#I also love the idea of the Vanguard telling Rasputin about the Witness

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Hey Destiny folks are y’all ready for my current pet crack theory? Buckle up because you're probably not. Here it is: the Witness tried to recruit the Warmind Rasputin as a Disciple at the peak of the Collapse, and Rasputin told them to shove it.

Rasputin's got that great grimoire card about facing someone in the Black Garden just before he broke and ran - someone who smiled at him as it happily murdered his comrades. Rasputin learns from this figure the idea that the strong don't have to protect the weak, that he should abandon the fight and let humanity die to ensure his own survival. We've assumed this figure was the Winnower, and it probably was when it was written. But what if it gets retconned to be the Witness? We also faced down the Witness in the Garden. And what if the Witness didn’t roll up just to dunk on Red - it came to offer him a job?

Rasputin's the class of being the Witness seems to collect for the Pyramid fleet: a single powerful focused personality, independent, assertive, inured to violence and in it for the long haul, someone who thinks in terms as grandiose as reshaping the universe. He currently leans towards Light but, as evinced by his listening to its ideas long enough to ditch humanity, could have tipped to Darkness with the right incentive. I can see the Witness going in for a recruitment pitch...and then having it backfire because it’s totally misread Rasputin's personality and relationship to humanity. 

Rasputin in the Garden was in a situation very similar to the one Rhulk was in when the Witness came to him: his defenses shattered, his duty and role in his society abandoned, he himself threatened with annihilation. He's also, like Rhulk, in a position to turn on and utterly destroy the civilization the Witness is trying to extinguish. If you thought like the Witness, it'd be easy to mistake Rasputin for Rhulk: a useful monster, a violent being feared by the society he defended, only tolerated so long as he's leashed. It's a cliché, but Rhulk really did end up sworn to the Witness because he wanted to be loved. He wanted someone who didn't fear his violence or see him as a monster. Rasputin doesn't; he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone’s opinion, and he protected humanity of his own volition. But it'd be very easy, if you thought like the Witness, to assume that a strong being like Rasputin was only protecting a weak civilization because he was forced to.

So, if you thought like the Witness, you'd look down at this dethroned tyrant, this chained killer, you’d look down as you tore his lesser comrades apart and promise him freedom. You'd tell him he doesn't have to protect these weaker beings. In fact he has to shrug them off to realize his own potential. He’s been defeated because of his devotion to them, and you’re here to free him. You’re here to liberate him from the prison of false civilization. You’d tell him that if he pledges himself to you you’ll show him the path to true power. You’ll show him the Final Shape, the last thing in the universe. And it would probably surprise you, if you thought like the Witness, when he told you that he does not obey. Not you nor anyone else. And then he turns and runs. 

(Dramatic re-enactment)

If you're the Witness, it's a bit of a draw - he drops out of the fight and you knock over his civilization (at least until the Traveler kicks your butt into the next galactic arm) but you don't get a new Disciple out of it, either. Too bad, really. He would have been useful, with his arsenal and his focused, conquering will. When you swing back into town you take a second to see what he’s up to and this time he comes at you screaming with a knife, so you put him down and sigh at the waste. And you move on.

Boy are you going to be surprised in a couple years.

[my-hand-in-your-pocket]

ON THE PRECIPICE OF SHADOW: Thieves of Time and Space

What is the Light?

The most concise definition stipulates it as a paracausal force of the Traveler yet it is also defined as existing in all things, living and dead. The best efforts of crypto-archaeologists and guardians alike failed to specify its exact nature and to take its full measure. Even radiation is measured in becquerels, coulombs per kilogram, curies and roentgens, but the Light? There are no means of measurement for this mercurial force. To call it energy would be a gross simplification as the Light, being paracausal, defies physics, defies thermodynamics. And if it cannot be measured, then its meaning is muddled. Newton surely rolls in his grave as I write this. Nunc fluens facit tempus, nunc stans facit aeternitatum, indeed.

Yet, guardians can palpably seize control of this force and shape it freely for their own purposes. The Light heals the most lethal injuries within seconds, it revives guardians from brain death, and can even be used as a weapon much like a bomb. It defies every known law of science. I have witnessed its effects personally when we – rather, my former captain – abducted Rez from his former captors and I rendered him aid. During a moment of panic, he flooded my operating table with Void Light. We were all unharmed, but this sparked the question: if all guardians can recover with the Light, then why is this not the case with Rez?

Rez is my patient and my charge. To the uninformed he appears to be a quiet, unassuming man. One would not assume he is a guardian; he carries no weapons, wears no ballistic armaments, and refrains from wielding the Light. During my time with him he has avoided all conflict and shows hypervigilant behavior, reacting to even the most subtle changes in communicated tone and body language. His conduct is a product of both his permanent injuries and the abuse he sustained from his former captors, the Sons of Salem.

If my former captain were at all correct about her mislead judgment about guardians, then she would be correct about them.

The most striking facet of Rez’s nature is his relationship with the Light – namely, it is almost non-existent. His wounds heal at a rate that is uncharacteristically slow for a guardian. Minor lacerations take a week to heal. He has not fully recovered from his wound from the armory.

Most telling of all is the extensive nerve damage on his back and prefrontal cortex. His back reacts to the slightest stimulus and causes him great discomfort. His nerves are fused and I have found signs of spinal damage, which warrants extensive mapping of his lumbosacral region. His brain damage has affected his memory and personality, and brought about peripheral neuropathy. He is, in essence, a guardian with poor motor control and mental processing. He is a man with the mind of a child.

Absolutely none of this was healed by his Light, and each day I have pondered as to why this is the case.

On my travels with my former captain I reviewed classified information obtained from certain sources regarding the Venusian extraterrestrials known only as the Vex. These mechanical beings are hostile to us which foils any of my attempts to study them more closely, but there is one thing I do know about them; they are paracausal. The various Vex objects that my crew and I retrieved from them showed signs of temporal discontinuity, or so Ana has found. These objects were sold to undisclosed third parties, but we knew that they sent and received information to times that had not yet occurred.

I would love nothing more than to peruse each piece of data about them, but the guardians and crypto-archaeologists are not forthcoming with such forbidden knowledge. I must gather the data on my own, which is just as well. Rez and I both have an eternity to develop an effective treatment for his injuries.

Even if I can regenerate his brain, he will still require years of psychological therapy to become a self-sufficient, functioning adult. He may never become a fully-functioning guardian and may never be free of his trauma.

Unless I can turn back time.

The Vex possess an artifact that the guardians have long searched for: the Nodus. I have scarce sources that describe this object as having the limited ability to manipulate causality somehow.

If I can manipulate causality, then I can manipulate the Light.

And if I can manipulate the Light, then perhaps I may effectively treat Rez and his Ghost.

Failing that, perhaps I can use the Nodus to search through linear time for a specific event, and change that event. A change such as preventing Rez from ever sustaining a brain injury or capture in the first place.

How farcical this all is. If I can manipulate causality then some would call me a god, yet I focus on the mere treatment of my closest patient. Even with it, I am no god. Some call the Traveler a god, yet it is mortal and vulnerable all the same. Rasputin proved that quite effectively. No, there are no gods – only masters.

How effective is the Nodus? Is it truly an essekinetic device or is it much more subdued than I imagine? Given the importance stressed upon this artifact by the Vanguard, I can only surmise its impact to be closer to the former assumption. How would I use to treat Rez? A few ideas come to mind. Ontopathogenesis, for one.

I know the Warlocks would have better answers but I cannot approach them. The bounties over my head and Rez’s head preclude this and I cannot risk allowing him to fall into the clutches of his former abusers. No, this task falls to myself and myself alone. Sorry, Ana. Your mind would revolutionize my work, but I cannot trust you to maintain discretion.

I must prepare. The guardians come ever closer to taking the Nodus and if I am to treat Rez, I must be the first to seize it. This is, obviously, risky. Guardians are rather bellicose about thieves of time and space.