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mosquitgo · 6 years

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And now, a break from my regular awful writing for-

Lore Ramble IV:(Hell yeah they're back) The Ulan-Tan Hypothesis.

So those of you who played D1 and monitored its lore, back when we only had the grimoire, might remember the card "Ghost Fragment: Darkness".

It's possibly the best insight into the nature of Darkness that we've had. Basically it goes through the various theories on what the Darkness actually is. These include that it is a physical force of pure destruction, that it is an idea or a religion that inspires its followers to do terrible things, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

But the one that really caught my attention is what's called the "Ulan-Tan position". It essentially states that the Darkness is the perfect opposite to Light, i.e it is an energy capable of granting power, and is presided over by a being similar to our Traveler.

Now this belief alone isn't that odd, so Ulan-Tan, an early Warlock, wouldn't have faced any problems by repeating it. But the other part of the theory is that Darkness and Light must always exist in complete balance. This means that their power is at constant equal; if one grows stronger, so does the other. If one weakens, so does the other.

Ulan-Tan himself was constantly at odds with the Vanguard. They wanted to push back the boundaries of the Darkness, but he believed that doing so would in turn push back the Light, weakening their own position. Eventually the Vanguard went to their default action concerning Warlocks with their own unique beliefs. They exiled Ulan-Tan, and he hasn't been seen, so is presumed dead.

Taken seriously, his hypothesis makes a lot of sense. It explains why, after beating the Traveler into dormancy, the Darkness didn't simply walk in and destroy our system. In gravely injuring the Traveler, it gravely injured itself. After this event, servants of the Light (Guardians) and those who are possibly in the Darkness' service (Hive, Taken) are simply left to scrap it out, an ordeal complicated by the intervention of hostile races like the Cabal, the Fallen, and the Vex.

With both forces recovering at a steady rate, there were no developments on the front of the Traveler for decades. It stayed entirely dormant, although we did accelerate its recuperation by returning the Shard the Hive were draining.

During the events of Towerfall and the subsequent Red War, the Traveler was disturbed endlessly. First, hundreds of its warriors fell, then the Ghosts it had sent out stopped emitting Light, and to top it all off, Dominus Ghaul forcibly extracted its power for his own purpose. The Traveler woke up, its first act to kill Ghaul.

Now we come back around to Ulan-Tan. If the Traveler is awake and the Light is stronger then ever, what comes next? The last time both forces were at full power, billions were killed and whole planets were sterilised in the aftermath of the battle.

Bungie have certainly hinted that the theory will become relevant (including a ship called "Symmetry Flight", the lore tab of which speaks about Ulan).

But what really suggests that he was correct is the final cutscene of Destiny 2. After the Traveler's dramatic awakening, we see a wave of Light spreading out through the galaxy, washing over planets and systems without effect. The first thing it highlighted was the broken Mercury, which became relevant in CoO. It continues on, dimming.

The Light flows through an apparently empty area, briefly showing dozens of huge, Tombship-like pyramids. The area goes dark again as the Light continues, but then we see lights coming on in the pyramids, and hear a slightly ominous engine sound.

In the very beginning of Destiny 2, before Towerfall, the Speaker makes a long speech about the Collapse, but in the accompanying images while he mentions the first coming of the Darkness, we see the shadow of a huge triangular ship covering a city. Sound similar to something I mentioned in the last paragraph?

This could well prove Ulan-Tan's theory. If those ships are the Dark equivalent of the Traveler, then the Traveler's awakening would definitely have provoked them into action for the first time.

Emperor Calus, the former leader of the Cabal Empire, seems to believe that something big is coming. The purpose of testing us (and several others, probably) is to see whether we are worthy of "standing at his side as the universe comes to an end". Calus, a being of immense and unknowable power, appears to be convinced that the universe will end very soon, and that it is unavoidable. He claims that although inevitable, having an army of a hundred species with him "will make the end more interesting". He might be referring to the catastrophic war which could be coming between Light and Dark.

Maybe a future DLC could explore the concept of direct conflict between Darkness and Light? Could certainly be something to think about.

That's about it. Bye.

#yup lore rambles are back my dudes #much as you might hate them #i do anyway #mosquitgo #destiny grimoire #destiny lore #destiny (game)

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mosquitgo · 6 years

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VANGUARD TERMINAL MESSAGE SYSTEM: USER “INVECTIVE” - USER “COMMAND”: LOW PRIORITY EXTREME CLASSIFICATION.

~Zavala, you may know I’ve had Hidden following any cold trails on Earth on Yor after the Shadows incident. One of them found something. An audio recording. Remember that lost fireteam we sent as scouts? Their leader apparently wasn’t as inconsistent with his log as I assumed. I attached their recordings below. This is good information to have, but I activated high classification. If this should reach the public, we could have a riot on our hands in a few hours. Anyway, listen through when you can, and find Cayde, will you? He’s disappeared again, and he needs to see this.~

FILE 1(ONE): “ENTRY- 10/12/39”

“I’ll try and keep this journal as formal as I can, seeing as how you might use it for trainings later. Anyway, we’re still on Yor’s trail. We’ve been following the tracks west. We split to a fork yesterday, like you suggested, Karick going out on his own, on account of his being a hell of a lot faster and quieter than the other two of us. Somehow, the old tracker from before Azzir went rogue still seems pretty sound, not that we’ve got close enough to ping him in weeks now. Karick has it, he’s still reporting nothing on. Keep you posted.

This is Janus, signing off for what hopefully won’t be the last time.”

[\RECORD END\]

FILE 2(TWO): “ENTRY- 13/12/39”

“Karick’s cut himself off. He broke radio silence after an hour of me frantically trying to get through, Deimos doing his usual bit of fearing the worst. Told us he was done hiding. We’d closed the distance on Yor pretty good these last couple days, and he couldn’t be far, so Karick was gonna "take him on.”

[REDACTED] idiot sometimes, I swear. Great Hunter, but I worry. Not as much as Deimos, though. He’ll come to his senses, he always does.

[INCOHERENT FROM OFF]

Yeah, I don’t know who the fuck I’m kidding either, Deimos. Anyway, we ain’t setting off right away, as Fallen see better ‘n us in the dark, but crack of dawn, we’re doubling our speed to catch him before he does anything stupid. I’m starting to get scared, I won’t lie to you.

Deimos has started that rhythmic tapping again. Few other things too. Didn’t say anything for fear of restarting the cycle, but he dismantled and assembled his gun eight times. Had that scary intense focus in his eyes, and didn’t make a single slip-up, didn’t move his eyes once. If we make it back, I need a word with him. Can’t afford a lapse mid-fight. Worrying prospect.

This is Janus, signing off for what I hope, harder than ever, ain’t the last time.“

[\RECORD END\]

FILE 3(THREE); "ENTRY: 14/12/39”

“Still nearly nothing from Karick. We got a brief status update yesterday, that’s it. He’s within range of Yor’s tracker, according to him, and we’re within range of his, so all in all me and Deimos can’t be more 'n three, maybe four, miles from Dredgen Yor. Starting to feel real, now. Don’t think this really hit me til now. But yeah. We’re close. Anyway, Deimos is still bombarding poor Karick’s radio with emergency signals, seeing if he can’t get through to him, and me, I’m-

[INCOHERENT FROM OFF]

Shit, are you sure that’s not a malfunction? Are you fucking certain? Bloody hell, does he not look at his radar? Make sure. Alright, give me a second, gotta get this on record.

We just got a ping on Yor. Karick’s been streaming his radar to us so we at least know where he is, and he’s within range. It’s shaky, and barely there, so it’s gotta be around two miles from him. But, I think, can’t be sure now, I think…

I think it’s closing in on him. When we thought we had Yor last week, it immediately dropped out. I.. I assumed it was a malfunction. It was behind us, in the direction we came, so it never seemed possible, but what if he’s been chasing us, not the other way? Could be the only reason we’re alive is sloppy tracking on my part.

Ah fuck it, I’m rambling now. Truth is, I’m scared. Scared for Karick. For Deimos. For my own Ghost. Not scared for myself, though.

I should probably be a little worried 'bout that.

[INCOHERENT FROM OFF]

Thought you said from the West. It was West five minutes ago, right? He can’t have fully flanked him in that time, no fucking way. Yeah, I’ll help you, just let me turn this thing o-”

[\RECORD END\]

FILE 4(FOUR); “ENTRY: 30/12/39”

“This is Deimos. Janus is gone. So is Karick.

No, I.. I shouldn’t say gone. Dead. Both dead. Gone makes it sound like they’ll be back, and frankly, if they come back from that I’ll be fucked. My Ghost, too. Oh bloody hell, my Ghost is…

No. I opened this godforsaken tablet for a reason, and I’m not going off track now. According to Shaxx, when in a stressful situation, you should be as businesslike and methodical as you can. So. Doesn’t get more stressful than a dead fireteam who were like a family, a Ghost with no Spark, no food or sleep for ten days and an "unspeakable abomination” hunting you down. Really good, relaxing, times, right?

Last recording on this thing was shortly before it all went to shit. Karick finally came on comms, close to tears. Can you believe that? I’ve seen him stare down Ogres without flinching, and he was near crying cos of one glimpse of Yor. Guess I would’ve been the same, later, if I was on my own. Makes everything a little scarier.

So anyway, Karick’s going on and on and he won’t listen to us, and then Yor’s tracker is right there on top of him and all we hear is this hideous roar. Nearest thing I can compare it to is a Wizard shrieking. But lower, and just.. worse, somehow. Janus is on his feet straight away, saying something about moving north away from Yor, finding a spot to transmat a ship, but I don’t really hear him. All I hear is that scream, again and again. Janus notices and he backhands me out of my chair. That snaps me awake quite well.

We go with his plan, start north towards the coast, but maybe three, four, hours in we realise that we’re not alone. Janus lets out one hell of a string of swears, and sits down with his head in his hands. So I say, most likely he’s tracking on smell alone, so if we double back on our own tracks, he won’t notice a thing.

We don’t have too many great options, so we do just that. At first, it seems to work, too. Yor drops back off-radar, and we make good time. Two days in, a mile or so from the Dark Forest, we sleep for three hours, and when we wake up he’s gone from out of range to a half mile away. At most. We leg it into the forest as it gets dark. That’s against all protocols, mainly because all of that area is infested with Hive, but there’s something a lot worse on our trail.

We push on. As it reaches complete darkness, we want a light, but giving away our position is a bad idea for a dozen reasons. Yor is closer every minute, and eventually we reach a clearing, and he’s somewhere within 50 yards. Wouldn’t have seen him if it was 5 feet, in all fairness. So we do the usual procedure. Back to back, Janus with a gun out, me with my hands up and lightning between my fingers. Wasn’t the same without Karick. Angles weren’t 100% covered, but it.. but it didn’t feel right, which was worse. He says something about a Stormtrance being very helpful about now, so I go right ahead and tell him that I need total calm to get the necessary state of mind, and that I wasn’t exactly at my most relaxed right then, so fuck off with your Stormtrance. After a while, I have the absolutely brilliant idea of taking out my Ghost to give a “little light.” See what I did there? Typical. Close to death and still with the bad puns.

Anyway, he materialises there, and while I’m adjusting to the change in light, Yor comes out of the bushes like a steamtrain. I’m still half blinded, so he gets to my Ghost. Shreds him to pieces. I once was disembowelled by a Fallen Captain’s sabre, and that was a pleasant experience in comparison to losing my Ghost. He would almost certainly have got me too, but not for the first time, Janus saved my life. Being a Hunter, he adjusted quicker, pulled out a gun, and got three shots off in about a second and a half. Yor veers off into cover behind us, I’m on my knees feeling like I want to die. Janus hoists me up on his shoulders and runs. Five minutes later, somehow we’re both alive. We were probably being played with by then. Three shots in his chest and Yor didn’t slow, just switched course. He could’ve taken us in a second if he wanted, I really think he could’ve. I’d almost recovered then, so I get back on my feet and take the last of my Light and roll it around, letting it grow. Just like Karick used to tell me to practice doing. Got a pretty impressive bolt ready, too. Never thought I’d have to use any of his insane survival techniques, but without them, without him, I’d be dead a hundred times over. Same goes for Janus. Guess we’d all have been dead without each other. Maybe we could’ve given Yor a run for his money, together.

I’m rambling again. Trauma, most likely. Doesn’t bother me. I’ll be dead soon. No sense in ignoring that.

Eventually, I return the favour to Janus. He stops walking all of a sudden, crouches with his head in his hands. Looked like he was having a breakdown, but I’d seen this before. He was trying to capture that weird single-minded focus that Gunslingers use for Golden Guns. Yor comes out again, and I’m ready. He goes straight for Janus, who’s still crouched, knowing I’m on watch. I let him get a couple feet away, and I put a bolt of lightning straight into him. It must really have been a strong one, because he goes down like a sack of shit. Janus finally gets up and pulls that gun out of thin air, and the first two of three nail Yor straight on. As he focuses the third, something…. something weird happens. Yor’s chest sort of opens, is the best way to put it. You know when you put a flame to the centre of a sheet of paper, and it burns outwards? That’s what my bolt and Jaren’s two shots did to him. I was half expecting to see a Worm in there, but it’s… it’s not. Floating in there, suspended in an opening through these fleshy cables, is a Ghost shell. It’s drained, and looks corrupted somehow, but I don’t doubt it was keeping him alive. Could I have imagined the fear in his eyes then? Janus hesitates on the shot, and the hole closes, and Yor lunges out with those long claws, and gouges out a fair chunk of flesh from him. Jaren screams and lets the last shot go, but Yor turns and runs, the damage done. Disappears off the tracker.

We go the other way, secure a safe area to bed down. I check his wound and surprisingly, it isn’t as bad as I thought. I tell him it’ll heal overnight. Him and his Ghost agree.

When I wake up, the wound hasn’t healed nearly as much as I thought, and his Ghost is dead on the floor. Guess whatever Yor did to him was more than a scratch. Infected him, somehow. We’re still out of range for outside communications, so we keep moving. Without Karick, we’re pretty lost. In a few ways.

Two days after that, I wake up in the morning, go outside to find Jaren, and find him dead on the ground. His gun was on the ground beside him, with a note. Let me read it.

“Deimos,

I had to do this. You won’t like it, but you know the healing isn’t happening. Whatever Yor did, it’s still inside me, festering away, rotting me from the inside out. I hear voices now. Screaming. Demanding. Another few days, I don’t know what I’ll do. I could kill you, of do something worse. Take my gun and my pad and go. Leave me here, it’ll slow him down. If you make it, tell them what happened. I hope you do. Good luck.”

There’s a few lines of symbols underneath, engraved in. There’s a pattern to it, and I think I can interpret it, but I don’t want to. Some things are better left undiscovered. Not many things, but some.

I kept moving. Got into a few scuffles with Fallen, but I’ve avoided Taken. He’s on my trail. I left the tracker a few days back, it fizzed out, but at night, there’s this feeling a bit like being watched. Much stronger than that, though. Being hunted, I suppose.

Karick had mentioned experiencing that before, in the big question mark that is his past, but I’ve never felt it 'til now. Terrifying, really.

Anyway, I’ve passed on the report. If I may, here’s my opinion on this situation. You were planning to send more to help us. Jaren Ward, a few others I don’t recognise. Don’t ask how I know, that’s not important. What I request is this; Don’t.

In the unlikely scenario that this file gets home before you deploy them, delay their launch. You have to stop Yor, but don’t make our mistake. Make sure they all know the full scale of what they’re doing. Shit, maybe you have to send an army. Just don’t send them off in a week or two. You’d be sending them to their deaths. Tell them stay together, use Light over bullets every time, and don’t ever stop fighting him, not for a moment. Me and Janus did, and I don’t know about Karick, but Janus is dead for it now. I’ll be the same way in not too long, I expect. He won’t let me get as close to killing him as we did again.

I’m well out of comms range, so I can’t send this anywhere, but I’ve got a barely functional terminal in this old building I’m holed up in, so I’ll save it to that. Hopefully someone will scan this soon, find a recent drive addition. I’m not hopeful.

That was Janus’ job. I worried, he hoped, Karick told us to shut the fuck up and find out ourselves. That was how it worked.

Maybe I’ll see them again, somewhere. Never been one for believing in what I can’t see, but the people who must’ve been in those “churches” in the EDZ seemed convinced, so maybe they were on to something? Maybe I should pray. Here we go.

Dear God, or whoever’s out there, I’d just like to say fuck you. You made a stupid move in killing Karick, and if you do exist, you won’t stop Karick from finding you and hurting you. He’s fun that way. Letting Janus die wasn’t A+ decision making either. That’ll make Karick angry. An angry Karick is the stuff of nightmares. Maybe you’ll leave me alive. If you don’t, we’ll see you soon, buddy.

There we go.

If you’re wondering about why it is I sound so cheery, that would probably be down to the fact that I’m quite rapidly losing my mind from fear. Thing about being a Stormcaller, I can make observations like that without a lot of distress.

I’ve given my report, given you my observations. Do me a favour and give my team a good send-off, okay? A nice sarcastic, passive-aggressive speech for me, a party with as much drink as Cayde can find for Janus, and for Karick… Who knows what he would have wanted. A small affair, anyway. Quiet. Same way as he operated. Under the radar. He lived as a mystery wrapped in a question mark to most people, so I think let him die like that.

That’s about all I can think to say. I’ll leave you with something Karick said a couple of times.

“Goodbye, and if I’m alive tonight I’ll buy you all a drink.

But that’s not looking too likely.”

[\RECORD END\]

TRANSMISSION END

#wrote y'all a thing #mosquitgo #destiny fanfiction #isn't it shit

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mosquitgo · 6 years

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Lore Ramble III (yeah we're going with Roman numerals run with it alright): Sword Logic vs Titan Philosophy

It's me, mosquitgo, ruining your lives week-in week-out with aggressive lore posts on this here shitty blog here we fuckin go y'all

So last really long post mentioned Rezyl Azzir/Dredgen Yor, but being me, straight after writing that, I found some extra lore that skews my whole outlook on his story. This Ramble will basically serve as an update off the last one, so apart from what needs to be changed to fit what I found out, I won't rattle off the whole Before These Walls grimoire again.

The extra lore I found is that, purely by chance, I was watching an old Destiny gameplay video, and while decrypting engrams, the player happened to get a rare Hunter cloak. They skimmed over it before dismantling, so I had to rewind and pause, but, not word for word here, but the description was along the lines of; "Before he murdered Pahanin, Dredgen Yor ruled the Crucible, with Thorn at his side".

This seems small, but it reveals that Yor's transformation was not instant and all-encompassing: It was a little more gradual.

My failure to notice this lore screws my timeline up, but solves itself. If there was an interval between Yor's transformation and his death, in which he ruled the Crucible, then that explains a couple of things. For example, how Pahanin could've known Eriana-3 and Wei Ning and been involved with the Vault of Glass expedition with Kabr, all before his death by Yor. This also insinuates that killing Pahanin was the last straw, that prior to that event, Yor/Azzir had been watched, but not outright exiled and hunted.

So here we go on yet another patented Mosquitgo Insane Lore Theory/Backstory™;

When Azzir emerges from the cave, the only difference is physical, and even that is the minimal alteration of Rose to Thorn. Azzir is Ghostless and Lightless, but in the chaotic days of the aftermath of Six Fronts, Guardians with no Ghosts probably weren't all that rare an occurrence. Guardians can survive on their own, Eris Morn is living proof of that fact.

Azzir heads back to the Tower, a little injured, but not terribly. He seems and feels normal, but the seed of Hive Corruption has taken root in him, in some dark corner, unknown to him.

So Rezyl Azzir, instead of returning to normal Guardian activities where Lightless people are unwanted, focuses on Crucible. The Vanguard probably didn't like someone in Crucible whose next death would be his last, but it was Azzir's choice, so they probably let it be. So using Thorn, he wreaks havoc there for years, somehow avoiding death in every match. And then he gives the second death to a Guardian.

Now, before I continue, I'll unfortunately have to mention the Hive, and Sword Logic. The Hive live by this, and the fundamental concept of it all is that killing grants strength. To kickstart the process of becoming Hive, the being must kill, and sacrifice said kill to its individual Worm God. Oryx did it as the first Hive, and every Thrall, Acolyte, Knight and Wizard must do so too. Guardians are powerful, and as such, killing one provides huge amounts of energy for Hive, but the death must be final. There are four ways to permanently kill a Guardian: Physical destruction of their Ghost, and killing the Guardian; draining of Light and murder of the Guardian; draining the Ghost and killing the Guardian; and separation of Ghost and Guardian.

If, unbeknownst to him, Azzir had an incubating Worm inside him, it would take a kill to activate the symbiosis between Azzir and Worm. But, crucially, Rezyl Azzir did not end a life for years after losing his Ghost. If he'd been killed in Crucible, that was that. He was dead, so was his Worm. But he wasn't.

When he killed in Crucible, it did not meet the specifications of the Worm. His opponents would be resurrected shortly after.

So Azzir remains sane, and almost entirely human, not counting the dormant Worm. Until he kills Pahanin.

We don't know how Pahanin died, so we don't know whether it was intentional. We know that Pahanin enjoyed annoying Titans like Azzir, so Azzir could've just snapped and accidentally killed him. Pahanin didn't have a Ghost, so it's not out of the question for Azzir to have forgotten that the Hunter couldn't just stand up and laugh it off. Or, perhaps it was intentional. Perhaps the Worm wasn't quite as dormant as I assumed. Perhaps, like the Ahamkara, it whispered constantly in his ear, slowly driving him insane, urging him to kill, promising power, and, just for a moment, he gave in.

The second option explains Rezyl Azzir's choice to only fight in the Crucible. It wasn't out of survival, you die there more than anywhere else. I believe that subconsciously, he knew what was happening. The Worm urged him to fight, but he knew what he could become, and he was terrified of that potential. Finding a compromise, he goes to the one place he can fight without killing, the Crucible.

Killing Pahanin ignites something, sets off the chain reaction that leads to the creation of Dredgen Yor. He becomes full Hive, goes feral. Runs off into the wilds of the European Dead Zone, killing those who find him. His physical form changes from human to the hybrid monstrosity he dies as, and the Consensus finally sends someone after him; Jaren Ward.

I've said already what happens next, so I won't go into it now, but different as this story may be, it doesn't really change my opinion on rogue Titans. It's still his fault, his recklessness that got him set up to fall anyway, but I have a lot more respect for him now. He fought with himself for years to avoid his horrific fate, and when it became unavoidable, rather than stay in the City and kill, and become stronger, he left. That action could well have saved hundreds more than he killed.

It takes his story from a little bit sad to straight up depressing, but there it is.

That's about it.

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