#warmind rasputin

[makoredeyes]

Here's a thought that's been knocking around my head for a hot minute How much of Rasputin's personality and tendencies do you think was learned as opposed to what he was inherently like? He was designed to be a weapon and was raised accordingly and while he did have Anna to teach him emotions and independent thought it was still to a degree limited Do you think if Rasputin had been raised differently and in a different environment he would have made different decisions?

All of it. Rasputin is a machine; he can only work with what he has learned. Programming isn’t personality. But he WAS given the programming to learn, and he was given Ana who saw the potential for him to be made into a monster, and did her best to help him learn things that would better guide him away from that path.

Clovis would have kept him an unthinking machine; something that would take data and respond based on the math rather than weigh other less measurable factors such as morals.

Rasputin himself asserts he grew out of that methodology with significant time and education, in no small part thanks to Ana’s efforts, but also, eventually, Felwinter’s perspective and influence. It’s not necessarily that his capability to learn things like empathy were limited, but that it took a very long time for him to attain the resources needed to learn them entirely (his entire existence, in fact, as he really only had this stuff figured out for a few years and on-lock for a few weeks. Remember in-game time is real time: he only carried Felwinter’s memories for the last couple of weeks of Season of the Seraph for example). Longer than intended, I suspect, since it seems likely that his creation of Felwinter - the Siddhartha Golem - was likely an attempt to reach a deeper understanding of the human experience specifically, but his efforts were thwarted by the Collapse and Siddhartha’s demise. I would even suggest his vicious hunt of Felwinter wasn’t just because he was a “lost asset” or compromised Rasputin in any meaningful way, but because he also carried data Red desperately needed.

Counter to that of course is that Clovis repeatedly infers he would have much rather Rasputin had stayed isolated and kept his more sterile, machine-thinking. A big, fancy gun more than a person.

So yeah, that’s exactly what the Warmind would be if it hadn’t been exposed to the opportunity to develop a personality.

[makoredeyes]

Warm-Mind

Ya'll I am so freaking proud of this: The pattern is my own design that I've been fiddling with for ~9 months

I also completely freestyled the body of the hat without a pattern. I've knit enough hats now to know how they work and literally just BS'd the entire thing so I'm pretty excited that somehow worked.

Anyway. Happy Birthday to me :3

[makoredeyes]

Do you think there was a limit to what even Rasputin would be willing to do? Like was there a moral line that even the Warmind for all his pragmatism would never compromise on? Was there ever a point where Rasputin considered a course of action to be too cruel?

Nope not at all.

He wiped out an entire ship full of colonists trying to evacuate Titan during the Collapse just to get at one scientist that seemed to maybe be investigating the darkness and/or the Black Fleet, as a particularly noteworthy example (see lorebook: Last Days on Kraken Mare). IIRC he took out a couple of Exodus ships in an attempt to weaponize them during the Collapse also. TLDR he had no problem with wiping out entire populations of people for the Greater Good. If killing 10 people saved another 100, or 10,000 to save millions, he was gonna do it. Especially since during that time (to present) his Midnight Exigent protocol was active, which in short allowed him to bypass all of his morality codes in the face of greater danger. So like, even if his morality programming usually would have prevented that kind of move, he had the power to override it at-will.

it's very easy to romanticize Rasputin, especially after Season of the Seraph where he's learned much more empathy and is SIGNIFICANTLY more human-like than his past iterations, but the dude was built to be a Weapon, built to make the hardest choices quickly without hesitation, or worse, and for the most part, he DID exactly that. He spent his entire, extremely long existence save for just a couple of weeks that way.

[makoredeyes]

Hoohoohoo... I have an evil one for you. Number 8 with Rasputin and TR3-VR

you turd (affectionate) You get Risen!Rasputin because I'm lazy and he's easy to stuff (snrk) in anywhere. And he's a lot of fun :3

He hadn't meant for his explorations of the Tower to take him this deep. Rasputin hadn't entirely been paying attention to where his feet and his sensors had led him, but he pushed down the little burst of concern. If he couldn't find his own way out of these catacombs, Caerus would know the way.  The little drone fretted to much not to.  He didn't mention any of this to the Ghost, however. Instead he came to a stop at the mouth of a cavernous ventilation shaft. It was a long drop, but there was a bottom that he could see, so like any Lightbearer worth his salt, Rasputin simply hopped down into the abyss.  "There...are lifts just over there, you know," Caerus appeared at his shoulder, illuminating a little spotlight into the suddenly much darker space. Rasputin glanced sideways at him. "Hush."  His boots clunked loudly, the metal floor beneath him thin, and Rasputin proceeded much more cautiously as he stepped into an aluminum corridor -  an air duct not quite tall enough for him to stand entirely straight in. Head lowered, he took a curious step forward. He could tell there was something in here. A mechanical hum could be heard in the distance, and the ozone bite of Arc energy filled the space. For a moment, he didn't move, listening, thinking. Then, Rasputin let out a soft bleat of binary: a call and a greeting to something he had more affinity with than the body he wore.  The response was immediate.  A great roar of movement, writhing Arc energy and bright lights, heading right his way as something exactly big enough to fill the duct raced out from around a corner.  Rasputin couldn't resist taking a long step back, but the great beast of a machine trundled right up to him and then came to a screaming halt, just inches from where he stood. The roiling Arc emanating from the bulky fuselage quelled to a slow fizzle, and it let out a tiny bleep, returning Rasputin's greeting with a demure hello of its own.  Rasputin eyed the thing, curious. It was barely intelligent, but responded to his queries with clarity. What are you, what is your purpose. Who built you, why are you here?  He couldn't help but laugh to learn how many snooping Guardians it had mowed over in its years keeping the ducts clear. It had a Very Important Job and it didn't care if its victims were so-called heroes or not. 

He ignored Caerus' whisper in the back of his mind that he'd come very close to meeting the same fate for the same reasons. 

And anyway, the bot was busy bombarding him with similar questions. What was he? Why was he here? Who made him? Why did he look like a Guardian but speak like a construct? All good questions, and Rasputin answered honestly with the bullet point facts, his delivery much more concise than if he'd had to relay the information to a human. It was...refreshing. He generally liked humanity, and appreciated mingling with them more than he'd ever been able to in the past, but sometimes they were...cumbersome. 

The bot, it seemed, knew exactly who he was, and let out an excited bleat, and before Rasputin could retreat, surged forward. Rasputin let out a gasp, stumbling back before falling flat on his ass beneath the thing. Solar Light swelled, but then receded when he realized he was not being attacked. More or less.  Arc energy danced over him, tickling in feather-light kisses across his body, making his chest lurch and his insides squirm in a pleasant, alien manner. He coughed out a muffled laugh, turning, trying to escape the sudden onslaught of affection as it chirred and beeped at him excitedly, but he was not going to get free until it was ready to let him go, at least without damaging the thing... and misguided though its lavishing was, it was somehow...kind of sweet. So instead, Rasputin pushed at the big bot lamely, trying to discourage it with a steady stream of protests, until at last, it relented. He staggered to his feet, reeling. Everything was pleasantly numb in a fuzzy, tingly sort of way. He felt like he was floating. He stumbled back a step, glancing back. The bot shuffled forward a little further, but Rasputin had inadvertently retreated into the bigger vent where it couldn't follow. He coughed out a little burst of static when it made a particularly forlorn sound as a result.  "Th-thanks," he managed. "Keep up the good work." What else was he going to say? He'd had some weird encounters already in this new life of his, but that was by far the most awkward...which really, when he thought of it, was saying something. "We... should get back," Caerus added helpfully. There was laughter in his voice, little bursts of static escaping like snorts. The bot obediently turned away, trundling off, and Rasputin turned on the Ghost, fixing him a crimson glare.  "Not a word." He said, shaking a finger at him threateningly. Caerus laughed. "EVER! To anyone." Rasputin emphasized. Caerus' chuckles broke into open cackling until Rasputin took a frustrated swing at him. He dodged the attack with ease, but his mirth simmered down to giggles.

"Fine fine. Our little secret...that you got snogged stupid...by a cleaner bot...!" "YES," Rasputin barked, Light rising in a wave of heat. If a little crackle of Arc danced down his shoulders as well, he refused to acknowledge it. "Tell no one!" Caerus was still smirking at him with a cheeky squint that  Rasputin didn't trust, but he let it drop when he at least got a satisfactory answer: 

"Okay, I promise!"

He really, really hoped Caerus kept that promise. 

[makoredeyes]

If your willing to entertain my thoughts a bit more I've be thinking a lot about Rasputin and his past. For a bit of context I personally headcannon that the Rasputin in the Golden Age was very different to the one we meet in the main story and Golden age Rasputin was not only a good "Ruler" but a loving and even doting father to his son.

In Ghost Fragment Old Russia 3 Malahiyati states how Rasputin can be quite charming and when she refers to him as the tyrant its with a note of affection. But during the collapse he activated Mid night Exigent which altered his morality and then scatter himself across his network in a last ditch effort to survive with his core mind being on Mars and fragments of himself being stuck in other places like Earth. And if Ghost Fragment Mysteries is anything to go off of it sounded like Rasputin was really starting to loose his marbles by this point. (Unfortunately the lore here is not very clear) But if the Warmind on Earth was only a fragment of Rasputin then it makes what happened to Felwinter all the more tragic because the thing that chased him for all those years and eventually killed him and his family was not the Rasputin who existed in the Golden age but a fragmented mind who was a mer shadow of his former self by that point. And the thought of a ounce loving parent slowly losing themselves until they are seemingly someone else entirely is heartbreaking. And it even draws parallels with Clovis in a way. You don't have to respond to any of this. But as a side note what form do you think Rasputin's Nightmare would take if he found himself on the moon or the Leviathan?

So the first thing you have to understand about Rasputin and his lore is that Bungie retconned some of the older stuff when season of the Seraph came around. This updated the Subminds to be more their own entities, and 'sub' has become more of an indication of a subordinate rather than a piece of him. The other thing to remember is last we heard from him in the same season, he's grown as an individual A LOT. So, so much. He has centuries more experience (and mistakes) and the collective minds of Malahayati, Charlemagne, and Felwinter to draw from as well, drawing on their thoughts, lessons, and emotional growth to boost his own. It's worth noting as far as I can tell he never deactivated the Midnight Exigent protocol he activated during the collapse.

Golden-age, and post-Collapse Rasputin was a very different character. He is callous, calculating, and has performed a number of atrocities well-documented in lore. He has always been like this. Clovis might have programmed him this way, but even Ana's best efforts didn't nullify it entirely, because Rasputin is, at the end of the day, purpose built to pick the best mathematical solution possible regardless of what a human might think of it. Ana reflects on this early in in Rasputin's "youth" that in a simulation Rasputin wipes out an entire pleasure cruiser because the humans aboard it don't matter to him in the bigger picture. When the Black Fleet arrives, he's in peak damage control. He's wiping out entire colonies, ships, abandoning people, etc. because he's trying to find SOMETHING to protect them from pyramid ships. He fails. He gets his ass completely kicked by the Black Fleet - that is what you're seeing in that Ghost Fragment : Mysteries. He is supposed to be as invincible as the fables of his namesake, and so are his brothers and sisters, but they're getting picked off one by one until it's just Rasputin barely holding on even though he's thrown literally every asset he has (and some he didn't have) and it didn't work. He chooses to turn his back on humanity and go into hiding so that maybe he can recover and have another go against the Darkness/Black Fleet ("IT") *he has not lost his marbles at all. He is defeated and frustrated and determined because despite losing he's learned a lot. He just needs to regroup. To all of that, regardless of if you follow the retconned canon or the new, Rasputin was not a fragmented entity. He had awareness scattered across Sol but those parts of him (whether or not you count Mala and Charlie) reported back to a singular entity. TLDR: The Rasputin on Mars was the same Rasputin on Earth and one or the other is full well aware of what happened at Site Six. That was an extremely in-character play for Big Red at the time to torment, then failing the continual attempts to end Felwinter outright (please see warsats, combat frames in the hundreds, parasites (they don't specify what that means exactly, but however it works, Red sent those after Fel too), he turns instead to subterfuge and luring Felwinter (and by extension all of the Iron Lords) into a trap. Wiping out hundreds of Lightbearers to get one guy is painfully on-brand. The grief and regret he felt for what he'd done came long after. Perhaps not even until shortly before he decides to reveal what he'd done to us in season of the Worthy.

We don't know how the relationship between Siddhartha and Rasputin was, but Felwinter did not have 'love' as we see it in a desirable fashion from a parent in his lifetime. Rasputin admits he was out of his head over the whole thing, and that he was entirely in the wrong with it. But that's a long-time coming. Malahayati called Rasputin charming, but I'm not entirely convinced that's a 'charming' in a complimentary way. High charisma stat, yes, but there are plenty of awful personalities in fiction and reality that roll like that too. Food for thought. Worth looking into the incident of Ivan the Terrible 's murder of his own son. Rasputin and Felwinter's troubled end are very likely an allegory to this.

You asked about the notion of Rasputin having a Nightmare: My knee-jerk response is that he would be immune due to his nature, and thus have none, but if it were a later-timeline Rasputin I would say very likely Felwinter. Or possibly Ana. I don't think anyone else's opinions would really matter to him. ALSO: because I can't help but notice you do this every time,

that's uh.... listen. I love getting asks and I love responding to them, but if I don't feel like responding to someone I'm not going to whether they give me permission or not lol.

[hyruviandoctor]

Do you ever think about how Rasputin could speak English but specifically chose to speak in Russian as a way to show his superiority over the Vanguard and rest of humanity, and he only spoke in Russian for years, but then in his final months with us he spoke to us in words we could understand because he finally realized his place was not above us, but beside us? Shielding us from all threats not as a god, but as an ally? How he ended the Warmind expansion with, "I am Rasputin, Guardian of all I survey. I have no equal," and then ended Season of the Seraph by embodying the Guardian tenets? Devotion. Bravery. Sacrifice. Death.

Yeah, me too.

[spaydekingcayde]

the reason why they didn’t give Warmind Rasputin a body is not because his arc was finished or because he was falling victim to writers-not-really-knowing-what-to-do-with-AI-characters-once-they’re-given-a-body. they didn’t give Warmind Rasputin a body because he would immediately live up to his namesake

[makoredeyes]

Hi I’m Mako and I love drawing really annoyed Exos cx