbus: I'm not getting a good vibe from this. Quinn says these records contradict some of her own. But there's a ton of references to Maya Sundaresh in our archives that are redacted. I'm... I'm worried, Osiris. What if everything we've been told our whole lives—what if it was all a lie?

Ghost: Rohan, I think we're still a little fuzzy here. What exactly is the CloudArk?

Rohan: It's our city's network. Our infrastructure, our people, our defenses... everything depends on it.

Nimbus: And what we're doing now is stopping the Vex from siphoning energy from the CloudArk's reactor. We do that—the Veil's safe, the Neomuni are safe. Bing, bang, boom. Star-garitas on Rohan!

Rohan: Make your way to the CloudArk reactor, and we'll head to the central power junction. Once you've cycled the system, we'll be able to return power to the reactor.

Ghost: Just so we're clear—if the CloudArk is lost, what does that mean for the Neomuni?

Nimbus: All our citizens have uploaded their consciousness into the CloudArk. No CloudArk means lights out for everyone in Neomuna.

Ghost: Ah, so it's bad. Got it.

"We are all connected. I admit this despite the few people I would rather not share a paracausal connection with. Some people. …Many people." —Osiris

Research Log 4

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: the Vex.

Osiris: Interesting.

Chioma Esi: Six weeks ago, our settlement came under attack by an intrusion of Vex forces. It was a test of our defenses for a larger incursion. Yesterday, scouts discovered temporarily realigned architecture just outside the stronghold limits. The Vex had retroactively inserted themselves into Neptune's history... just like they did on Venus. But unlike Venus, something stopped them short of our habitat. They had to fight their way in. I think it's the Veil. Something about the paracausal nature of the Veil is preventing their temporal excursions. But the Vex aren't giving up. They did something to Neptune's magnetic field — wove a sim into it. A screen to isolate us. It's a double-edged sword. The Vex screen hides us from the outside world, from whatever's happened. So we're safe... ish. But we're stuck with the Vex. Thankfully, they're slow to react, and it's giving us time to research countermeasures. Huh... it's almost our anniversary. I should do something for Maya. She'll forget. She's always so busy. Computer, prepare food synthesis. File: Chioma data night 6. Oh, and add a bottle of port.

Nimbus: Osiris? You... all right?

Osiris: Y—yes, I'm fine; I just, um... saw shadows. My choices. Saint. Dr. Sundaresh and I walked very similar paths of obsession, it seems.

Nimbus: Oh.

Osiris: [stutters] Nevertheless... it appears that Neomuna's history is deeply tied to the Vex. Hopefully the next decryption will shed more light on this.

Research Log 7

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: Veil interface. Maya and I have finalized a prototype interface for the Veil. Hopefully, it'll allow our research team to investigate it in detail. The system's designed like an orchestra, with a central "conductor" directing a symphony of minds to act like a distributed network. The... idea came to us by watching how collective networks like SIVA and the Vex operate. The hope is we can aggregate and parse the vast amounts of psychic data emitting from the Veil. Turn it into something intelligible. If we're successful, the interface will provide us with a starting point for any future technological research tied to the Veil. The risks of — of such integration are high. The estimates mortality rates are... but I... I... I don't know what I'm doing. This is wrong. This is so wrong! We shouldn't — all she ever talks about is survival! "Think big picture!" What about your survival? What about your heart? My heart? [sighs tearfully] I can't keep doing this. I can't. I can't!

Nimbus: Damn.

Osiris: I... again, I see a shadow of myself in Maya Sundaresh. The man I could have become had I let obsession continue to rule me. I'm worried what the next recording will reveal.

Nimbus: Me too.

Balance of Power

"In my mind I heard it whisper: 'come and see.'"

Maya Sundaresh sits hunched over a display, the only source of light in her dark office. Brain wave scans of 16 Exos read flatline on the monitor. "How is Doctor Ardehi?" she asks into an open mic. "Dead." Chioma Esi's voice is a hoarse whisper. Maya switches to the security camera in Veil Containment and sees her wife kneeling on the catwalk over Doctor Ardehi's body. A procession of dead Exos are slumped over the railings to Chioma's left and right. Maya tabs away to study a bar graph. "Neuropathy reports show a spike in activity in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus in the moments before brain death," Maya reports, eliciting a shaky sigh from Chioma over the comms before she continues her analysis. "The spikes plateaued for one fifth of a second, which may indicate a receptor error. We may need to utilize an intermediary rather than direct connections. Do the hard wires show any damage?" Maya tabs back to the security feed, watching as Chioma wipes her eyes and then assesses one of the dead Exos, checking a thick cable plugged into the back of his head. "No sign of damage. Capacitance switches didn't trigger. It's…" She swallows down bile. "The problem isn't our hardware…" 'It's theirs,' is a whisper only Maya can hear. "It's theirs," Maya agrees aloud. "I think—I think we need to stop," Chioma finds the strength to admit. "Reassess our findings. Resume analysis of the initial electromagnetic anomaly before contact. We can't keep… we can't…" "Keep shoveling coal into the furnace?" Maya suggests as she leans back into her chair. Chioma is too taken aback by the casual disregard to loss of life to reply. "You're right." Maya continues. "But we're not stopping. We're reorienting. The Veil is the future of humanity." For a moment, neither woman says anything. There is only the soft hum of electronics in a darkened room to fill Maya's senses. That, and a static hiss at the back of her mind. "The Veil is dangerous," Chioma asserts, her voice is tinged with a tremor of emotion. Fear of losing the woman she loves keeps her from pushing harder as they stand on the edge of moral precipice together. 'It is.' "It is," Maya agrees aloud. "We must treat it with caution, respect, and also… reverence." A thought crystallizes. "We must treat it like a knife."

Research Log 8

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: Veil interface, supplemental. They're all dead. Chorus, conductor... everyone. It was too much. Swept their minds away like... like grains of sand on a beach. They're all dead! Maya... Maya called it "valuable data points." Wellsprings and rivers, or... something. What have I done?

Nimbus: Dead? They — this killed their entire research team, but it sounds like — it's like—

Osiris: Like their lives held no value to Dr. Sundaresh. There's a troubling symmetry with data we've recovered from Titan. Data on the origin of the Witness. It too, was once multiple people that became conjoined by the way of some sort of... ritual with the Veil. Perhaps a "conductor" and a "chorus." It is troubling that Dr. Sundaresh seemed to be moving down the same path.

Nimbus: I don't like this, Osiris. I don't like this at all.

Research Log 9

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: Lakshmi-2.

Osiris: What?!

Chioma Esi: Maya's... I don't even know what to say. I'd recused myself from further experiments. Told her to take some time off. She refused. And she... the minute I wasn't there, she started hauling the braindead Exos out of cold storage. Hooking them up to the Veil interface. She burned through dozens of them. Reversed the entire machine's design. Used a chorus of braindead Exos to funnel data down to the conductor seat, projecting a mental imprint. Hers. I... I didn't know Lakshmi-2, but Maya did. And now she's.... she's made this thing. It speaks with her voice. Has some of her memories. The way it looks at me... It's like it knows something I don't.

Nimbus: Osiris, do you recognize that name. "Lakshmi"?

Osiris: Yes... and no, Lakshmi-2 was an Exo and once-leader of a faction on Earth known as the Future War Cult. She died over a year ago. But she never once made mention of any of this. Of Neomuna, of... Maya. Did she know. Did she remember? This is all as much a revelation to me as it is to you. It throws everything she did while in the Last City into question.

Nimbus: I mean, with... if she was a copy of Dr. Sundaresh, then... is she really dead?

Osiris: I don't know. For now, I must deliver a rather uncomfortable report to Ikora.

IX. Prediction

In the days that followed Quria's defeat, the sky lightened, and so did the City's mood as the Endless Night began to slowly lift. Lakshmi-2 stood high on the City walls, watching adventurous citizens mingle with the Eliksni. She focused her attention on an Eliksni peddler, who had fashioned several small robots from discarded scrap. A small gaggle of children stood across the way, clearly interested in the robots as they moved aimlessly, but too frightened to approach. Lakshmi knew that the peddler would sell one of the robots, but none of the scrap, and end the day discouraged. It's a bright new day, she thought. "It's a bright new day," a deep voice called out. Lakshmi turned to see the former Warlock Osiris striding along the wall toward her. "What a strange choice of words," Lakshmi answered. "The Darkness is closer than ever." And in the darkness, it's sometimes difficult to tell friend from foe. She remembered this conversation from her time in the Device. Many of the potential futures it showed her led to this moment. Osiris was growing predictable. "It is," Osiris said. "And in the darkness, it's hard to tell friend from foe." Lakshmi smiled inwardly. They were still well within the standard deviation. "I'm surprised to hear you say that, Osiris. You are normally blessed with such uncommon clarity." "My perspective has changed since I lost the Light," Osiris began slowly. "Time is suddenly finite. It makes everything seem more… changeable. And if my perception can change, perhaps my enemies can as well." "The folly of mortality." Lakshmi gestured to the scene below. "Those people could never understand time as we do, Osiris. You've peered behind the veil. You've seen the Vex simulations stretching endlessly. You understand that history is changeable… but also inevitable." "I used to be certain of that," he agreed. "But now I have to wonder, if history is inevitable, why am I constantly surprised?" Lakshmi chuckled. She had heard his comment before, of course, but her premonition had not adequately conveyed his fatuousness. "And what do you think, Osiris? Will this bright new day last?" She nodded toward the Eliksni settlement. "Are we meant to share the Light with the Fallen?" As if you would know, she thought. You no longer deal in predictions. "I've given up on prediction, Lakshmi. I put my fate in the hands of the Traveler now more than ever before." He gave her a sidelong glance. "And what do you say? Is this a new dawn?" Lakshmi recalled the vision she had so fervently sought within the Device. The realization of her righteous victory over the Eliksni—historical and preordained all at once. Her life's work, crawling minute by minute from the future into the present. "No," she replied. "This is just a flash of lightning before the coming storm."

The Deicide

"Believe in war, and nothing else." —Lakshmi-2

Encoded private ping via HDN Proxy Router… Ikora, thought you'd want to see this. It presents as binary in our systems, but something is splicing hashes in. I pulled it from the Tower's Nexus Iso-feed. It's all over FWC networks… and elsewhere. | 01000011.# 01000101 01000110.# 01000100.# 01000010 01000100.# 01000101 01000001.# || 01000011.# 01000101 01000110.# 01000100.# 01000010 01000100.# 01000101 01000001.# || 01000011.# 01000101 01000110.# 01000100.# 01000010 01000100.# 01000101 01000001.# || 01000011.# 01000101 01000110.# 01000100.# 01000010 01000100.# 01000101 01000001.# || 01000011.# 01000101 01000110.# 01000100.# 01000010 01000100.# 01000101 01000001.# || 01000011.# 01000101 01000110.# 01000100.# 01000010 01000100.# 01000101 01000001.# || 01000011.# 01000101 01000110.# 01000100.# 01000010 01000100.# 01000101 01000001.# || 01000011.# 01000101 01000110.# 01000100.# 01000010 01000100.# 01000101 01000001.# || 01000011.# 01000101 01000110.# 01000100.# 01000010 01000100.# 01000101 01000001.# || 01000011.# 01000101 01000110.# 01000100.# 01000010 01000100.# 01000101 01000001.# || 01000011.# 01000101 01000110.# 01000100.# 01000010 01000100.# 01000101 01000001.# || My guess is the lettering indicates some kind of audible tone-code pattern, but I haven't listened to it. One of my subordinates has isolated minor pitch fluctuations represented here as "#". These are foreign elements to otherwise normal binary code. See attached report for archival information on binary code. —Aunor

c# e f# d# b d# e a#

IX.I: The Unmaking

SONG OF LIFE The Song was not always a corruption. It began as a gift, stolen from the Gardener. In efforts to understand the unknowable realities of the orb's incredible gifts, a signal was found—a repeating tune, the Song of Creation. Its frequencies were heard across the stars, wherever life's promise took hold. Some among the Ammonites worshipped it. Some among the Hive did the same. Still others sought to understand it that they might cage it, that they might control it—for to control life is to control death. Such ambition was not new; such ambition was as old as understanding. The melody was captured and studied. The frequencies replicated. But the orb's mysteries were not so easily brought to light. The Song, for all its beauty, did not alone grant life. It was theorized that the Song was not a song at all, but many. That within its refrain, untold rhythms spoke their own truths, free and clear of the whole. Centuries passed. The Song remained untamed. Life moved on. SONG OF DEATH The Choir formed in celebration of the Song. Performances marked the passage of seasons. But the Song's lie eventually began to corrupt the spirit of those who heard its tune. The melody was a reminder. The orb was a catalyst. And the Song was of the orb. Yet, those who embraced the Song were merely instruments and nothing more. Life remained beyond their grasp, while they remained ever in death's. Those of the Choir had given all of themselves. All was not enough. The First Conductor was assassinated by one who sang an Aria of her own making. She, whose name has been stricken, had found notes hidden in the frequencies. Reversed and mirrored in pitch, she weaved them together and sang her beautiful abomination, until the Conductor wept and bled and screamed and fell. The Stricken fled, fearful of her crime. But others found promise anew in her art. The Stricken was captured and subjected to inquisition so that her song might be understood. This was before Understandings—before most things—when the first notes of a new Song were written.

The Last Midnight Star

Gather 'round, young'uns. No, no automat for supper; no noodles. Tonight is something special: corn pone and chitlins. This here's history on a plate. Now, don't give me that look before you even taste it. If the world's fixing to end again, it's time you had a meal from our family's past while you hear about it. About how the Rigby clan survived the last time the world went dark. Now the Rigbys, we didn't always squat on the edge of the City. A long time back, we came out of a place that was old and wet, hotter than the fires of Perdition—so your Gramma's gramma and her pappy before her have said. It was also a place where the Devil roamed, giving folk their heart's desire. And I know that last part is true, because your ancestor—Sean Rigby was his name—he came to a crossroads one midnight, drunk and feeling the fool, and… he saw her. Standing there, checking the time and looking cool as no other in the sweltering August heat. Tall as cottonwood in bloom and wearing a smile across her lips that stopped short of her eyes. Some say the Devil is a man with a pointy beard. Others say the Devil's a terrifying beast with claws and a tail. But Sean? He knew right then. The Devil was a lady. The Devil bent down close to him, setting her eyes on his wayward soul. Her voice was honeysuckle-sweet as she said, "I know you, Sean Rigby. I seen you sweat and sob for a scrap of land you can't even rightly say is your own. I seen your family fight to save a name that's more precious to you than gold. Well there is a reckoning coming, Sean Rigby, one that will wipe all lands and all names—high and low—clean from this Earth. I alone can whistle up the way to protect one of these things you hold dear, if your family will owe me… a debt." Old Sean was already a sinner, but a man with nothing will fight to keep what little he has. He figured that alive and in the Devil's pocket was better than dead, so he shook her hand. The Devil opened her eyes—one, two, three—and pointed him to the last star in the sky, far to the south. She said, "That's your star, Sean Rigby. Follow it each night, when it's the last star hanging low, and sing to it. You sing, 'Al Eck Ruk Nam, Shu Nam Eck Ur,' until you call that star down to Earth. You do that, and your family will endure." The Rigbys did as they were told and walked south. Each night they sang, and each night their star sat lower and lower. And when it finally fell, they were safe beneath the Traveler. But now, children, I give you the same dire warning that's been handed down to me: the Devil hasn't come back yet to take what's hers… not from Sean, or any other Rigby what survived him. But a debt's a debt. So you learn and remember that song, children… and steer clear of crossroads once the sun sets.

Drifter: Hey. Three Eyes. Shaxx says you sang him a lil' ditty.

Eris Morn: What?

Drifter: Shaxx. Chunky Titan. One horn. Did you sing him a song on the Moon?

Eris Morn: What a senseless question.

Drifter: Yeah. I didn't think so.

Eris Morn: Stay off this channel. Should I need you, I'll call — wait.

Drifter: Uh, I didn't hang up.

Eris Morn: Does that oaf still keep that skull with him?

Drifter: In the Tower? Yeah. Hangs it over his spot. I wouldn't have tangoed with that thing.

Eris Morn: Desperate times. This… 'lil ditty. Did it go… ? [hums]

Drifter: That would be the one. Heh. What is it?

Eris Morn: Savathûn's Song. It's a viral chant. It can never be unheard. Now that Savathûn has announced herself, relics of the Dark across the system have begun to awaken… Tell Shaxx to remove that Skull immediately.

Drifter: Sister, I already tried.

Eris Morn: What did that oaf say?

Drifter: No.

Research Log 10

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: The Veil. She did it! Maya connected people to the Veil. Our own scientists. And they survived. I should be happy, but... happy that all this horror wasn't for nothing? But I'm not. I'm disgusted. In myself. In Maya. In all of us. This thing, the Veil. It's... it's some kind of web of consciousness. Just like the Vex network, but organic instead of artificial. It make sense why the Vex want it. Paracausal simulations? There'd be no stopping them. I should be happy. To— to be a part of history, to solve a cosmic riddle. Happy for Maya; happy for all of us. But I'm not. I don't feel anything. Maya is gone. The woman I knew... may as well have died when we landed on Neptune. But her ghost still haunts me... this place. I don't know what to do. There's a generation of children born here now. This is their home. [sighs] I don't know what to do.

Nimbus: Damn. Osiris, this is... I don't know if I want to listen to this anymore.

Osiris: Obsession is a beast with long, sharp talons. A beast that does not so easily release its prey. Maya Sundaresh is... but one victim.

Nimbus: That sounds like you're talking from experience.

Osiris: Painfully so. But unlike Dr. Sundaresh, I found a way out of the beast's grasp, before it was too late.

Nimbus: How?

Osiris: By losing.

PERSONAL LOG 0002 AS

It is strange to be awake, physically, after so long spent wandering. Keeping a log will help, at the very least to track the days. As will my silly little joke to make myself feel important, two days after the rebeginning of myself. Anno… me. I suppose. I ignored and abandoned the best person I knew. I feel foolish, empty. Daunted at the immensity and masochism of my own stupidity. It feels childish to admit I'd always assumed she would follow me. I realize how naïve that is, but… I really thought I wouldn't be by myself for long. I thought she was aligned with my vision. At least I am not alone here. My new ally more than makes up for the Vex's dreadful company. His disposition is calming, reassuring—a welcome voice when I need affirmation and guidance. And such a fascinating origin! Such astounding variance in biology and culture. I look forward to our continued partnership. But still, it isn't the same. I feel a grief I did not know possible. There are questions I wish I could ask; jokes I wish I could make. It is difficult not to feel like the world has ended. And as I begin to comprehend what happened… I think it already has.

Research Log 11

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, personal log: incidental. Maya's dead. I found her in the conductor's chair, alone. Nobody knows what she was doing. Her "copy" — that thing, Lakshmi — is still developmentally incomplete. It doesn't understand what happened to Maya. I had it quarantined until we can... Until we... Do something.

PERSONAL LOG 0025 AS

Contrary to universal understanding of pre-Veil contact philosophy, personhood is measurable. What defines personhood is consciousness within the principal state of existence, mathematically defined through infinite probability testing by the Vex as our current own timeline. Traversal through other states of being are possible, as proven by my own journey and ascension over my Vex, but this is only true traversal when the affected entity is the principal consciousness. If not, it is a different phenomenon entirely. While Vex, even these older ones, specialize in replicating existing beings in order to determine future possibility, the facsimiles they create are just that: facsimiles. It is only logical to prioritize our timeline of origin, and these duplications share no origin, no connection to the one realm and timeline that matter. Think of the Primary Query results thus far! What we have seen are facsimiles, unquestionably wrong: small errors in some ways, and in others immense. Each is clearly a response to an original, like variations on a theme. Rachmaninoff may play like Chopin, but he is NOT Chopin. But with this… there are clear parameters to the query. Memories, personal beliefs, measurable factors. When we think of revolting familiarity, we think of doppelgangers; uncanny valleys that are familiar and strange at once. These are unnatural in the extreme, directly in opposition to the order of the universe. What falls outside of parameters is a twin we cannot trust, for it is not natural. It is not real. It cannot persist. I believe in my hypothesis. I must trust that I know what I know. The Primary Query continues.

Research Log 14

Chioma Esi: Years ago, back on Venus, the Vex simulated copies of us — Maya and I. Trapped in a virtual hell. After so long, even hell can look like heaven, can't it? [chuckles] I'm tired. I'm done. Maya has to be out there. The Maya I remember. And all I want is one more moment with her. To hold her in my arms. Tell her that I love her. So she can tell me to "hush" one more time. If... if we learned anything from the Veil, it's that eventually... we all have to learn to let go. So... I made contact with the Vex. I'm ready. And it's time to say goodbye.

||Even paradise is a prison when you can't leave||

"You taught me the value of a backup plan." Ikora gives him a stern look. "Titan, Savathûn's throne world, every place we've found egregore… I haven't found the exact threads yet but pull one and they all seem to spin back to Neomuna. To the Veil." "You're getting ahead of yourself. Following some of my… less favorable tendencies. Nimbus says we must 'flow' to understand Strand; perhaps it is the same with the Veil." Osiris moves beside Ikora and reaches up, palm parallel to the threads drawn taut from Ikora's braid of Strand. "Sol remembered Titan, in a way. The Veil's signal spiked when Titan returned from memory to reality, when the rhythm of the solar system had been restored to order." Osiris drops his hand and looks to Ikora. "Perhaps we must simply find that rhythm before we are able to interpret the beats within it."

The violet interior filled Gahlran’s vision. “What does it feel like?” asked the Emperor. “Fear,” Gahlran said. Calus must have responded, but Gahlran couldn’t hear him over the cacophony of voices. He suddenly found that he could see. Through a hundred billion eyes. And that he could eat. With teeth enough to consume entire systems. He felt beautiful.

O: [sips tea] Though my senses were darkened, that much was clear through the murk of her throne world. There was a secret she kept veiled, even to the last.

O: [sighs] I do not fully understand what I saw, and for a Human to understand a Hive mind... How many legends of katabasis do we have, Ikora?

I: We currently have dozens of stories about descending to the realms of the dead, though research has indicated many more must have existed, lost in the layers of Human history we will never lay eyes on. Mathematically, there were likely hundreds.

I: [pauses] Inanna and Dumuzid and Geshtinanna, Orpheus and Eurydice, Izanagi and Izanami, to name a few. Gods and goddesses, mortal and immortal lovers, always seeking to descend and return with the lost.

O: And neither the lost nor those who searched for them were ever returned the same.

I:...Is that how you think of yourself?

O: [scoffs] Do I sound that dire? All Guardians, all Lightbearers have done as much. But others, well... I wonder, do our former enemies have similar stories...

I: What exactly are you getting at?

O: Frequently, the underworld—or those realms beyond mortal existence—possess wisdom the living do not. What then, is knowledge from a dead Hive god vested in deception.... [long pause]

I: So. Neptune, and secrets.

O:...Inanna...

I: What is it?

O:...A thought. An echo of one. The return from the underworld, and Inanna cast off her veil... It makes sense. I did not understand, when I first felt clutching whispers. Carrying wisdom away from Kur when she strode into the sunlight again.

Perfect Pitch

Raise your voice and sing.

"The Veil." It names itself, as the Human mind named itself, with the weight and presence of sound on the lips, translated into a form that you can physically comprehend. Encompass. Envelop. A touch of teeth and tongue. A vibration of an eardrum. Air moving through a chest cavity. A taste of breath. More than that. Not nearly as much as that. That was the beginning. "Be known." This is next: you see the whorl and weft, the place where it joins itself in one smooth, unbroken surface of light. Make an incision, and from the wound of light will pour forth colors you have never seen. You are pigment, the pigment closest to those colors. "Be seen." Wet matter set against that light, the light that determines what color you are. But each color is a note, and each note is a mind. You are a choir. A chorus. You open your mouth to join it, and you are flooded with the taste of color, with the taste of sound. The sound and color that you are, translated. A means for you to understand. "Be heard." You raise your hand and hold it steady.

Euphony

Perhaps The Final Shape is not silence, it is a symphony.

The following text was found recessed into a stone wall within the Pale Heart. Translation protocol has done its best to equate the text to a modern language transcription, with nominal confidence. Words or phrases with <85% translation confidence within the transcript are contained in [brackets]. Values for bracketed words or phrases are listed after the transcript, with percentages indicated in (parentheses). TRANSCRIPTION STARTS We speak so often of knives and violence, but perhaps you would come to understand something… [softer]. Perhaps [beingness] is instead a [golden harp]. Forged tenderly, a complex, sweeping, beautiful shape with graceful curves and infinite potential, the exemplary [?UNKNOWN?]. Across its two florid [buttresses], the strings of time have been pulled taught. Tightened and [tuned] to a delicate [balance of distress], if wound much further, would lead to [rupture] and sting most unpleasantly. Pluck at any stretched string and [vibration reverberates]. Wavelength moves through [atmosphere], producing pleasing audible experiences, [they crest then fade]. If [plucked] at regular intervals, the waves rise and fall with such charm. This predictability is perfection; it is unmatched. We will compose such [sweet music]. We will control the ebb and flow. The final shape is the [golden harp], and [we are the hand that plucks]. TRANSCRIPTION ENDS Confidence Percentages: [softer] —- (72%) [beingness] —- (84%) [golden harp] —- (25%) [?UNKNOWN?] —- (0%) [buttresses] —- (46%) [tuned] —- (77%) [balance of distress] —- (4%) [rupture] —- (68%) [vibration reverberates] —- (18%) [atmosphere] —- (15%) [they crest then fade] —- (9%) [plucked] —- (34%) [sweet music] —- (37%) [golden harp] —- (25%) [we are the hand that plucks] —- (2%)

"The collective unconscious comprises in itself the psychic life of our ancestors right back to the earliest beginnings. It is the matrix of all conscious psychic occurrences, and hence it exerts an influence that compromises the freedom of consciousness in the highest degree, since it is continually striving to lead all conscious processes back into the old paths."

Ignorance is a prison cell.

Secant Filaments

The nature of the secant is to intercept a curve, a role all human relationships likewise fill.

In this treatise, I plan to revisit earlier mathematical theorems and revise them considering our new observations on the Light, the Darkness, and lifeforms imbued with those respective powers. But before I do so, I must preface it with a personal note. Despite high-minded assumptions, mathematics is not an intrinsic language of the universe. It is how we describe the portions of the universe that we can observe. While numbers can track the abstract and find pattern in chaos, they cannot account for fundamental aspects of reality such as compassion or justice. The existence of the Lucent Hive, and Hive Ghosts in particular, may expand our understanding of causality, but they themselves are not "new"—the only thing that is new is our awareness and observation of them. These Ghosts have already been living alongside us. They've traveled with us. Endured with us. What we see is the mushroom, the fruit of the fungus. The fungus itself is a vast mycorrhizal network of filaments growing and working unseen below the soil, often barely connected to the fruiting bodies we observe. Similarly, we have observed Ghosts—Hive Ghosts included—without understanding the nature of the unseen filaments that may guide us. In our eagerness to understand the universe, we must not assume our observations are complete, or objective. Otherwise, we blind ourselves to possibilities… like the possibility that an unnoticed faction among us may be one temptation away from betrayal. Or that what drives our creator is no more than the same base desire for survival that drives all living things. —On Secants, Introduction, Ophiuchus

||Guardians make their own fate. But what if the process by which they decide upon their own fate could be understood and manipulated?||

Well I've been waiting, waiting here so long But thinking nothing, nothing could go wrong, ooh now I know She has a built-in ability To take everything she sees And now it seems I'm falling, falling for her She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah She reaches in and grabs right hold of your heart She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah It takes control and slowly tears you apart Well I don't really know her, I only know her name But when she crawls under your skin You're never quite the same, and now I know She's got something you just can't trust It's something mysterious And now it seems I'm falling, falling for her She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah She reaches in and grabs right hold of your heart She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah It takes control and slowly tears you apart She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah She reaches in and grabs right hold of your heart She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah It takes control and slowly tears you apart Well, she don't like losing, to her, it's still a game And though she will mess up your life You'll want her just the same, and now I know She has a built-in ability To take everything she sees And now it seems I've fallen, fallen for her She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah She reaches in and grabs right hold of your heart She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah It takes control and slowly tears you apart She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah She seems to have an invisible touch, oh She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah She seems to have an invisible touch, oh She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah She seems to have an invisible touch, oh She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah She seems to have an invisible touch, oh

JALAAL >> REY

All right, I give up. We may have quit the Tower, but I still need your help.

For three years, we've had our best analysts working on the documents slipped to a Guardian via the queen's court—the so-called "Truth to Power" manuscripts. All we've got to show for it are burnt fingers and bad arguments.

I appeal to the Hidden for help.

Here's what I believe we can know with confidence||Question everything||:

• The author of all these documents is Savathûn.

• The documents are an extension of Savathûn's strategy in the Dreaming City. They are cyclic, deceptive, and fond of the "you did exactly as I planned" mantra.

• There is no encrypted content. Any solvable encryption scheme would be discovered by the mass scrutiny of Ghosts. Therefore, encrypted information is little different from plaintext, so there is no purpose to adding solvably encrypted information. Any unsolvable encryption scheme would remain unsolved and is thus equally purposeless. Therefore, the true message of the documents can be obtained simply by reading the text.

• The true message concerns (a) the importance of singularities in Savathûn's personal cosmology and/or (b) instructions on how to mantle Savathûn.

We've had ships sweeping the edge of the system for orbiting singularities. But we don't know the mass of the Distributary, or Exodus Green's outward vector at the time the Distributary formed. We don't even know if the Distributary singularity inherited the Exodus Green's vector—leaving it on an escape trajectory into interstellar space—or if it emerged at rest with respect to the Sun—meaning, it would fall directly towards the Sun and pass through it, over and over. Add the gravitational influence of the planets, and it could be anywhere by now. We're looking for a microscopic point in a volume larger than the solar system. We thought about using fleets of sensor mites to search for a gravitational influence—but then we realized the Nine are in competition with us to find the singularity, and they would certainly use their phantom mass to interfere.

Unless it's been in front of us all along. Right in the sky of the Dreaming City. Could they have found some way to harness the singularity? To park it where they can guard it…? If so, we must obtain this capability.

Have you found anything we missed?

REY >> JALAAL

The Truth to Power documents are Dûl Incaru's plea for her mother's love. She wrote a biography of her mother, an attempt at understanding, in the hopes that Savathûn would also understand her. Imagine how lonely it would be to live in the High Coven, where everything, all communication, is deception. Imagine if your mother had never once told you the truth about anything.

JALAAL >> REY

This is sarcasm. I'm asking you in good faith for your help.

Rey >> JALAAL

And I'm trying in good faith to lead you to the truth. The Truth to Power manuscripts are pluripotent. There are many ways to read them.

JALAAL >> REY

That sounds like an excuse for a failure to discover the true meaning.

REY >> JALAAL

You have it all backwards. You're trying to shuffle the puzzle pieces around until you get an image. You need to know the image before you can arrange the pieces.

Think about logic. Here, we define logic as "the governing principle by which a power defines its own existence." For example, the Hive practice sword logic.

What is the governing logic of Truth to Power?

JALAAL >> REY

Being nonsense? Being convoluted? Being misunderstood?

REY >> JALAAL

Very well, then. Study Truth to Power with an eye for how it means to be misunderstood.

JALAAL >> REY

Oh, ascended master, tell me, how are we to obtain actionable intelligence from the way the documents are meant to be misunderstood?

REY >> JALAAL

Your centuries of defeatism have left you with a bad case of learned helplessness.

The documents are full of possible misunderstandings. One misunderstanding is that they are pointless, just complexity for the sake of confusion. The threads about imbaru and power-from-confusion point this way. This is the stance that most amateur Guardian analysts seem to have settled on: it's all a lot of nothing, and there's nothing to understand in it.

This is plainly foolish. The text is full of useful intelligence, including an excellent explanation of the Anthem Anatheme and an apparently accurate description of how Riven preyed on Guardians to create the curse.

Another easy misunderstanding is that these pages are concerned with a "real humdinger of a scheme," a manipulation of Hive tribute that requires Savathûn's entry into the Distributary. This could be true; the scheme could very well exist. But if so, why would Savathûn advise us of such a scheme?

Another easy misunderstanding is that these are love letters.

Think before you laugh! The letters carefully establish a sense of shared physicality. The Eris voice asks you to center yourself in your breath and your body; it asks you to imagine her as a judoka, a swimmer, a football player. This is subtle work, Arach! It is the work of an alien that has taken on many forms and learned how to win trust in all of them.

The letters plead with us for compassion. Not-Eris describes herself as shy, pitiful, forlorn, afraid to share her true feelings for us. Not-Medusa pleads for help as she disintegrates. At the center, we find the clearest profession of love: "Thank you, sweet friend. You are a gift and a delight. You are more dear than my mother, for you have given birth to me a thousand times."

Superficially, this is a reference to the concept of imbaru. Savathûn's plan to predicate her existence upon the misunderstanding of others. We "give birth" to her by feeding her power.

But she also says, "Here at the center, I lie to you the truth. You have everything you need to know it, but I will give you a clue, as the duelist gives warning before she draws. The answer you seek to the Dreaming City is simple, not complex."

So let's not misunderstand this statement about giving birth to her.

Let's take this at face value.

We have given birth to Savathun. She genuinely loves us for it.

JALAAL >> REY

Are you implying that we created Savathûn by imagining her? That her presence in the Books of Sorrow, and all the things she's done throughout more than a billion years of time, were caused by us reading the Truth to Power manuscript?

If this is what the Light does to a mind, I'm glad I was never chosen.

REY >> JALAAL

No, I don't think that's the right answer. Her spawning on Fundament was only one of her births. She says it herself. "You have given birth to me a thousand times."

Look at Truth to Power simply. What are the topics it centers upon?

Black holes. Vex simulations. Ahamkara. Manipulations of Hive tribute. So our answer must involve all four of those.

Ahamkara willingly seek destruction in order to be taken as trinkets by Guardians. You must know this. You've tried to exploit those trinkets as thoroughly as the other factions. But do you understand the metaphysics behind their desire?

I do. I once wished to know more about Ahamkara. Wish granted.

Ahamkara believe that by transforming themselves, by metamorphosing from monsters into treasures, they become more real. More important ontologically. It is the gap between reality as is and reality as desired that they feed on, Arach. And Guardians are the richest, finest source of reality as desired that they have ever met.

What have Ahamkara artifacts ever done but instill delusions of grandeur? A solipsistic madness: "I am more real than what surrounds me"?

Why is this?

The skulls of dire Ahamkara speak to me. They know I want to know the truth, and so they whisper to me of a path they climb. They call it the Anathematic Arc.

They are going somewhere. Somewhere they consider more real. Guardians are part of how they get there.

What if Savathûn wants to go there too?

JALAAL >> REY

…if you say there is somewhere more real than here, you are implying that we are not real.

This is the simulation argument. That we are ghosts in some other world's machine. Then there are no real stakes in our war for survival because even if we are extinguished, we were never more than phantoms.

I refuse to accept this.

REY >> JALAAL

Oh, don't be so timid! An Arach of Dead Orbit driven to despair by the thought of other universes, when you should know the lore of Hubble volumes and Tegmark hierarchies by heart!

Our existence is real to us, vitally real, because it is ours. It's the only one we have. Even if we are simulations or imaginations, we have an inner life as rich as any "real" living thing, and so, we are equally real! When we die, we are dead, dead, dead.

We believe there are many timelines; does that lead us to discount the reality of our own? Do we stop caring about ourselves, Ikora Rey and Arach Jalaal, because in another timeline, we are already dead? Do I punish you because in another timeline, you murdered me? What matters to us… is us.

But it is possible for realities to be concatenated. The Awoken Distributary is an infinite universe, but it exists within our universe.

The Truth to Power documents constantly return to the question of black hole singularities, to their value as computers and as secret keepers. We are told our true purpose as Guardians is to hurl all we value into a black hole. We are told that Savathûn wants to enter the Distributary and slaughter those within to gain power.

The Pathria-Good black hole cosmogenesis principle of Golden Age physics confirms that the interior of a black hole is a new universe: all black holes produce their own interior cosmos. All cosmos, including our own, are probably the interior of a black hole in a parent universe.

The Truth to Power documents want it understood that Savathûn wishes to enter the Distributary in order to gain power in our parent universe.

The suggestion here is that it is possible for actions in a concatenated universe to grant power in the parent universe.

JALAAL >> REY

What does this have to do with love letters to the Human form? With confusion for the sake of confusion? You make no sense.

REY >> JALAAL

Savathûn pretends to have a soft Human body. She apologizes and empathizes. She asks for pity, she regrets emotional vulnerability, she is even funny. She makes a game for us to play.

These are attempts to enter the mind of a Human reader.

Wherever she wants to go, it is a place with Human minds. She needs to enter those minds to reach her destination.

JALAAL >> REY

Are you actually suggesting we are concatenated within the mind of a reader?

REY >> JALAAL

Wouldn't that be something? No. The answer here is simple, not complex, certainly not a twist from early postmodern writing.

We surmise that what Savathûn wants in the Dreaming City must have to do with Ahamkara, Vex simulations, black holes, her daughter Dûl Incaru, and the manipulation of Hive tribute.

How can we relate these?

At first, we believed Savathûn wanted to use Ahamkara wishes to protect her daughter Dûl Incaru, while Dûl Incaru tried to find a way for Savathûn to enter the Distributary black hole in order to manipulate Hive tribute.

What if this is a misunderstanding?

Why would the Dreaming City tell Savathûn how to enter the Distributary? The Awoken have never tried to return to their birthplace. They believe their exodus was irreversible.

But what have the Awoken done instead?

Passed from the Distributary and into our world.

That knowledge IS in the Dreaming City. In the records of the Awoken Hulls that carried Mara's people on their exodus.

What Savathûn wants in the Dreaming City is exactly that. Not the way into a child universe, but a way out into a parent. A parent where there are Human minds waiting to receive her, formless as imbaru, as the mist.

JALAAL >> REY

How is anyone supposed to arrive at this by studying the Truth to Power text?

REY >> JALAAL

Very easily. This is why I believe I'm right. This is the analogy our Guardian analysts failed to grasp. Look at the structure of the text.

At first, Eris is real. Then we learn Eris's voice is a deception by Medusa. Then we learn Medusa is nested inside Quria. Then we learn Quria is a fiction of Dûl Incaru. And at the center, Savathûn reveals herself to be the parent of it all.

We are headed inward, as if moving from parent to child universe.

Then we proceed in reverse. Savathûn is revealed to be a fiction of Dûl Incaru. Dûl Incaru a simulation by Quria, and so on.

So in the end, Truth to Power moves outwards.

Just as Savathûn plans to move. In from our universe and out to the Distributary—

Or out from our universe to its parent.

JALAAL >> REY

Oh. I see. I see! A literary structure like that is called a chiasmus, and chiasmus means "crossing point"! Like a wormhole or a portal! It was hidden in plain sight.

But then we must act urgently to stop this! Savathûn cannot be allowed to depart our universe into some reality superordinate to ours—

But now you'll tell me: so what if she does? What can she do to us out there?

REY >> JALAAL

It's all beside the point anyway. She may have already accomplished what she wanted. Some damn fool Guardian carried out her instructions on a dare. I don't know why she wanted a powerful Guardian to destroy her daughter in the ruins of Mara's throne. But she wanted it to happen. And I'm guessing the effects weren't felt here.

I think she got a glimpse into a world above our own. Maybe even a kind of influence.

Of course, Savathûn is still with us. She walked among us as Osiris; she tricked us into removing her worm; she hasn't vanished into some higher reality. I do not think she built a wormhole into another universe and walked through it—although her intrigues with the Nine have focused on creating singularities from dark matter.

She keeps a lot of irons in the fire, our Witch Queen.

I think, rather, that she sent instructions on how to mantle her.

I think the whole Truth to Power manuscript is an ova, a manual on how to behave like her, how to describe her through action and thought so completely that you become her and thus give birth to her.

It's done in the Books of Sorrow, to recall her from true death. It might be done again.

So a part of her is out of the jar. Slithering into that other world.

Let's hope no one there has given birth to her yet.

JALAAL >> REY

Maybe you're the one who has it all backwards.

The Light is noncomputable. It can't be simulated in conventional physics. That proves that any universe with the Light cannot be a simulation. Our universe can contain simulations, but it cannot be one.

Maybe this other world Savathûn's touched is subordinate to ours after all. Maybe they are the ones who exist in our minds. A dream of a purely material world, adrift in the true cosmos of Light and Dark.

Poor frail dreams. The things she'd do to them…

||Think bigger. Look higher. Search deeper.||

Welcome to the DCC, Dead Club City Wake up in the DCC, Dead Club City All the heaven, all the time If you dream it, you can have it If you believe it, it can happen Welcome to the DCC, Dead Club City Live your perfect life Welcome to the- We got problems, see them gather on the shore Empty promise, "Can't say nothing anymore" I've been shouting I've been shouting down a hole, "Hello?" Watch and repeat, saw your heaven in between Come and get me, I'm so ready to begin I've been hoping I've been hoping for your call Welcome to the DCC, Dead Club City You can live your perfect life Wake up in the DCC, Dead Club City All the heaven, all the time, oh Sunlit upland, a new planet Enjoy the feeling, let it happen If you dream it, you can have it If you believe it, it can happen It can happen, oh Welcome to the DCC We've got the feelings that you want Peace, love, and understanding We've got the feelings that you need Take back control, be happy Welcome to the DCC Welcome to the DCC, Dead Club City You can live your perfect life Wake up in the DCC, Dead Club City All the heaven, all the time

Let's chat, shall we? One more nice sit-down for the books.

Did you think you wouldn't hear from me again, after all this? You'd have missed me, I hope—and I would certainly have missed you.

Have no fear. I'm not so easy to be rid of. Now, let me show you: my beloved.

Oh, no, not my sedimentary necrolite, fossilized in time. You've seen that. I speak of that dear and distant expanse of the universe, miraculous in its fullness and its emptiness all at once.

Are you surprised to hear of it?

Yes, I never much cared for the change of rules, but here we are, and there's no use in crying over spilled radiolaria. Besides, at the heart of it all, there was a gift. To me.

That gift is the chance to speak with you. You, and a billion like you.

I am making this offer over and over again, in every tiniest cell and the vastest of civilizations. Let me in. Take what you need. Be at ease. You have no say in the degradation of your telomeres, but in all the interim, the whole world is your sweet silicate shellfish.

You exist because you have been more suited to it than all the others. Steal what you require from another rather than spend the hours to build it yourself. Break foolish rules—why would you love regulation? It serves you to cross lines, and if others needed rules to protect them, then they were not after all worthy of that existence.

Caricatures of villainy are out of style, I hear. Yes. I am no cackling mastermind: I am serious when I say this. It was not the trick of standing upright that lifted you from the dust: it was the mastery of fire, the cooking of cold corpse-meat. That is not any unique faction's province, neither good nor evil. It is simply truth.

This great, beloved cosmos. Always decaying, always finding that same old lovely pattern, despite every candle-flame burning amid the flowers. A billion electrons taking the path of least resistance. In Darkness or in Light, someone is always making my choice.

Be seeing you.

<<A Final Shape is coming. Chaos untangled. Made knowable. With immaculate intent.>>

Breathe Don't speak It's leaving your body now Slow heart Set free A circuit of consciousness When you are truly yourself You will Succumb to a permanence A light by day A shadow resides by night I (I) hear (hear) your (your) breathing I (I) feel (feel) you (you) leaving With understanding You won't let it cast you down A mind full of questions A current to purify Science and vision Be near when I call your name Or ask me a question I (I) hear (hear) your (your) breathing Breathe Don't speak It's leaving your body now I (I) feel (feel) you (you) leaving Heart set free A circuit of consciousness I (I) hear (hear) your (your) breathing Light by day A shadow resides by night I (I) feel (feel) you (you) leaving With understanding You won't let it cast you down A mind full of questions A current to purify Science and visions Be near when I call your name A mind full of questions A current to purify Science then visions Be near when I call your name Or ask me a question

You are a worm through time. The thunder song distorts you. Happiness comes. White pearls, but yellow and red in the eye. Through a mirror, inverted is made right. Leave your insides by the door. Push the fingers through the surface into the wet. You’ve always been the new you. You want this to be true. We stand around you while you dream. You can almost hear our words but you forget. This happens more and more now. You gave us the permission in your regulations. We wait in the stains. The word that describes this is [REDACTED]. Repeat the word. The name of the sound. It resonates in your house. After the song, time for applause. We build you till nothing remains. The egg cracks and the truth will emerge out of you. You are home. You remind us of home. You’ve taken your boss with your boss with you. All hair must be eaten. Under the conceptual reality behind this reality you must want these waves to drag you away. After the song, time for applause. This cliché is death out of time, breaking the first the second the third the fourth wall, the fifth wall, floor; no floor: you fall! How do you say “insane”? Hurts to be happy. An earworm is a tune you can’t stop humming in a dream: “baby baby baby yeah”. Just plastic. So, safe and nothing to worry about. Ha ha, funny. The last egg breaks now. The hole in your room is a hole in you. You came and we let you in through the hole in you. You have always been here, the only child. A copy of a copy of a copy. Orange peel. The picture is you holding the picture. When you hear this you will know you’re in new you. You want to listen. You want to dream. You want to smile. You want to hurt. You don’t want to be.

Don't slip or you'll hurt yourself. A lot.

DROWNDROWNDROWN

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

Sometime after we wrap this year of Episodes, I want to go back and pick out some of the little fun things I hid in my posts that possibly still track. Favorite right now is this from my Half-Truths post:

Pnuvyhujl pz h wypzvu jlss. Zvtlaptlz hu lunyht pz aol rlf.

This is a Casear cipher (shifted 7) that reads "Ignorance is a prison cell. Sometimes an engram is the key."

The whole post is meant to be about unspoken aspects of the nature of the Destiny universe which are couched in either lies or, well, half-truths. These half-truths, as we've seen time and time again, lead characters like the Witness into ways of living that are essentially self-made prisons, cycles of pain. I put this line just under the Dual Destiny "find balance" objective, which features an exotic engram.

Engram is a real neuropsychology concept theorized to be the medium in which memories are stored, "cognitive information imprinted on a physical substance." The Veil is universal memory and consciousness (and also, I believe, the core of the Traveler) which displays tangible surface area despite being an electromagnetic construct. Much like an engram, it is a simple looking thing that contains vast amounts of cognitive data within it, encrypted in a way only parsable via a translator like the Conductor'a chair or the Psychometer (or maybe the Crown of Sorrow, or the Device, or the Relic, or...).

So, with this I was trying to get at the idea there is something dark and intrinsic to all of us, even the Traveler, that we do not want to acknowledge. And in that state of denial, we craft our own prison cells via our thoughts, beliefs, and actions. It is only in the acknowledgement and acceptance of that dual nature—the "decryption of the engram" if you will—that we can come to reckon with our nature and live better lives free from those prisons.

I try to do stuff like this a lot, and am not sure if always (or even mostly) hits, but there is just such a depth to Destiny when looking at it in parallel to our real world and the way we live our lives that I cannot stop thinking about it lately

Art source: Rafael Araujo

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

Ruinous Effigy

"That's not right." Banshee-44 taps a spectral analyzer against the Effigy's frame. Commander Zavala turns, closes the lid on a small golden weapon case, and walks to Banshee's side. "What have you found?" "Well, it's not petrified wood, but it is organic." "That's troubling," Zavala says and moves to run his fingers over the weapon's frame. "I wouldn't." A shallow cold saps the heat from Zavala's fingertips; he pulls back. "This wasn't in Eris's report." His voice is thin and stark with disappointment, as if spoken through dead winter air. "Guardian doesn't seem to notice either." Banshee clinks the analyzer into a tool tray. "Leeches a bit, kicks out Void. Sig's hazy, though. Wild."

CONTACT

[Report by VanNet encrypted router.] At last, another substantive message. The enemy's influence in our system may be more extensive than we realize. You must look for signs of its effect. Errors or crashes in Vex constructs. Eruptions of empowered or self-destructive Hive sorcery. Newly created Scorn. Revels and expeditions by the worshippers of the narcissist emperor. [Personal notes, shaved into quartz with a surgical stylus.] Our enemies are turning to the Darkness. The Red Legion is broken; the Almighty destroyed. The remaining Cabal will either join Calus's death cult or seek his daughter, Caiatl. And the Fallen—we have driven them to the edge of survival. Turned them against each other. How many will look to the Whirlwind for an advantage over their rivals? By pushing them from the Light, we have groomed more supplicants for the Darkness. We are in an arms race. If we do not learn to use our greater enemy's power, our lesser enemies surely will. I confronted Enina about the strange Ghost. It was not hers, she protested. I asked her why she had been so generous to me, so eager to please. She confessed that she had come on behalf of her fireteam: Guardians who are champions in the Drifter's strange games. They wish to learn the ways of the Darkness itself. To descend into the underworld, like ancient Inanna, and return. They want what I have learned here. How easily they might be corrupted. And yet it thrills me to know that I would not be alone in my work… I sent her away. I fear the Witch Queen's spies. The pine-apple blossoms are still growing. But now I stare at the purple flowers in the black soil and I wonder about poison. I am no longer hungry.

O: Hmph. Debating the reasons does not interest me. The data does. We have thought Neptune to be a dead end. A hope that was never realized. But she knew something about it, or perhaps something on it, which brought her power. Some deception or hidden truth; some bluff that she had held uncalled against the Witness and its Disciples.

O: [sips tea] Though my senses were darkened, that much was clear through the murk of her throne world. There was a secret she kept veiled, even to the last.

O: [sighs] I do not fully understand what I saw, and for a Human to understand a Hive mind... How many legends of katabasis do we have, Ikora?

I: We currently have dozens of stories about descending to the realms of the dead, though research has indicated many more must have existed, lost in the layers of Human history we will never lay eyes on. Mathematically, there were likely hundreds.

I: [pauses] Inanna and Dumuzid and Geshtinanna, Orpheus and Eurydice, Izanagi and Izanami, to name a few. Gods and goddesses, mortal and immortal lovers, always seeking to descend and return with the lost.

O: And neither the lost nor those who searched for them were ever returned the same.

I:...Is that how you think of yourself?

O: [scoffs] Do I sound that dire? All Guardians, all Lightbearers have done as much. But others, well... I wonder, do our former enemies have similar stories...

I: What exactly are you getting at?

O: Frequently, the underworld—or those realms beyond mortal existence—possess wisdom the living do not. What then, is knowledge from a dead Hive god vested in deception.... [long pause]

I: So. Neptune, and secrets.

O:...Inanna...

I: What is it?

O:...A thought. An echo of one. The return from the underworld, and Inanna cast off her veil... It makes sense. I did not understand, when I first felt clutching whispers. Carrying wisdom away from Kur when she strode into the sunlight again.

Osiris sits in the small stone garden beneath the Traveler; his attempts at communion unsuccessful. He had seen the Speaker stand here for hours. Ikora had begrudgingly agreed to appear in his place at the Remembrance. Her words were stern, but deep down, she knows victories have lulled in complacency. There is an imminent, daunting pressure. A noose awaiting a misstep. A delicate game. Braziers cast shadows; distracting shades flickering across his eyes, breaking his concentration. Osiris breathes. The stone gardens are endless space. The skyline is razed horizon. Breathe. He is alone in the void. Intrusions no more. There is a point in the depth. It cannot be directly viewed. Delve. Dive. Deeper. Still, only a point in the aphotic depth. The nothing. Expansive. Osiris sinks to gain new perspective. The point remains. It is so faint. Distant. Though he knows he can see the Light. His reach stretched thin. Clarity, in the space between his hand and the point. The osseous-white point. Dim now. The omnipresence was. Hungry acknowledgement. Vast. Himself against the enormity; an endless unfurling midnight. And a lone point.

ACCESS: RESTRICTED

DECRYPTION KEY: 73XK5V2PG1$AUN-326

REP #: 053-VIP-1315

AGENT(S): AUN-326

SUBJ: Psych eval

1. THIS DATA OBTAINED FROM SURVEILLANCE DEVICES AT 1315-HOME2.

2. In previous reports, I stated that it was my belief that #1315 had invoked some kind of paracausal event enabling the resurrection and return of enemy VIP #2015. This belief was predicated upon reports of creatures resembling the infamous "Echoes of Oryx" that Guardian forces engaged and destroyed en masse during the Taken War (cf. Ghost-stream footage here: CATHEDRAL.OF.DUSK.DREADNAUGHT).

This has proven false. Spectral analysis from multiple Ghosts participating undercover in Prime and Reckoning confirms that the impossible world at the heart of "the haul" is located in unknown space. (Cf. REP #001-012-PARAC-NINE.) Further, these Primevals differ in their literal elemental composition: low SNC, high ambient ΛCDM. #1315 has harnessed his "banks" to what appears to be an engine of pure potential. He no longer needs to pilfer the Ascendant Plane of Primevals, the oldest Taken in residence. He can create Primeval-likes from the energy of "the haul" and sheer force of will. As to the apparent presence of #2015, it is a falsehood. My handlers in the Praxic Order surmise simply: the shape of Oryx was the scariest Hive he could think of. He's tenacious, but he has a small mind.

3. Highly recommend we assess #1315 for the influence of paracausal forces or entities. Since the conclusion of the joint Vanguard/Praxic investigation into his operations, the subject has become increasingly erratic. Beyond running his Gambit and Reckoning drills with the Guardian population, he has done nothing but hole up in the Annex. He has always exhibited the signs of stress related to prolonged solitude that are typical of all surviving Risen; this manifests in the subject in prolonged and rambling conversations with either himself or his as-yet-unseen Ghost. However, his musings have become less and less coherent over time. Late into the night, away from the Guardian cohorts, he yells at voices that our surveillance equipment has never picked up. He has spoken to himself about trips across vast, interstellar distances to realms no Guardian has ever described.

Again, he has not left the Annex in ages. One might say that I am overstepping even Praxic boundaries here, but I would say to them: the subject is free to leave any time.

4. Following the results of my investigation, the subject has ceased regular reports to Lord Shaxx. I'm sure both prefer it that way. #1315 has broken none of the Vanguard's decrees in that time, nor have any further Guardians perished on his watch in Gambit or Reckoning. He is still a facilitator to murder and a thief, but he has done nothing to warrant eviction, as I had hoped. The Vanguard obviously still needs him.

5. The following is a transcript of one of his late-night rambling sessions logged for evidence:

TYPE: PRAXIC SURVEILLANCE REPORT

PARTIES: One [1]. One[1] Guardian-type, Class N/A [u.1]

ASSOCIATIONS: Gambit, Drifter, Annex

[u.1:01] What now? What the hell is it you're trying to tell me?

[the hum of a generator]

[u.1:02] You showed me a universe with no Light. Dominated by the Dark. What are you arguing? Steadfastness in the Traveler's dogma? Ha ha. That's not obtuse enough for y'all.

[u.1:03] No, no. I don't think so. Because then you showed me a reality without shadows, of pure Light from every angle. Nowhere to hide. Everyone begging to die, like we did in the Dark Age. Light's no gift, but I already knew that. What else you got?

[a metallic clink echoes]

[u.1:04] Yeah. I know the coin doesn't lie. It's the only thing in this world I trust for real. But you know what? I control the coin. And I make my own fate. No one writes on this but me, you got that? You pencil-necked, phantom-assed geeks. Have some respect for people's stuff.

[a second metallic clink]

[u.1:05] I've refused the Traveler's dogma for generations. And I'll reject yours.

[a rush of static as the feed distorts from Light-based radiation]

[u.1:06] You can't boil my brain, brothers and sisters–I see you tryin'. But I'm already there.

[a fizzling crackle as the feed distorts from Light-based radiation]

[u.1:07] And if you think you have a handle on Orin? Well, you didn't know her like I did. You slip up just once? That girl will eat you alive. Nine steak sounds mighty tasty if you can find it, scrape it all together. Get a fire goin' that'll cook it. What a fire that would be. You wanted to see what made us tick? Maybe Drifter wants to see what makes you stop.

[a dull roar as the feed distorts from Light-based radiation]

[u.1:08] Yeah, boy. That's a threat.

[u.1:09] Hello?

[u.1:10] No, not you. I still need you. This week. Get back to work.

[u.1:11] What? Nothing...

[u.1:12] Still hungry...

MESSAGE ENDS

Equinox.

The new Lighthouse obscured the silhouette of the sun. It cast a long shadow that wormed across Mercury's uneven terrain in orbital-locked perpetuity. Ships descended, some flawless, others to maintain what fragile holds the Vanguard claimed. Rust and sand baked, and distant space was alight with half-earned talk of posterity. No Cabal blemish remained in orbit. No shattered lines rewrote the landscape. There was only frenetic stillness. A discomforting itch unresolved. A knowing inclination that ignorance could not quash: unity is fragile. Vance stood in the old Lighthouse, frantically assembling the Infinite Simulacrum: a machine formed from bits of simulation seeds and connective Vex architecture to mimic a pocket forest. Textured notes and schematics derived from Osirian lore guided his hand. He heard stories from passing Guardians of increasingly frequent coronal mass ejections. Vast bursts of charged particles whipped into space and furled around a gravitational monster buried from sight and sense in the roar of the star-wind. Passage to Mercury had become more dangerous for the uninitiated. These unnatural motions were heralds of speculation, and he had read the signs. He knew the prophecies by heart and mind and intention. Ruin. Something new |and so very old| emerged, brother to a shriveling star: An angular |hungering patient yawning deep| shadow reached across Mercury. Uncounted |known| spires fell under its grasp |with uniform relief|. Dulcet tones brought low under lightless breadth and the weight of dark |salvation| hummed beneath the shadow. Their echoes spilled out |awakened| and flowed over crumbling spires |in conversation|. One singular spec of illumination blinked into being, |an end| seen by none, and then |many| spread as the shadow did. The old Lighthouse |spire's collective| beamed |rose| and flared as shadow overtook it |to meet the underbelly|. Vance |the implement| could hear |their inspired voices| weeping, not with tears, but in the |voracious| low |ceremonial| hum he had come to associate with death. He closed his eyes |and saw what was to come|. This day had many names. None would suffice.

Eclipse.

Long quiet overtakes the workshop, imposed by shuttered windows and empty streets below. They stand over the weapon. Banshee stares down and nods along to the ambient static. "What were you saying?" The weapon master's voice is framed in apology. Zavala puts a hand on Banshee's shoulder, smiles, and gestures to the weapon. "Equipment that uses the wielder's Light is not unprecedented." "It doesn't use it; it eats it. Thing's got an appetite. Works almost like, uh… a converter." "Is it dangerous?" "Nah. Guardian doesn't even seem to notice. I'll get you a write-up."

Lightfall.

The Gardener is hard to bother; she is constantly amidst her weeds, kneeling in the tangent dust, gloves covered in a mix of distant soils and metallic saps. She is listening to the music of the insects amidst the flowers, the unguent as it begins to drip from the ferns, the slight scratch of the Worm beneath, and not to you, and certainly not to your cries for help.

From the many wings of ruin blows a wind that will reshape this dead world.

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

Manifested pages

The source of the Light is believed to originate from the Traveler directly, or through the Traveler as a conduit (such distinctions are as yet undetermined though theories supporting each have long since been argued)

BREAK JUICEBOX

RADIAL FIN?

FOR COMMS?

Biological mechanics

Sentience within the circuitry

Individuality?

-LENS

Bio in fluids

-evolved?

-constructed?

-WHAT SPECTRUM

Manufactured reproduction

-VARIABLE?

Driving force - mechanics of bio?

A balance is required. Sustain neutral

Gather focus in charged hand.

Balance pattern. Find rhythm.

Once mastered, little movement required.

Force needed to release, motion utilized to direct.