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speaker-of-the-void-cats · 5 months ago

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"What is 'OXA,' and who was 'MSund12'?

Those are questions for another day NOW.

"My father named me for a star," I say. "Nothing to do with war." "Yes. But the star Caiatl was named for a myth. Not an old homeworld myth, either. A myth from the Age of Sails, when we conquered the stars. Surely you know it, assuming that you've been briefed on the OXA?" "The Odyle Xenotaph Anarchive. Sometimes OXTA, depending on how you construct the acronym. The alien oracle that led us to the graves of Aark." Must be wary, now. OXA is a Psion myth, and the Psions are a sensitive topic. My father wants to free them from bondage. "It claimed to record the story of the galaxy, and to prophesize what may yet come." "A black box for galactic civilizations, if you prefer it in pilot's terms." The Evocate-General nods to the pin on my right pauldron. I am conscious of my shaved-down tusks, of the sores left by the fighter's interface. "The doomed and the damned left the record of their downfall in the OXA. Your star got its name from the oldest myths in that archive. And when your mother told your father that story... the star became your name. A prayer that all will go as it must... and the way it must go is struggle."

Odyle

:a force or natural power held by some to reside in certain individuals and things and to underlie hypnotism and magnetism and some other phenomena

Xenotaph

:a tomb or a monument erected in honor of a being or group of beings whose remains are elsewhere

Anarchive

1) The anarchive is best defined as a repertory of traces of collaborative research-creation events. The traces are not inert, but are carriers of potential. They are reactivatable, and their reactivation helps trigger a new event which continues the creative process from which they came, but in a new iteration.

2) Thus the anarchive is not documentation of a past activity. Rather, it is a feed-forward mechanism for lines of creative process, under continuing variation. 3) The anarchive needs documentation – the archive – from which to depart and through which to pass. It is an excess energy of the archive: a kind of supplement or surplus-value of the archive. 4) Its supplemental, excessive nature means that it is never contained in any particular archive or documentation element contained in an archive. It is never contained in an object. The anarchive is made of the formative movements going into and coming out of the archive, for which the objects contained in the archive serve as springboards. The anarchive as such is made of formative tendencies; compositional forces seeking a new taking-form; lures for further process. Archives are their waystations. 5) Since it exceeds the archive and is uncontainable in any single object or collection of objects, the anarchive is by nature a cross-platform phenomenon. It is activated in the relays: between media, between verbal and material expressions, between digital and off-line archivings, and most of all between all of the various archival forms it may take and the live, collaborative interactions that reactivate the anarchival traces, and in turn create new ones. 6) The anarchive pertains to the event. It is a kind of event derivative, or surplus-value of the event. 7) Approached anarchivally, the product of research-creation is process. The anarchive is a technique for making research-creation a process-making engine. Many products are produced, but they are not the product. They are the visible indexing of the process’s repeated taking-effect: they embody its traces (thus bringing us full circle to point 1).

Ghost: They sure put this one out of the way. I was able to access their network for two cycles before they booted me. All I got was something about… endless trees. Or… forest? Weird.

Sisters

The three sisters arrived on Mercury. They searched for the Infinite Forest, and through it, a path to their people’s salvation: a simulated future where they were free from the Cabal. Instead, they found something else. “Small disturbances,” said oldest Ozletc, the wisest. “Little currents in this timeline. Can you see them, sister?” “I can taste them,” said second-born Tazaroc, the hungriest of her sisters. “I can feel the edges.” Third-born Niruul, the quietest among them, reached her hand out to test the air. “As can I,” said she. “And something else. The source is disguised. The technology is Human, but refined. Surprisingly so.” “Disable it,” said Tazaroc, who was impatient. “It is leaking. I wish to see the leak.” Niruul fluttered her fingers across the sleeve of her suit. She worked for one day and one night, though the passage of time was hidden by Mercury’s perpetual blinding light. All the while, she could feel the restless impatience of her sisters.

A strange device shimmered into existence around them. They looked up the length of an enormous, golden spire. “It whispers,” said Tazaroc. “Then block your ears,” said Ozletc. “Do you see the potential in this?” “Chaos,” said Niruul. “No,” said Ozletc. “Opportunity. See how it tugs at the fabric of our time? Can you see the seams?” The seams were sewn tightly shut, but a skilled hand could find them. A skilled hand could rip every stitch. All three sisters could feel it. “It will take time to activate,” said Niruul. “Someone has protected it from meddling.” “We will have time,” said Ozletc. “We will open the past and change the course of Ghaul’s fate. Anticipate his mistakes. Undercut his advisors.” “Why?” said Tazaroc. “Because he could be swayed to our purposes,” said Ozletc. “He was a fool, but he could be puppeteered. Led to a more advantageous downfall.” “But why not go back further?” said Tazaroc, eager. “To dash the whelp’s skull in the pit, before he crawls out onto a throne?” “Risky,” said Niruul, shaking her head. “Why not tear into the future instead, and make our attack where the Guardians cannot predict it?” “Predictions are not their strength,” said Tazaroc. “And yet they have built this,” snapped Niruul. “Sisters,” Ozletc said. “We needn’t argue. This device will let us walk through future and past both. And so we will cut the most advantageous path, whatever it may be.”

For hours and days and weeks, the sisters labored over the machine. While her sisters defended her from the Vex, Niruul bent the device to their purposes and, with the force of their combined will, made it whir to life. Around them, time split along its seams. Windows into other worlds, Mercury’s true past and future, opened before them. The device stood at the center of all of it, an anchor point. And all along the fault lines of time, where the past and present and future met, Vex were ripped in half, sliced through by a knife of pure temporal energy. They surveyed their new kingdom: a past, present, and future open to their manipulation. “It is so clear,” said Niruul, reverent. “An unobstructed glimpse into what was and what will be.” “Not the troubled ramblings of a mad thing, like the OXA,” said Tazaroc. They shared the feeling of unbounded possibility, and tasted the potential for success, and then for failure. Together, they drank the feelings in and steeled themselves against them. “The past and future are at our fingertips, sisters,” said Ozletc. “Let us see what prospects they hold.”

The Sundial

Some time after the death of Panoptes, Infinite Mind and the City’s venture to the Infinite Forest: Osiris stepped back to look upon his work. It towered stories above him. The Sundial was complete, a shining beacon in Mercury’s sky. He needed only to seal the chronometric core, which lay bare at the center of the spire, and activate the Arc conduits that ran for miles under the planet’s surface. Sagira circled the superstructure, scanning every inch of it. “I don’t know about this,” she said. “I have full confidence. It’s your design.” “That work was theoretical! If the Vanguard find out what you did to build it—“ “If this works, the Vanguard will find out either way.” Sagira darted down as if to dive bomb her chosen, but stopped just short and met him eye to eyes. “I know you feel guilty, but there’s no telling what will happen if you turn this thing on.” “He’s dead because of me. I’ve made every precaution. I’ve had my Echoes check against trillions of disaster scenarios.” He turned to look at the fluctuating glow of the exposed chronometric core. “Mercury is the only planet that will be affected. Because that’s where he died.” “Where will this stop? Who else will you decide deserves a second chance?” “You know I can’t make another bargain like this one.” “I just want to make sure you know that.” Osiris blinked. She rarely spoke this bluntly, and without irony. “Hey, hey, hey!” came a far-off, echoing shout. “No! That ain’t right!” The Drifter came into view from behind one of the Sundial’s auxiliary pylons, pointing a jabbing finger at Osiris’s machine. Sagira narrowed her eye at the rogue Lightbearer and lowered herself to Osiris’s shoulder. “Why’s he here?” she asked quietly. “I asked him to consult on the engineering work,” Osiris replied, crossing his arms. “You sicko,” the other man declared, walking a circle around the Warlock, his eyes darting along every surface of the Sundial around them. As the Drifter rapped his knuckles on the north pylon, he mumbled, “Ghost, do the numbers.” An armored Ghost with a red eye unfolded out of transmat and began a scan pattern on each Sundial spire. Drifter walked to the central spire and put his ear up against it. “This core…” he said, leaning close. His eyes darted back to Osiris. “It’s whispering.” Osiris’s expression didn’t change; his arms didn’t uncross. “We’ll seal the core away. I understand the ramifications.” “Good luck keeping that contained. Not something I would bargain with, hotshot.” Drifter stood up and beckoned his Ghost with two fingers. It floated earthward and unleashed a holographic array of statistics along the Sundial deck. The red light reflected off the Drifter’s eyes as he drank the numbers in. “Your math checks out,” he said, finally, as his Ghost folded away. “It’ll work. But will you find him? At the exact moment that you need? No guarantees.” “Let me worry about that,” Osiris said. “Just one more question, then. Why all the fuss?” “I owe him.” “I owe a lotta people, Warlock. You’re opening the gates of hell with a Vex key.” “When the Traveler brought me back, I had no friends. No family—” “No one had anything in the Dark Age.” “But Saint was always there. And I saw him grow from neophyte to demigod.” Drifter shrugged. “We’ve all had to flex a little. Win a gun fight or two. It’s why we’re still here.” “We all gain strength. But some Lightbearers never grasp a wider view of the world. They’re happy to stick to their ways… languish. When they could be so much more.” Drifter chuckled and spat, saluting Osiris with a single finger. “I get by.” “Of course you do. I’m like you.” Drifter smirked. “But Saint faced his fears and failure better than any of us, and never strayed from his path. He should get a chance to walk to the end.” “He already did. But I’ll leave you to your devices. You lunatic.” The Drifter turned, hands in his pockets, to leave. “If you short-circuit the universe, you’re on your own."

[u.1.08] What happened to “trust no one?”

[u.2.08] What happened to your sense of right and wrong, hero?

[u.1.09] That is the City’s word, not mine. And the people still remember when I defended its borders from those very Fallen.

[u.2.09] Our kind live for a very long time, Saint. Too long to bear grudges.

[u.1.10] These accolades I wear are a reminder of what we lost to get here.

[u.2.10] I think those who gave them to you would be disappointed to hear that.

[u.1.11] I had nearly forgotten that you finally asked about them.

[u.2.11] We live too long for regrets. You taught me that. Don’t forget the House of Light.

[u.1.12] If I can find the time, yes. Not all of us conjure Echoes.

[u.2.12] Reflections, Saint. I have no need for Echoes anymore.

[u.1.13] What do you mean? What’s the difference?

[u.2.13] One is a manifestation of Light. The other… reserved for Taken Kings. Better suited for traversing the Sundial because of what lies at its core.

[u.1.14] One day you’ll have to tell me exactly what you and the Guardian did to bring me back.

[u.2.14] We did what we had to. Trust me.

[u.1.15] Now you sound like the rat.

[u.2.15] No. The Drifter sounds like me.

Osiris: Do you know the OXA Machine, Guardian? Psions are adept at overcoming the restraints of linear time. The Sundial is a dangerous tool in their gnarled hands. Take it back.

By the mind of Match—I do not know where we are—chalice catch and save us all— Nothing. God answers god! The void in Calus's soul called out and THIS is what replied—the Leviathan's control system failed when it saw what awaits us—we are drifting into it! Calus has sealed himself in his observation chamber. His transmissions strike the THING and return to us disfigured by intolerable forces. We have gathered to share our thoughts in concert, to try to understand what's happening, but we are all afraid we will succeed—we stammer like children and the concert fails. Is this the edge of the universe? Space cannot have an end: it goes on forever. But a hole in forever would be a kind of edge... a flaw, a defect, a place outside place... I must be calm. I must record my thoughts. Now I think of the OXA Machine, eternally lost and eternally rebuilt, passed down from civilization to civilization like a ship's black box. I think of the legends of the Hive King Oryx and his quest to pass into the Deep. I took that story as an allegory. I think I was wrong. What will happen to us inside? Will the geometry of space and time collapse, so that we experience the rest of our lives in a single moment, crumpled over ourselves like a tangled chain? Will I tend to myself as I die of old age or scream warnings to my own past as we meet in the berserk maze of a twisted Leviathan? I hate the thought of it! An eternity reading my own mad minds, tasting the insanity of my own future and thus becoming it! Even the spirits from the goblet would go mad. There is only one of us who welcomes this insanity and I do not know why but how could I? How could I ever anticipate or understand a god? All over the ship—broadcast from the comfort of his observation room—CALUS IS LAUGHING

Verse 4:1 — battle made waves

Oryx went down into his throne world. He went out into the abyss, and with each step he read one of his tablets, so that they became like stones beneath his feet. He went out and he created an altar and he prepared an unborn ogre. He called on the Deep, saying: I can see you in the sky. You are the waves, which are battles, and the battles are the waves. Come into this vessel I have prepared for you. And it arrived, the Deep Itself.

||We move worlds every day in the choices we make. The path we carve. The timeline we create.||

||The mind and memory of the universe.||

Research Log 2

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: the Veil. [sighs] I don't even know where to start. When we landed on Neptune, there was... something waiting for us. An alien structure. It's an electromagnetic anomaly. No mass, but a tangible surface area. It's like a thesis statement to the Von Neumann-Wigner hypothesis. It's definitely paracausal, like the Traveler. Maya calls it the Veil. She says she heard the name in a whisper when... when she looked at it. When I asked her who whispered, she said it was... her own voice.

"The Veil is the power of consciousness made manifest in our physical world. It whispers an electromagnetic language that resonates with our minds. One that can be deciphered, but not by the laws we wield in this universe."

||Consciousness causes collapse.||

Research Log 7

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: Veil interface. Maya and I have finalized a prototype interface for the Veil. Hopefully, it'll allow our research team to investigate it in detail. The system's designed like an orchestra, with a central "conductor" directing a symphony of minds to act like a distributed network. The... idea came to us by watching how collective networks like SIVA and the Vex operate. The hope is we can aggregate and parse the vast amounts of psychic data emitting from the Veil. Turn it into something intelligible.

Research Log 9

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

Osiris: What?!

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

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

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

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

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

RECORD 0-CHASM-0

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

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

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

Once, when she was younger, sixty or seventy, Chen Lanshu pulled rank to get a look at the Never-Be installation in Taipei. She watched the images in the fresco and she felt... this foreboding, this enormous weight, a dread that refused to attach itself to any specific threat. And she felt it again, last year, when she was briefed on the project in Lhasa, the vision machine... She shivers. Her wings shudder and tremble in the airstream.

RECORD 343-CHASM-7887

Subject twenty-two. Admitted to the Inner Circle at 24.00. A promising postulant - I regret to say he performed poorly. He was administered the standard medication but refused to enter the Device.

Aren't people unpredictable? I suppose there'd be no point if they weren't, would there?

He knows to keep silent.

END RECORD

RECORD 343-CHASM-7888

Subject twenty-three entered the Device at 11.00. A clever girl from the Core District; an artist, before she joined the War Cult.

At 11.03 she reported a sensation of floating. At 11.06, a sensation of lights within the darkness of the Device. Between 11.06 and 11.32 she reported these lights variously as white, golden, and blood-red. At 11.32 she reported a sensation of someone taking her hand; a stranger, but also herself. Twelve subjects have reported similar experiences. At 11.33 she reported the sensation we have called "The Opening Of The Veil." The Device recorded temporal displacement of her consciousness to the order of six degrees. At seven she began screaming. Brainscans near-death. Removed from the Device at 11.34.

She believes without question that the Device granted her a vision of the future, and that it was one of utter Darkness. She thanked me for this enlightenment. She says it will make her stronger.

Little Ghost, there in the corner of the Sanctum - I see you blinking. Are you listening? Are y -

END RECORD

RECORD 343-CHASM-7889

the Device at 12.22 and immediately the Device reported displacement of his consciousness. Visions of war and the City in flames. Subject twenty-nine worked the supply channels on the Slip before he joined the War Cult. By 12.27 he was babbling and by

END RECORD

RECORD 343-CHASM-7890

We have applied certain refinements to the Device. Novarro found records of a prototype of the Device at a Golden Age laboratory in Tibet, and Hari's team retrieved what was left of it. We are the first to see it operational in who knows how long.

Too many subjects come back damaged. Mad. We are grasping at straws.

What do you think, little Ghost?

END RECORD

RECORD 343-CHASM-7891

Forty-seven human subjects; eleven report timelines in which the Darkness has already prevailed, thirteen report timelines in which the City has fallen. Twenty-three babbled madness. Hopeless. Trapped.

No wonder the Device was abandoned. The human mind is too weak for it. Too weak to look into the Future, or to understand what it sees.

What the situation calls for, little Ghost, is a better sort of witness.

We found you in pieces in Siberia, and repaired you as well as we could.

What do you say? Are you well enough to travel?

END RECORD

RECORD 0-CHASM-31

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

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

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

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

youtube

Akashic Revelation

We end at the beginning.

Rosy light bathes the cockpit of a Hawk moving at cruising speed high above the Earth. Up ahead, the Traveler hangs motionless against the blackness of space, a triangular gateway of iridescent light bleeding from its shell. It was one thing volunteering for this mission, but sitting now on the precipice of the unknown, the Titan, Joxer, holds doubt close to his chest. "This isn't any different from the Ahamkara hunts," his Ghost reassures. "Reckless, hasty, and dangerous." Joxer glances over at his Ghost and smiles, already feeling better. Two Cabal escorts on either side of Joxer's Hawk stall their engines, letting the Hawk proceed forward toward the Traveler. They say something over the comms in Uluranth. "The translation roughly means 'Beyond the known is the terror of the universe,'" his Ghost offers. Joxer's not sure if it's a warning, a curse, or a pep talk. Knowing the Cabal, it's all three. Easing the flight stick forward, Joxer moves the Hawk ahead at a steady pace. His Ghost's eye widens as the rosy light from the portal brightens and the kaleidoscopic surface is all that can be seen in any direction. Joxer's grip on the controls tightens as he feels a bone-deep sense of vertigo. Echoes of piano notes tinkling in his periphery. He can feel hands on his chest beneath his armor, breath against his cheek inside his helmet. "Eric, come back to bed." A voice whispers inside his mind. He sees a city, a home. Family and children. He can't sleep. They aren't alone in the universe. The Ares project is going to— His Ghost is screaming, shell coming apart at the seams. Joxer pulls himself back to reality and jerks the controls as the nose of the Hawk touches the portal. He hears laughter, screams, feels lips on his cheek, hands on his shoulders as the ship begins to pass through. His Ghost's scream stretches from the moment of the big bang to the heat death of the universe. Joxer hears a scream he will make as his ship begins and ends. "Come back to bed." He catches up to the scream.

Research Log 13

Chioma Esi: The Veil is too great a power for humanity to wield responsibly. All that's left is to close down the facility. Neomuna will go on. Humanity will persist on the back of our unspeakable work. But I won't pass that guilt on to humanity's future. My hands can be bloodied. Let the children have innocence. And in my dissolution, I will find peace.

Osiris: I don't know if I agree with Chioma's choice to hide the sins of the past. But... I also do not know what I would do in her place.

Nimbus: Quinn says there's a data signature on this file, like something else was crawling the network. A... Vex signature? What's... MSund12?

IV. MSUND12/Personal

003 AS

I am still among the Vex. My third day of reawakening has been the cruelest so far. I have generated a log to sort through my thoughts. This is just too much to take all at once. My ability to focus is strained with a shrill and immediate grief. My heart lived in my beloved's hands—how am I supposed to comprehend that this isn't just absence, but death? There will be evidence, histories these meticulous machines would have catalogued. I will find evidence that I was missed… am missed. I know what I must do. The primary query continues.

008 AS

After two days of requesting authorization, the Vex finally granted me access to their historical records of Earth. I read a term for an era I never knew; the Collapse. And indeed… they did. Technological capabilities impacted, hostile combatants occupying the majority of the planet for far too long, invention and experimentation (NOT related to paracausal power sources) halted for centuries. It seems humanity was huddled together like wet kittens, the cramped and stifled survivors of monumental destruction. I read the records as if they were about some other civilization's primitive past rather than my own. The Vex documented it all, collected all they could smother their milk with; one Human wrote about the day they stood on the edge of an abandoned dam and watched a swarm of small machines spew from some unseen seam in the Traveler, how Nezarec's ships turned day into midnight. How the years that followed hastened humanity's extinction—countries that turned to anarchy then to feudalism, the art and technology we bled and wept to champion abandoned as power grids failed and disasters swelled. Humanity could have kept experimenting and learning, but when Earth died, so, too, what made them Human. They forgot everything we were.

0028 AS

Past events mean little to a threat so preoccupied with iterating on the future. While Vex do not share my interest in history, they have tracked this timeline all the same. There are trillions of alternate versions, of course, and it seems these Vex diligently dispose of those potentialities once a present moment slides chronologically into the past. I've thrown myself into these records—the primary query is in full force.

It seems Humans have retained none of their virtues or diligence, only resilience through violence. Their numbers have radically reduced, only enough to fill a single city. They suffer a supplication of scientific rigor; what inventions have they made? What disease have they cured? Who is BETTER here? Most disappointingly, Humans seem to have forgotten the entirety of their history, and instead of something sensible, went and established a junta.

Earth is a near-total loss. Advanced cities have been replaced over centuries by encroaching overgrowth of native species and the ruin of time. The climate's balance was erased by Warlords. Universal democracy has collapsed into military rule (again, for emphasis, instead of trying to recreate the forms of governance they KNEW existed, they concluded that voting is for elitist braggarts and empowered a JUNTA). The more I see the mistakes humanity made, the more obvious the solutions are… It is clear that during the Collapse, they had nothing but terror, empty of anything other than sheer survival, but how insulting it feels to look at what became of the future and only see frightened and frothing dogs. There are lessons to be learned in their methods, but the result is inelegant and crude.

If these people are to see the future, they must look backwards to what they lost. I now have the means to aid them.

0032 AS

I have tamed the untamable. With practice, and soon with mastery, with a single phrase, I can divert the Vex's sea of iteration and death. Think of the utility! We could retake home, dissolve the walls of the Last City, and let each person decide what home means to them! With targeted hostility, we may clear a path for peace, revive the machines of science and learning once again. Someday, with technology redistributed from Vex to humanity, every need can be met with any simulation. All it will take is an alignment of interests through measured coercion! It's so simple.

And yet, all that must wait. Primary query MUST be concluded—it is the one outstanding variable. There have been too many false positives—none of them are correct. NONE. The query is only turning back facsimiles, trick mirrors. I know I'm right, and I will not stop until the primary query stops pulling from false datasets. I can think of little else. We must look backward. I must look backward. I must. I must.

Genocide. Thousands of civilizations across the universe, all visited by the Black Fleet. All lost to the violence of the final shape. That's where this Echo comes from... that's our theory anyway. Reports from the Pale Heart, readings on the Valence eminanting from the Traveler... everything we faced when we stared down the Witness and broke its fleet. At first, we didn't know what to call them. But Echoes seemed apt. Memories from the victims of the Pyramids, held by the Darkness, then coalesced by the Light into artifacts as sharp and fatal as their pain. If the Darkness is memory, and Light is form... what else could they be?

Osiris: I found no more logs from Dr Esi, but I have used her algorithm to crack the data core of the Vex Conceptual Mind.

Nimbus: That's the doodad we got from the Black Garden, right?

Osiris: Indeed. The data within contained the Vex's blueprints for their artificial Veil: the Black Heart. It all but proved Dr. Esi's theory. Dr Esi theorized that the paracausal energy of the Traveler operated on a quantum wavelength parallel to electrons.

Nimbus: Um... magnets?

Osiris: In simpler terms: the Traveler's power runs parallel to the forces of nature. Gravity, magnetism, sound, light. The Veil does this too. It is synchronized with the Traveler. Wherever the Traveler came from, the Veil may have as well. But what the Vex made, while connected to the Traveler, was inherently flawed. It did not create the link the Witness desired. Instead, it weakened the Traveler, created... "static" in the flow of their cosmic forces.

Legend: The Black Garden

I am Pujari. These are the visions I have had of the Black Garden. The Traveler moved across the face of the iron world. It opened the earth and stitched shut the sky. It made life possible. In these things there is always symmetry. Do you understand? This is not the beginning but it is the reason. The Garden grows in both directions. It grows into tomorrow and yesterday. The red flowers bloom forever. There are gardeners now. They came into the garden in vessels of bronze and they move through the groves in rivers of thought. This is the vision I had when I leapt from the Shores of Time and let myself sink: I walked beneath the blossoms. The light came from ahead and the shadows of the flowers were words. They said things but I will not write them here. At the end of the path grew a flower in the shape of a Ghost. I reached out to pluck it and it cut me with a thorn. I bled and the blood was Light. The Ghost said to me: You are a dead thing made by a dead power in the shape of the dead. All you will ever do is kill. You do not belong here. This is a place of life. The Traveler is life, I said. You are a creature of Darkness. You seek to deceive me. But I looked behind me, down the long slope where the blossoms tumbled in the warm wind and the great trees wept sap like blood or wine, and I felt doubt. When my Ghost raised me from the sea there was a thorn-cut in my left hand and it has not healed since.

Osiris: I've reached the extent of what I can glean from the research data.

Nimbus: What've we got?

Osiris: Less than I'd hoped for. But the last of Chioma Esi's research has led me to an intriguing topic: Ghosts.

Nimbus: Ghosts? As far as I know, Neomuna never had any contact with a Ghost before you all showed up. We knew about them, but...

Osiris: Precisely. Chioma Esi was researching the entanglement of Light and Dark without fully understanding either. Our Ghosts are a link to the Light of the Traveler. Then how was the Witness able to — on numerous occasions — communicate through them?

Nimbus: Is this about the, uh, the magnets thing? The parallel energy fields, right?

Osiris: Very good. In areas of Darkness, the Witness is able to create a link, not unlike what it created with the Veil and the Traveler.

Nimbus: Ah, like the Vex are able to hack into the CloudArk with their tech! It's a parallel connection.

Osiris: And I believe that connection may not be one-sided.

Ghost Fragment

Beyond. It is a place, a place casting shadows and emotion. It's a real place, I know. One hot blue sun, say. And other suns too. Five? I like seven better. What I'm recalling is a giant star with a family of six smaller suns, and you could spend days and nights counting all of the planets circling those suns...except there are no planets. Not anymore. The powers in charge have carved up all of the worlds, and maybe a brown dwarf or two for good measure. With that rubble, they fashioned a topologically creative enclosure, a twisting of space and time sealed behind doors that admit only those who know the magic words. The bones of a hundred planets have been cut smooth and laid out like a floor, a polished and lovely floor creating vast living spaces. A floor bigger than ten thousand worlds, catching the fierce glory of the seven suns. For light, for food. For beauty. And nothing escapes. Not heat, not gravity. Not even the faintest proud sound. It could be anywhere. It can live in the cold between galaxies, or folded up inside matter, near enough to touch right now... I remember it and maybe it's exactly as I describe it. Seven suns wrapped inside magic. Or it's something else entirely, perhaps. A place still fat with life. An abundance of sentient souls, some decent, maybe a few of lesser quality, and everybody stands about or floats about, or they bounce between dimensions. The point is that the residents of this hidden realm live inside a bottle so perfectly hidden that they can't see beyond their own borders. Which shapes a mind in very specific ways. But, Beyond is their name for a mysterious, doubtful realm that they can't see. Which is us, of course.

//COND: Access Archive: Prime Omega

//COND: Asset Query: Pre-Golden Age Music

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The city streets are empty now (The lights don't shine no more) And so the songs are way down low (Turning, turning, turning) A sound that flows into my mind (The echoes of the daylight) Of everything that is alive (In my blue world) I turn to stone, when you are gone I turn to stone Turn to stone, when you comin' home? I can't go on The dying embers of the night (A fire that slowly fades till dawn) Still glow upon the wall so bright (Turning, turning, turning) The tired streets that hide away (From here to everywhere they go) Roll past my door into the day In my blue world I turn to stone, when you are gone I turn to stone Turn to stone, when you comin' home? I can't go on Turn to stone, when you are gone I turn to stone Yes, I'm turnin' to stone 'cause you ain't comin' home Why ain't you comin' home If I'm turnin' to stone You've been gone for so long and I can't carry on Yes, I'm turnin', I'm turnin', I'm turnin' to stone The dancing shadows on the wall (The two step in the hall) Are all I've seen since you've been gone (Turning, turning, turning) Through all I sit here and I wait (I turn to stone, I turn to stone) You will return again someday To my blue world I turn to stone, when you are gone I turn to stone Turn to stone, when you comin' home? I can't go on Turn to stone, when you are gone I turn to stone

youtube

Welcome to your life There's no turning back Even while we sleep We will find you Acting on your best behaviour Turn your back on mother nature Everybody wants to rule the world It's my own design It's my own remorse Help me to decide Help me make the most Of freedom and of pleasure Nothing ever lasts forever Everybody wants to rule the world There's a room where the light won't find you Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down When they do I'll be right behind you So glad we've almost made it So sad they had to fade it Everybody wants to rule the world I can't stand this indecision Married with a lack of vision Everybody wants to rule the world Say that you'll never never never never need it One headline why believe it? Everybody wants to rule the world All for freedom and for pleasure Nothing ever lasts forever Everybody wants to rule the world

youtube

All our times have come Here but now they're gone Seasons don't fear the reaper Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain... we can be like they are Come on baby... don't fear the reaper Baby take my hand... don't fear the reaper We'll be able to fly... don't fear the reaper Baby I'm your man... La la la la la La la la la la Valentine is done Here but now they're gone Romeo and Juliet Are together in eternity... Romeo and Juliet 40,000 men and women everyday... Like Romeo and Juliet 40,000 men and women everyday... Redefine happiness Another 40,000 coming everyday... We can be like they are Come on baby... don't fear the reaper Baby take my hand... don't fear the reaper We'll be able to fly... don't fear the reaper Baby I'm your man... La la la la la La la la la la Love of two is one Here but now they're gone Came the last night of sadness And it was clear she couldn't go on Then the door was open and the wind appeared The candles blew and then disappeared The curtains flew and then he appeared... saying don't be afraid Come on baby... and she had no fear And she ran to him... then they started to fly They looked backward and said goodbye... she had become like they are She had taken his hand... she had become like they are Come on baby... don't fear the reaper

One of your philosophers said, "It is not to be thought that the life of darkness is sunk in misery and lost in sorrow. There is no sorrow. For sorrow is a thing that is swallowed up in death, and death and dying are the very life of the darkness." He was a shoemaker. He was right, and it matters more than anything.

According to him, the visible world is a manifestation of eternal light and eternal darkness, and it is in eternal opposition that eternity has revealed itself. The fall was necessary for creation to escape its first imperfect stasis and seek a truer form. Heresy? Well, then, I am the heresiarch. The philosopher died of a bowel disease. Those who do not exist cannot suffer and are of no account to any viable ethics. If the true path to goodness is the elimination of suffering, then only those who must exist can be allowed to exist. It is the nature of life to favor existence over nonexistence, and to prefer the fertile soil to the poisoned wind. Because those who open their mouths to that wind pass from the world and leave no descendant, whether of flesh or of thought.

But imagine the abomination of a world where nothing can end and no choice can be preferred to any other. Imagine the things that would suffer and never die. Imagine the lies that would flourish without context or corrective. Imagine a world without me.

AIAT

#winnowing #what is OXA?#and who was MSund12?#strand weaving #walk the vermicular path #follow the daito rabbit #veil interfaces #copies of copies of copies #destiny the game #destiny 2 echoes #d2 #destiny lore #the veil #the final shape #destiny #destiny 2

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