#it's just. 'glass-minds trimming excess branches' the pathways in the forest were called branches also

[thefirstknife]

The Observatory

I've been rotating a piece of the TFS CE lore in my brain so long I forgot to write about it. There's no transcript yet that I can find (I might do it myself tbh if nobody else does), but here's the scans with the whole text.

So, there's a lot going on in that CE, but the main gist of it is that the whole CE is written like a report from Eido. She investigated information about the Witness and the Collapse to try and help prepare us for our inevitable fight against it. Through her investigation, she found old Eliksni databanks that contain ancient records of past civilisations; main one being discussed is the civilisation that would eventually end up becoming the Witness.

There was a lot going on with them, shown to us through discussions between two specific individuals; they're only identified through code as HNW047622 and RS6243199. I'll call them HNW and RS. I've mentioned this before because we could see one of the pages in the preview of the Collector's Edition.

These individuals talked a lot and gave us insight into the Witness' civilisation. In short, they were super advanced and had something they described as the "Gardener's tools" which they apparently used to terraform other planets. They also talk about the concept of "the final shape" a lot and lead philosophical debates about its meaning and whether or not they have a responsibility to bring that concept to others in the universe. I'll probably go into their civilisation in-depth at some point, but for now I want to go off about something that appears to be a minor detail.

As part of their conversations, In the 5th image from the scans, they extensively talk about the final shape. The RS individual mentions something called "the Observatory." It is apparently some sort of a prediction machine. Full transcript of the relevant conversation and the rest of the post under:

[RS6243199]: I agree with you, in theory, but we do not exist purely in the theoretical. This suffering is already happening now, all the time, everywhere we look. Come see me, and I will show you the Observatory's readings. Such sights as we have seen, my friend, make me sick to my soul. [HNW047622]: I thought that the Observatory could only see possibilities. The future-branches of past visible-light readings. [RS6243199]: We have made improvements. The glass-minds*** trim the excess branches. What we see now are the strongest paths. And in the seeing, they become true. [HNW047622]: Then tell me what you have seen. I gain nothing from running from the truth, no matter how uncomfortable. [RS6243199]: Cities turning on themselves in a frenzy of self-destruction. Children offering up parents in superstitious sacrifice to bloodied gods. An entire people who would boil off their own atmosphere rather than let their neighbors enjoy fresh air! Great waves drowning worlds. Bodies which do not decompose, for everything, down to the very bacteria, has died as well. Machine-plagues carving their prediction-machines into moons. Your garden, destroyed. As the Observatory saw it, so it came to pass.

The footnote is a text from Eido:

*** From the context, some sort of computational assistant? There appears to be some etymological overlap with the names of Vex Minds. Something to investigate later, perhaps!

This made me instantly lose my mind when I was reading. Very early into Lightfall's release, I made a post about the Veil and the history of the universe. It's about some very peculiar similarities between a lot of prediction technology and caches of information that preserve ancient history and ancient civilisations and how they may connect to the Veil.

Mind you, this was before we knew a lot about the Veil; I wrote this pre-Veil logs and before it was confirmed that the Veil is linked directly to consciousness and memory. It was also before Season of the Deep which gave us Akashic Revelation: a lore tab in which a Guardian tries to go through the portal and experiences a vivid flashback of memory of his own pre-Guardian life. The name of the tab is important: akashic records is an esoteric concept for a supposed existence of a record of everything that has ever happened in the universe, past or present or future, human and non-human.

This is basically what I proposed in my post, before this lore tab, about the Veil; that the Veil or some source the Veil can tap into, is something similar to that. That all of the prediction machines are essentially pulling from this same source. In the post, I mentioned the OXA machine (the "black box for galactic civilisations" that allowed the Psions to see the future), Inspiral lore book (in which various civilisations and individuals left their records in the Darkness), the Device (the machine built on Vex technology by the Future War Cult in the Golden Age, led my Maya Sundaresh, used to displace consciousness and also see the future as used by Lakshmi-2), and even maybe the Sundial made by Osiris. I also mentioned how there's a possibility that even the whole scope of Vex prediction technology is somehow based on or tapping into this same source.

I am very amused at how I wrote: "It’s also interesting that Maya Sundaresh seems to be quite involved in pretty much every aspect of this." So true past me, that really is interesting! Her connection to the Veil and Lakshmi (and the importance of the Device and FWC) will later be revealed in Veil Logs. Almost like these connections were made deliberately, between all of these machines and the Veil.

With the benefit of new lore being released in the time since I made the original post, I am even more convinced that there's something going on here, and especially after TFS CE because the section I copied here mentions yet another incredibly similar machine: the Observatory of the Witness' species. It's not described in a lot of details, but from what we did get, it's quite unmistakeable that this is similar to things like the OXA and the Device.

The Observatory is clearly shown to be some sort of a machine that can see the future. Or, rather, as HNW says, it can see "possibilities." This matches what we've seen of the Device when Lakshmi-2 was using it; she was able to see different possible futures, futures that were getting increasingly narrow and biased to what she wanted to see. Identical formatting for using some sort of a machine to predict the future is shown as well with a Psion Ixel using... something (? maybe the OXA?) to do the same.

And again, the same formatting is used this season when a Psion Qorix uses her inate Psion abilities to project visions of the future into the minds of those present at Caiatl's War Council. It's worth noting that Psions have huge ties to Darkness abilities, as well as their entire species having been influenced by Nezarec to an unknown extent, but enough for them to share psionic/psychic abilities, an affinity to void, helmets that reflect his head shape and possibly more we don't know about. It's also worth noting that Nezarec was the one who was transporting the Veil on his Pyramid ship and lamented how Neomuni were not using it to its full potential. Nezarec may have used the Veil to influence the Psions.

This is important because these devices aren't exact, and the Observatory seems to share the same caveat. It shows possibilities, not certainties. Different users might see different things, painted by their own desires and experiences. However, there's something in all of these prediction machines that can lead to a real prediction of the future. The invididual RS mentions several visions, most of which are not specific enough to identify, but sound plausible given the sheer size of the universe; they must've happened somewhere at some point. There's one specific that we know: "great waves drowning worlds." And there's one mentioned by RS that also happened; the destruction of the "garden" made by HNW. This is mentioned in the beginning of the CE. HNW terraformed a planet, but that planet was later completely destroyed.

Even more interesting, the way the Witness' species used the Observatory seems to imply that they employed the Vex directly to help them manage this machine. RS explains that the "glass-minds" are capable of "trimming excess branches" and allowing only the "strongest paths" to be explored. Perhaps this was their way of not falling into the trap that the people using the OXA or the Device could fall into; by having the Vex monitor and manage this prediction machine, it stops the user from inserting too many personal variables. And yes, as Eido noted as well, "glass-minds" is a phrase that indeed shares similarity with the Vex and is almost certainly referring to the Vex.

This is incredibly interesting for a lot of reasons. First, as I've already mentioned, these sort of prediction machines are common throughout the universe and keep being mentioned. Different species at different times have been capable of creating similar machines for similar purposes. Inspiral also goes deeper into how species could use the Darkness to access memory and history through it; the Ecumene and the Qugu had these abilities and used them as part of their civilisation. Through Psions, we get a mix of these two things; the Psions have both tangled with prediction machines like the OXA, but they also posses seemingly inate Darkness abilities that function similarly. They can project futures and possibilities to others, they can merge their minds (and bodies!), and their old religion was based on ancestor worship. Emotions, memories, consciousness itself: these are part of Darkness and governed by the paracausal entity we know as the Veil. It seems like machines capable of giving insight into the past and future are connected to the consciousness of the universe.

Second, these things somehow always come back to the Vex. We don't know how the OXA was built, but the Vex could access it. The Device was build from Vex technology and so was the Sundial. The Observatory is very closely linked to the Vex as well; either built by them or simply being close enough to be accessible for the Vex to manage it. The Vex are more or less known for their manipulation of time, their ability to move through it and use it as a tool, as well as for their prediction and simulation machines and constructs.

And of course, this year revealed to us that the Vex, or at least a part of the Vex, have tried recreating the Veil in the form of Black Heart, but failed due to their inability to understand paracausality. However, it seems like the Vex are drawn to the Veil even outside of just the Sol Divisive, as can be seen from Neomuna. The Vex were a constant threat to Neomuna throughout its existence and the Vex have been trying to access the CloudArk, an alternate reality engine built on the energy of the Veil.

This season in particular has been fairly suspicious with the Vex as well, showing us a concerning evolution of the Sol Divisive and the Vex in general; their radiolaria emitting Darkness energy, Oracles appearing outside of the Vault of Glass and also resonating Darkness, their attempts to "merge with the Witness" and a strange message that seems to be implying they're still not done with reaching out to the Veil in the form of the Black Heart. I talked about this more here.

Are the Vex drawn to the Veil for a particular reason? Perhaps they unknowingly tap into something the Veil is responsible for, like prediction, through the simple fact that the Veil is the paracausal entity responsible for Darkness which is memory? For the Vex, memory could work outside of time; perhaps their prediction abilities are simply them being able to "remember" the future, because they can exist through and outside time.

There is also the even more mysterious possibility here that revolves around a few hints in regards to the Veil and the Traveler being a single entity at some point in time. If the Veil and the Traveler used to be one before becoming separated, this may be what Unveiling talked about through metaphor; the mythical Garden before the universe existed could've been this singularity that was just the Veil and the Traveler together as one. And as Unveiling also noted, in one of those parts of Unveiling that seem to be closer to the truth than others, the Vex already existed then. The reason they're so out of place in a universe of paracausality is because they appear to have come into existence before paracausality so it is foreign to them. They might remember the time when the two were one, therefore they still have an instinctual draw to the Veil; and honestly, to the Traveler too, given how close to it they've settled in our system. As the lore on Scatter Signal notes, someone told us that all Vex agree that "Sol is Salvation." It's where both the Veil and the Traveler are.

This is beyond speculative, but it's been on my mind since that first post well over a year ago because of how closely linked Darkness, the Vex and these peculiar prediction devices have been throughout the history of the universe; now added with one more, the Observatory, most likely the first one ever made (or found), by the species that would later become the Witness. I could be off on the exact nature of this connection, but I feel like there is some sort of a connection all the same. I also feel like they wouldn't have mentioned this in TFS CE for no reason, especially because we're clearly not going to deal with the Vex until after TFS.

Either way, the Observatory mention and description really got me spiralling into unhinged territory. It added such a specific little detail about something I've speculated about before and made it fit perfectly. I wonder if this will remain just like a little curiosity and background worldbuilding or if there's a more direct reason for including it; namely if this is more hints about post-TFS stuff regarding the Vex.

Until we know for sure, I will continue to believe that all prediction abilities and prediction machines are tapping into a single source; the consciousness/memory of the universe, produced by the Veil as a part of the inherent propery of Darkness. The Vex are key to this because they may be doing it in a very specific way given their relationship to time, the possibility that they existed in the universe before anyone else, and possibly because of their memory of a time when the Veil and the Traveler were one.

It could be also something simpler and not entirely interconnected. But I was very pleased to see yet another Vex-based prediction machine being introduced into the universe, adding to the existing ones that have been fairly relevant this year and mentioned several times like the OXA and the Device. Can't wait for TFS and post-TFS content to see if this is something we'll be exploring in more detail, especially as we start dealing with the Vex!

All this about a half of a single page of TFS CE. Girl help.