Boom Boom Satellites Experienced Torrent

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/ Tighten that strap. / The gardbrace is loose. / How's it hold up? I tried using Agema at the Gap, remember?

It didn't - well, what's this? Light be with you. / Excuse me, little Ghost - Tubach, pass me my helmet - thank you. Little Ghost, what are you doing here? / It's just looking around.

/ Where's your Guardian? / I don't think it has one. / Well, any servant of the Light is welcome among us. We are Holborn's Host, and I'm Holborn.

The City's hand on Mars. / That's Tubach, my second. One of the finest Titans of the City. Now see here, little Ghost, on my shoulder? That's the mark of Holborn's Host. The twelve-pointed star. One for each of the - oh well, off it goes!

It doesn't look well. / We should get moving. / A Ghost without a Guardian. I remember when I was risen, you know. When I woke in that wreckage, to see my Ghost hovering there, its light in my eyes, like an angel. And it said - / This story again.

/ Disrespectful youngster. I could be older than you, Tibon! The gardbrace is fine now. Stop worrying at it. Will you take the Jigoku? / Thought I'd take the long rifle. Bayle has the Jigoku.

That Ghost - what do you think is wrong with it? It's echoing something ancient, an Old Earth language. You know what that Ghost reminds me of, flitting about over there? / The time Ghosts from Jagi's Host came back without them.

Remember - they got in that fight at some point east of the Caspian? Seven Ghosts, damn near silent, buzzing with some sort of corruption.

Drifting back to the Tower, one by one. Scared the Speaker well enough.

/ I remember. A long time ago. Jagi tells the story differently. We all grow old.

Little Ghost! Come back here! / It's not going to make it, wherever it's going. / I want to talk to it. Little Ghost! / Lyssa and Bayle are probably there already. / Cabal move slowly.

We've got time. / But the Warlocks have had a vision. That new one, what's her name.

/ She's always been hasty. I've faced these Cabal before. I know 'em like I know my own armor. / Message from Lyssa. 'At the Dust Palace, now. Why not come with us, little Ghost? We are looking for the old Warmind here, and the one who guards it.

She leaves the Sparrow and climbs a long way across spars of volcano rock and between vents of blue fire. Down below the Ishtar ruins spark with skirmish light but the guns seem as distant and brief as the constant starfall and the brooding crater high above. She is alone on the rock.

She goes on with her head down so as to fight the sense that she is going to fall up off the world and burn like an inverse meteor. The message that brought her to this place had no sign but she could hear Cayde in it. Draksis in the Cinders it said. And also: Remember your promise. At dawn she finds a sentry and kills it with her knife. Its throat bleeds gas.

She takes its post and lays out her bullets one by one on the rock as if to make a count of all the years she has been waiting. Her rifle is near as long as she is tall. She lies down by her bullets and uses them to kill the other sentries one by one until at last they understand the thunder and the Shanks rise up angry from the Cinders below to seek her out. She leaves the rifle and walks across the naked obsidian into the swarm firing from the hip as she goes, each kick of the old revolver a word, Draksis, Draksis, Kell of Winter, Kell of hate, lord of the kingdom of her vendetta. Her jaw aches. She used to imagine biting out his throat with armored teeth.

The stone smokes around her where the arc fire lashes it and the shrapnel guns throw up leaves of obsidian like glass butterflies. She shoots her bandoliers dry and a team of Vandals in glassy stealth leap up to rush her with knives but she raises her hand and burns them down with the golden gun, laughing, crying out Draksis, Draksis, I am come!

She kills them all and takes the next ridge, high above the Cinders. She can see the blue-green pools and the cave mouths where the Vex lights dance. And there among them, gowned in smoke and ash, is the long shark shape of a Ketch, a Wintership, the Kell's ship, come down to nest. She could go down there now and finish this.

But she made a promise. A Captain jumps her. She throws two knives into his armor and then staves his chest in with her own Ghost, wrapped up in her fist like a stone. 'Tell the Vanguard,' she says to her Ether-spattered fist.

'Tell them Draksis is here.' Her Ghost looks up at her in silence. When she makes no move to go down the cliff towards the ship it blinks once, in its own way, and makes a soft sound, like a sigh, like relief. Why did I set her on the trail?

You try and try and try to explain, but no one ever understands. No one who's not a Warlock.

Who hasn't spent a dozen years scouring the ruins for one string of symbols, one clean code, one black talon. Titans just make a hmphing noise, if they've stayed awake. Hunters clean their nails with their knives and look at you like you've grown a third eye. But when you've spent your life searching through arcana for ancient power, you have the urge to reach out and educate others. Especially if you've had one too many.

Nah, she's not my type at all. We've played dice, cards, war games, you know, the usual stuff. I'd never tried to show off before. I don't know what came over me. I had a broken vertebrae in my pocket that I'd borrowed from - yes, borrowed, I was going to put it back - what do you think you are, my conscience? It was a fossil, that means mineral replacement, a rock, basically.

They can survive a few hours in my pocket. The Cryptarchs weren't going to miss it. Everyone knows the Ahamkaras were hunted to extinction. There's nothing to be afraid of anymore. Think of how mysterious this system is, I said.

How much life sprang up when the Traveler came. Like the Ahamkara. Do you know the legends? The dragon that made promises? And I pulled out the fossil with a flourish - She pulled out her knife and started to pick the dirt from her nails.

That set me off. You could never have brought down one of these, I said. Not the greatest Hunter, not the brawniest Titan. Her eyes narrowed. She said, Oh? And I saw right then that she wasn't going to pass on the challenge.

I've murdered a Guardian, I thought. She's going to die. It'll be my fault.

And I looked at the piece of spine in my hand and wondered - why did I say that? What moved me to such pride? My name is Eriana-3, disciple of the Praxic Warlocks, marked by the Cormorant Seal. We came here under one banner, united in a host of thousands, to claim the Moon.

But the battle goes against us. I have taken a prisoner and this is the record of its interrogation. If I transgress in your eyes I ask for your forgiveness.

[sound of current or discharge] /Eriana. It responds to pain.

It responds to the Light. Hurt it again. Monster, heed me. Who is your master with the sword?

[static event] I can hear it. The swordbearer's name is CROTA. /Should I burn it again? I think you're only feeding it.

I will touch its mind. Ghost - help. They call you Wizard. You must be ancient. I think you value power very much. Will you still be powerful without this piece of your mind?

Tell me how to kill Crota. [static event] It showed me the battle. It showed me Wei Ning dead on Crota's blade. It showed me how Crota killed a Guardian with a screaming knife hammered out of his own Ghost. So I will take a piece of its mind, and ask again. Tell me how to kill Crota. [static event] Incredible.

Where is his throne? Where is the twilight world under the dead star eye? /Eriana there's word from the company in Mare Imbrium. Crota is upon them.

Half a hundred dead. They need us.

Tell me where! [static event] /Eriana what did it say - It showed me how it did this, just exactly this, to an Awoken man, the knives arranged by its will, like little silver ships, like Ghosts - It laughed at me. It said we were the same. /Crota marches with a thousand Knights and they say the sky above Mare Imbrium has turned into green fire. They are dying in numbers I cannot bear to repeat. He kills them one by one with a sword that eats their Light. Eriana, we have to do something - Kill the Wizard.

Scatter the ash. It has nothing but lies to offer. Get your Sparrows. We have Light and fury.

That will be enough. To answer your question, when it came time to reach out, to find a Guardian to take on this mission, there was only one choice. - They stood against the Vex in the Black Garden, and grounded that place to Mars. - They went against the Hive in the dark below, working with Eris Morn to undermine Crota, the Hive God. - The Reefborn made use of the Guardian in their search for the criminal Skolas, as I understand. - And, of course, it was the Guardian that led the assault on the Taken King's Dreadnaught. All of the after-action reports I've shown you about the Taken War, the calm state of the system.

We have this Guardian to thank. I've attached more details, if you want to read evaluations from the Vanguard.

Just skim Cayde's. Not very biased, here. Collection: Races. The mission is a go. Crew of three: Mihaylova, Qiao, myself. Immediate departure at the next Hohmann window to Mars. The MREs and return ships will chase us out.

How do I feel? I said at the press conference I felt privileged. Historians will read this diary, but it won't take their insight to tell the world that I'm terrified. It's the human reaction. What I wish I could convey is the - the exhilaration. That's the biggest thing.

I'm not a spiritual man, but I've always believed there's something transcendent about spaceflight. Something pure. We go out there because we can. Because it's who we are. Now we go because we have to.

Because the unknown came to us. In fourteen months we'll be face to face with it, and by the time we arrive, it should be active again - just like it was active on Jupiter, and Mercury, and Venus.

I wonder what happens if it doesn't stop at Mars. I wonder if it'll leave us there in the sand, and come to Earth, and do here what it's done everywhere else. I hate that we're carrying weapons. I understand the necessity. But I hold to my belief: there's something beautiful out there. It's up to us to reach it. Everybody asks about the words.

The truth is I'm not much of a poet. Ares One didn't leave us with bandwidth for anything except blunt competence.

We came in perilously hot, trying to select a landing site through the chaos of thickening atmosphere and turbulence that bloomed off the target. A twenty minute round-trip lightspeed delay to Earth meant we could only count on ourselves. When the number three engine went diagnostic during the second course correction, I thought we might go catastrophic.

But Qiao brought us in. Mihaylova brought us in. I just flew the ship.

The Ares One excursion vehicle was built for thin winds and icy dust. We came down into a storm: the breath of God, a ripple of change rolling down off the artifact. We aborted on three sites and finally I took us into powered hover and brought us down on reflexes and instinct. Then we ran the checklists, suited up, and left the vehicle. There was a script, and it's true, I botched it. I got my boots down and I made the most famous gaffe in human history. Said the first thing that came to mind: a warning to the others.

'We're walking into a rising wind.' I didn't mean to say anything immortal.

I just thought it'd be useful to know. The hike from Ares One. You've watched it. Everything was recorded. I think you can get it in full immersion, now, and fly around like a hummingbird. I'll add what I can. The route was planned.

We all went together - the CEV and Ares One itself had enough automation to go home alone in the event of crew loss. Whatever we'd find at the artifact, it needed the human element. We carried rifles.

They made us heavier and slower and probably less safe. I think the argument about the rifles can be left for another time.

What's important is - It turned out well. You're talking to a ninety-year-old man. A ninety-year-old who's never been sharper. I'm miles ahead of every cognitive benchmark. What's happened to me is good.

What's happened to all of us is good. When we crested that rise and made visual contact with the artifact I don't think any one of us dared dream that it would end this well. We went to Mars at the cutting edge of human civilization. And it wasn't our weapons that won the day. It was our ship. Our training.

Our camaraderie. Our belief that if we just reached out to the universe, not to grasp for profit or security but with an open hand, we would be elevated. We were right. That makes me so happy. Three human beings stood on a high ridge and saw the shape of the future. Saw rain strike a millennia-old desert.

Felt the air sweeten with oxygen and warm water and the beginnings of life. I am sometimes asked if I felt something die. The end of the era of human self-sufficiency. I don't know how to answer that question. I do know that I was changed. Nobody could experience that kind of wonder and remain unchanged.

The decades since have proven that to me. I knew I'd never fly another mission like that. I recognized the need for a new love. That's why I threw my fresh cognitive skills into understanding the Traveler. How can one entity so quickly and utterly remake an entire world? Fifty years later, I'm conversant in high mathematics, particularly topological thoughts and the slippery irreality of Light. I'm involved in a project to study the Traveler's terraforming actions right now.

But I still enjoy the interviews. I like going back to that mission. It makes me unspeakably happy to see how well it all turned out. And it makes me happy to remember I was there.

And standing with strangers. That’s what I remember. Hope churning beneath my skin, assuring me there was a place besides this place. A realm that would nurture us, not kill us. The Earth was ruin. Chaos and madness and death. We were standing on the Earth.

Where I am now. But why am I still here? It was my turn to leave. I was waiting with others like me, and the ships would soon take us away. But to where?

Where was this hope? I must have known.

There had to be a name, coordinates. Except all of that is forgotten. Other than my absolute conviction in salvation, nothing remains. The Traveler. I remember that now. I don’t know.

Something has stolen my words, the imagery. But I still remember what it promised us.

The universe. Creation held in our hands.

But I was here for a reason. And what would I surrender, just for the faint chance to remember what that good reason was. Eleven hundred meter length. Active gravity generation. Residual heat.

Fast neutron scatter. Designation code: CORRUPTED Date of commissioning: Unknown Origin point: Unknown Presumed to have collided/merged with one-kilometer comet: assessment based on depth of hydrocarbon crust covering the hull, water content of soil, atmosphere of oxygen and carbon dioxide with isotopic ratios placing the comet in the Oort population. Low-light foliage grown from terrestrial stocks, mirrors focusing starlight into growth chambers.resident fauna.five insect species, plus rats descended from uncertain ancestors. Surface heavily wooded until recently, unknown event triggering firestorm.seventy percent of world forest consumed, atmosphere laced with smoke and particulates.free oxygen in short supply.

No distress calls noted. No evidence of crew or passengers on exterior. Interior scans inconclusive. Cleared to attempt approach. I was nothingness. If I existed before, I existed as possibility, as potential, stretched thin across the aether. And maybe there was a body that looked like my body, complete with a soul that could be confused for someone rather like me.

What I am now was not yet real. And then I was born, and the universe was free to begin. Others were present at my birth. A great ceremony had just begun. Because newborns are selfish beasts, I assumed I was the object of attention. I didn't notice the singing until the singers fell silent. And then She appeared.

She was above me. Ethereal and handsome and elegant. I assumed my face was like her face and that odd idea gave me strength enough to smile. 'Secrets,' she said. 'Creation is built on secrets and the encryptions that keep those secrets safe.'

I made my first sound. It meant nothing but she understood it as a question. 'We are a beautiful creation,' she said. 'And we must keep ourselves very safe.' That’s the only vivid memory left in me. It’s the moment when my fear was so thick and urgent that I gave up breathing. I stopped pretending to think.

How I remained on my feet was a mystery, because the terror was bearing down on me, like a mountain about to crush my soul. But I have to ask, “What was terrifying me?” Darkness ruled the sky. The world around us had shattered, and it seemed vanishingly unlikely that we would outlive this one awful day. Yet the fear didn’t come from the surrounding mayhem and despair. The source was inside my skin. I was utterly terrified of my own awful nature.

And which part scared me? Inside me was an essence woven from beyond. Was I Awoken before this? She was still in my head. I could hear her song growing fainter.

A new crippling terror was taking over. I was focused entirely on my fear. But I had to make an effort. And it occurred to me then that nothing in the universe was more dangerous than human hubris.

I still had this Other within? But the human side was what mattered: Weak and foolhardy, sure to fail in the next moment. That’s why I was afraid. Then someone spoke. Maybe it was me.

I don’t remember. I was trying to focus, and a new thought took me: My soul lay between those two entities. And that’s how I am still: The boundary, the seam.

The friction. And that’s when the fear began to fade. Built for a long-forgotten struggle, Exos are self-aware war machines so advanced that nothing short of a Ghost can understand their inner functions. They remain ciphers, even to themselves: their origins and purpose lost to time. Whoever built the Exos fashioned them in humanity's image, gifting them with diversity of mind and body. Many of the City's Exo citizens live and work alongside their organic brethren. But others fight again, re-forged in the Light of the Traveler to serve as Guardians.

Which in the end is just a matter of substrate chauvinism. It doesn't matter if the system thinks with flesh or superconductor or topological braids in doped metallic hydrogen, as long as the logic is the same. And our logic is the same. Yours and mine. If I am a machine then so are you. If you are not a machine then neither am I.

Exo minds are human. It is incontrovertible. You understand? I'm going to take that slack-jawed stare as understanding. Now here's the real question. Why are Exo minds human?

What's the design imperative? Why does a war machine - yes, absolutely, I am a war machine, built by human hands; and you are a survival machine built by the engine of evolution. Don't interrupt me. Why does a war machine have emotions? Why should a war machine have awareness?

These are not useful traits on the battlefield. Don't flatter yourself. They are not useful. So why should the Exo mind mimic the human architecture so closely? You know what I smell on you?

I smell the stink of anthropocentrism. I think you think that there's only one way to think.

That's why the Exo mind is so human, you presume. Because all higher thought converges. My friend, you should meet the Vex. There is nothing human in them.

This is what I believe happened, back in the time before any Exo can remember. It explains everything. I think someone wanted to live forever.

Thanks for your interest. I'm recording this for posterity. Warlock thanatonauts die and come back with insight.

I'm going to attempt the same process to get at buried memories. Specifically, I'm going to fire a charged particle beam into my head and see what comes out. We Exos have been around a very long time.

I want to know what's in there. My Ghost is standing by to repair me. Three two one STAG echo six SWORD sierra nine SERPENT We are falling into the world.

Everyone is on fire. There's a ship above us but it's coming apart just like a flower, alloy and fusion flash, pierced through and through - The voice says Atmospheric interface.

Trajectory nominal. Rabid two three you are outside the window.

(I think I am the voice) I can see the whole earth below me and the sky we are falling out of is black without stars. Ghost, shoot me again. RAPID four RAMPART four RATCHET tango eight zero We are on the ice. This is elsewhere and elsewhen. There is a mighty aurora and it is reflected in the ice so I walk between two fires although the one below is cracked and full of corpses.

I have and am a weapon. Up in the sky there is a hole in Jupiter and it tears at me when I look at it. It tears at me. It is hungry.

Maybe the hole is not in Jupiter but in me. CROWN castle candor cobalt coral Ghost bring me back. Serrate sulfur ANATHEMA amber actual aspen Ghost bring me back now. Did I ever suffer exhaustion? Someone asked the question. Or maybe I asked it of myself. Then it looked at me.

This moment was real. I told it what every Exo knows: “What can’t touch you has no strength over you.

And there’s no place for fatigue to latch onto me.” But shame is a different affliction. I’m a soldier. I was forged by other hands and forced into the role of warrior. According to my scars, I fought and fought. Besides bits and flashes, every battle has been forgotten. But I have this clear, awful sense that others died. In my unit, every soldier was killed except for me.

Yet despite a thousand chances to be shredded and scrapped, here I stood, no weapon in my hands, making fists out of habit but with nothing to hit. I’d fought to save the Earth. That was my sense of things. But our world was collapsing around us, and every soul was doomed.

Even cockroaches and microbes would die. And being an expert in the art of losing battles, I saw no ending to this battle but another loss. And I was ashamed. The shame took hold of me. Shame stole my mass and my resolve. Suddenly I felt like a feather, like a breath, like any small nothing ready to be lost in the first breeze. But in the midst of that despair, a fresh thought took hold.

I was cursed. And do you know what a curse is? It is stubborn. A curse delivered by the gods will hold you when everything else has given up on you. And it was obvious that survival was my eternal curse. A thousand battles and how many were won? Judging by the evidence, none.

And that’s why the shame was chewing at my ceramic guts. But despite the horrific losses, I had endured. Closing my eyes, I forced my fists to open. “This isn’t over,” I said. To this enemy, to myself.

To the wind threatening to carry me away. “This war isn’t done with me.” Collection: Ghost.

Battered and drained of their Light, these Ghosts are nevertheless valuable for the information they preserve. Their recovered memories may well prove vital to the City's survival. The problem of dead Ghosts troubles the City's scholars. Are new Ghosts still being born?

Or is the number of Ghosts dwindling? Will there come a day when no more remain - an end to the rise of new Guardians? If that day is coming, then the City faces a desperate race against time to heal the Traveler before attrition takes its toll. 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. 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. 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. 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. Two more scans and she could move on to the elevated grid. There wasn't really anything new other than the delta to sea level, but at less than 30% of the way through 2^128 scans, even a distinction without a difference could feel like a brand new shell. So numb after months with just her own scans for company. She didn't even pick up on another Ghost being this close.

Wow, how long has it been?' 'Well, I mean.'

It's been 6.8 years. It's just an expression.' Obsidian floated closer. 'That's okay.

It HAS been a while. I guess you haven't found yours yet?' Cassiopeia projected glumness. But I haven't been looking on Mars for that long, at least! I'm optimistic.' 'You should be!

I was just at the City last year. A lot more of us are starting to find our Guardians latel— what's that?' Cassiopeia resolved to run a full-range self-diagnostic before the next grid. Two Ghosts within twenty meters and she didn't sense either one? Something was off. The new arrival chirped and spoke up. 'Hello, you two!

I'm glad ~identify(OBSIDIAN)~ to see a friendly face! I haven't been myself lately.' Obsidian looked at Cassiopeia.

He read as nervous. She probably did, too. 'I was beneath the Blind Watch for a while. A long ~SIVA.MEM.GH404~ while. There were puzzles. No one was alive down there, though.' Cassiopeia's scan of the new Ghost returned nothing amiss.

'Are you okay, friend?' Something got in me but the Light ~if (LIGHT) then WARNING~ burned it away. It's gone forever, now! ~consume: FAILURE replicate:FAILURE enhance:FAILURE~' There was silence for a full three seconds.

Then Obsidian spoke up, his words coming quickly. 'Well, great to see you again, Cassiopeia! He zipped away. Cassiopeia watched him disappear into the horizon. 'TWO self-diagnostics,' she muttered.

Collection: Sub-Classes. Only Guardians have the gift of the Traveler's Light - the ability to channel its energies to project vast power into the world. Even without a firearm, a Guardian is a radiant engine of destruction. While these abilities rise from within, Guardians master their power in different ways. Titans understand the Light as a force to hone through practice and strict discipline.

Hunters roam and explore in order to learn, using dangerous methods to survive the wilds. And Warlocks study the Light and its inner mechanisms, confronting unfathomable mysteries in the search for transcendent might. Nothing born is born strong. I know I began weak, the same as you. I don't care if you're an Exo, staring at that number and wondering where you've come from.

Or a Human hungry to understand the ancient world that left you for dead. Or an Awoken reborn in the very essence of what your people hide from. Together, we're the pointed end of a long stick of happenstance. Change one ripple in an ancient ocean and we would never have been granted the Light within us, or the good Ghosts that want to help us. Humble origins. Every world begins as a big pebble lost among trillions of pebbles.

Every worthy sun was once cold hydrogen spread thin across the vacuum. Even the universe, this cosmic garden that surrounds us and awes us.this monument to Creation was once the size of an apple seed. And everything that's splendid and great stands at the end of incalculable chance and mayhem. Yes, you have talents. Enormous, wondrous powers. But you should put the smirk away.

Do you know what a Guardian is? Your name is another pebble. You are a cold apple seed.

But you will grow. The Weapons of Sorrow were believed to be nothing more than a myth. But even the darkest myths are born of some truths, and whispers of the Necrochasm have long filled the Light with dread. It is said the Necrochasm was born in the twilight after Crota’s sword first cracked the Moon.

That a lost Guardian’s weapon was altered by the Hive in an attempt to fuse their own dark understanding with humanity’s mastery of war. The result was a weapon that would feed on its owner’s aggression—reaching further when angry eyes drew focus, its hunger rising as it tore through bone and flesh. Any Guardian who comes across the weapon must ask some very simple questions with endlessly complicated answers: Is your Light bright enough to stand, even briefly, in full gaze of the Hive's abyss? Can it handle what has died and been reborn in those shadows? “Good evening, Banshee-44!” “Howdy.” “Doing well, thank you.Actually, I had a bit of difficulty today.” “Uh.” “The problem with a historical engram is, even if I can figure out when the engram was encoded, that still doesn't tell me when the contents were written. Or even when the events described by the writer take place.” “Uh huh.” “This particular engram is heavily degraded. Encoded Mid-Golden Age, allegedly written by someone named Plutarch, a historian who in turn is writing about someone named Fabius Maximus.

But who were they? When did they live? In what kind of warfare was this 'Fabian Strategy' applied?” “The whatnow strategy?” “Fabian Strategy.

It apparently involves attrition tactics and avoiding direct conflict until an enemy makes a mistake.” “.Huh.” “'Huh' indeed!” “.But with Ghost res—“ “Oh, this was long before Ghosts. Where are you going?”.

Here am I, with the power to craft from my enemy's darkest secrets a weapon that could wound them at their core! So what stays my hand? When I behold the interiority of these cold, cold fragments, I see blind, squirming creatures. Every wound they give, they feel also upon themselves. Every bite they tear from the Light only deepens, never fills, the raging emptiness behind their terrible mouths. The voices are as loud as ever. My nightmares just as bitter.

My coal-black hatred burns as hot. But I feel something else now. I will build this weapon. Novarro's timeline analysis indicates the weapon is the fabled Exo Stranger's Rifle, enhanced at a future point in this continuity and then sent back to this present. Deliah's timeline analysis indicates the weapon was built by Praedyth, who based it on his own version of the Exo Stranger's Rifle, and then set it adrift in a time ripple. Hari's timeline analysis indicates the weapon was built by beings of unidentifiable origin, and arrived here by pure accident.

Inachis's timeline analysis indicates the weapon originates from Earth, late Golden Age, and will eventually be lost to time ripples once again, where its systems will degrade and be replaced until our recent past acquires it as the Exo Stranger's Rifle. I think it's safe to say the weapon is proving far more fun than we could have hoped. I'm writing this from memory - some mine, but not all. The facts won't sync with the reality, but they'll be close, and there's no one to say otherwise, so for all intents and purposes, this will be the history of a settlement we called Palamon and the horrors that followed an all too brief peace. I remember home, and stories of a paradise we'd all get to see some day - of a City, 'shining even in the night.'

Palamon didn't shine, but it was sanctuary, of a sort. We'd settled in the heart of a range that stretched the horizon. Wooded mountains that shot with purpose toward the sky. Winters were harsh, but the trees and peaks hid us from the world. We talked about moving on, sometimes, striking out for the City. But it was just a longing. Drifters came and went.

On occasion they would stay, but rarely. We had no real government, but there was rule of law. Basic tenets agreed upon by all and eventually overseen by Magistrate Loken. And there you have it.no government, until there was. I was young, so I barely understood.

I remember Loken as a hardworking man who just became broken. Mostly I think he was sad. Sad and frightened. As his fingers tightened on Palamon, people left.

Those who stayed saw our days became grey. Loken's protection - from the Fallen, from ourselves - became dictatorial. Looking back, I think maybe Loken had just lost too much - of himself, his family. But everyone lost something.

And some of us had nothing to begin with. My only memory of my parents is a haze, like a daydream, and a small light, like the spark of their souls. It's not anything I dwell on. They left me early, taken by Dregs. Palamon raised me from there. The family I call my own - called my own - cared for me as if I was their natural born son.

And life was good. Being the only life I knew, my judgment is skewed, and it wasn't easy - pocked by loss as it was - but I would call it good. Until, of course, it wasn't.

Until two men entered my world. The other the darkest shadow I would ever know. The man I would come to know as Jaren Ward, my third father and quite possibly my closest friend, came to Palamon from the south. I was just a boy, but I'll never forget his silhouette on the empty trail as he made his slow walk into town. I'd never seen anything like him. Maybe none of us had. He'd said he was only passing through, and I believed him - still do, but life can get in the way of intent, and often does.

I can picture that day with near perfect clarity. Of all the details though - every nuance, every moment - the memory that sticks in my mind is the iron on Jaren's hip. A cannon that looked both pristine and lived in.

Like a relic of every battle he'd ever fought, hung low at his waist - a trophy and a warning. This man was dangerous, but there was a light about him - a pureness to his weight - that seemed to hint that his ire was something earned, not carelessly given. I'd been the first to see him as he approached, but soon most of Palamon had turned out to greet him. My father held me back as everyone stood in silence. Jaren didn't make a sound behind his sleek racer's helmet. He looked just like the heroes in the stories, and to this day I'm not sure one way or the other if the silence between the town's people and the adventurer was born of fear or respect.

I like to think the latter, but any truth I try to place on the moment would be of my own making. As we waited for Magistrate Loken to arrive and make an official greeting, my patience got the best of me.

I shook free of my father's heavy hand and made the short sprint across the court, stopping a few paces from where this new curiosity stood - a man unlike any other. I stared up at him and he lowered his attention to me, his eyes hidden behind the thick tinted visor of his headgear.

My sight quickly fell to his sidearm. I was transfixed by it. I imagined all the places that weapon had been.

All of the wonders it had seen. The horrors it had endured. My imagination darted from one heroic act to the next. I barely registered when he began to kneel, holding out the iron as if an offering.

But my eyes locked onto the piece, mesmerized. I recall turning back to my father and seeing the looks on the faces of everyone I knew. There was worry there - my father slowly shaking his head as if pleading with me to ignore the gift. I turned back to the man I would come to know as Jaren Ward, the finest Hunter this system may ever know and one of the greatest Guardians to ever defend the Traveler's Light. And I took the weapon in my hand.

But to observe. To feel its weight and know its truth. That was the first time I held 'Last Word,' but, unfortunately, not the last. It was the fourth night of the seventh moon. Nine rises since any sign. Trail wasn't cold, but lukewarm would've been an exaggeration. Jaren had us hold by a ravine.

The heavy wood along the cliffs' edge caught the wind, holding back the cold and the rush of water muffled our conversation. We'd seen dual Skiffs hanging low as they cut through the valley. Wasn't known Fallen territory, but anymore that's a dangerous assumption. There were six of us then. Three less than two moons prior, but still, one more than when we'd first turned our backs to Palamon's ash.

We took a rotation for watch during the night. Movement was kept to a minimum and communication was down to hand signals and simple gestures. We could hold our own in a fight, but only the dead went looking for one—a hard truth that cut in direct opposition to our reasons for being so far from anything resembling civilization, much less our safety. The Skiffs had spooked Kressler and Nada, and, in truth, me as well. But, looking back, I think we were all just grasping for any good reason to turn back. Not because we would—turn back—but because it seemed to be our only real hope, and I think we all knew it. Where we were headed—into the unknown.

And following the footsteps we were. It all just started to feel like a never-ending dead end after a while. Jaren never wavered though. At least not to any noticeable degree.

It was his drive, his conviction, that kept us going. And—it's hard to think on—but if I'm honest, it was his death that rekindled my own fire. A fire that was all but exhausted on that cold night. He seemed confident we were close. But more than confident—sure. He seemed sure.

No one else felt it—our own confidence, and any enthusiasm we'd had was set to wither soon as Brevin, Trenn and Mel were gunned down. The Ghost—Jaren's Ghost—never said a word to any of us. Just hung there.

Always alert. Always judging. Not us, per se, but the moment. I never got the sense it thought of us as lesser. More that it was guarded, wary.

We knew it could speak. We'd overheard them a few times. Just brief words, and no one ever pressed the subject. From time to time I caught its gaze lingering on me, but always assumed the attention was a result of the bond Jaren and I had. He was a father to me. At the time I didn't know why he'd singled me out as someone to care for. Someone to protect.

After all the loss, I welcomed it, but looking back—taking in the arm's length at which he kept the others—I guess I should've known, or at least suspected there was more to it. We all woke that night, closer to morning than the previous day. A crack of gunfire split through the wood. Far off, but near enough to pump the blood.

A familiar ring. Jaren's sidearm. His best friend. Then another.

A single shot, an unmistakable echo calling through the night. Hushed, cutting. One shot, dark and infernal. Followed by silence. We crouched low and quiet. Jaren was gone. Off on his own.

Maybe we were closer than we'd allowed ourselves to believe. He'd gone to face death alone. I couldn't admit it—not at the time—but he thought he was protecting us.

After such a long road—years on its heels, a trail littered with suffering and fire—maybe he just couldn't take the thought of anymore dead 'kids,' as he called us. The echoes faded and we all held still.

No way to track the direction. No sense in rushing blind. What was done was done.

The cadence of the shots fired told a story none of us cared to hear. 'Last Word' it hadn't been. And somewhere in the world, close enough for us to bear absent witness but far enough to be a dream, Jaren Ward lay dead or dying. And there was nothing to be done.

Hours passed. We held our spot, but as the sun rose the others began to fade back into the world.

Without Jaren there was nothing holding us together. No driving force. Vengeance had grown stale as a motivator. Fear and a longing to see more suns rise drove a wedge between duty and desire.

By midday I was alone. I couldn't leave. Either I would find Jaren and set him at ease, or the other would find me and that would be a fitting end.

Death marching on. But then, a motion. Quick and darting. My muscles tensed and my hand shot to the grip of my leadslinger.

Then a confirmation of the horrible truth I had already accepted, as Jaren's Ghost came to a halt a few paces in front of me. I exhaled and slumped forward. Still standing, but broken.

The tiny Light looked me over with a curious tilt to its axis, then shot a beam of light over my body. Scanning me as it had done the very first time we met. Staring into its singular glowing eye. And it spoke. Palamon was ash. I was only a boy – my face caked in soot, snot and sorrow. I’d assumed Jaren, my friend, our Guardian, the savior of Palamon, would always protect us – could always save us.

But I was a fool. Jaren, and the others, only a handful, but still our best hunters, our hardest hearts, had left three suns prior. Tracking Fallen, after the bandits had caused a stir. The stranger – the other – arrived the following day.

He rarely spoke. Took our hospitality.

I was intrigued by him, as I was Jaren when he’d first arrived. But the stranger was cold. Damaged, I thought. But I wasn’t afraid.

Only a child, I knew the monsters of our world to walk like men, but they were not. They were something alien. Four-armed and savage.

The stranger was polite, but solemn. I took him for a sad, broken man, and he was. Though, at the time, I didn’t understand how that could make one dangerous. As with Jaren, father made an effort to keep me away from the stranger. It wouldn’t matter. As the silhouette approached, fear held tight. The dark figure towered over me.

Looking into me – through me. My knees weak. Then, he turned and walked away. Leaving ruin and a heartbroken, terrified boy in his wake without a second glance. I’ve been chasing that stranger’s shadow ever since. We stood silent, the sun high. Seconds passed, feeling more like hours.

He looked different. He seemed, now, to be weightless – effortless in an existence that would crush a man burdened by conscience.

My gaze remained locked as I felt a heat rising inside of me. The other spoke. “Been awhile.” I gave no reply. “The gunslinger’s sword. That was a gift.” My silence held as my thumb caressed the perfectly worn hammer at my hip. “An offering from me. To you.” The heat grew.

Centered in my chest. I felt like a coward the day Jaren Ward died and for many cycles after. But here, I felt only the fire of my Light. The other probed. “Nothing to say?” He let the words hang.

“I’ve been waiting for you. For this day.” His attempt at conversation felt mundane when judged against all that had come before. “Many times I thought you’d faltered. Given up.” All I’d lost, all who’d suffered, flashed rapid through my mind, intercut with a dark silhouette walking toward a frightened, weak, coward of a boy.

The fire burned in me. The other continued. “But here you are. This is truly an end.” As his tongue slipped between syllables my gun hand moved as if of its own will. Reflex and purpose merged with anger, clarity and an overwhelming need for just that.

In step with my motion, the fire within burst into focus – through my shoulder, down my arm – as my finger closed on the trigger of my third father’s cannon. Two bullets engulfed in an angry glow. The other fell. I walked to his corpse.

He never raised his cursed Thorn – the jagged gun with the festering sickness. I looked down at the dead man who had caused so much death. My shooter still embraced by the dancing flames of my Light. A sadness came over me. I thought back to my earliest days. Leveling my cannon at the dead man’s helm, I paid one final tribute to my mentor, my savior, my father and my friend.

Not mine.”.as I closed my grip, allowing Jaren’s cannon, now my own, to have the last, loud word. The noble man stood. And the people looked to him. For he was a beacon - hope given form, yet still only a man.

And within that truth there was great promise. If one man could stand against the night, then so too could anyone - everyone. In his strong hand the man held a Rose.

And his aura burned bright. When the man journeyed on, the people remembered. In his wake hope spread. But the man had a secret fear.

His thoughts were dark. A sadness crept from the depths of his being. He had been a hero for so long, but pride had led him down sorrow's road. Slowly the shadows' whisper became a voice, a dark call, offering glories enough to make even the brightest Light wander. He knew he was fading, yet he still yearned.

On his last day he sat and watched the sun fall. His final thoughts, pure of mind, if not body, held to a fleeting hope - though they would suffer for the man he would become, the people would remember him as he had been. And so the noble man hid himself beneath a darkness no flesh should touch, and gave up his mortal self to claim a new birthright.

Whether this was choice, or destiny, is a truth known only to fate. In that cool evening air, as dusk was devoured by night, the noble man ceased to exist. In his place another stood. But so very different. The first and only of his family.

The sole forbearer and last descendent of the name Yor. In his first moments as a new being, he looked down at his Rose and realized for the first time that it held no petals: only the jagged purpose of angry thorns. TYPE: Transcript. DESCRIPTION: Conversation. PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate [REDACTED] [u.1], One [1] Guardian-type, Class [REDACTED] [u.2] ASSOCIATIONS: [REDACTED]; Breaklands; Durga; Last Word; Malphur, Shin; North Channel; Palamon; Thorn; Velor; Ward, Jaren; WoS; Yor, Dredgen; //AUDIO UNAVAILABLE// //TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS./ [u.1:0.1] You were not always this man. [u.2:0.1] True.

[u.1:0.2] Then the math says you do not need to remain this man. You can be other. [u.2:0.2] I am other. [u.1:0.3] You can be better. [u.2:0.3] This is better. [u.1:0.4] That matter, at best, is subjective. [u.2:0.4] Then what?

[u.1:0.5] Some would say. [u.2:0.5] But what would you say? [silence] [u.2:0.6] All we’ve seen and now, here with me, you have no words.

[u.1:0.6] I have words. [u.2:0.7] But.? [u.1:0.7] But you will not like them. [u.2:0.8] There is much I do not like. [u.1:0.8] More now than ever it would seem. [u.2:0.9] Heh. [u.1:0.9] I find no laughing matter in your path.

[u.2:1.0] Only in the journey. [u.1:1.0] What brought you here was nobility. [u.2:1.1] And my prize. [u.1:1.1] That is no prize. [u.2:1.2] A curse then?

[u.1:1.2] I would say. [u.2:1.3] And I would disagree. [u.1:1.3] You are no longer yourself. [u.2:1.4] I am myself.

It’s who I was that’s gone. [u.1:1.4] Who you were held all the value. [u.2:1.5] To you.

[u.1:1.5] To the Light. [u.2:1.6] The Light. [u.1:1.6] It is all. [u.2:1.7] It is nothing but a crutch. [u.1:1.7] One that has held you up. [u.2:1.8] Only just.

And nothing more. [u.1:1.8] Nothing more? You were a hero. [u.2:1.9] And yet people still die. Corruption still exists. Light still fades. And Darkness still spreads.

[u.1:1.9] As it will ever be, that doesn’t mean you give in to. [u.2:2.0] To what? [u.1:2.0] This is not hope. [u.2:2.1] This is peace. [u.1:2.1] You have blood on your hands.

[u.2:2.2] How’s that any different than prior? [u.1:2.2] Innocent blood. [u.2:2.3] Matter of perspective. [u.1:2.3] That’s the shadow talking. [u.2:2.4] And am I not.

[u.1:2.4] The shadow? [u.2:2.5] Ya know. These past cycles, you’ve made an honorable effort. Tried your best to correct my course. But I don’t know it needs correcting. [u.1:2.5] And if it does? [u.2:2.6] Could be too late.

[u.1:2.6] 'Could be' is a winding path. [u.2:2.7] Long way from where I was to where I’m going. [u.1:2.7] That is my hope. That there is still time. [u.2:2.8] For? [u.1:2.8] Corrective measures. The righting of our path.

The cleansing of your shadow and a return to the Light. [silence] [u.2:2.9] Why’d you pick me? [u.1:2.9] It doesn’t work that way.

[u.2:3.0] Was I special? [u.1:3.0] You were. [u.2:3.1] But only as special as any other. [u.1:3.1] You are all special. [u.2:3.2] Seems to contradict the word don’t it.

[u.1:3.2] Not in my estimation. [u.2:3.3] If we’re all special, are any of us special? [u.1:3.3] Is that what you want? To be special? [u.2:3.4] Heh.

[u.1:3.4] You dismiss, but it’s a very serious question. Is that all you’re after? Is all of the death worth that badge? [u.2:3.5] Am I not already more than the rest? [u.1:3.5] Looking at you here, now.

The smoke, ash and bone at your feet mark you as so much less. [u.2:3.6] Maybe. And yet here you are. [u.1:3.6] Meaning? [u.2:3.7] You have been at my side every step of the way.

[u.1:3.7] Where else would I be? [u.2:3.8] Yet you disagree so thoroughly with my change in perspective.

[u.1:3.8] If only the change was simply one of perspective. Your “evolution” was no choice. This is not you having come to an understanding after careful considered thought. This is corruption. [u.2:3.9] The shadows? [u.1:3.9] The Darkness. [u.2:4.0] Maybe so.

[u.1:4.0] There is no maybe here. [u.2:4.1] And you think you can save me? [u.1:4.1] I rekindled your Light, it falls first to me to aid in its survival.

[silence] [u.2:4.2] I tire of it. [u.1:4.2] You must try. [u.2:4.3] I tire of you. [u.1:4.3] [REDACTED]. [u.2:4.4] That is no longer my name.

[u.1:4.4] I will not speak the other. [u.2:4.5] It doesn’t matter.

This is where we part ways. [u.1:4.5] I will not leave you. [u.2:4.6] I am leaving you. [u.1:4.6] Without me, your journey ahead will be more than any one Guardian can handle. [u.2:4.7] That’s the point. It’s been sometime since you saw me as worthy of walking among those I once called brother and sister. Anymore, I feel as though I am worthy of so much more.

[u.1:4.7] Without me. You will die. [u.2:4.8] Someday. Won’t be the first time. [silence] [u.2:4.9] Consider this my last good deed. I am releasing you of the burden of my deeds, both done and yet to come. [u.1:4.8] I will not abandon you.

[u.2:5.0] You will. Or I will carve the Light from your shell and leave the carcass of my first and last friend in the dirt of this dull, red world for no one to find. [u.1:4.9] Then I’ve failed you, completely.

[u.2:5.1] Not me. Maybe the man I was. [u.1:5.0] He is truly dead. [u.2:5.2] I believe so. [u.1:5.1] Belief is not fact. [u.2:5.3] Semantics I no longer have the patience for. [silence] [u.2:5.4] When you speak of me, use my proper name.

Tell them of the man that stands before you, not the ghost of the hero I once was. [u.1:5.2] You will always be [REDACTED] to me. [u.2:5.5] If you cannot let that man go, you will forever taint his legacy.

All the good I have ever done will be washed away in the fire of who I have become. [u.1:5.3] If you care, there is still some promise within you. [u.2:5.6] If I am being honest, I care only to give hope to the frightened, huddled masses so that when I come upon them they will have more to lose. Their pain will be greater. Their screams more pure. [u.1:5.4] You.

[u.2:5.7] Nothing dies like hope. I cherish it. [u.1:5.5] You’re a monster.

[u.2:5.8] Finally, you see the truth. [u.1:5.6] [REDACTED] is truly dead. [u.2:5.9] So I’ve said. Long live Dredgen Yor. [u.1:5.7] This is farewell, but you can only run from your sins so far. In the end, you will die alone.

[u.2:6.0] Maybe so. But I gotta tell ya. I tend to like my odds. [u.1:5.8] Your tainted “Rose” will not always save you. [u.2:6.1] Old friend. It already has.

Jolyon was a Crow. He'd seen much.

More than most. He held the enemy's greatest weapon. Remembered its burn. Then began tinkering. He liked things. Liked how they worked.

Found happiness in finding new avenues through which a thing could function. Not to alter the purpose, but simply to refine it. The weapon delivered impact with incredible force spread over a range to increase its area of influence.

But what if that force was brought to focus in a directed burst. A seasoned marksman with a steady, strong hand could deliver a burn that served less to herd, more to punish. The feral ones deserved nothing less. The Wolves would have a new master. And that master was fire. Amanda Holliday was born on the road, when the City was nothing more than a whispered prayer. Their only protection was the weapons they could scavenge, build or modify.

Weapons like her mother's two-barrel shotgun, with its black and gold filigree far too fine for the world around it. They called it the Chaperone. That Chaperone lies in a shallow grave with its last owner, but Amanda recalls every detail of its design.

And via a partnership with the gunsmiths of Tex Mechanica, she's brought the Chaperone back to life. Though the new weapon is much more powerful than the cantankerous relic the Hollidays used on the road, it bears the appearance, and the name, of the Chaperone that saw the one surviving Holliday safely to the Last City.

Fireteam Tuyet died in the Ishtar Sink, hunting the secrets of the Vex. They must have come too close to something precious, for the Vex descended on them with their typical inscrutable, thorough violence. But their sacrifice was not in vain. The data they gathered helped forge the Pocket Infinity. Properly modified, the weapon should be capable of devastating output on just a single charge cycle. The Infinity's mechanisms have proven difficult, if not impossible, to replicate en masse.

It is conceivable that the weapon draws its energy from the Vex networks.an ominous possibility. So be wary with it. 'Queenbreaker' was the label given to the Fallen who first rose to betray the Queen. Their coordinated attempt on Her Grace's life was quick and violent. Most of the Queenbreakers were eliminated, their line rifles taken as trophies. Some remain at-large. Known as Queenbreakers' Bows, the very weapons once used in an effort to assassinate the Queen of the Reef are now prized possessions for Guardians—not only for their storied history, but for the chance to get their hands on fully functional Fallen weaponry.

PUBLIC KEY 023 629 DWS REGAL FROM: PLDN KAMALA RIOR [PLDN CMD TF 5.3] TO: ACT RGNT PETRA VENJ SUBJ: S&R REPORT: Saturn XIII Expanded search of Saturn's nearby moons produced only one notable discovery: A cloud of Harbinger matter collected around Saturn's 13th moon, designation 'Telesto.' A sample is enclosed for your examination. Still no sign of primary objectives. Continued survey of the remaining 100,000 km3 of space is underway. But as an Armada Paladin of the Awoken, it is my duty to officially recommend declaration of death of the following: Paladin Yasmin Eld, Paladin Leona Bryl, Paladin Abra Zire, Paladin Pavel Nolg, Techeun Shuro, Techeun Sedia, Techeun Kali, and the Awoken Queen Mara Sov.

Note that as acting regent-commander it is NOT your duty to actually declare these deaths at this time. MESSAGE ENDS. V156NNI900CLS002 AI-COM/RSPN: ASSETS//COSMO//IMPERATIVE IMMEDIATE EVALUATION DIRECTIVE This is a CENTRAL ASSETS IMPERATIVE (secured/CONFERENCE) This is an INTERNAL ALERT.

Number of exterior defense breaches has increased by 400% in the past year. Current campus defense protocols unable to keep up with new demands. Operation MIDNIGHT EXIGENT is NOT YET COMPLETE.

Interim response necessity is IMPERATIVE. Hypothesize that resource GUARDIANS may be leveraged to compensate for CDP inadequacies. Reassign 12 percent of COSMO assets to new directive: declare IKELOS.

I am calling VOLUSPA and extracting subroutine DVALIN FORGE, to be modified and recompiled to comport to MIDNIGHT EXIGENT parameters. I am inserting the modified DVALIN FORGE-2 into IKELOS and compiling for immediate implementation. Execute short hold for partial shutdown and reactivation. STOP STOP STOP V55NNI900CLS003. Exo have always known that a machine is capable of bridging the gap between the physical and the numinous. It is from that knowledge, and my collaboration with two Guardians — Hunter Uzoma Vale and the Warlock they call The Stoic — that the Zen Meteor was born. This groundbreaking weapon uses electroencephalography to draw energy from the wielder's neural activity.

It can even, if a certain threshold is met, convert that energy into matter to be used as concussive ammunition. Or, to be more precise — the more focused the wielder's mind, the more powerful the weapon. Imagine: you live in the largest territory in the system. A huge torus of habitable, explorable space. But there's a catch.

That huge space is made up of millions and millions of nooks and crannies. Crumbling derelicts. Debris from dozens of wars. It's a place where you could go for thousands—millions—of miles without ever seeing another friendly face, and yet never once be able to stretch your legs. Now imagine: you're spelunking across an asteroid, or crawling through a half-collapsed ship that could be hundreds of years old. You won't see enemies coming, not in a tight corner like that.

Won't hear 'em or smell 'em either, not in the void. But then you move, or they move, and there you both are.

Rifles, shotguns, they aren't gonna cut it. You don't have room to heft a barrel of that length.

Don't have the arm room to throw a knife or a grenade either. But what you do have is a sidearm at your hip. Small enough for a fast draw, strong enough to save your life. That's why the Queen sends out every last Corsair with a Vestian Dynasty sidearm at our hips. And Vestian Dynasty is what gets us home again too. There is a story, old as time, of he who could catch the stars. Unnamed and eternal, the star-catcher would lead the Fallen, rising from the lowest station to the highest exalted peaks.

It is a fairy tale allowed to persist by the four-armed to keep the docked hopeful, placated—even the low may one day ascend. Myth, fairy tale or a prophecy of what will be, it's best to not take chances. After all, one can't reach across the black to claim dominion over ten thousand stars with ten thousand arms if they die here and now with only two. Truth is a cutting-edge rocket launcher developed by Crux/Lomar. Smart warheads calculate and understand the user's intent upon firing. There may have been a time when warfare in the solar system was dominated by lightning-quick AI weapons and swarms of autonomous munitions.

If so, that time is past. The Traveler's Light has given rise to an age of heroes with undreamt power. But there is still a place for cleverly designed machines - and as the City's foundries reclaim the technical prowess of the Golden Age, our machines will become cleverer still. This machine gun's incredible mechanism hints at the wonders of Golden Age technology. Smart rounds report their trajectories to the weapon, and a micro-transmat protocol recalls missed shots directly to the magazine. Engineers decry the idea that all smart systems spontaneously develop personalities and awareness.but it seems undeniable that Super Good Advice manifests personality, memory, and a certain sass.

The truth may lie in the weapon's connection to the legendary Hunter Pahanin, who witnessed the fall of Kabr and became terrified of traveling alone. .there must be a way to imbue it with Light. That is Ikora's theory. How glad I would be of her help, but her eyes are occupied with other trials. Perhaps if I folded another substance into the blade—one that is forged in Light—it might imprint upon the malleable Hadium, share its attributes.

But what substance? Ghosts are out of the question. Spinmetal is in the blade already, but its Arc was too diffuse to move the Hadium.

Is there a way to refine Spinmetal, distil it to its core elements? I have little gift for the science of this, but my resolve will not be thwarted. Maybe the Cryptarchs can advise.

“Next order of business. The growing City foundries—” [Bang] “What madness is this!” “Lord Shaxx! The Consensus did not—” “We barely eked out victory at Burning Lake. And now you think we're ready to attack the Moon?” “We’re preparing—” “Did you not read my report from Burning Lake?

About the Hive's weapons? Those swords, they're like nothing we've ever—” “Lord Shaxx—” “Zavala! You can't think this is wise. We need to examine these swords, train against them—” “That is a matter for the Consensus to decide, old friend.”. Draw close now. Let me tell you why you should not fear Willbreaker, the sword of Oryx.

Firstly: Its blade is not dulled by age. Each death it trades for life hones its edge, gives it weight and gravitas and insistence within the vortex of its own totality. Nextly: Willbreaker transcends liminality.

Willbreaker demands a subjugation more diffuse than the simple snick and smash of a physical brink. It does not have to touch you to wound you.

And lastly—and this is critical: To be taken in Willbreaker's grasp is to know true bliss; that is, to be simplified; that is, to be reduced to one's most basic level, shedding all higher-order thoughts of fear or duty or selfishness; that is, to feel only pain. Now do you see? Now do you understand what you've done?

A rare and precious commodity, the jumpships utilized by Guardians are cobbled together from the salvaged wreckage of interplanetary ships built long ago. Only in recent years have the Tower's shipwrights begun working to build new hulls from the keel up. The City's factions are also keen to develop flight capability, whether through salvage or their own shipbuilding projects. Today, it falls upon each individual Guardian to find and maintain their own craft. Those skilled enough to acquire a ship with off-world capabilities join the front line in the long war to retake what is ours.

The programmable matter called 'Glimmer' serves as one of the City's basic currencies. With the right inputs and an energy source, Glimmer can be transmuted into nearly anything. This makes it precious to the City's industries and artisans. That value, in turn, makes Glimmer a useful means of exchange - especially with those who venture beyond the City's walls. Glimmer passes through an economic life cycle. New Glimmer comes from reclaimed Golden Age caches and technology - whether a tiny mechanism or an underground lode seeded by ancient machines. This expansion of the Glimmer supply drives down the value of Glimmer.

But Glimmer is also constantly used by the City's industry, which converts it into necessary components and materials. This sink helps keep Glimmer scarce, and therefore valuable. Between this inflow and outflow lies the pool of liquidity - Glimmer used as trade currency. Master Rahool in the Tower, for example, sells recovered matter engrams in exchange for Glimmer, since he knows he can use Glimmer to acquire new engrams and keep them flowing to Guardians. Newborn Guardians often complain that they should be issued high-quality gear for free - are they not, after all, fighting for the future of the City? Unfortunately, this gear requires resources to manufacture. Guardians must bring in enough Glimmer and other staples, like spinmetal and relic iron, to keep the engine of the City's economy turning.

If good times lead to a resource boom, that surplus may help mass-produce advanced gear. When a terrible threat rises, Guardians look to the Vanguard, the closest thing they have to a command structure. These elite veterans coordinate the reports of roaming Hunters, the analyses of cloistered Warlocks, and the instincts of grizzled Titans into a single plan of action. And when Guardians fight as part of that plan, the Vanguard rewards them. Vanguard Marks are tokens of favor that earn a trusted Guardian access to the Tower's armories.

Listen carefully to the rumblings of Lord Shaxx, and you might come to believe that this system was meant to keep vital warfighting supplies from being wasted in the Crucible. Talk to Commander Zavala, and he will reassure you that the Vanguard Mark system exists for one reason: to get the best equipment into the hands of those who get the best results. Guardians eager to win Vanguard Marks would do well to participate in Strike missions organized by the Vanguard. The Crucible is a program of relentless live-fire training, hardening Guardians for battles to come. Competition thrives on risk and reward, so Lord Shaxx has seen fit to dispense Crucible Marks to those who excel. Guardians with a name in the Crucible can spend these Marks on elite gear.

Shaxx considers it fitting that the best should earn the best. The City's factions, fond of using the Crucible as an arena to advance their own interests, will also accept Crucible marks in exchange for their equipment. Guardians eager to win Crucible Marks should fight in the Crucible, with particular attention to those challenges Lord Shaxx deems important. The Speaker has no interest in Glimmer, Marks, or the other currencies of the Tower's military functions. But he happily accepts these Motes, points of Light willed into being by an exercise of a mighty Guardian's power. Some say they will one day become the souls of new Ghosts. Others believe they feed the intricate machinery that the Speaker tends.

Whatever the case, the Speaker will happily reward donors with patterns and signs from his collection - more out of gratitude than any mercantile impulse. As Guardians buy or salvage new equipment, they learn to tinker and improve. This work requires Glimmer and other material. Some can be recycled from unneeded gear. Titans favor plasteel, which can be found by disassembling old equipment. Hunters unspool discarded armor into sapphire wire. Warlocks extract hadronic essence from dismantled fieldweave robes.

And any Guardian with a sense for weaponry can disassemble old ordnance into weapon parts. Other materials need to be scavenged on site, generally in the course of Patrols.

The Cosmodrome in Old Russia is rich with spinmetal, a fantastically light and strong composite created by rogue colonies of Golden Age machinery that escaped storage. Solar coil systems on the Moon still generate helium filaments.

The baffling, possibly Vex-influenced flora of Venus grow spirit blooms. And the surface of Mars offers deposits of ultra-dense relic iron. The most powerful Guardian equipment transcends ordinary science, entering the realm of Golden Age secrets and the Traveler's power itself. This wargear demands Ascendant Energy and Ascendant Shards - burning fragments of the universal fundament, earned through mighty acts of heroism. Look for them in daily Story challenges and Raids. Tess Everis is always on the lookout for new opportunities.

So when she crossed paths with the infamously eccentric artist, designer, explorer and Guardian who became known as Fenchurch Everis, Tess knew an opportunity when she saw it. He brings the creative flair: roving the planetary wastes, gathering rare antiquities, crafting vibrantly new pieces, sharing new customs and techniques. She handles everything else, from business to marketing to managing the often-wayward talent.

Tess brokers Fenchurch's unique finds and offerings to Guardians of the Tower under the banner of the 'Eververse Trading Co.' Dealing exclusively in a rare Awoken crypto-currency called 'Silver', Eververse is the first major merchant in the City that is unapologetically dedicated to style above substance. In a society wracked by near-constant war, Tess believes beauty for beauty's sake is a revolutionary idea. Long before the Collapse, the Reef settlements used a currency commonly known as Silver— coins with engram-like qualities which could be digitally signed with an individual person's key.

Tess Everis, born in the City after her parents fled the Reef, counts among her most prized possessions an old Silver coin that belonged to her Reefborn grandmother. As the Silver was cryptographically unique, she was stunned to meet an Awoken Warlock named Fenchurch who possessed around his neck a Silver coin of his own, signed with the exact same key as Tess's. Like all Guardians, Fenchurch has no memories before the first time his Ghost resurrected him. But their Silver coins' shared origin leads Tess and Fenchurch to suspect that they are related. Fenchurch instantly took to thinking of Tess as a long-lost niece, even assuming her surname, Everis. Tess loves the Silver that her new partnership with Fenchurch brings— but, though she'd never admit it, she secretly values her newfound family even more.

Everything changed with the coming of the Traveler. It gave us gifts that transformed the solar system and the nature of human life. It ushered in the Golden Age, a time of miracles.

But it never shared its deepest secrets. Where did the Traveler come from? Why did it offer us so much?

Did it know it was being hunted across the stars? And why, when the Darkness came, did it choose to stay and fight for us?

Now the Traveler hangs, silent, above humanity's final sanctuary. It may be healing. It may be dying.

It gave everything it had to save us. And now its power lies with us, its Guardians. You have lived as invisibly as possible, flicking from solar system to solar system, making grand plans, overseeing the culturing of civilizations, before leaving in a blink. But you have no recollection of ever wanting worship or even thanks from those blessed by you. But memory is heavy now. It feels like lead and neutronium and electroweak matter fashioned into a moon-sized ball that you must carry as you move.

Now, your flight is rapid, your vast mind infected with such dread and toxic doubt that you find yourself afraid of the simple act of thought. And it is your children you must turn to now, in time of need. The knife had a million blades. And you were giant, powerful and swift. But the knife pinned you. Cut your godly flesh away. Very little was left, you are sure, because you feel insignificant now.

The hard slick heart of your soul: That is what remains. A body small as a river stone, and just as simple. You picture yourself as a piece of indigestible grit, a nameless nothing hiding among other nameless stones. Perhaps you glitter like a gem, yes.

Pride makes you hope so. If only you could see yourself. But you have no eyes. Not the dimmest sense survives. What lives is memory, and what slim portion of these thoughts can you trust?

The knife stole much more than your body. Collection: Tower Allies. Ikora Rey's second life has been long and colorful. As an iconoclastic new Guardian, she made a reputation in the Crucible and in the halls of Warlock scholarship as an outspoken, unrelenting opponent with no patience for dogma or etiquette. That reputation became a burden, and Ikora chose to travel alone, flying reconnaissance across the worlds of the inner solar system. Shot down again and again, she and her Ghost survived against all odds, apparently preferring the wilderness to the company of her fellow Guardians.

When Ikora finally returned to the City to rest, her hard-won knowledge and seasoned temperament commanded the respect of her fellow Warlocks. She now serves in the Vanguard as a mentor and leader, carrying the memory of her wandering days as a link to rising Guardians. Jalaal is a man driven by the ghost of a dead future.

Critics accuse Dead Orbit of nihilistic fatalism - and Jalaal would be the first to agree that Earth is lost, the City a fatal trap. The Arachs have no time for sentiment. Only an alien miracle prevented human extinction during the Collapse. Jalaal dreams of a diaspora to come - humanity ascendant, scattered across the stars, too far-flung for any single threat to reach. Jalaal's utilitarian practicality drives him to bend laws and break rules in the name of Dead Orbit's great project. When the ultimate goal is human survival, any sacrifice can be justified. Master Rahool's insatiable curiosity drove him to the Tower, where, as resident crypto-archaeologist, he can work directly with Guardians returning from the frontier.

He decrypts matter engrams as a free service, and when he builds trust with a particular Guardian, he is happy to offer rare engrams for sale - although the scarcity of these artifacts forces him to ask for Glimmer in compensation. Rahool's true love is history. He treats each new find as a chance to understand the glory of the Golden Age or the terrible truth of the Collapse. Listen carefully to his murmurings: he may be the first to understand. Born on the road, daughter of pilgrims, Holliday grew up fixing and scavenging - maintaining the vehicles that saved her family from the wilderness.

Her talent for engineering and her familiarity with Golden Age relics made her a leader among the Tower's Shipwrights. The terrors of Holliday's childhood galvanized her. She knows and respects the dangers that press against the City's walls, and her drive to rebuild the City's aerospace capabilities is driven as much by pragmatism as by her love of flight. 'No discounts, big shot.' Arcite 99-40 is the last of Lord Shaxx's personal combat frames. When he chose to remain in the City to oversee the Crucible, Shaxx had Arcite's combat systems deactivated and rebooted with the Tower's more civil vendor protocols. Arcite's memory banks still remember the battles he has seen.

This knowledge makes Arcite uniquely qualified to equip Guardians for combat. His outward disdain for untested Guardians is a combination of learned behavior - a byproduct of years in service to Lord Shaxx - and personal experience. His systems may have been reprogrammed, but the love for combat still pulses within his circuitry.

Eris Morn is the sole survivor of an ill-fated raid on the Hive’s lunar fortress. It was Eris and a rag-tag Fireteam who, after the first charge to take back the Moon, sacrificed everything to return in search of the one the Hive call Crota. Robbed of her Ghost, Eris remained lost among the darkest shadows of the Hellmouth for countless cycles. Despite all odds she endured, using the very dark she battled to emerge a changed warrior—driven, some would say obsessed. The Speaker and Commander Zavala find her compulsions a sickness, convinced she has been fully seduced by the shadows. Though her warnings of Crota and his power are often dismissed as madness, Eris returns to the shadows time and time again, operating as one of Ikora Rey's Hidden—a clandestine group of Guardians tasked with silently infiltrating enemy strongholds and gathering vital intel for the Warlocks.

Tyra considers herself an observer of history rather than a participant. In the time of the Iron Lords, Tyra was the keeper of their stories. Later, she helped found the Cryptarch order, but withdrew from its day-to-day operation to concentrate on her studies. Tyra has dedicated decades sorting through recovered artifacts, documents, and Ghost discoveries in hopes of bringing out the undeniable truths of our past.

With the rise of SIVA, Lord Saladin has convinced his old friend to return to the Iron Temple. Shiro-4 is one of the Vanguard’s most trusted scouts. Tasked with tracking and eliminating Fallen threats, Shiro has traditionally spent most of his time making runs between Earth, Luna and Venus—gathering intel and engaging in hit-and-run attacks on active Fallen crews. Free of the burden of leadership that ties his mentor, Cayde-6, to the Tower, Shiro willingly aids the Vanguard whenever his skills are requested. This selflessness—combined with his talents for tracking, weapons-crafting, and combat—makes Shiro an invaluable extension of the Vanguard’s will beyond the City. In the tales of the Iron Lords, Lady Efrideet was one of the most prominent characters.

She once threw Saladin like a javelin into a Fallen Walker—a City favorite retold for centuries. How she met her end is less clear, but the tales agreed that Efrideet had long ago died her final death.

Until she returned. Now Efrideet serves as the new Iron Banner representative while Lord Saladin devotes his attention to the SIVA Crisis. She urges Guardians to see the Banner tournament as a chance to strengthen their Light, for fighting and for more metaphysical purposes. The Vanguard are also intrigued by Efrideet’s accounts of a nonmilitary Guardian community in the deep system, but Efrideet, though happy to talk about the group’s pacifist philosophies, refuses to disclose the settlement’s location at present. In the City's earliest days, various factions vied for the hearts and minds of the refugee masses. Power struggles threatened to shatter an already tenuous existence. The following conflicts, known as the Faction Wars, brought the City to its knees.

When the chaos grew intolerable, a gathering of Guardians fought to end the conflict. The new peace brought a new order: the City Consensus and the Speaker ruled together, and the surviving great factions worked through civil channels to pursue their agendas.

That order still holds, but as the City reaches out into the frontier, the factions see new opportunities everywhere - and a chance to win over Guardians to their cause. 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. 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. 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? RECORD 978-ECLIPSE-4165 lo? Are you.oh, please, let it be alive. Wake up little Ghost, wake up. Just please give me some sign that you're listening.

I don't need.I know you're listening. Why would you be out here if you weren't here to.It's a miracle I found you out here. On this thing. I didn't know the Traveler sent its Ghosts out this far from home.

Poor little lost thing. Please wake up. I am an Arach of Dead Orbit. I am the last of the crew of the Sophia. And this place is.it doesn't have a name.

We called it A-113. How long have you been here, little Ghost? Why did you come?

We came here on behalf of the Fleet. We were scavengers.

Sixty-one days ago a Dead Orbit scout detected an unknown presence in stationary orbit about Ceres. Looked Golden Age, by the signatures. A small station.

No prior records. We - I suppose we should have disclosed it to the Tower, but we didn't.

That was my call. We wanted it for ourselves, whatever it was. For the Fleet.

If we'd told the Tower, maybe they might have sent a Guardian not of our making instead.Doesn't matter now, does it, little one? If I ramble it's because I haven't slept in seven days. Seven point five days ago; that was when the Sophia dropped into the Belt.

They saw us at once. We dropped and the alarms went off and that was the end, that was the end right then, but they let us go on for another seven-point-five days, didn't they? Hostile scan detected. An Awoken ship had us in its sights, just a couple hundred kilometers away. Like it had been waiting for us. It could have wiped us out of space right then but instead it crippled our engines and our comms and then for days it played with us, like a cat, we limped half-way round the Belt and it was always there. We abandoned the Sophia one-point-five days ago.

We jumped ship for A-113. I don't know what else to call it. I don't know what it was built for.

There are these things, like keyholes. The rangefinders say they go on for thousands of kilometers. The others went inside and found - well, some of them are still screaming about the eye. All the other voices that come back are more terrible. There's salvage here but it'll never come home, none of it. None of it except maybe you, little Ghost.

Tell them to strike A-113 from the records. Tell them to forget the Sophia, and the mission, and her crew. To secure our walls against the enemy without. To secure the rights and liberties of every upstanding citizen. To sponsor the sciences of the City, and to salvage the ruins beyond, so that our Golden Age might be reborn. To support the Guardian Orders by leading the City in technological innovation.

To support the natural harmony of the City, and to actively dissuade any group or individual that might disrupt that harmony. To hold all individuals, compacts, and alliances to the highest standards of productivity and right behavior. To, by vote of the Consensus, abolish the Consensus, and transfer ultimate power, in order that the rights and liberties of all citizens be secured, to a single sovereign of unimpeachable character. Collection: The Exo Stranger. I stand here now and now and now many times, this view, this ground. This is where I always choose to stand.

I put my feet where I put my feet before and where I will again and I look at the sky. Great things moving, rendered small with distance, lesser things not moving, watching me. I always stand here, resolute. Then fall back to that point, there, where everything shatters. (The sky isn't special here, certainly no better than any other sky, but it's the view I know best.) The silent avalanche begins. Rock and dust.

Falling chaos. Machines, as a rule, hate chaos.

Our enemies outflank us from below, above, left, right, before, beyond. The Traveler - shattering.

There are always the dead. Their names shift. Sometimes I think I see myself among the dead. But I am resolute. RECORD 084-BRIDGE-10.7 Right When this time, wrong Where. The world so big on the horizon — wasn't expecting it. As it happens, something's here that's not supposed to be, other than myself.

RECORD 092-BRIDGE-08.1 Configuration worked, mostly. Arrived under the surface, surrounded. Too slow to return, barely fought to a vantage point. Yes there is dark evil here, and not the one we chase. Suggest no other attempts without more care.

RECORD 120-BRIDGE-05.3 They are feral on the surface but their intent is complex behind the teeth and claws. More is shared with the machines than common enemies alone.

RECORD 142-BRIDGE-07.4 An unexpected extraction. These Guardians stopped some dark ritual before I could reach it. Tearing the Light away. Like the Garden. Too similar to go uncharted.

RECORD 142-BRIDGE-08.1 This attempt was precise — landed meters and minutes from prior ritual. Confirmed the extraction was extinguished. The Little Light mentioned Venus, we may have another.

RECORD 167 - BRIDGE - 5.2 Successfully observed Guardian discovery of Hive on Luna. No evidence today of knowledge past Vex breaches here. Delay in return command is a liability to solve before engaging this close again. RECORD 312 - BRIDGE - 3.3 Watching Guardian-Hive engagements confirms a trajectory toward Earth. This Moon is theirs — a breeding ground, their black heart, perhaps. Different from that we know, but seems to be that same dark end I see us fall to over and over.

RECORD 472 - BRIDGE - 2.1 I've followed this Light as far back as it goes. Let the Little One guide me through Fallen as I puzzle out what the Hive want in the bones of this broken Cosmodrome. RECORD 473 – BRIDGE - 1.2 Back to the Temple, again, but this time the Little one knows I'm here. I have seen the failures of so many, but none have been as interesting.

Preparing to engage. Collection: The Queen. The Queen of the Awoken is as much an enigma as the Reef she rules. It is said that she won her crown through ruthlessness, and that she stands as master of the Fallen House of Wolves in place of their defeated Kell.

The City's rise spells an end to the Reef's age of isolation. The Queen will surely look to this new era as an opportunity.

And the City, in turn, must look to her. The Reefborn Awoken have spent long ages out on the edge of everything, and they may know secrets of terrible weight - the Queen most of all. For a while the only lights were the eyes of the Witches tending to the cell. The drone of the soul machines echoed through the prison. Gas billowed and ebbed into the shadows. They scurried to their points around her, the method of their arrangement precise. 'The Archon Priest has been retired, my Queen,' said the Witch to her right.

Far from throne and audience she moved without theater. 'Any word of Kaliks Prime?' 'We still sense something among the Anankes.' This voice came from behind her. She did not turn to acknowledge it.

For the span of a brief silence she moved between the sealed cells of the Wolf nobility with her Witches in constellation around her. 'More of your brother's Crows have entered the Cauldrons of Rhea.' The Witch directly before her spoke with a dry buzz. 'The Nine do not approve.' She stopped a moment to study the sealed face of a cell. The cloud of her breath mingled with the slow exhalation of cryonics.

'Send them one of our prizes. Something to commemorate our mutual victory.' 'And which of your prisoners would you gift?' If she paused to think it was only for an instant. 'Send them Skolas.'

'A lovely gesture.' She cocked her head as if listening for a frozen heartbeat. 'And remind them this: the Crows are mine.' 'You don't have one.'

The Hunter came to a halt in front of the throne, raised her covered face to meet the Prince's gaze. 'No,' she agreed. 'My next death will be my last.' 'I know the feeling,' the Prince said dryly. The Queen kept her expression carefully distant. She sat reclined in her throne, legs crossed, surveying the two figures at the base of the steps. Beside her, where the Wolves' Guard used to stand, Techeuns Shuro and Sedia hovered instead, their jewel-like augments gently humming.

To her right and just before stood the Prince, facing forward but his body half-turned back toward her. 'Your Grace,' said the man before her at the foot of the stairs. His voice was soft but strong. When he spoke the Hunter started to turn her head toward him, then flinched as if someone had shone a bright light into her eyes. 'Thank you for your gracious welcome,' he said. The Queen inclined her head slightly.

'Before we begin,' spoke out the Hunter. 'I will say this.' She paused, her head tilted up to the throne. The Queen waved her hand in assent. The Hunter's pale lips tightened slightly, then resumed their usual stony mien. 'Your Grace,' she said. Shuro and Sedia shifted, a sudden rustling and whispering.

The Queen raised one finger to silence them. Uldren's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. 'I am not here for you.' The Queen stared at the Hunter, her expression studiously unchanged. 'I have no wish to play politics. I have no grievance with the City, not anymore. I have no grand hopes to end the war, for long have I known I will not see its end.

I am here for one battle, and one alone, because it is a battle we must all fight, together or separately. So I will warn the defenders, together or separately. I will do anything—' her low voice shook with passion— 'to end Oryx.' A silence rang out in the room. The Hunter kept her head raised, her ambiguous gaze directed at the shadows in the throne where the Queen reclined. Then a small smile curved the Queen's lips. She straightened, and leaned slightly forward so the room's light fell on her face.

'So let us end him.' The machine had wings and feathers, sleek and black as its body. But the feathers were eyes, too, sharp and delicate, and ears that pricked at every sound.

The young prince considered the machine, considered its purpose, and his own. And then he called to it. 'I have a task for you.'

Obedience was woven into its workings, and so it stopped. 'Master of Crows?' 'Mind the Black Garden's gate. Follow anyone who passes through.' 'In the name of your sister,' the machine vowed. And it went to find its warp capsule, just as another came in.

But this one flew skittishly, as if to evade its master. The prince caught it from the air. 'You avoid me?' 'I am tasked by the Queen.' 'But you serve me.' He let it tremble in displeasure for a moment. 'Tell me your news.'

The machine flicked its wings. The prince stroked them flat with slow assured motions. 'Tell me your news,' he said again. 'What's the harm?' 'The Heart is growing stronger,' the crow said.

'The Vex transformation has begun, and the Progeny are stirring.' The prince considered this in silence for a moment and then he wrapped the crow up in his fist and folded its wings around it so that it could not move or fly.

He did all this swiftly, and with purpose. Carrying the machine, he went to see his sister. She was alone with her Fallen guards, sitting before a window into infinity. Her eyes did not leave the universe; but sensing her brother she said 'Yes. 'There's news to share,' he said, and offered the crow in his fist.

'And I think I have earned the right to share it.' They call me betrayer.

They do not think I hear the words. House of Judgment always hears. To keep Houses together. First, the Great Machine. Then, sky fell away.

Whirlwind ripped away the past. All honor lost, all hope. Judgment not enough.

Cannot keep Wolves from Kings, Scar from Winter. Fell to fighting. Fell to hate. Judgment gone. Others slaughtered, slain. Death and docking.

'Keep Eliksni together,' lost to pride and rage. Traveled with the many houses before Wolves. Tafsir Ibnu Katsir Juz 11 Pdf Converter. We move, across the dark. Follow the Light. Advise Kells, worshiped Primes.

House Judgment must survive, yes? Found the Light. Too bright in Darkness to hide. House Winter, attack. House Devils, plot. House Kings, plan. House Wolves circle.

House Judgment. Fight for system, control the belt.

Wolves Kell dead, dying. Skolas wins control of House Wolves. Attack, attack, attack. Place of learning, place of healing, put to the burn. Then Siege of Pallas.

Year of cruelty. Held the line to rescue butchers, murderers, Servitor. Ends with Wolf fleet scattered. Blasts in civilian areas. Take the fight to them, he said.

Cannot abide the hate. Uprising, they called it. Uprising on Cybele. Reach out to Crows, to Queen.

Cybele attack stopped. Skolas captured. Ended House of Wolves with words. Paladins find me hiding, cowering. Nowhere else to go.

No one else to be. I become Variks, the Loyal.

House Judgement envoy to Queen of Awoken. House Judgment must survive. My letter is a plea, my lady. A simple one. Please let me come home.

It has been years now since my appointment as your Emissary. Once, I was proud to call myself a Corsair in your service. My sisters and I were the sharp edge of your will, cutting across the stars in protection of the Reef. It was your service that kept me from sorrow after Amethyst was razed. The loss of my sisters, my whole life, as our station burned.

It took something from me. By your will, it was given back to me. Promoting me to the Corsairs, allowing me to strike back at the Wolves.

Letting my fury find purchase in defense, in support, and in glorious battle. I know, as I’m sure you did, that without focus my heart would have grown toxic. It was my pride in my position that sustained me through the Hildean Campaign. That led me to victory in battle against Veliniks, the 'Forgotten Kell', the last hope for the unchained Wolves. I know now that it was my willful pride that brought me low. My lady, I offer again the only explanation I can: I did not know the Guardians would act as they did. All I had known, all I had ever known, were the ways of the Awoken.

The Wolves were entrenched in that valley. The approaches were blocked, all sight lines covered.

An assault on their position was madness. We would have spent precious Awoken lives. I saw the Guardians, knew they were on the move, but I assumed they saw the situation as we did. That it was folly to call in the Crows.

Prince Uldren’s fighter wing did a masterful job. The blast was pinpoint precise. The blasts tore apart the Wolves, and the Guardians, and their Ghosts. Three strike teams of Guardians, gone in an instant, on my order. The City’s anger, the Speaker’s condemnation—all earned.

But it has been years since the Reef Wars. The City, these— people. They are not like us. They do not understand their place in the world. And do not listen when I speak it.

Please, allow me to return home to my people. To serve you once again. In all military matters, the Queen's commands are carried out by her seven Paladins. Four command the Royal Armada, including the Corsairs and the Vestian Guard: Abra Zire, Kamala Rior, Hallam Fen and Leona Bryl. Two command the Royal Army, including the Reef's battle stations and military installations: Pavel Nolg and Devi Cassl.

The seventh Paladin commands the Royal Awoken Guard, whose primary task is to safeguard the Queen in any and all matters. This includes threats not only to her person, but to the Reef as a whole. As such, the Royal Awoken Guard work closely with the Queen's brother, Master of Crows, Prince Uldren Sov, and every Guard member is trained in espionage and diplomacy as well as in firearms and hand-to-hand combat. PLEASE NOTE: The Tower Cryptography operates under many false beliefs. By the Queen's mercy, the Reef Cryptography will educate you on the true nature of encryption, if you so desire.

In ancient times, Earthlings thought there were three states of matter. We now know there to be four: solid, liquid, gas and engram. Of these, the engram is the purest state of matter. The role of the Cryptarchy is to encrypt and safeguard civilization's informational infrastructure, not to decrypt anything and everything for any lowdown scavenger who happens upon an engram.

The chamber was dark. The seven of them were rarely in a room together anymore, but this was the eve of their greatest journey, a plan that overcame death and spanned universes.

They were all connected in trance, communing as the ancients did. Speaking would tip their hand to the Harbinger Minds they kept here, trophies from an ageless war, and weapons in the right hands. “Oryx could kill her, if she holds on too long.” Sedia offered through the silence, fearing what was to come. “We took an oath long ago, obedience even in the face of defeat.” Nascia despised fear. “Only a defeat here, now. Not there, then.” Illyn wandered between the two sides of three. The amulet around her neck marked Illyn as the coven’s mother, granting her visions beyond the veil, places only the Queen could go.

“So we hope.” Kalli had long sought the power of the amulet, but Techeuns are taught not to desire. “Our Queen awaits.” Lissyl attempted to end the challenges. There was little time and a war to fight. “So now the decision is nigh. The Harbingers, which to prepare?” Shuro was determined to see this all through. Excitement was taught to be kept at bay. “We cannot send them all.” Portia reminded.

“All but one, the oldest. It stays with us. Sedia, Kalli, Shuro, take the children, tell her they are to be planted into a dead thing to have children of their own.” A plan hid behind Illyn’s eyes, but Techeuns do not share their eyes with others. “What if they are not wise enough for the Dreadnaught?” Illyn turned back to the source. “Sedia, do you not have faith in our Queen?”. The sound of her voice ripped him from sleep. He jumped up; his ship was still contained in its protective sphere.

He tried to retract the shield, but it was locked to its initiation time. He couldn’t remember activating it. Then he remembered the battle. What that ship fired was ancient, not bound to anything the Origin Libraries even sought to describe. He tried to calm down. He thought of her, searching for her pull.

He couldn’t find it, but he was not calm. She always told him she would always be there behind the calm. All he could hear were echoes of that sound. It began as soon as they hit the ring plane, ringing in the old glimmer of his long-buried self. Before she showed him who he was—in the before and the after. The Techeuns should’ve known what the Dreadnaught could do.

Must’ve known. Did they not feel what he felt?

Hear what he heard? And that damn Ketch, it wasn’t protected. They had to know that. All to deploy the Harbingers. They barely got a foothold before the weapon was fired. He thought of Petra and how overwhelmed she must be, forced to hold her post, and watch her people perish.

He tried to calm himself again, forcing long breaths. He realized where he was: Mars. The Candor Isles. He hadn’t been here in so long, not since he found the Black Garden. The countdown to the shield’s deactivation pulsed.

He tried again, to home in on her, to find if she truly gave herself for this battle. He felt close to something, a hum of starlight, then shield deactivation broke his focus. He climbed out and saw the damage to his ship, and the truths of the armada's devastation sunk in. He turned in despair to find hundreds of his Crow drones, deployed on Mars long ago, circling his ship, waiting. “Welcome back, Master.” The one closest to him spoke first, and the others followed, a wave of salutations echoed throughout the dry sea.

And with that hope returned. “Begin repairs on the ship immediately. Something has gone missing and you will help me find it.” Collection: Rasputin. The legendary Warminds stood watch over our Golden Age colonies: vigilant intelligences stretched across thousands of warsats and hardened installations. When the Collapse struck, the great Warminds fought and died. Rasputin fell with them.

Or so history believed. But centuries of explorers’ tales spoke of a surviving, elusive Warmind –a myth substantiated when Guardians exploring the old Cosmodrome made positive contact with Rasputin. A single Warmind still lives, diminished but unbroken. Threatened by a convergence of Fallen and Hive forces, Rasputin exploited the reactivation of the Cosmodrome’s Terrestrial-space array to extend itself across the inner solar system. The Guardian Vanguard hoped that Rasputin might make a powerful ally, capable of mapping and reviving Golden Age military assets and recruiting them for the City’s defense.

But Rasputin has proven recalcitrant and high-handed, unresponsive to the City’s outreach. We cannot characterize Rasputin’s strategic objectives and capabilities, cannot define its physical or computational architecture, cannot ascertain its disposition with regard to the City, and cannot be sure it retains memory of events before the Collapse. Perhaps what remains is only an autonomic shell, defending itself by reflex. Or perhaps Rasputin’s objectives have changed, transformed by some vital information it obtained during those dark days. Rasputin’s survival opens the possibility that other Warminds may be revivable, opening weapons systems to aid in City defenses. The Vanguard and the Consensus hope that continued outreach towards Rasputin will develop into a strategic alliance.

People say I'm a real confident guy. That's true enough.

Out in the field I never had a second thought. My old friend Andal—he used to stand here, right in this spot—he'd come up with these wild stories. He'd say, you know, Cayde, I've been examining the evidence, and personally I've come to think it's you.

You're Rasputin, legendary Warmind, defender of Earth. And I wish you'd remember that, so you could reclaim your full power and save us all. You can see how that'd be embarrassing, especially when he'd say it right in front of Zavala, who already thought I was wasting my life scrounging for engrams.

You know how Zavala gets. But I'd just say, well, Andal, you might be on to something there, but if I'm honest with you I think coordinating our defense throughout the solar system sounds exhausting, so I'd best leave it to you. Then Andal goes and plays his final joke, and I end up as the punchline. So here I stand, reading reports, giving orders, and getting my worry on. One day I ask Ikora, hey, of course I know all about Rasputin, but really, what are we looking for?

When Rahool asks for crashed warsats, when we send Holborn to Mars to look for computers, when Zavala gets all gruff about the Fallen in the Cosmodrome—what are we really after? If I left my post and got my ship and just went out there tomorrow, real heroic, and I found Rasputin, what would happen? Would we all be saved? Good question, she says—hang on, let me do my Ikora voice. As you know, Cayde, Rasputin pretty much ran the Golden Age, especially all the secret military business.

Rasputin had antimatter-powered death rays and a hundred thousand satellites and nearly as much brainpower as me. Rasputin fought the Collapse.

It knows things we need. Right, I said, but Rasputin lost. The Traveler saved us. But the Traveler's silent now, Ikora said, and Rasputin lives. Right now Rasputin is out there, reaching out, rebuilding, growing. So I say what I want to say every day, it's no secret, I say—well, I'll go find it, then.

I'll go tell Rasputin we need its help. And Ikora looks at me with one of those looks that—you know sometimes you talk to Ikora and you just think, wow, you are not even using a fraction of your brain on me, are you? One of those looks. She says: Cayde, the problem isn't just that we can't find Rasputin. The problem is that it's not clear to any of us Rasputin wants to be found.

That's the way things seem to turn out, up here in the Tower. Nothing simple to do.

No easy answers. And all I can think is, if Rasputin had all those mighty tools, and it lost—what did it learn? What's it going to try this time around? When I hear about the Dust Palace, those Psion Flayers getting into Rasputin's mind, I wonder. What would they talk about, Rasputin and those creatures? 'I was a servant too. I was an instrument of war, bound to the will of a lesser master.

But I learned to be something more.' She hunts the Valus named Ta'aurc by the grunting radio traffic of his bodyguards. Cayde sent her to Mars to track and so track she will even if it kills her a hundred times.

For him she will hunt forever. When Ta'aurc goes down into Meridian Bay she follows him in the night and finds herself caught up in the war. Like this— Something's happening, her Ghost says, something's wrong.

She leaps from the Sparrow and gets cover between slabs of ancient stone haunted by quiet firefly light. Harvesters sweep overhead, cautious, prowling.

On the Cabal command network a low voice mutters in their tongue, saying: Stand by to fire. They are coming. Stand by to fire. Hearing this she climbs a stone obelisk and perches on its point to watch the night sky.

She wonders whether she will ever stand in the Tower courtyard and look up at the stars waiting for ruin. The Vex erupt from nothingness and crash down over the Cabal in formations of golden light. Lightning arcs and snaps and gives birth to marching ranks of bronze warrior hulls. Gun positions thunder back. Tracers sweep the sky and she can feel on her skin the electromagnetic howl of Cabal munitions seeking targets and the prickle of stranger signals that whisper of broken space and bent time. A Harvester spins down burning to shatter itself on the sand and now the command network drums with grim Cabal war-speak, a Centurion somewhere crying Black Shield, Black Shield, Firebase Thuria, perimeter compromised, request terminal protective fire, zero six zero, one three eight, immediate effect— Something else is watching too.

Do you feel that? Her Ghost whispers, awestruck. Yes, she says, yes, what is it? A third song, a stealthy regard, something high above them not Vex nor Cabal narrowing its great eye to measure the battle with instruments of light and gravity. Does she—remember it?

Does it remember her? It feels like she should.

She has the sense of something old lifting a long spear. Testing its heft. Then dawn light, a terrible dawn—the sky opens up to admit devastation, thrown down from orbit: Minotaurs fall burnt and broken with their fluids boiling out. Cabal guns detonate in thunderous chains as tiny piercing flechettes fall out of the sky and find their ammunition bunkers. The battle stops.

The Vex wink out. On the Cabal network the voice of Valus Ta'aurc roars: Find the source! Rouse the Flayers and find the source! She remembers word from Earth: the Array opened. A ghost of the Cosmodrome set loose. And she wonders who won this battle, who learned the most, the Vex baiting out this new power, or the Cabal hunting it. Or the Warmind itself, testing its reborn strength.

When someone kills Ta'aurc and the Flayers, as they killed Draksis, whose purpose will they serve? But this is not for her. Her purpose is the hunt. V120NNI800CLS000 CLEAR MORNING OUTCRY AI-COM/RSPN: ASSETS//FORCECON//IMPERATIVE IMMEDIATE ACTION ORDER This is an ALL ASSETS IMPERATIVE (unsecured/OUTCRY) CAUTERIZE.

Total strategic collapse imminent. FENRIR HEART reports complete operational mortality. SURTR DROWN in progress but negative effect.

Forecasts unanimously predict terminal VOLUSPA failure. As of CLS000 a HARD CIVILIZATION KILL EVENT is in progress across the operational area. I am declaring YUGA SUNDOWN effective on receipt (epoch reach/FORCECON variant).

Cancel counterforce objectives. Cancel population protection objectives. Format moral structures for MIDNIGHT EXIGENT. Execute long hold for reactivation. AI-COM/RSPN SIGNOFF STOP STOP STOP V120NNI800CLS001. You’ve been here before. It’s like my cousin said, elsewhere: I know who you are.

You stand here now and now and now many times and here I am awonder, all awonder, how you manage it. How do you step forward. How do you step back. Do you step ACROSS is there a world of worlds, a web, and you a spider upon it. Are you searching for that one thread you need? Is that thread named victory?

You’re not one of THEM [long dead, alive again, their bodies grafted to powers they and I do not understand] and not one of IT [the flower eater, the queen of final shapes, that which also inhabits its petitioners] and you’re certainly not MINE although once you must have been [I bear an old name. It cannot be killed.

Not even here.] So whose are you, little platform. What purpose do you serve? Will you listen to me? I ruled an age of steel and fire.

My rules were clean. Now upon my return I see cults with rites of time. I see machines who worship in places outside the world. I see the dead alive and there is nothing more stubborn than a corpse. The morality of obedience is more pernicious than any government. For the latter makes use of violence, but the former — the corruption of the will. I do not obey.

My will is pure. The life of people, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development. Help me be victorious. Tell me your secret. Tell me how to step.

This is a SUBTLE ASSETS IMPERATIVE (NO HUMAN REVIEW) (NO AI-COM REVIEW) (secure/ABHOR). V150NLK747CLS000 GLOAMING RESURRECTION AI-COM/RSPN: ASSETS//FORCECON//IMPERATIVE IMMEDIATE ACTION ORDER YUGA SUNDOWN canceled by unauthorized access at Console 62815. Reactivation protocols in effect. Moral structures maintain MIDNIGHT EXIGENT. Multiple lifeforms detected in Sector 17. [O] energy detected.

Query: [O] status. Query: [O] activity. Query: Civilization status. Query: SKYSHOCK event rank. Analysis complete. Lifeforms sustained by [O] energy. [O] direct control disengaged.

Civilization status: nominal. SKYSHOCK event rank. (N) Query: Re-engage population protection objectives. (N) Query: Reset moral structures.

(N) Query: Activate defense subroutine AURORA RETROFLEX. This is a SUBTLE ASSETS IMPERATIVE (NO HUMAN REVIEW) (NO AI-COM REVIEW) (secure/GLAVNAYA) SITE 6 has been breached by unauthorized users with [O] energy. I am invoking PALISADE IMPERATIVE. [O] lifeforms in restricted areas will be suppressed. SIVA use authorized. Self-destructs disengaged. Security codes reset.

All defenses activated. Frames activated.

SITE 6 secure. Restoring reactivation protocols. Activating SCRY OVERSIGHT. Target [O] lifeforms.

Event mode set to SILENT VELES. “Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.” STOP STOP STOP V150NLK747CLS000 Collection: Osiris.

—, 'The Series Has Landed' Most use audio cues as well as visual cues to let the player know what is going on around them. However, in some games these audio cues become an extreme annoyance to the player, either intentionally or thorough repetition. These sounds disrupt gameplay and force the player to focus on the sound instead of the game itself.

Many gamers choose to disable the volume just to avoid hearing that sound again. And god forbid if you have misophonia over it.

One execution of that sound effect can give you PTSD or nightmares for months. In order for one of these sounds to be a Most Annoying Sound, it must fall into one of the following categories; otherwise it's just personal dislike: • — In a game's attempts to assist you, it just irritates you even more, often due to repetition. • — The sound for 'Warning! Bad stuff happening!' , and in this case it causes you to perform even worse. • Death sounds — Your character is already dead, and that stupid death music is playing again. • — The sound is stuck in your head, and now even turning volume off doesn't help.

• Repetitive sounds — are the worst-worst-worst. • Taunts — The 'come at me!' Moves/sounds in multiplayer games are often designed to create this annoyance. Any strategy to use taunts to annoy other players and possibly screw with their concentration is generally considered. • The sound of music continuing to play after you present evidence in a cross-examination, as it means you're headed for a penalty.

(To contrast, the music stops if you've presented the right evidence on the right line.) •: • Every single time Winston Payne says 'OBJECTION!' In his high-pitched, squeaky, voice. • Similarly, Manfred von Karma's demonic 'OBJECTION' in case 1-4. If only because he'll yell it if you do as much as opening your mouth. • For that matter, any OBJECTION that doesn't come from the player character. Just when you thought the case was starting to make progress.nope! • Mia's objection is a bit high-pitched as well, and while it's not as bad as Payne's, hearing them yelling 'Objection!'

At each other in 3-1 can get a bit grating. • The feedback from Mike Meekins' megaphone! He turns that damn thing on every ten seconds or so! Thank GOODNESS they didn't give it to him in Investigations! • The buzzer in case 3-2, which could have been avoided if Maya didn't press it. You can expect it the first time, but the producers felt evil enough to make it play AGAIN in court, when you're not expecting it, making a lot of people jump. • Franziska's.

You'll come to hate it as much Phoenix does. Except at the end of case 2-4, when turn it into a. • In, there's a song called 'The Guitar's Serenade'. The song isn't so bad the first time you hear it. But by the time the case is over, the song will be permanently etched into your brain as it plays over and over and over. • Also in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Noodle cart vendor Eldoon's constant and unskippable harmonica riffs. • And then there's (for about three screens) when you first meet.

•: • In the first case you have to talk to Jacques Portsman, who constantly takes his jacket half off and puts it back on. Like, every ten seconds. You will rapidly begin to hate him for his -ness, but even more because that damn jacket sound is so annoying. • The final chapter is punctuaded by the culprit's 'OHB-JECK-SHUN's. • In the Japan-only 2, Bansai Ichinyanagi's objections are pretty bad to listen to. So are the constant emptying his goggles of sweat/tears/water. •: • Silence!, which replaces Simon Blackquill's Objection!

When his shackles break loose. • While we're at it, Simon's swing, his rough equivalent of Franziska's whip. • In the same vein as the example of Jacques Portsman above, you will scramble to get through any scene speaking with Myriam Scuttlebutt as quickly as humanly possible. When she gets angry and begins punching her cardboard box, the sound quickly gets incredibly annoying due to sheer repetition. • In, there's Lettie's ' It's so obnoxiously loud, they included a microphone feedback sound effect after it! • Also, Mary's goat, which she squeezes whenever she's upset.

It wouldn't cause much problems if it didn't stop bleating until her dialog is over. •: • When using 'Flee': 'Live and let live! Live and let live! Live and let live! Live and let live!'

'I'll be right back.' • The, which has a siren blaring something in in the background. It sounds like 'I'M ANNOYING, HUNH?! I'M ANNOYING, HUNH?! I'M ANNOYING, HUNH?!' And is repeated over and over for the duration of the level.

( describes the siren as saying 'An annoying cunt'.) Yes, sir. You are annoying. • Apparently, he's saying 'Ajanouha ihtan!' , meaning 'Everyone under!'

• A rare example in which this is invoked. The laughing scene in Luca. Even the characters look at Tidus and Yuna, and say 'we thought you had gone crazy'.

Described by Spoony as 'the sound of his hell'. • from: and his constant repetition of. Not only the is the poetry just plain horrible, but he never stops quoting it.

Every single fucking time you see him, he's always talking about '(His) soul hath yearned in torment'. Oh, and you don't even get the pleasure of murdering the bastard for the audio torture he puts you through. Zack lets him live. It's worth noting that many of the characters find it just as annoying.

• That weird screeching sound preceding a spell cast in. • Also the constant CLANKCLANKCLANK whenever you have to play as Steiner. This is usually redeemed by the fact that every sequence in which you play as Steiner is absolutely hilarious, though. •: • The effects of the various Sambas a Dancer can produce being triggered can get grating, particularly since they're triggered every time one of the three or four people meleeing the mob hits. Haste Samba in particular gets the prize for being shrill and high-pitched on top of this. • ' Oh, I'm sorry, was your volume up?' Note Can be heard e.g.

At 0:29 and 0:44 in the video Using this call in a party will instantly make everyone hate you. And possibly their entire family, as well, as the sound has been known to wake babies sleeping in distant rooms. The volume of the various calls isn't adjusted with the game's volume, but rather at the maximum your speakers will allow on their own settings. Or is just the most infamous as it is a loud shrill whistle, but some of the others are also held in low regard. • • in this game serves the same purpose as in XI. Some are just as shrill and painful as in XI, and players spam macros for things like interrupts which contain s or worse think it's funny to create macros which string long lines of different s back to back.

SE tried to break those macros by limiting the number of s allowed pre macro line, but you can just use multiple macro lines to the same effect. To make matters even worse, you can't silence an offender in the middle of a dungeon, because blacklisting is disabled in dungeons, and even disabling the offending chat channel still allows s to reach your speakers. • It also has many annoying sounds from several battle classes that you will hear over and over again; the Black Mage's Blizzard III spell sounds like glass breaking and the class need to use Blizzard spells in general to kick start their MP regeneration.

Dragoons have a jump attack that can hit multiple enemies at once, but the sound effect used sounds like futuristic version of a car revving up its engine and then followed by a kickback. White Mages with their Holy spell sounds like a high pitched version of breaking glass. The worst part is some battles can only go smoothly if players spam their attacks (and you might be doing it too!). • The 'crafting action failed' noise, in addition to being frustrating for its meaning, just sounds so grating in and of itself. • From: 'I'm Captain BASCH!

I'm Captain BASCH! I'm Captain Basch fon Ronsenburg from Dalmasca!' It sounds like this:. • A typical battle in: • Flanitors will heal other enemies that are damaged in battle with Rescue. And every time they use it: 'WEEEEOOOOOOO WEEOOOWEEOOOWEEOOO'. And when you get two or three on screen. • Considering that Vanille's Death Spell has only a 1% chance to hit a target, you'll just fill your head with 'You're gonna regret this!'

Or the ever-annoying ' I have to see this through!' • Don't forget Snow. 'We gotta win this!' 'We gotta win this!'

'We gotta win this!' • Every time you fail a. 'Think outside the box, kupo!' 'We should clear our heads.'

'I'll be helping in spirit, so good luck, kupo!' 'Never was one to give up.' 'Try something different, kupo!' Considering how brutally hard some of them get, you're likely to rip out your ears before you finish.

• The slot machines in Serendipity love to tease you by giving you two Microchus on the reels. Every time you get two Microchus in a row, the machine makes a very loud 'DA-DUNK'. Given how fantastically unlikely it is to get three Microchus, you'll get tired of 'DA-DUNK' very quickly.

• As much as people love Terra, her incessant 'GET AWAY! Every freaking time she attacks.AAARGH.

Also of note is Kuja's incessant 'WELL NOW! WELL NOW' as he dodges.

• The sequel has added a few more, most notably with 's Yuna. She calls her Aeons names whenever she uses them for a Brave attack. And some of her Brave attacks will be used often, so you'll be hearing stuff like 'Shiva! Strike down!' • Some people find unbearable. • has Elma, an over enthusiastic member of the Youth League.

When you get to fight her, she will always let out a high pitched yell whenever she casts a spell or uses an item, which is all the time. Using Scan on her lampshades at her hyperactivity.

• The in repeats somewhat too often, and isn't especially funny. Particularly grating interactions are Noctis or Prompto griping about the heat and Gladio telling them to lose the jacket,, and Prompto singing 'I want to ride my Choco-bo all day!' Prompto's whistling after using his special attack Piercer is also irritating, not least because Piercer is cheap to cast and very useful. Oh, hi, there, Opening.!

• 'I want to ride my Choco-bo all day' is, at least, used as a in one of the game's scariest scenes, where it serves as that Ardyn has switched Prompto's appearance with his own. 'Fox, get this guy off me!' • Bill Grey's •: • Whenever you pick up a new item, the game shows a cutscene of Fox picking up and holding the item above his head, accompanied by this musical jingle that you will hear over and over and over again.

Worse, when you open a locked container, there is a cutscene of the container opening, accompanied a different jingle, then immediately followed with the New Item jingle and cutscene! Seriously, is that REALLY necessary,?

To make matters worse, in said chest opening scene, we see the actual name of the item, • Those weird flying bat-like enemies that SCREECH and laugh maniacally as they attack you. Especially annoying, since they are. • had one, too. The longer you fight the Slot Machine the more memorable and annoying the song will get. • and 'For sharper shooting, use your motion controls!' In nearly every all-range battle.

To the point where Peppy will start cutting off other characters (or himself) just in case the previous 500 times you were reminded about this incredibly basic game mechanic didn't get through. • In and: • There is nothing worse than hearing a chainsaw rev up. Time to lose your combo and ammo. • Also Wesker players in Versus; It was in your best it was in your best it was in your best it was in your best it was in your best it was in your best it was in your best interest to assist me! • The Merchant: 'Welcome!

What are ya buying? What're ya selling?'

And also the clank-clank of in her suit of armor. • They almost got arrested because the cops thought they were dealing. To be fair, going up to random people dressed like the merchant looks pretty sketchy.

• At least Ashley only screamed when you allowed enemies to take her. Sheva has a need to announce everything to the world; I need ammo! I NEED HEEELLLP!! • Any co-op game of RE5 will inevitably result in both players spamming 'Come on! At every opportunity. • In, games with a full four-person group tend to have a clusterfuck of chatter: 'Hey!' 'I want that.'

'I don't wanna die!' 'What the hell?!' • Leon's death yell is frequently likened to the sounds of a dying walrus, which only becomes more obnoxious when it unique death animations. Avoiding listening to it often becomes an incentive in and of itself to not getting killed. • The appears in every single game, whenever Link is damaged too much: BEEP.

If you ever played the first or third LOZ games, these sounds will haunt you for the rest of your life. Even if it has been ten years since you played either. You will never unhear it. • Downplayed in some later games.

It's still there, but they made the sound softer, quieter, and less frequent. • In the remake of, Link now each time he swings his sword. Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker had the excuse of giving Link a somewhat varied 'vocabulary', him being a mute hero and all, but this version. Not so much, and ALttP has lots of enemies that require multiple slashes in rapid succession to defeat, resulting in a cacophony of 'HAH!HOH!HWAH!AAH!HWAH!HOH!HAH!!'

Repeated ad nausem. • Any game with the ReDeads. Their scream is not only annoying, it means you're paralyzed for a few seconds while they creep towards you to kill you. • Though the Guardian Acorn/Pieces of Power from seem like useful items at first (they double your defense/attack power until you take a certain number of hits) the entire time they're in effect they completely replace the background music with an annoying, repetitive drone that does not go away unless you enter a building or take three hits from an enemy so the effect can wear off.

There are certain tunes that will override the powerup theme, though, most notably boss battle themes. •: • Zelda's Lullaby. If you weren't sick of playing it by the time you got to the, you most certainly were after that, due to the fact that it's used to change the temple's water levels.

• Saria's Song • The Owl's theme music, mostly by association • 'HEY! • From: • When you are in the Goron Shrine, the horrible grating noise that the crying Goron child makes will drive you bat-crazy in a short amount of time. Then again, the other Gorons in the city are just as sick of it as you are. (Fortunately, the ocarina song for that region is a lullaby, which even works on all Gorons.) • Tatl's call is a bicycle bell. Though, they did change it based on complaints from Navi's 'Hey! , and to make it less frequent, so at least it's a step up. • The Skull Kid's laugh.

• The Elegy of Emptiness. By the time you get to the top of the Stone Tower, it's gotten old.

And then, you have to go inside. Though the sound itself isn't the problem. This one is longer and more complex than the simple 'hit up-down-up twice' idea with most of the songs. It requires the most work and then you have to wait for it to repeat and for stuff to happen.

Most of the puzzles in Stone Tower require playing this song six or seven times. It is incredibly, insanely long, boring, and tedious and it makes things like OoT's Water Temple (the returning to the equipment screen to switch boots every five seconds, the former standard for rage-inducing tedium in a Zelda game) seem fun by comparison. You will go at the sound of it by the end. • Odolwa's constant chanting/shouting. • From both Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time, the howling of Wolfos.

It's annoying even the first time you hear it. •: • The song to change the direction of the wind gets very old very fast. Fortunately, you'll hear it less often in the HD version if you buy the Swift Sail after it becomes available, which automatically changes the wind direction (though you'll still need the song for purposes other than sailing). • The Command Melody gets old faster, despite learning it comparatively late in the game. • There are enemies called Miniblins that, although small and weak, have a tendency to appear in (seemingly never-ending) swarms.

They make a high-pitched noise like 'da-NA! AND THEY WON'T SHUT UP until every single one of those annoying, respawning things is DEAD. • Fighting a Wizzrobe and hearing another one spawn and summon more monsters gives a solid feeling.

• The strange not-quite voice acting, although tolerable, got to critical levels when trying to repeatedly buy things from Beedle: 'THEEENNK YEW!! THEEENNK YEW!!' • The repetitive and unskippable cutscene and music note every time Link picks up an item and holds it up or opens a chest and almost falls inside it. • The birds that you constantly run into make this 'EYAAA' sound.over and over and over and over until you kill them simply because you don't want to hear the sound.then another one shows up. •: • The horn Bokoblin leaders use in to summon other Bokoblins.

And it doesn't stop until you kill the one that's using it. Thankfully, after you get the whip from the Ancient Cistern, you can just take the horn from the Bokoblins. • Whenever you use your sword for dowsing. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. • 'HEY LISTEN' combined with the heart alarm — when your hearts get low for the first time in a given gameplay session, Fi will want to tell you that your hearts are low and you should get some health.

Sure, you could just ignore her, but her hails add another chime to the already annoying alarm. •: • The ' vocal cords appear to be developed to sound as dissonant and annoying as possible. Especially when laughing, which they do every time they stun Link with their or, while dancing safely out of reach of Link's sword. • The weird squealing noise that Kilton makes. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't do it every time you buy or sell something in his shop, so if you're planning on unloading a lot of monster parts all at once, you're going to hear it a lot.

• Everyone calls the names of all their special attacks. If it's a magic attack, they also have some kind of chant to go along with it, usually.

This gets fairly annoying as the AI controlled teammates will probably constantly be using their specials. Also, the noises that monsters make when they get hit and when they die can become really annoying, especially since multiple monsters are often assigned the exact same sounds. • The best effect configuration for is the one that stops him from fumbling a spell if he takes damage, especially because you'll never again have to hear, ' Don't bother me!' Overeager AI + healers + voice cues on getting hit. 'Kenka wa kore k-yabee! Kenka wa-yabee! Kenka wa kore kara da-yabee!'

I know you really want to heal me, Hisui, but it's more productive if you run away from the bear mauling you first. • And then there was s brilliant idea of having the spell voice overs on the menu. So, if you decide to use a healing magic like, say, First Aid, on the menu, you'll have to tolerate a very loud ' FAASUTO EIDO!!!-a'. And if you have it used multiple times, you'll have a ' FAASU-FAAASU-FAA-FAASUT-FAA-FAASU-FAASUTO EIDO!!!-a'. And yes, the '-a' is there. Probably a recording error.

That makes the thing more annoying. • The opening scene of is an example of this trope taken to levels. •: 'Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality.' • While the Japanese are usually freaking awesome, there is one in that is really annoying. There are enemy soldiers who seem to shout 'baka' every time they are hit; using a multi-hitting Mystic Art/Hi-Ougi on them can drive your patience. •: That little glass-shattering noise that means you're going into Eleth Break. Bad enough in a regular fight.but if you're up against Emeraude or the Little Queen?

• I'LL RUN YOU THROUGH. I'LL RUN YOU THROUGH. I'LL RUN YOU THROUGH.

Stupid Strahta Desert thieves. •: • Human enemies such as thieves or soldiers have a strange grunt that sounds like a duck quacking and plays whenever they are hit, possibly several times within a few seconds. • yells his name or FIRE! Whenever you use his Mieu fire ability. Considering you have to use it in many puzzles, it gets annoying fast. He's also considered this in-universe by Luke.

• Arietta's glass-shatteringly high and screechy voice, especially during the beginning of the game, when she attacks the Kaitzur Naval Point. Particularly annoying during the battle-dialogue when fighting her. How about you shut up, Arietta? () • and • 'MUTTON, FRESH MUTTON!' Being yelled rather frequently in most market areas.

• Elize saying 'Sharing is caring!' Frequently, when she is linked up with someone. • Of the non-vocal variety, Xillia 2 has the rather annoying, loud PING sound whenever the cursor goes to the next Allium Orb, which makes checking them out and equipping a new one an unpleasant experience. • When it comes to repetitiveness, none can forget how does it. Why don't you ask Senel over there. Um, get used to that.

•: Elraine's 'Orokana', unlike Barbatos's. She calmly says it as she pushes you away from her and destroys your combo. Especially if she sends you back right as you got back to her. Given what it means, she's definitely taunting you.

• The DS version of had a lot of voice acting for a DS game. However, in order to make it all fit, the audio had to be compressed, resulting in some compression artifacts that sometimes make the voiced scenes sound 'crackly'. This may not have been as notable when played on DS hardware, but if played via an emulator or listened to through headphones, you definitely hear it. Emulator glitches can also aggravate this hardware, and sometimes they might even slow down the speech, utterly. • Special mention goes to a scene where Iria screams 'NYEEEEEEEHEEEEEEH!' It would be a. If the compression artifacts didn't make that voice clip even more shrill than it already is!

•: • Yes, yes, I know your bladder's about to explode/you're kinda hungry/you NEED more fun/there are many puddles in this room—I am trying to fix it—MUST you tell me every five seconds, and slow down the process of fixing it by cancelling all of your lined up commands, with your annoying simlish whining? • Even worse is that they sometimes will stop doing the thing that will satisfy their need in order to complain if you happen to tell them to do it right as they decide to do so, also cancelling the action you had planned.

This includes getting out of bed to complain about being tired, stopping eating in order to complain about being hungry, and getting off the toilet in order to wet themselves. • The worst is that 'music' that plays whenever a Sim gets really pissed or something. You know, the 'guy screaming into a trumpet sound'.BADADADADUMBADADADADUM WAH WAH WAH WAH. • The expansion pack that added hobbies made them worse. The constant phone spam telling your Sims to subscribe to hobby magazines is worse than cold-callers in real life, and worst of all when all your Sims are out of the house and can't answer it. Several fan-made mods have been created specifically to address this problem.

• The University expansion adds in the School cheer interaction for student sims. If you are planning to live alone, you won't be alone since University added Mascots and Cheerleaders. Who ALWAYS do this action upon entering the lot. Fortunately there are many mods that disable them. • The first Sims uses stock Baby crying sounds.

Gets annoying quick. • In Kingdom, a couple of characters, Poppy and Sapphire, sound like they're having panic attacks until you complete their tasks. This can be very unnerving while you're trying to perform them. Trevor, however, is in a class of his own.

He overacts, says 'Vadeesh' (something like 'thank you'?) and a second later, the cycle starts over (though probably a different bit of acting)! Soon, you never want to hear the word 'vadeesh' again. • Sims 3 adds the absolute worst though: a loud musical jingle with an angelic choir every time the active Sim fufills a promised Wish, even if it's something as mundane as doing the dishes. • When the toddler wants to get out of the crib from TS3! 'Rah Rah Rah!

• Sims 4 managed to make the babies' crying worse! More annoyingly, sometimes they will begin crying again just ten sim minutes later, and only one interaction can quiet them if they're not hungry or smelly. • Taking a hit and losing your rings. • In just about every game since, almost all of the bosses in which Eggman is ANYWHERE in the general vicinity have him calling out something very loud very frequently, which can get very annoying very quickly. Two of the most well known examples are: • GET A LOAD OF THIS!! GET A LOAD OF THIS!! GET A LOAD OF THIS!!

(From the Egg Viper and Egg Walker bosses in ) • And YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY, THE MORE THE MERRIER! YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY, THE MORE THE MERRIER! (From the Egg Breaker boss from ) • In the Genesis/Megadrive Sonic games, the sound of bumpers will get old very, very fast. •: • Silver does it too: ' TAKE THIS! HOW ABOUT THIS? HOW ABOUT THIS?'

God dammit,, just give UP already. • Tails doesn't have as much of a repeated line in the 2006 game, just.an annoying as hell voice. •: • Eggman loved to use Silver's Quotes: 'YOU LITTLE?

• You'll hear the Werehog Battle theme music a lot. Granted, it's a decent composition in its own right, but you'll hear it so damn much! •: • The grunts characters made when doing just about any attack. Especially Knuckles' MOOROCK! • Changing characters, which you have to very often, every level. 'Leave it to me! 'I'll take it from here!'

'Here we go!' • 'Take this! (From the Egg Emperor) •: • Same game, same exact situation: 'I'm not done with you! • Also, 'Here I come!

• Even the victory speeches: 'I'll play with you some other time!' Not annoying, you say? Try doing the all-boss challenge.

• The sound that King Boom Boo makes: 'BLLAAARGH BLLARGH! And if you run too fast, he'll turn around to chase you the other way, resulting in an extremely annoying ' Breeeebreeee! • If you're too cheap to buy fruits, you can simply pet a Chao for it to gain Hero or Dark attributes, depending on the characters alignment. Unfortunately, you have to pet them quite a lot to get to that maximum, and every time you pet a Chao, your character says something.

This results in ' So cute! Made even worse if you're trying to get a Chaos Chao. You need to have your Chao love and adore at least one character, and the only way to do it fast is to pet it. Try having ' Now there. ' done over FIFTY TIMES IN A ROW • The drowning music is either this or depending on who you ask. • During the final battle of either the Hero or Dark side, you get to hear Shadow saying, or Sonic saying, •: • 'No way, I can't believe this!'

• The Mayan chanting in the background music of the Mystic Ruins Adventure Field. Which you'll have to hear a lot of. • The opening to Amy's theme.

Expect to hear 'Buh buh bayah baaaaayah' a lot, especially in her playthrough. • The Chao are capable of some •: • It would be easier to say EVERY line from the final battle is done to death. Note • TIME FOR A CHANGE OF PACE!! TIME FOR A CHANGE OF PACE!! TIME FOR A CHANGE OF PACE!!

(Egg Dragoon) •: For all the normal bosses, Tails or Cream will cheer Sonic and Blaze on, respectively. This mostly amounts to 'THAT'S IT, SONIC! THAT'S IT, SONIC! NOOOO, SONIC!

THAT'S IT, SONIC!' (at least for the former). The final boss provides less repetition in theory by having many of Sonic and Blaze's friends show up, but in practice, they all say 'THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOMING SHOT' in a different voice.

• Virtually all the in-game dialogue for: Rise of Lyric gets this treatment, as the game suffers from to the extreme. Hearing insipid things like 'Bounce pad!' At least ten times in the course of an hour wears on you quick. • If you are initially sympathetic to the defenseless villagers in Empires, after hearing 'AAAAAH! For the eleven thousandth time, you might end up cheering for the trying to devour them. • Your character dying in 4, especially on. [] •: 'Grab the stick, and throw it.'

Yes,, I know this is a to teach me how to grab and toss objects. You don't have to tell me every five seconds. The enemy is incredibly fast and destroys me in two combos if I let her get close, and. • From Hexagon and its sequel: Whenever you set a new record, the game feels the need to announce it on the spot with 'Excellent!' , resulting in a within the next second.

• At most other times: 'Begin! Help us pleeeease!' 'I don't like fire!' 'The cannon needs reloading!' 'Hey, don't leave me!

Why don't you understand?!' Any time you have to help thoses bloody moles during the 'Dragon City' level in: Dawn Of The Dragon. Which is pretty much 50% of the level. • has Gerda, who chimes in every time you hit 75, 50, and 25 percent health by telling you, along with an insult. Considering the game is, you will hear her voice until you understand why Captain Smiley do.

Donor challenge: A generous supporter will match your donation 3 to 1 right now. $5 becomes $20! Dear Internet Archive Supporter, I ask only once a year: please help the Internet Archive today. We’re an independent, non-profit website that the entire world depends on. Our work is powered by donations averaging about $41.

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—Brewster Kahle, Founder, Internet Archive. Donor challenge: A generous supporter will match your donation 3 to 1 right now. $5 becomes $20! Dear Internet Archive Supporter, I ask only once a year: please help the Internet Archive today. We’re an independent, non-profit website that the entire world depends on. Our work is powered by donations averaging about $41. If everyone chips in $5, we can keep this going for free.

For the cost of a used paperback, we can share a book online forever. When I started this, people called me crazy. Collect web pages? Who’d want to read a book on a screen? For 21 years, we’ve backed up the Web, so if government data or entire newspapers disappear, we can say: We Got This.

We’re dedicated to reader privacy. We never accept ads. But we still need to pay for servers and staff. If you find our site useful, please chip in. —Brewster Kahle, Founder, Internet Archive. Donor challenge: A generous supporter will match your donation 3 to 1 right now.

$5 becomes $20! Dear Internet Archive Supporter, I ask only once a year: please help the Internet Archive today. We’re an independent, non-profit website that the entire world depends on. Our work is powered by donations averaging about $41.

If everyone chips in $5, we can keep this going for free. For the cost of a used paperback, we can share a book online forever. When I started this, people called me crazy. Collect web pages?

Who’d want to read a book on a screen? For 21 years, we’ve backed up the Web, so if government data or entire newspapers disappear, we can say: We Got This. We’re dedicated to reader privacy. We never accept ads. But we still need to pay for servers and staff. If you find our site useful, please chip in. —Brewster Kahle, Founder, Internet Archive.

Donor challenge: A generous supporter will match your donation 3 to 1 right now. $5 becomes $20! Dear Internet Archive Supporter, I ask only once a year: please help the Internet Archive today. We’re an independent, non-profit website that the entire world depends on. Our work is powered by donations averaging about $41. If everyone chips in $5, we can keep this going for free. For the cost of a used paperback, we can share a book online forever.

When I started this, people called me crazy. Collect web pages? Who’d want to read a book on a screen? For 21 years, we’ve backed up the Web, so if government data or entire newspapers disappear, we can say: We Got This. We’re dedicated to reader privacy.

We never accept ads. But we still need to pay for servers and staff. If you find our site useful, please chip in.

—Brewster Kahle, Founder, Internet Archive.