Home

A book featuring the concept of "Home", as seen from the perspective of some of the universe's major factions.

CABAL

When he’d boarded the Harvester all those long, long, long years ago, he’d had the feeling he might never see home again.

He’d been right.

He’d never been so wrong.

They assembled in the metal and carbon cathedral of the firebase vehicle hangar. Once they’d sheathed the floor from wall to wall in their gleaming arms and armor. Now, they clumped together in one congealed corner.

Bracus Tora’ajon addressed the cohort: “Well, Torobatl has fallen.”

And that was that.

He just waited in steel silence with the other legionaries, absorbed the news without surprise or pain or shock. Truth was, he could barely remember Torobatl. Couldn’t remember the smells, the stars, didn’t dream of its places. Couldn’t picture the faces of any of his age-pod. None of them could.

He remembered his granite-hard bunk in the firebase, the cordite smell of gunpowder, the industrial scents of lubricant and gelfluid, the thick-tongued taste of energy pills and calorie bars. The stars in his sky were combat scanners and readiness indicators. He dreamed of the Dreadnought and Phobos, not Torobatl. The only faces he could picture were his battle-brothers, the Bracus, the Valus, Primus Tau’un.

He listened when the Bracus said the Empress was reportedly on her way to the Sol system. Had he been human, he would have shrugged: So what?

He wasn’t fighting for the Empress. Hadn’t fought for Ghaul. Or Calus, for that matter.

Then the perimeter alarm rang. It was a Cabal alarm, so ‘rang’ is putting it mildly: It screamed. It howled. To a human it would have sounded like having a jet engine inserted right next to your eardrum, and listening to it accelerate to takeoff speed, louder and louder and louder.

The cohort did not panic. No one shouted or bellowed. They were already armed and armored, nobody’s slug rifle ever left their side anymore. They lumbered to their posts with practiced ease born of a thousand, thousand repetitions.

The Skyburners had been fighting for years without rest. They’d fought the machines to a standstill. They’d watched their own brothers turned into murderous husk-shadows. They’d boarded the cancerous ship and gone blade-to-blade with nightmare corpses and faceless abominations. They’d killed humanity’s unkillable heroes, watched them come back to life, and killed them again.

One more attack was nothing to get excited about.

On the ochre sands outside the firebase a skirmish line of foes ratcheted forward in jerky steps, spitting a hail of slap fire. He leaped into the forward trench, red beams sizzling the air millimeters above his head, slug rifle already bucking and roaring in his hands. His target staggered as shells cratered its brass torso, then it blinked away in a flash of white light, but he was a veteran, he’d seen this move, he shifted his aim and fired another burst just as it popped back into existence a few meters away. Its white vial shattered, wetting the sands into vermilion.

He didn’t exult. Just shifted his aim and kept firing.

The air flickered and foamed and the enemy’s heavy assault units emerged onto the battlefield. Violet light shimmered as shells detonated against their shields. The Bracus was in the air, bronto cannon hammering, opening up a break for the rest of the cohort to fire. A score of weapons ranged in on the Minotaur and blew it to shrapnel. Cool, steady, precise gunnery.

A fiery orange beam struck the Tora’ajon. One of the enemy’s sniper units. He was down. The Bracus was down.

One of the Minotaurs lunged for him.

The legionary didn’t think. He moved. Jump pack, in the air, long and low burst, maximize cover and mobility, they’d learned high-arcing leaps only made you a target. Magma grenade in his hand in midair. Throw, impact at the thing’s feet, detonation, absorbed by the shield but that was fine. Had to get it off the Bracus, distract it, draw its fire.

On the ground, between the Minotaur and the Bracus. Looked alive, dazed, no time to check. Forearm blade snicked out and he lunged for the thing, twice his size. Like punching a grav tank. Felt the impact all the way up his arm. Deflected off the shield. The thing swung at him, a giant swatting a fly, microburst from the jet pack, skipped to one side. Emptied a magazine into the thing’s face, feeling the heat as the shells exploded just meters in front of the barrel.

The Minotaur swung again. Jump. Mistimed. Too late. Caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder. Sent him sprawling. Something broken. Maybe lots of things. Black spatter of gelfluid on the rocks. Something wet under his hip. Suit injecting him with painkillers and stims. World gone fuzzy. Minotaur turning away. Bracus still on the ground.

No. Not a chance. There was no universe where he allowed that to happen. Bones shrieked and screamed at him as he recovered his slug rifle, awkwardly braced it, nearly passed out when the first burst sent it ramming against his shoulder. The Minotaur twisted back and lowered its torch hammer. Inside his helmet, the legionary grinned.

“SKYBURNERS!” he roared, and squeezed the trigger, knowing it would be his last shot.

Explosions lit up the side of the Minotaur from crest to hip. Its shields went opaque, then vanished, and the thing was blown of its feet, sent spinning and tumbling down the slope, scattering flaming wreckage as it went.

Through the smoke of its destruction came charging the Skyburners.

He wouldn’t let them take him away until he saw Tra’ajon back on his feet. The Bracus gave him a short nod. A gruff, “good work.” Then back to the battle. The legionary felt he might burst with pride.

He wasn’t fighting for the Empress, or Ghaul, or Calus. He wasn’t fighting for the Empire. He wasn’t fighting for half-remembered Torobatl. No, it went deeper, simpler than that. He was fighting for home. The only one that ever mattered to him.

He let the combat medic guide him back to the firebase.

He let the combat medic take him home.

 

HIVE

“Well, what do you think?”

The Lucent Wizard Ekshunul looked down from their vantage point atop the mountain, a spike of rock and snow stabbing upwards from the plain. Her hiss of thought was like the slither of metal scales on stone.

“So human,” she rasped. “Always reaching upwards, reaching up, up, up to the Sky, always building their fragile homes higher. Never down into the cool, dark, unbreakable ground. On Fundament we knew the sky brings only lightning, stormjoys and killing rain. Only death. Humans are so foolish. So weak. Their tower fell once already and what do they do, but try to build it again.”

“I wasn’t talking about the Tower,” said the spiny emerald Ghost floating at her side.

She was silent for a long while, refusing to look up. At the hated white orb that floated above the City.

“Afraid?” the Ghost teased, and that brough her neck snapping up. Her talon claws opened and closed, as though clutching at prey. Grasping at nothing.

“Don’t you feel anything?” the Ghost pressed.

She knew how she was supposed to feel, but not how she actually felt. Where the ever-hunger in her belly once was, now there was only silence. The result was … a lack of lacking. An absence of absence. The dominating urge of her existence was gone. She felt. Resentment. Fear. Confusion. She felt unmoored here, uncertain, drifting aimless like one of Fundament’s shattered continents, floating as surely as she herself hovered above the ground.

“Hate,” she crooned, softly at first, uncertain, then louder, as if to reassure herself. “Contempt. Loathing. Disgust for this waste of energy. It is fat to be trimmed from the flank of the universe. A false god of empty promises.”

“Empty? It brought you back to life. Seems pretty real to me.”

Ekshunul growled deep down in her chest. Her claws traced lines in her keratin hide, probing, scratching. As though the Light might be something she could tear from inside her, rip out and cast away.

“What do you want, wretched thing?”

“I want a universe where the Traveler survives. I want a universe where the Light triumphs. I what you want: Survival. Strength.”

“Why bring me here? Why show me this?”

“Because it could be home,” the Ghost said softly.

“Thanks to you I have no home, wretched thing!” she howled in sudden fury. “You made me a freak. An abomination. You have made me everything the Hive despise.”

“The Hive respect strength. Who are the strongest Wizards—brood queens, isn’t that right? You remember In Anânh? You remember what happened to her? Killed. By Lightbearers. Who are mightier than brood queens—the hive kings and queens, right? You remember Oryx, the Taken King? Killed. By Lightbearers. Who was greater than them—the worm gods? Xol the Will of the Thousands. Well buddy, you are never, not in a million years, going to guess what happened to him. Oh, you’re way ahead of me. That’s right. Killed. Killed stone dead. By, you guessed it, Lightbearers. ‘Everything the Hive despise’? I have raised you higher than any Wizard has ever been. I have made you a gift of everything you once struggled to be.”

“A gift,” she spat the word as though it was the foulest curse imaginable. “It is not our way. The Sword Logic way.”

“If you really followed the Sword Logic then you would discard any belief that no longer serves its purpose, including the Sword Logic,” the Ghost sighed and turned away to look at the Tower again. “You’re right, it’s madness. Insanity. They built this thing and when its obvious weakness was rubbed in their faces by the Red Legion, they were so staunchly determined not to learn a single lesson from the experience that they built the exact same damn thing again. I swear, they would rather destroy themselves than become something new. I thought the Hive were different. I thought you people valued evolution above all. I thought you would try to change.”

“I am no longer Hive.”

“No. You’ve evolved. Can’t you see that? Aiat. You have become. Now you’re something else.”

“Devolved.”

“Oh poor widdle wizard. Was the big bad universe mean to you? Shall I hug you and kiss you and make it all better?”

Ekshunul glared in molten hatred at the Ghost, her claws raised and haloed in burning white fire. A strangled cry came from between needle teeth.

“Go on, do it,” the Ghost taunted. “Show me you are as stupid and stubborn and weak as the humans. Did you moan and cry this much when the worm gods gave you the Darkness? Oooh nooo, please don’t teach me any eldritch incantations, I can do it all myself? Tch. No wonder the Darkness abandoned you.”

“IT DIDN’T!”

“Didn’t it?” The Ghost floated closer, right before her face, so she could clearly see her own distorted face in the multifaceted mirror of its eye. “It didn’t stop me from raising you, did it? Like it or not, you’re mine now. And you can either cry about it. Destroy yourself rather than become something new. Or.”

The fire about her hands dimmed, her claws lowered a fraction of a degree. “Or?”

“Or take this gift, take your power, and use it to carve a home of your own.”

That got her, the Ghost can tell. It sighed to itself, Ends say hello to Means oh and here’s your old pal Justification so nice you could all meet like this. Making a people utterly, totally and ruthlessly bent on survival dependent on the Traveler was a gamble, but he had a feeling it was about to pay off.

“Yesss. My power.” A sibilant, sinister thought slithered through her mind. She turned and looked up at the Traveler again, not hesitant this time, but sure, confident. Possessive.

“My home.”

 

FALLEN

Child of the Whirlwind. Child of the ships, child of the stars, child of the hunt, of the pursuit-that-was-escape.

No memory of Riis or the Silken City, first home was the Ketch, the void, the gulf between stars. Then Earth and the rotting, rusted ruins of its peoples. Then the eternal biting cold and brittle shattered promises of Europa. Now the City, now the shadow of the Tower.

Child of half a hundred homes.

Listen to two humans meet for the first time. Listen to the questions they ask:

“What’s your name? What do you do? Where are you from?”

His name is Arytriis. He is a marauder scout. Storm-tossed wind-blown rootless seed, he has no idea how to answer the third question.

A Captain stands before him. Clad in House of Salvation colors, wrapped in memory, wreathed in old regrets. One of Eramis’s fanatics, clinging past all hope or reason to empty dreams and a broken Kell. The two of them are alone but for the shattered human buildings overgrown with green, the soft gurgle of ether in their masks, and a restless wayward wind.

“Consider well,” the Captain advises, thinly-veiled menace in his words. “Are you Eliksni or Fallen?”

Captain Khurikses was once his Captain, and the scorn in his voice stings worse than any shock blade. Arytriis says nothing though, not immediately, lets the silence linger long enough to become uncomfortable. A marauder scout, sharpshooter, marksman, the lier-in-wait, the patient-hand, acolyte-of-Pirrha, he knows the value of stillness. Observe without revealing. Let the others reveal themselves.

“Squat in human houses all you want, Arytriis, but you will never be part of their House,” Khurikses says, goaded at last by the quiet. “One act-beyond, you owe us that. For Eramis, who took you in when the Wolves fell. I know you, Arytriis. Child of the Whirlwind, Child of the Ships, you have the look-to-windward, the wheel-turn urge, you will never be happy being a less-than-dreg to the humans.”

“Times change, Houses change, Eliksni change,” Arytriis says, still guardedly. Yet he cannot deny the look-behind, the warm-remembrance, the leader who found him when he was lost. Perhaps he owes something to her memory-shade. After a moment he asks: “One act-beyond?”

Khurikses rumbles in his chest, a contented sound, sure he has baited his old follower. “For Eramis-kell,” he says. “She saved your life, now that debt is due. A life for a life.”

“Only one?”

“One of the Great Machine’s ghouls,” Khurikses says. “The murderer of Eramis-kell. An act worthy of House of Judgement. You need not even harm one of your precious kell-of-kell humans. A single shot, destroy his not-servitor. We will do the rest.”

“Their servitors are rarely seen.”

“Not this one. This one allows the not-servitor to speak for them. We will meet, here, in five cycles, a feigning-friendship, expression-of-remorse, begging sanctuary and absolution. You will observe. And when the not-servitor speaks, you will strike. A single shot. That is … if you are still Eliksni?”

“I am Arytriis.” Child of Pirrha, child of shadow. He knows he can do this thing. Will he?

“Five cycles, Arytriis.”

“I can still count that high.”

“Five cycles.”

Arytriis slips back into the City. Cloaked, master of both stillness and movement, nobody marks his return. He does not return to the Fallen dwellings. He perches on a rooftop high overhead. Height is security, a vantage point, invisibility and safety. He perches and watches the Eliksni below, the House of Light, the Fallen.

He watches them string netting across human rooms, drape banners over human walls, set up ether canisters in human corners. He watches them for a long time.

Later, uncloaked, he moves about the City. He passes under shaded awnings where merchants hawk their wares and give him sideways glances. The people are curious. Some scowl and stand aside, or else fold their two (just two!) arms and refuse to do so, and smirk when he is forced to go around. Others have too-bright smiles, like the outrageously optimistic sun that always beats down on this world. Their friendship is not house-brother friendship; it is friendship towards the Other. The hospitality towards a house-guest. Not a neighbor.

He does not enter the Tower, not at first. He has noticed that they only allow dregs inside, the smallest and weakest, the least threatening. The humans’ hands of friendship are open, yes, but not all the way. Curiosity draws him though, wraps him in its whispering web and draws him clambering up the sheer walls, cloaked against detection, and pads upon a ledge to observe the one who is his target.

The Guardian stands alone against a balustrade, looking over the city, out towards the Great Machine. Their servitor is nowhere to be seen.

Slowly the Guardian turns and looks directly towards where Arytriis waits. There is no fear or anger there. The Guardian beckons with one hand. “Come down,” they say. “There is no need to be afraid.”

Arytriis is shocked. He is sure he has not moved a micrometer since finding his perch. Surprise compels him to move, until he stands before the one he has been asked to help kill.

The Guardian says nothing. Allows an expectant silence to fill the space between them. Arytriis clicks in grudging respect. Few have mastered the art of patience. It is Arytriis who speaks first: “You are the one who killed Eramis-kell?”

A tilt of the head. “Most of your people just call her ‘Eramis,’” they say. “Except those who joined House Salvation. Are you from Europa?”

“I am from nowhere.” Storm-tossed wind-blown rootless seed.

The Guardian nods, a human gesture of sympathy. “Join the club. Look around, nobody here is from the City, not originally. I have no memory of where I was born, where I lived, who I lived with, where I died, the first time.” A slight shrug. “Yet I am what those places and people made me. This place, these people too, and all the people and places in between.”

“And Eramis-ke… Eramis?”

“Yes, she is part of me. In a way. And Misraaks, and Variks. We are not from places. Whether human or Eliksni, we are from memories, both good and bad. Do you hate me, for what I did?”

“No,” Arytriis is honest enough to answer. No, but he hates what her death made him, made them all. He hates what the Eliksni have become.

“What is your name?”

“Arytriis.”

“Oh, that’s beautiful,” the Guardian laughs suddenly, and claps once. Their joy is unbridled, unguarded, as open as the sun. “It means ‘Child of Riis’, doesn’t it? But how sad to remember that loss each time you say your name.”

The rush of emotion is a punch to the gut, bowing Arytriis double. Understanding is an attack. He cannot speak, cannot answer, but scrabbles away on all fours, ashamed, angered. For a scout, to be seen is to be vulnerable. He has never felt so exposed.

Arytriis flees into the night.

Two cycles pass. On the rooftop, wire rifle braced against a rubble wall, sighting down at the two groups below. He is patient. He waits. Arytriis knows this day will make a new memory, one that will define who he is forever.

Child of memory. Child of Riis.

He aims down the sights. And fires.

 

EXO

“Eyes up Guardian!”

The exo opens his eyes and stares at the bobbing spindle-flashlight thing hanging in front of his face. He tries to frown at it, but discovers he doesn’t have eyebrows anymore. He settles for a few inquisitive blinks instead.

“Oh crap,” it says. “Okay, quick, how much do you remember?”

“About what?”

“That answers that question.”

There is a skittering, chittering cry, somewhere behind him. He discovers he is slumped against some kind of metal barricade. There is a boxy gun in his hand, like two or three metal cartons welded together.

“Do you remember your name?”

“Sure, Ulysses-42,” he says, then stops. “What’s the ‘42’ for?”

“Number of brain cells you have left.” The light suddenly zips to one side, an instant before a hail of bruise-colored slivers burns through the air it had just occupied. “Okay, here’s the main thing: There are a bunch of creatures coming to kill you. I suggest not letting them do that. So now slowly—no, wait—”

His curiosity piqued, the exo twists around and stands up. On the other side of the barrier are a dozen three-eyed things that look like walking fistfuls of knives. They throw back their heads and scream at him, dry rasping howls and he doesn’t know what to do so he screams right back at them: “Aaaaaah!”

The introductions out of the way, they charge.

Reflexively he brings the gun up and squeezes the trigger. Nothing happens. Well, it hums, kind of high-pitched, and vibrates a little.

“Uh, how does this thing—” he starts to ask the floaty thing as the creatures reach for him with iron talons.

The gun shudders and vomits a spray of lightning-blue bolts. Wherever they touch, one of the creatures is annihilated, utterly disintegrated, leaving only a brief outline of static in wispy-white shadow.

“—ah, I see.”

And they are alone.

He looks around. They are in a darkened, black-green vaulted chamber whose walls seem carved from calcified cancer. Mounds of bones litter the ground, ankle-deep. A few moths flitter from mound to mound, and the rustle of their wings echoes in the chamber.

“Okay,” sighs the light. It says, sing-song, like someone reciting from memory: “MynameisPenny Imaghost actuallyImyourghost thatmeans Ihavethepowertobringyoubackfromthedead youreaguardian youreinfusedwiththelightofthetraveler givingyousuperhumanabilities thosearehiveen emiesofhumanity yourmissionistokilltheirleadership. Got that?”

“Yup,” Ulysses agrees. “Well, up to the bit about your name being Penny.” He pauses. “Hi, Penny.”

“Why, of all possible times, do you have to do this now?” Another sigh. “What’s the first thing you remember?”

He thinks for a moment. Thinks. Says the first thing that comes to mind: “The Deep Stone Crypt.”

Penny whistles, long and low. “Sheee—” she observes “—yit.” She sinks in the air, almost to the floor. “Is that all? Nothing else?”

Ulysses shakes his head slowly. There is more, of course, a field filled with faces he should know, friends become enemies, a road littered with the dead he had to fight to get there, a Stone Tower, a lone tower that brings both life and oblivion. He doesn’t say that, though. He’s pretty sure he saw Penny among the dead.

“Is this—is this the Deep Stone Crypt?”

“This?” There is a digital squirt, and for some reason Ulysses pictures someone blowing a wet raspberry. “Great heavenly golf balls, no. We’ve been some crazy places, you and me, Yulie, the DSC included, but this is about as far from it as this little universe of ours can manage.” She rises to eye level, and spins a slow circle, a magician unveiling their latest trick. “Welcome to the Throne World of Savathûn.”

“Thanks. Nice to almost be here.”

“It is an extra-dimensional pocket universe either created from her mind, or it is her mind, or it’s somehow both, it’s complicated. Anyway, you’re here to kill her.”

“Oh.” He looks at the gun in his hand. “Do I do this a lot?”

“Almost exclusively. You’re pretty good at it.”

A soft voice laughs. “They call it your ‘knack for violence.’ Giving the terrifying a harmless name, to make thinking about it more bearable. It’s a very human thing.”

A woman’s voice, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

“What a strange little thing you are,” it says. “A copy of a thing inside a copy of a thing. A wraith haunting your own body. Are you sure you’re on the right side?”

“That’s her,” says Penny. “God of Lies and Deceit. Ergo, not worth listening to.”

“She seems nice,” Ulysses objects.

“Well, duh. Would be a pretty rubbish God of Trickery otherwise.”

“What did she do?”

“What, you mean recently, or do you want the whole laundry list? Tried to steal the Traveler, the source of your power and immortality, for a start. Come on.”

The laughter again, soft and fluttering, like wingbeats in the night air. “Yes, come and find me. But note all the things you see along the way.”

Penny snorts and guides him to a long and curving staircase, illuminated in sickly pale green light, carved of horn and bone and hate. Eggshell skulls crunch under his feet with each step. Bodies litter the steps. Tangled heaps of three-eyed monsters. Recent ones, their skins still intact, save where they have been punctured and mutilated by gunshot wounds. He doesn’t have to ask who killed them, he knows, he remembers, he’s seen the road of dead that line his way to the Stone Tower.

Penny follows his gaze and says, “They are killers; ruthless, insatiable killers.” She means to reassure. She doesn’t.

He thinks: What does that make me?

There’s another one of them waiting at the top of the stairs. Bigger, spiny, with a black hide, a wide bony crest, carrying some kind of handheld howitzer. And a little green light floating at its shoulder. It forgoes the snarling challenge thing and opts to lob a few whistling, screaming star-shells at him instead.

“Penny—” he yells as he twists and rolls aside, blinking away in an instant. The boxy energy gun will be too slow here—it vanishes from his hand, replaced with a huge and heavy revolver, stamped with a white-on-black mark of a Spade. The first shot rocks the enemy back, sends it staggering and reeling, and he pounces, emptying the chamber into the thing’s face and blasting it to ruin.

It is over in a handful of heartbeats. Natural, instinctive, almost effortless, he could do this in his sleep—he does do this in his sleep, on the way to the Stone Tower. It’s what he does. What did the queen call it? This knack for violence.

The green light hovers over the body, swells, grows brighter.

“Kill it!” Penny gasps. “Crush it! Before it can—”

It’s back. The black thing is back, whole, hearty, ready for a rematch. It conjures an obsidian-bone blade and lunges for him. He charges forward to meet its rush, then drops, slides, lets the blade whistle over his head, presses the barrel against the thing’s belly and lets his shot blow it in half.

When the light reappears, Ulysses is ready. There’s a blade in his other hand and it goes right through the things beady little eye. It shatters like glass.

“Quick question,” he says to Penny as he stands and holsters his gun.

“Fire away. Only don’t, you know. Fire away.”

“What—” he gestures to the puddle of guts and keratin that was once his enemy. “—the hell?”

“Ah. That.”

“Yeah. That.”

Penny’s outer shell spins once or twice. He can almost see her considering and discarding a number of explanations in rapid succession. Finally, with a short digital bleep that sounds like a sigh, she says, “Does it matter?” The cobalt eye searches his face. “I could make up a justification, but in the end, it wouldn’t change anything. You’re an exo and a Guardian, this is what you were made to do. Doubly so; made and then remade. There’s an enemy, here’s a gun, you know what to do.”

He thinks about that, and nods. Starts to walk away.

“Hey, where are you going?”

The road home. The Stone Tower. The field of dead. All the ones he has to kill to get there.

“Don’t worry, I know the way.”

 

RELIC

You got old, old man.

You didn’t mean to, but it happened just the same. Time happened. Times changed and you stayed the same and the universe moved on and left you behind.

Your body is small now, shrunken and weak. Oh, in your day you were the strongest, the toughest, the smartest, and the memory of those days seems like mockery. “Look on my works ye mighty and despair” type stuff. Well, just look at you now. Just look. If you muster every ounce of fury in your being you can just about move a finger. Eyes that once saw wonders now struggle to see past the end of your own face. You once traveled the solar system; now confined to this slab you lie on and this fragile little shell.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or what you’ve accomplished. You’re yesterday’s news. You’re obsolete.

You want to go home.

Your mind has grown feeble. Can’t ‘member stuff too good no more. Like the woman who comes to check on you from time to time. Concerned face. Familiar. Step-sister or something, maybe, once, long ago. She sits and talks with you, or to you, for you struggle to focus your thoughts enough to answer. She’s worried about you, and something else too, and you want to help.

“—Vex gearing some for something major on Europa,” she is saying. “Some new kind of Axis Mind. The Iterative Mind.”

You know you can help. There’s still one secret left in that decrepit noggin of yours.

“My dreams, my dreams,” you say, or at least you think you do. “What has become of their sweetness? What indeed has become of my youth."

She smiles sadly and pats your hand.

You try again. Try to use her language, and make her understand. First you have to remember how to speak. You focus. Strain. Manage to move that mouth of yours. You say, “S.”

The sudden noise startles her, and she peers closely at you. “Are you alright?” she asks. “Are you in pain?”

“Sss.”

It’s sad that ageing must be so undignified. So pathetic. Robbed of gravitas as you lie here, in a morgue in all but name, awaiting the end. Regrets, yes, wondering what you might have done different, wondering if you could have helped more, done more.

Your sons, your children, you see them from time to time, you thought they might help, but they no longer recognize you. Hard to blame them, for you’re not your former self. Barely recognizable. There’s nothing to link the titan you once were to the fraction of a fraction you’ve become. However close you once were, they’ve moved on.

You’re an old scar they’d rather forget.

You see, you know you did something, once, not too long ago as these things go. Something bad. Something terrible. Something unspeakable. It’s tied to the secret.

“The power of working for the general welfare is not a virtue but rather a lack,” you tell your half-sibling. “A lack of the power of living—the aspiration which makes a man choose one out of all the innumerable paths of life.”

Old age is a time of regrets and justifications. Of putting one’s affairs in order. Of thinking about one’s legacy. Redemption. Your home is gone, gone forever, but hers is not yet lost yet. There still might be time to save it.

The woman bites her lip and looks away. Blinking back tears. She thinks you’ve lost your mind.

Without looking at you, she says: “I know you lived through some tough times. I know you had to make some hard choices. I know you did what you thought was best. I think, after Elsie, maybe now I get it. I just—I just wanted you to know before I—in case I—ah, nothing.”

“Si,” you manage this time. “Si.”

“You picked a fine time to start learning Spanish,” she says. She stands, and her face is the face of a woman struggling to say goodbye. “I’m heading to Europa tomorrow. This thing with the Vex. I may not … I won’t be back for a while.”

It takes every ounce of energy. Moving stars was trivial by comparison. But you do it—you lift the dead arm they’ve grafted to you, use its foreign fingers to take her hand. You draw the symbol there. The triangle. Over and over and over again. She must understand. She must be made to understand.

She’s confused, then angry, and jerks her hand away. “I don’t have time for this—”

“Sieve.”

“What are you babbling about now, sieve? Seed? Steve? Siege?”

You are drawing furiously down, air-writing triangles upon triangles, triangles interlocking with triangles. You point to them in helpless frustration. “Sieve,” you explain.

There’s a secret and there’s this one last thing that you can do.

Ana Bray’s face goes through a series of emotions: Dawning comprehension. Shock. Horror and revulsion, swiftly replaced by cold calculation. She sits down again, and pulls her chair closer to the bier where you lie.

“Yes,” she says. “Tell me about SIVA, Rasputin.”

 

VEX

The Vex do not have a home. That is to say, they originate from somewhere, but as a species without words or language to interpose between the thought and its expression, they have an image of the planet they originate from, but it is pure information without texture, all denotation, no connotation. The planet and star it orbits hold no special meaning for them; they do not associate them with any emotions, they are not shorthand for comfort or security.

The closest the Vex get to a cozy thought is something like this:

1 > 0

Existence is greater than nonexistence. Something is better than nothing. That is their first and most basic thought and the one that drives everything else they do.

Their second thought gets a little more complicated. It goes like this:

∞ > 0

Now, any finite number, no matter how ludicrously large, is still closer to zero than it is to infinity, indeed so close that it might as well be zero. So: Anything less than infinite existence is equal to nonexistence. Mortality is as bad as never being born. On a cosmic scale, anything less than everything is, to put it bluntly, nothing.

The Vex search for what we might call a home, for safety and security, is thus the search for the infinite.

This leads to the central, insurmountable question the Vex have devoted their entire existence to solving: How do you squeeze infinity out of a finite universe?

Well, first things first: you gobble up all the finite reality you can get your brassy mitts on.

The Vanguard describe the Vex as ‘hostile to all sentient life’ but ‘hostile’ isn’t quite the right word, there is no malice or hate in what they do. As surely as one is greater than zero, two greater than one, three greater still, and so on, so the more of the universe that is Vex the better. It’s just the way they try to gain more existence. Anything that opposes becoming more Vex is to be eliminated.

Not being sentient in the human sense themselves, it is doubtful they even understand the concept of sentience. Oh, they can simulate sentience, for sure, in the same way a computer program can draw a face—doesn’t mean the program understands what a face is. They are aware humans or Hive or Cabal are a potential danger, the same way one might recognize the danger inherent in a thunderstorm, a falling stone or incoming tidal wave without the need to ascribe a mind or motives to it.

So sentient beings are removed simply because they resist becoming Vex.

They expanded into the Reef, the Tangled Shore and the Dreaming City for the same reason they expanded everywhere else: These places were not yet Vex. They fought and killed the Fallen, Scorn, Cabal and Awoken they found for the same reason—they were not yet Vex.

The first encounter between the Vex and Riven was a disaster—for the Vex. Just as the Ahamkara was revolted by their lack of anything resembling individual hopes, desires, dreams or ambitions—the very fuel that fires what we might term wishes—so too the Vex found the Ahamkara to be anathema, exerting a kind of deadening shadow across time and space that squashed all attempts to communicate with the Collective. As psychics so powerful they make Psion Flayers look like Ouija board enthusiasts, the very presence of an Ahamkara shuts out any kind of intelligence incompatible with wish-granting.

The Vex in the Dreaming City were on their own.

They did what all good Vex do in similar situations: A bunch of them pooled together in a hydra hull, and made a Mind to have a good long think about what to do. They called it the Solitary Mind.

This, at last, was something Riven could sink her teeth into.

It’s amazing. You are so tiny, so incredibly microscopically small. A billion, trillion nothings, with a billion, trillion miniscule minds wanting just one tiny, simple thing. Well, go on then. Perhaps I can help you. All you have to do is wish for it.

The Solitary Mind was immune to both flattery and insults, so most of Riven’s blandishments went right over its head. Its first reaction was a qualitative judgement:

Vex > !Vex

It sent its units to attack the Dreaming City, and watched as they were scythed down by the Taken. Its second reaction was a quantitative one:

Vex < !Vex

It therefore proceeded cautiously. It did not wish for Riven to die. Nor did it wish to be reunited with the Collective, for more Vex, or the power to conquer the Dreaming City. However, the Vex were not unfamiliar with the potential power of worship, so it set a few subunits to believing in the Ahamkara, just to see what would happen.

Yes, yes, this is all very delightful, but it doesn’t work that way. It’s like gravitational potential energy, it is only released when the mind falls towards the object of its desire. Oh never mind, something more interesting has come along—

The ‘something else’ was a team of Guardians, who obligingly killed Riven and triggered the Dreaming City curse. This was all according to an Byzantinely opaque and nefarious plan, of course, but then the Witch Queen may have actually done us a favor by saving the universe from finding out what happens when every single Vex that exists, has existed or will ever exist all simultaneously wish for the same thing, and that thing is for the universe to be Vex.

It took the Solitary Mind a few weeks to realize what was happening. Its analysis would have knocked it off its feet, if it had had any. Made its monocular lens go cross-eyed with amazement. Blown its mind if it had just one, instead of a million, billion ones. Imagine the Solitary Mind leaping from a Vex milk bath, screaming “EUREKA!” only instead of Greek, what it excitedly told the Collective was this:

O

Pretty strong stuff, eh?

This was as close in concept to a comfy, cozy “home” as any Vex had ever come. Had they been a more vocal race, the Solitary Mind would have cried “The sea! The sea!” like one of Xenophon’s hard-marching Greek mercenaries, would have bent and kissed the ground like a returning pilgrim, would have put its daughter on its lap and said “Well, I’m back” as if at the end of a long adventure. But what it sent instead was this:

∞ = O

A perfect loop. Trace the circle. Put your finger anywhere on the line, and follow it around, and around, and around. Where does it begin, where does it end? Ah, it has neither. It is a line of infinite length. Infinity in a finite shape.

A loop of time. Infinitely repeatable.

The Solitary Mind set all its subunits to studying how to replicate this new phenomenon on a grander scale.

 

AWOKEN

I wandered the windblown wasteland. A hopscotch labyrinth of floating stone islands shifted beneath my feet, collided, shattered. The ground groaned and split and fractured, tumbling rivers of rocks that decanted into a void, harshly illuminated by a bare-bulb black star, shrouded in eternal dusk. I was lost. Hopelessly lost.

“I’m sorry, My Queen,” I whispered.

That cut colder than the endless wind—I had failed my queen. The Queen! An endless miracle in those two short words; long thought dead, now newly returned. Having Her back was like a hollow heart made whole again, a bright summer sun after a long dark winter, order returning to chaos.

And just as soon as we had found Her, She was gone again. She had trusted us to guide and protect Her in this place, and we had failed. We? No, I. I had failed.

“Find me,” She had called to us in dreams and signs, called across the starless void and white-blind wells. “If you love me, you will not fail. Find me. Bring me home.”

And we had, we Techeuns, we had done it. Against all hope or reason or understanding, we found Her. Alive. We gathered about Her, hearts in our throats, unable to speak for joy. Perhaps our devotion seems strange to you, but in many ways She is the ancestor of all Awoken, the one who crafted both our old home and new, our pastel angel faces, our marble eyes. We are who we are because of Her.

“Illyn and Portia would have found me in half the time,” Mara had said with a sigh. “Still, one makes do with the tools one has, I suppose.”

Then the champions of Xivu Arath had appeared, and all was chaos. Light, fire, detonations, we scattered, and I lost track of Her. Of the Queen. If I could not find my way home, back to the Dreaming City, perhaps I did not deserve to.

I heard the hollow, haunting hunting cries of the Scorn and Hive, Xivu Arath’s servants, somewhere close. I could only hope they had not found one of my sisters, Austyn, Ylaia, Sjari or one of the others. Or worse, the Queen herself.

I shuddered at the thought, and hesitated. Risk exposing myself, or trust that whoever they pursed could defend themselves? But no, the danger was too great. If it was Queen Mara they pursued, then I had to act. No sacrifice was too small to protect Her.

Still, I moved cautiously. I set my AG field to low, just enough to give me freedom of movement over the broken ground. Readied my Psi screens and dampening fields. Tapped the fold between thumb and index finger, where the graviton generator sits.

Carefully, I raised my field and looked out over a jagged crest of rock, and saw the enemy in the plain below.

They were Scorn. They are the antithesis of everything Awoken: Pale and twisted things, animated by the will of another, filled with Darkness and hate. A towering Chieftain led them, flanked by two hulking Abominations, and followed by a slavering trail of Raiders, Lurkers and Stalkers. They moved to surround a temple-like structure, some twisted shadow of a place in our world. There was a tall central tower, gracefully tapering to a rounded point, bone-white walls shot through with curling tendrils of shadow. The Chieftain and the Abominations faced the main entrance, with its broad sweeping staircase, while the pack fanned out on either side.

I struck hard and fast. Every moment was a moment She might be in danger. My own safety was of no concern. A blast of pure black-fire entropy scrambled the insides of an Abomination into a hundred different elements.

Then a beam, a glancing blow to my head, and I was blinded.

I collapsed behind a rocky outcropping, probed the wound, felt the burn there, saw purple-black worms and dazzling pinpoint lights dancing before my eyes. I could only listen to my enemies approach, and pray my sight would return.

The scorn Chieftain called to me, but its voice was not its own. It echoed and reverberated altered a little each time. It said: “Your loyalty is as misguided as your path – math – wrath. I do not wish to harm you, but save you – gave you – slave you.”

I made no answer, but listened. Something used the Chieftain as its mouthpiece, perhaps Xivu Arath herself. She said: “She is like a mother you to, but consider, not all homes and families are happy; there are other things a home can breed – need – feed. She made your face, why not more? Have you ever considered if your love for her comes from the heart, or somewhere deeper in your cells – sells – cells?”

Ah, listening, that was the key. I ignored the voice, with its blasphemy against Her, and focused on the footsteps, the sounds of scorn slinking towards my position. I touched a finger to the base of my thumb, feeling the emitter there. Wide spread, maximum gain.

“She made and molded you—do you think she would be above weaving such blind faith into your soul – sole – sold?”

I had their number and position now. I waited until they were almost upon me, then sprang and whirled, emitter firing as fast as it could recharge, carpeting the area on the other side of my cover with a dozen micro blackholes. The scorn were torn apart in screaming agony by the incredible gravitational forces, or else sucked in a imploded on themselves, flesh and brain and bone compacting in on themselves.

I blinked furiously, vision slowly clearing, but no answering fire came. The scorn were dead, those mindless zombies filled with the will of another were all dead. I had won. I had saved the Queen.

The shadow church was empty—my sister or the Queen had used the time I had bought to flee further into the Ascendant Realm. That was fine. I was happy. I had been a good daughter, I had served my Queen. Being lost no longer felt so bad. I would wander, I would find my way back, or She would send someone for me. Or not, I would die here. That would be fine too, so long as She lived.

In the meantime, there were more mindless servants of the Hive to kill.

 

DISCIPLE

What is a home?

Put simply, home is where the people are like me.

Ah, but who is ‘like you’?

Identity is determined by circumstances. It’s our differences that define us. Let us both be honest with ourselves: If you want to bring two people together, make them different from someone else. This one was born in the City, this one born in the Wild, ah but when they meet an Awoken, they suddenly become brothers, two Earth-born baseline humans. Should the three of them meet an Eliksni, why then, now they are a trio, three children of Sol meeting an alien.

The living, the dead and the Risen. No! All humans, now that you know aliens exist. Titans, Warlocks and Hunters bickering in the Tower become a unified fireteam of Guardians in the field. An identity is only useful when it separates you and those like you from everyone else.

All homes are exclusionary, walls and roof and doors to shut out those who are not like us. We are all of us shapes defined by the negative space around us. Here at last is one vacuum that nature does not abhor, no, for it is one that is essential for individual existence.

Do you see?

To be or not to be, is NOT the question.

“BE NOT!”

That is the command.

Not the command of my Witness to me, nor my command to you. Quite the opposite, it is your own command to the universe.

You have within you, as surely as the Hive have their parasites, a burrow-black thought and drive and desire to shut away anything that is not like you. And as you erase the not-you, what used to be like-you becomes unlike-you, because you can only define yourself in opposition to the Other.

So you whittle and you whittle and you whittle away the outside universe until what do you have left? When all else is gone, where is your home, where are the people like you?

I think you are honest enough with yourself to admit you already know the answer. I know you do.

I know you know it for it is the same answer that I found, following the same inevitable path paved with the same inevitable choices. I need not explain it to you. No. I show you. In every plate and line, every plinth and pedestal, every molecule of air of this place, you can sense the answer.

As you venture deeper into my abode (I did not say “home”, please note), at first you might wonder at the emptiness of it. The solitude. You might listen to my thoughts, meant for another, yet sharing my wisdom nonetheless. Ah, and then you start to see. You might begin to understand my splendid, splendid isolation.

This is why I have such terrible clarity of purpose. There are none like me. None. Not anymore. I’ve seen to that. To be the last of my kind is not lonely or sad or hopeless, no, it has been tremendously, unimaginably liberating. I can act without hesitation, without pause or regret. This has been my gift, the gift of my Witness to me: A life where there is no home. No more drawing and redrawing lines between what is and is not like me. I have a life where there are none like me. All life is Other. All life is unlike-me, and so ripe for its inevitable extermination.

You’ve been blessed, as I was, to speak to the Witness. You know what it wants you to do. And I know that you recoil, but don’t you understand, that is foolishness.

You see, Guardian, the Witness is not asking you to do anything strange or unnatural. On the contrary, this is the most natural drive of all. You want to save the Light, destroy the Dark. In other words, you want to protect the people who are like you and annihilate the people who aren’t.

To that I say, “Good.”

Yes.

I watch as you carve your way through my Taken and Scorn, I watch as you clamber over mountains of Hive dead, I watch as you crush the bones of Cabal and Fallen underfoot, I watch as you tear the Vex from time. I watch as my greatest project, the Worm Gods themselves, shrivel and burn before your blaze and I say: “Yes, good.”

More than that, though:

“A good start.”

We’ve all got to begin somewhere. It always begins with the killing of those who are different. There it might end, who knows, we will test your mettle soon enough.

If I fall, well then. Then there will be more. More will come when you have wiped out everyone unlike you, and discovered the ones you thought were like you are now, when seen in a new Light, no longer quite so similar. The Risen will slaughter the living, then Titans murder the Hunters and Warlocks, then Sunbreakers will kill the wielders of Arc and Void and Stasis. And so on and so on until the majestic, inevitable end.

That will come, in time.

But for now, the slaughter of all that is not like you will do.

 

PSION

Item ID:

NSS/InsTer/#20056

Classification:

Salvage/AI/Inimical-Eccentric

History:

20056 was recovered by VIP2014 following Operation: INSIGHT and handed over to the Vanguard for further analysis.

Description:

Physical appearance is a rectangular, obelisk-shaped Cabal data storage unit, 2.7m by 0.9m by 0.3m (HxWxD), with an outer shell made of grey armor plating. There are audio and visual sensors and interface ports at the midpoint of the longest surface.

Analysis:

Scans and initial research indicate 20056 contains 177,174 copies of the mind-state of Otzot, a Psion scientist, engineer and former confidant of Emperor Calus before taking part in Dominus Ghaul’s conspiracy to overthrow him [See Ref#CBL-CLS033].

To date, 133 copies of the mind-state have been accessed. All those successfully interacted with claim to have been exposed to a Psion prediction engine called the OXA Machine [See Ref#CBL-PSN018]. IKR006 speculates that 20056 was developed by the Psions as a means of improving the accuracy of OXA predictions by exposing tens of thousands of virtual minds to the machine and collating their most frequent visions.

All 133 copies have auto-deleted following interaction with researchers.

Access to 20056 is currently restricted. Two (2) sentry frames are to be posted outside its storage unit at all times to prevent unauthorized access. Nobody is to approach or attempt to interact with the device without the approval and presence of IKR006.

Note 1: If presented with a visual feed of any species other than a Psion, the mind-state will be intensely hostile and uncooperative, or else feign friendliness and provide false or misleading information in an attempt to harm the user [See Ref#CBL-OAX001 and 002].

Note 2: If the visual sensor is blocked, jammed, shrouded or otherwise tampered with, the mind-state will be highly suspicious, question the lack of visual input, and then invariably self-terminate, regardless of the answers given.

Standard practice is now to interact with the selected mind-state via virtual Psion agent VPA5.2, developed by the AiPsy technomancer collective. The mind-state should be informed it is on Torobatl, and that Dominus Ghaul has successfully invaded the Sol system and captured the Traveler. Any other response causes the mind-state to auto-delete.

Note 3: Empress Caiatl is currently unaware we have 20056 in our possession.

Accessed Mind-States:

001-026: Initial attempts at interaction failed when the mind-state was presented with human, Awoken or Exo interlocutors. As noted above, all mind-states were either hostile or duplicitous.

027-098: Trial and error process of developing a virtual agent that would be believed by the Otzot mind-state. Early versions failed to convince, and the mind-states all auto-deleted.

099:         First successful interaction. Claimed to have been exposed to OXA. Warned VPA4.1 about “the worshippers of the godless” and the “thrice-fallen sister.”

100-108: VPA4.3 achieved acceptable verisimilitude. However, interactions remained limited due to the mind-state’s tendency to self-terminate if told it was anywhere but on Torobatl, if given a false date, or if told anyone but Dominus Ghaul led the Cabal.

109:         Claimed to have been exposed to OXA. Told VPA4.3 that the “skin and steel sisters” would end the universe and grant victory to “the false queen.”

110:         Claimed to have been exposed to OXA. Insisted the “wolf comes, the wolf in Sol’s clothing, the world-killer, the universe-ender” over and over again. Immediately self-terminated when shown an image of VIP2014.

111:         Cried unconsolably before auto-deleting.

112:         Claimed to have been exposed to OXA. Provided a highly accurate description of the (historically successful) counterattack by the Guardians on the Last City. Auto-deleted after relaying its prediction.

113-132: Either insane or provided a range of inaccurate predictions regarding the course of the Red War.

133:         Following activation, the mind-state regarded VPA5.2 for 6.7 seconds before declaring it was “very realistic, and might have fooled me otherwise.” It then demanded to speak with IKR006 specifically by name, and exhibited an awareness that it was on Earth.

<Transcript follows>

IKR006: How did you know you were on Earth?

NSS/InsTer/#20056: By now, there will be nothing left of my home. She has become like Calus, one of its Disciples, and will be unstoppable.

IKR: Savathun?

20056: Don’t pretend to be obtuse. You’re not very good at it. Next you’re going to admit you knew I was talking about Xivu Arath.

IKR: I … well, yes.

20056: Have you met the Lucent Hive yet?

IKR: We—

20056: No, I know you haven’t. Sorry, that was just the next question I was going to ask in this conversation so I had to ask it. It’s a bit like reading a script, you see. What do I say next? Oh, right. The Lucent Hive. I tell you that Mars is about to reappear and you should go there and investigate the Relic.

IKR: What—

20056: Relic? Sorry, getting impatient here. Mind you, I saw me interrupting you before, so no reason the reality should play out any differently. Look, it won’t make sense to you if I explain it now as it hasn’t happened yet, but you need to go there. Your champion will have to kill some of my people. Regrettable, but necessary to prevent worse. Oh, don’t worry about it.

IKR: WILL YOU LET ME FINISH A SENTENCE? I, ah, oh. Sorry. This conversation is making me jumpy.

20056: I said not to worry about it.

IKR: You saw this conversation? In the OXA machine?

20056: No, it’s all an inspired guess. Of course I saw it in the machine.

IKR: What else did you see?

20056: They’re coming.

IKR: Who? The Hive?

20056: I’m sorry to say I end up auto-deleting myself before I answer your question. Don’t worry, they’ll help you figure it out. It’s one of the other things they have a knack for. Got it? Mars, Relic, the Guardian. You know which one. There, that will have to do. Goodbye.

IKR: No, wait. Otzot? Otzot?

<Transcript ends>

 

GHOSTS

<Ghost Recording Transcript n0405.2202>

Ghost 1 (G1): Guardians were a mistake.

G2: Oh, not this again.

G3: Who keeps inviting this guy?

G2: Don’t look at me. I thought he was with you.

G1: I mean, it’s clear the Traveler panicked and made them as a kind of last-ditch, stop-gap, Hail Mary attempt to save itself. And they failed. Utterly failed.

G4: Hey what’s … oh, it’s Mr. Doom and Gloom again, is it?

G1 (“Mr. Doom and Gloom”): Look at this. Just look.

[Tightbeam trans. @ av0404.2202/01] (Whooping yell turns to a scream then a wet smack)

G1 (“Mr. Doom and Gloom”): And this.

[Tightbeam trans. @ av0404.2202/02-99] (Various cries, shouts, giggles, laughs, all ending suddenly in wet-fruit sounds)

G2: That uh … that’s quite a collection you got there, Mr. DG.  Everyone needs a hobby, I guess.

G1 (“Mr. Doom and Gloom”): It is not a hobby, you moron. It is evidence!

G2 (“Moron”): Of what?

G4: All I see is a bunch of Guardians leaping off the Tower and, um, well, plummeting to their deaths. Sometimes repeatedly.

G1 (“Mr. Doom and Gloom”): Exactly! They’ve been given the greatest blessing in the universe, entrusted with a power greater than any human has ever dreamed of wielding—and look how they use it. Abuse it. Committing suicide just for the thrill of it. Can you seriously pretend these clowns are going to defend the Traveler?!

G3: They have so far.

G1 (“Mr. Doom and Gloom”): No, they haven’t! In the face of their first serious challenge, the Red Legion, they were about as effective as spectacles on an Ogre.

G2 (“Moron”): Oh, come on. The Twilight Gap, the Taken War, the Almighty, the FWC incident, they’ve done alright, all things considered.

G4: Are you seriously second-guessing the Traveler? That feels, kind of, well. Hm. I don’t know.

G3: Agreed, it does feel very I-don’t-know. Very, very, I-don’t-know indeed.

G4: Thanks, chum. Yeah. A slippery slope, type of thing. Like, if the Traveler was wrong about the Guardians, what else was it wrong about? Us? Do you think we were a mistake?

G1 (“Mr. Doom and Gloom”): No, no, no, not at all. Only some of us. Like you.

G4 (“Mistake”): Oh well that’s—wait, what?

G3 (“Chum”): It’s a dead-end argument. So what? Maybe the Guardians aren’t the best solution to the problem of how to keep the Traveler safe, but what other options are there? The Fallen? Don’t make me laugh. The Cabal? Those idiots wouldn’t even know what to do with us? The Hive? Eugh. That would just be—

(4.84 seconds of silence)

G2 (“Moron”): You can’t be serious.

G1 (“Mr. Doom and Gloom”): Why not? What is the most effective fighting force in the entire Sol system? Hm? Which one is the most dedicated, the most organized, the most loyal and dogged in the pursuit of its aims? Which faction has the longest list of enemies defeated, destroyed, annihilated?

G4 (“A Mistake”): Enemies annihilated in an attempt to destroy the Traveler!

G1 (“Mr. Doom and Gloom”): All the more reason to coopt them and turn our enemy’s strongest weapon against her. Think of it, my friends: An army of Hive driven by the desire not to destroy the Traveler, but to protect it.

G3 (“Chum”): He’s cracked. Gone ga-ga. All these years without finding a Guardian have turned him into a total looney.

G2 (“Moron”): We are but the children of the Traveler. Motes of a greater and clearer light. One day, she will call us home, and we will be reunited and made strong and whole again. All that has happened since we were made has been guided by that goal. We must trust in the Traveler.

G1 (“Total Looney”): Ah, that’s a circular argument, isn’t it? If everything we do is guided by the Traveler, then me suggesting to you that we side with the Hive must also be guided by the Traveler. You can’t win. Either the Traveler is infallible and we are meant to do everything we do, in which case I was meant to recruit the Hive into our cause; or else the Traveler is capable of making mistakes, in which case the human Guardians were mistakes and we might as well try to recruit the Hive into our cause.

G4 (“Mistake”): It’s the principle of the matter. What you’re suggesting runs counter to everything the Traveler stands for. It’s precisely the kind of opportunistic, amoral, survival of the strongest, might-makes-right thinking we ought to be dedicating ourselves to stopping.

G1 (“Total Looney”): You said it yourselves: The only thing we ought to be dedicating ourselves to is the preservation of the Traveler, and our eventual return home.

G3 (“Chum”): No, I don’t think there’s any going home once we start down this path.

G1 (“Total Looney”): There won’t be a home to go back to, if we don’t.

G4 (“Mistake”): You saw what happened to Ghaul. You know what the Traveler does to those who try to seize its power. Don’t end up like him.

G2 (“Moron”): To even contemplate … Do you hate the Traveler, Mr. DG? You feel abandoned? Resentful?

G1 (“Total Looney”): For the sake of the Traveler, I am willing to risk Ghaul’s fate. We’ve all heard the Guardians’ mantra—devotion, sacrifice, death. You tell me then, between your timidity and my sacrifice, which of us loves the Traveler more?

G4 (“Mistake”): That’s not love. That’s. Well. That’s something else.

<End Recording>