Bite-sized Backstory 37: Yang Liwei
The Awoken have been a strange puzzle ever since we first visited the Reef back in Destiny 1. We met the Awoken Queen and her brother, but we didn’t even learn their names until Petra Venj called upon the Guardians of The City to hunt down Skolas in the House of Wolves expansion. For all of Destiny 1, the Awoken were a culture and a power whose extent was frustratingly difficult to discern. Did they have cities? Or a military? Or Guardian-like powers? Even when we arrived at the Vestian Outpost, we didn’t learn all that much about the Awoken.
Our best look at the Awoken, until now, was their response to the House of Wolves during the Reef Wars as seen in the book The Maraid. But even then, we didn’t learn a lot. Queen Mara Sov was shown to be uniquely powerful and able to destroy a Fallen fleet seemingly singlehandedly. The Awoken were revealed to have cities and stations like Amethyst that the Fallen attacked and in some cases destroyed. And that’s roughly all we’ve known about the Awoken… until now.
The history of the Awoken is laid out for us across multiple in-game books that you’ll earn piece by piece while playing Forsaken. The first of these books is Marasenna. Like before, I’m going to attempt to walk you through the contents of these books, like I did for the Book of Sorrows, but I highly encourage anyone following along with me to read the full text of these book chapters as we get to them. They are well written and mysterious and half the experience and fun of this is reading this history as it was written.
So… where to start? How about with Mara Sov? Almost from the beginning, we learn that Mara did not start out as a Queen or ruler. Instead, when we first meet her, she is a nineteen year old young woman of no particular race or ancestry serving as an Auturge 3rd Class on the Golden Age colony ship Yang Liwei which is named after the first Chinese astronaut to be sent into space. An Auturge is something of a troubleshooting mechanic whose job it is to fix problems as they spring up on the ship as it makes its way out of our solar system.
The other thing we very quickly find out about Mara Sov, is that she has a streak of independence the likes of which we have only rarely seen in Destiny. For one thing, instead of following the normal chain of command, where an Auturge 3rd Class usually reports to Auturge 2nd Class to find out their work assignments, Mara just shows up at areas of the ship that have malfunctioned and fixes things before leaving, usually without even talking to anyone. A ship like the Yang Liwei need to be run with tight organization, but Mara is apparently skilled enough to subvert all that regulation and do her own thing. Her actions eventually take on an almost magical quality. Something breaks, she appears, it is soon fixed without fuss or red tape, and then she is gone. We’re told that Mara enjoys this hushed awe that her actions cause the population of the Yang Liwei. But being mysterious is the least of her boldness…
Our first glimpse of her is not fixing a pipe or patching a circuit. Instead, we find her in a skin-tight environment suit sitting on the outer hull of the Yang Liwei looking down towards the ship’s main engines at its rear. Apparently, she prefers to live out there. Outside the ship. In space. We’re told that she stays outside because she wants to taste the blueshift of the surrounding starlight as the Yang Liwei accelerates out of our solar system.
In this instance, though, Mara does something even more daring than that. She doesn’t just cling to the hull of the colony ship. Instead, during a period when the ship has halted its acceleration to perform another long check of its engines, she kicks off the hull and drifts ahead, away from the Yang Liwei’s large forward umbrella-like shield with only a thin tether wire to keep her from drifting away completely. She doesn’t just drift a few meters, or even a few hundred. Instead she drifts ten kilometers ahead of the ship. It must have taken hours for her to coast that far after simply kicking herself forward. It must have been breathtaking to watch the colony ship, which was so large that it is described as its own traveling fleet, slowly shrink into the black of space. It might have still been visible, far in the distance, but Mara would have also been surrounded by the stars… and when she was, she did something even more incredible. And terrifying!
Mara activates the controls on her suit that order the external cytogel layer to pull completely away and retract into storage mode! Though she was wearing an undersuit, the cytogel was the only thing actually separating her from the vacuum of space! The effects of vacuum exposure begin immediately. The moisture on her skin boils. Her face begins to discolor and turn a sickly blue due to a lack of oxygen. Her body begins to swell due to an imbalance of internal and external pressure. Out there, among the stars, Mara is letting herself die. And she records it all, every view, every gasp, and every little sensation down to the neural level on her sensorium… before reengaging her protective suit, returning her size and color and breathing to normal. Those sensorium recordings, she knows, will fetch a high price once she makes her way back inside the ship.
Interestingly, as Destiny players, we hear of sensorium recordings within Forsaken, too. When we rescue one of the Techeuns from The Corrupted strike, she sometimes says it would be impossible to describe the experience of being Taken without the use of a full sensorium.
I imagine it only takes Mara a pull or two on her thin tether to start her long drift back to the Yang Liwei. Once she does gets back inside, we’ll get the chance to meet some of the other key people in her life.
Chapters Referenced:
Brephos I
Brephos II
(Brephos means something along the lines of an unborn or newborn child…)
Bite-sized Backstory 36: The Fallen Houses
With two crushing defeats, one at Twilight Gap at the hands of The Last City and another at Cybele at the hands of the Awoken, the Eliksni found themselves being driven back once again. Since the Dark Age they had raided and pillaged the scattered settlements and cities of Earth mostly unchecked. But now, the Awoken had set up colonies and industry and a military presence within the Reef, and the Last Safe City beneath the Traveler had built great walls and was defended by seemingly unkillable Guardians. It’s around this point that our Ghost finds us on the outskirts of the Cosmodrome and from then on things go from bad to worse for the various Fallen Houses:
The House of Devils:
The Fallen will continue to claw at the walls of our City, unless we strike them down. Beneath the ruins of the Cosmodrome, in the shadow of an old colony ship, we’ve located the House of Devils’ Lair – and the High Servitor feeding them their strength. We must destroy this machine god…and send their souls screaming back to hell.
The House of Devils will go on to become one of our greatest rivals in the story of Destiny. In fact, when we first encounter them, they are on the verge of making a major discovery. They have been looting and studying the remains of our Golden Age in the Cosmodrome for decades and have finally found something they think can change their fortunes.
Our first clue to what the Devils found is the Guardian jump ship we find crashed in the Cosmodrome. They are one of the first to report on strange signals coming from Old Russia. Later, after we escape to the Tower and return to the Cosmodrome, we discover that the Devils have been trying to steal data from some source buried within the old spaceport. We hear old Russian opera. Our Ghost stops the Devil’s data taps. And by the time we reactivate the large communications array we are sure we have found the Warmind Rasputin! Without our help, the Fallen might have been able to compromise the Warmind’s systems and possibly gain control of the powerful Warsats orbiting overhead.
But that’s not all the Devils found… Their attempts to locate and crack Rasputin saw them discover perhaps an even bigger prize: SIVA. When we killed Sepiks Prime, we greatly hobbled the House of Devils. Without their large High Servitor to process and distribute life sustaining Ether, the house would have scattered. But with the discovery of SIVA, radical factions of the House of Devils including Archon Priest Aksis and the Devil Splicers take over and force the Eliksni house down a path of abandoning Ether in exchange for relying on SIVA for sustenance and survival. For a time, the House of Devils becomes powerful enough to even threaten The City, but with the destruction of the SIVA replication chamber and the deaths of Aksis and Vosik, their newfound power is ripped away from them.
House of Winter
After the Eliksni’s collective defeat at Twilight Gap, the House of Winter retreated back to Venus where their Kell, Draksis, ruled over his house from a hidden position near the ruins of the Ishtar Collective. Draksis became notorious for his raids on human settlements while his house sought out new knowledge among the Vex and Human ruins near the Ishtar Sink. Eventually, after rising to the attention of the Vanguard (Cayde-6 once sent one of his Hunters to Venus to the Cinders to search for Winter’s Kell…), our Guardian finds Draksis’ Ketch and puts an end to him. Seeing as the House of Winter had already lost its Prime Servitor, this was something of a fatal blow to the Eliksni on Venus.
House of Exiles
The House of Exiles was not formally an Eliksni house. It had no Prime Servitor and no Kell. Mostly, it was a collection of Eliksni who had either been banished from their own houses but who had been separated from their house but who had refused to lay down and die. Like all of the Eliksni, the Exiles keep their distance from the other Houses. Seeing as Earth, Venus, and Mars were already occupied (with Mars being somewhat closed off to the Eliksni thanks to the heavy Cabal presence) the Exiles took refuge on Earth’s Moon… near the Hive. The Hellmouth was not exactly the safest place… but with Crota’s initial and eventual ultimate defeat, the Hive there were not the threat they had once been.
The House of Exiles is most notable for harboring the Eliksni mercenary Taniks. But beyond that, and a few suicidally daring raids down into the Hellmouth, we don’t ever hear much from the House of Exiles.
House of Wolves
After several years of conflict, the House of Wolves eventually knelt down to Mara Sov and her Awoken. With the help of Variks, the House of Wolves worked and fought alongside the Awoken for a time. Many Wolves did in fact truly regard Mara Sov as their new Kell and followed her orders with honest devotion. It was only when Skolas returned proclaiming himself to be the Kell of Kells and seemingly having the power to defy the Awoken that the House of Wolves rebelled. That rebellion was short lived, of course, as a vengeful Mara Sov sought the aid of the Guardians of The City. Within a short period of time… months at most… Skolas had been defeated and recaptured. He would eventually meet his end at the hand of some group of Guardians as nothing more than a mere play thing in Variks’ Prison of Elders.
The House of Wolves did not die immediately, however. Its remnants somehow managed to hide among the sprawling Cabal fortifications on Mars. They even rebuilt their Prime Servitor, Orbiks Prime, and for a short time where a thorn in the side of the Awoken and Cabal alike… until a Guardian discovered their hidden base of operations and lay waste to Orbiks Prime once more.
House of Kings
The Kings rarely lowered themselves to squabble in Eliksni politics or power grabs. They regarded themselves as rulers… and the other Eliksni houses seemed to have a great deal of respect for them. Even when the house of Devils was at its height, it seldom interfered with the House of Kings. The Devils and Kings were even neighbors in the Cosmodrome yet somehow managed to stay out of each other’s way.
In the end the House of Kings met with the Awoken Prince, Uldren Sov, and they alongside the House of Devils on Earth, the house of Winter on Venus, the House of Wolves on Mars, and the House of Exiles on Earth’s Moon… left.
The Fallen are abandoning the Cosmodrome.
Hawk fly-overs confirm. The House of Devils forces are simply not there anymore. They’ve been disorganized for the last few years, but there’s never been a shortage of ground troops whenever we staged a significant sortie.
Intel source GREENRAVEN was right. And, for the moment, it’s worth assuming their report on the House of Exiles, House of Winter, and House of Wolves are also accurate. We’re fact-checking against independent fireteam reports from the field.
The kid all the SRL fans talk about — Marcus? He was in one of the fireteams out at the Cosmodrome. He pulled me aside, and said it to me straight: the Fallen Houses are gone. The siege is broken. The stalemate we’ve had with the Eliksni for what, a hundred years? It’s over. We won.
Commander, I’m not even sure they’re flying the banners anymore. The teams found huge mounds of burnt cloth and armor, ceremonial piles, in several of the most hardcore Fallen holdouts.
What’s changed? Where have the Fallen gone? Why have they burned their banners?
That final question was posed by a Guardian named Sloane… who we eventually meet on Titan. So what did change? In short, Prince Uldren and the Scorn.
But that’s a story for a later time. We’ll check back in on the Eliksni in a bit, but for now we are mostly caught up to the start of Forsaken. There are still some finer points to explore such as what the Devils were trying to accomplish with SIVA or the grand significance of Skolas trying to force his way into the fabled position of Kell of Kells, but I’d like to visit those too at a later date.
Why the little rush past some interesting stuff? Well… because with Forsaken’s release, Bungie’s writing team has delivered the largest and most far reaching selection of lore since the Book of Sorrows detailed the rise of the three brave sisters who eventually spawned the terrifying Hive. Because of that, I am thrilled and excited to begin detailing:
Bite-sized Backstory 35: Betrayal At Cybele
When the Awoken captured Beltrik the Veiled at the Fortuna Plummet, Skolas knew he was running out of options. With no brilliant strategist on his side anymore, Skolas falls back on brute force. For a whole year, Drevis had managed to form an effective blockade of Pallas using only a portion of the fractured House of Wolves. Maybe Skolas figured he could do the same?
For his target, Skolas choose the Awoken “military fortress” of Cybele. Attacking an actual military target might be more difficult, but Skolas was desperate. Maybe he planed to strike a blow at the Awoken’s military power and embarrass all at the same time? A successful siege or defeat of a major Awoken fortification would seem to do the trick. Unfortunately for Skolas, his time had run out. Not because he choose a poor target now, in the present, but because of what he had done in the past.
When Skolas started attacking civilian targets like the Awoken colony of Amethyst, he set off a chain reaction that he did not expect. An Eliksni named Variks who served alongside Skolas as a scribe from the House of Judgement had finally seen enough. As Variks later put it:
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.
New tactics. Detonations. Blasts in civilian areas. Take the fight to them, he said. Cannot abide the hate. Uprising, they called it. Uprising on Cybele.
So, in order to put a stop to the senseless killing, Variks contacts the Awoken, and alerts them to Skolas’ plan. When Skolas’ forces arrive at Cybele, instead of achieving the element of surprise or even facing an even fight, they are instead immediately flanked and outmaneuvered by all four of the Awoken’s Armada Paladins. Skolas’ forces immediately collapse with some, such as the Kaliks-12 High Servitor, trying to flee. While some probably did manage to slip away, it sounds like the Awoken had Skolas right where they wanted him. By the time the battle was over, Skolas and most of his followers were captured or dead and, aside from a few minor skirmishes, the Reef Wars were finally over.
By betraying Skolas, Variks quite possibly saved the lives of many Eliksni and Awoken. Saving his own people is certainly the primary reason Variks stepped in as doing so was entirely consistent with his status as a member of the Eliksni House of Judgement. Across the Grimoire, we get little peaks at House Judgement’s function within the greater Eliksni society:
“The House of Judgment shall have no ketch, but it will live among the other Houses to guide the kells and keep their secrets.” —Eliksni Pact
Variks the Loyal remembers an ancient time, and an ancient name: the House of Judgment, when grudges and status fights were worked out in a safe place. When the berserk and the vengeance-crazed were kept somewhere harmless, and there were fewer rivals to plot around.
I hear. House of Judgment always hears. No choice. Has to. To keep Houses together. Had to.
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.
So, it seems that instead of the House of Judgement being a full Eliksni house like the Wolves or Devils, they were instead more of an cross-house group of peacekeepers and advisors. Variks himself is said to have traveled with multiple different houses in the time period after the Eliksni’s civilization was destroyed in the Whirlwind. His role as a trusted advisor would also explain how he learned of Skolas’ planned attack on Cybele far enough ahead of time to warn the Awoken.
But beyond that, beyond upholding his role as perhaps the very last member of the House of Judgement (The Art of Destiny 2 lists Variks as such…), Variks may have had a much more personal reason to oust Skolas. Jump into Destiny 1 and stand in front of Variks on the Vestian Outpost and you’ll eventually hear him say things like:
Are you staring at my arms, Guardian? Where Skolas cut me? Look away.
Skolas once told me to stand still. Then he cut off my arms.
You think you hate Wolves? I promise my hate is sharper.
Look closely at Variks. He has all four arms like a Vandal or Captain, but his upper arms are actually mechanical! Now… we know that Dreg can regrow their docked lower arms and that docking is used as a punishment / method of control across the Eliksni houses around the time of Destiny 1… but can an Eliksni’s upper arms grow back? Did Skolas maim Variks for life? And, if so, when did that happen? None of these questions have good answers, but I like to imagine that the reason that the Awoken Crows found Variks cowering was because Skolas realized he had been betrayed and decided to exact a severe punishment on Variks before they were defeated and captured at Cybele.
As we know, Variks went on to become an advisor to Queen Mara Sov. He proclaimed her as the new Kell of the House of Wolves, and for a time that actually held. As for Skolas, Mara Sov sent him to The Nine as a prize or gift, to celebrate their mutual victory (over the House of Wolves?)
We’ll see Skolas again, eventually, but next we’re going to take a look at the House of Devils on Earth. They found something very interesting at the beginning of Destiny 1. Something that in the past had, and in the future may very well again, cause great problems for the Guardians of The City.
Oh! Before we go, there was one final battle at the end of the Reef Wars that occurred after Skolas had been captured. I found this one to be pretty amusing.
“After Skolas’s capture at the Cybele Uprising, Veliniks named himself the new Kell. Didn’t work out great for him.” —Petra
Bite-sized Backstory 34: The Fortuna Plummet
The Hildian Campaign
There’s one segment of the Reef Wars we just don’t know a whole lot about. During the long siege of Pallas occurred what was a perhaps an almost equally long search for Skolas called The Hildian Campaign. Armada Paladins Abra Zire and Kamala Rior were sent into the Hildian asteroid field to try and find Skolas and his chief strategist Beltrik, the Veiled, but this campaign was largely a failure. While there may have been small scrapes and skirmishes, for the most part the Reef’s forces came up empty in their search.
The Hildians are a dense group of over 1,000 asteroids and smaller objects that share an odd orbital arrangement with Jupiter. They orbit the sun a little slower than Jupiter so at times they are on opposite sides of the solar system as the gas giant while at other times they come close to approaching it. At their closest point, however, the Hildians never quite reach Jupiter’s orbit and soon they are back on their way away from Jupiter again. This animation from Wikipedia shows the orbits pretty well:
The brief description of the Hildian Seeker Jumpship says:
Nimble starfighters designed by the Reef to navigate dense asteroid fields.
So we know the Reef’s forces considered the Hildians a dense, tricky place to maneuver through. One would think that the Reef’s pilots would be experts with flying through tight space, what with the Reef’s confusing layout and all, so this must have been quite difficult indeed. It’s no wonder they weren’t able to find Skolas or Beltrik, in that case!
While the Reef’s forces failed to find their targets during the Hildian Campaign, it can’t really be said that the campaign was a total failure. Two things happened there that would become decisive towards the end of the Reef Wars.
First, Paladin Abra Zire had time to work out her anger over the Battle of False Tidings. We don’t have any confirmation of what this battle was, but my guess is it is a another name for the razing of Amethyst and the battle against Parixas that Paladin Zire was tricked into. The months or years of searching for Skolas among the Hildian asteroids are said to have cooled Zire’s anger into an icy resolve.
Second, Petra Venj, whose family had been killed when the Wolves attacked Amethyst, seems to have first cut her teeth as a Corsair serving under Paladin Zire during the Hildian Campaign. We’ll be talking about Petra a lot both now and in the future.
Fortuna Plummet
After the Reef defeated Pirsis and freed Pallas from its long siege, Skolas’ forces were likely starting to run thin. Likewise, hiding out in the Hildians for what could have been multiple years seems to have depleted the supplies of his chief strategist Beltrik, the Veiled.
Beltrik moves his forces out of the dense Hildians and forms a defensive screen around the large, 225km wide asteroid 19 Fortuna. There, he moves his ships one at a time into a resupply position where they mine ether while the other ships hold their positions in a formation that we are lead to believe made them fairly impervious to attack. By this point it seems pretty clear that the Wolves have a pretty large advantage in numbers and firepower over the Reef, and the Reef has only won battles because of things things like the Queen’s Harbingers or luring the Wolves into bad positions.
Unfortunately for Beltrik, his opponent was Paladin Zire. This time, she refused to be led into any sort of trap, and instead devised a way to break through Beltrik’s defensive deployment. After the earlier success of luring Drevis’ Ketch into the path of 324 Bamberga, the Reef began looking for a way to repeat that smashing success, and at some point during the long siege of Pallas they developed Carybdis, a gravity weapon capable of pushing asteroids off course.
After apparently proving herself during the Hildian Campaign, Petra Venj was given command of a significant portion of Paladin Zire’s fleet and ordered to harass Beltrik’s entrenched position in an effort to make it look like she was attacking without actually suffering the massive losses that a true attack against that kind of defensive positioning would entail. Petra’s main goal was to serve as a distraction while Paladin Zire stealthily moved the remainder of her forces to the much smaller 21km wide asteroid 687 Tinette. You can see the actual orders sent by Paladin Zire in Ghost Fragment: The Reef 3
It turns out that Tinette was apparently on a natural close approach with Fortuna at the time, so Beltrik’s forces were probably expecting it to slide on by as they continued their resupply operations. What they didn’t expect was Abra Zire’s forces to use their new Carybdis weapon to alter Tinette’s orbit, causing it to crash through their defensive screen and directly into Fortuna. The massive collision that resulted shattered both asteroids and caused massive damage to Beltrik’s fleet. Beltrik was easily captured in the ensuing confusion, and for the first time in the Reef Wars, Skolas was deprived of his brilliant strategist. This entire battle, as well as the remains of the two asteroids would soon become known as the Fortuna Plummet.
Not long after this, we’re told that Prince Uldren’s Crows, which seem to be his mysterious force of pilots and spies, receive a message from an Eliksni named Variks who claims to be from the House of Judgment. The contents of this message would lead to the final battle of the Reef Wars and the defeat of Skolas and the House of Wolves…
…but there’s a lot to unpack there, so we’ll look at it next time. 🙂
Bite-sized Backstory 33: The Long Siege of Pallas
Since before the Reef Wars, the Awoken could only ever tell that the Eliksni were communicating, but what exactly the aliens were saying to one another had always been lost in the pulsed static or rapid beeps and tones of encryption. It seems likely that the Awoken’s communications were almost certainly just as unreadable to the Eliksni, but then it was the Eliksni who were lashing out at Awoken colonies and murdering entire Awoken populations. For months or perhaps even years, the Awoken had been on the defensive. All they could really do was react, to Skolas’ next aggression.
Finally, though, after the attack on Amethyst, Prince Uldren and his Crows managed to break the House of Wolves’ encryption. Now, they could listen in on Skolas and his lieutenants and they strike back at his forces. The first of the Reef’s counter attacks came against Drevis, who if you’ll remembered, committed major atrocities on Amethyst.
Sometimes we think of space navigation as a solved thing. Even in our modern, real life age we can land rovers on Mars or send probes to take spectacular pictures of the planet Pluto. But really, we’re so good at those things because we have had years and decades to observe and perfect orbital models. Just recently a big-ish asteroid passed near Earth and the news stories were saying that there was a chances it would hit us when its orbit brought it back around in a few decades time. But, with only one short observation, doing the calculations to tell us for sure was apparently impossible. Even with our fancy technology, we’ll have to wait for the asteroid to pass us by once or maybe twice more before we’ll have any idea if it will hit us.
That’s how it must have been for Drevis’ crew and Pilot Servitors for the asteroid 324 Bamberga. Orbiting a little beyond Mars, Bamberga is roughly 230km wide, and the Eliksni, in their haste harass and attack the Reef, miscalculated its orbit. The Awoken however, who had likely been observing and charting Bamberga’s movements for multiple hundreds of years, knew exactly where it would be, and used that knowledge to drive Drevis into a trap.
We don’t have any account of exactly how Armada Paladin Imogen Rife’s forces drove Drevis’ ketch into the path of Bamberga. I’d like to imagine it was a running series of quick clashes, picket actions, and larger feints that kept Drevis on the run until Bamberga ran into her. Drevis’ ketch was utterly destroyed in the collision, and both she and her most prized servitor, Kaliks-4, were captured.
After the Reef’s defeats and humiliations at Amethyst and Iris, this must have seemed quite the victory, but remember, the Kaliks line of servitors were very important to the House of Wolves. So, instead of a uneventful voyage back to Vesta, where Paladin Rife would have presented Drevis to her Queen, the Awoken fleet was instead attacked by Pirsis, one of Skolas’ few top remaining lieutenants. Pirsis cornered Rife’s forces at the large asteroid of 2 Pallas and set up a siege.
2 Pallas is the third largest asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, and is only a little smaller than Vesta, the asteroid that the bulk of the Reef is built around. At roughly 550km across, Pallas is almost twice as big as Bamberga, and is home to a sizable population of Awoken.
Pirsis didn’t just trap Paladin Rife at Pallas, she amassed a fleet of what must have been hundred of Eliksni ships, enough ships to lay siege to Pallas and cut it off from the rest of the Reef not just for weeks or months, but for years! The House of Wolves clearly had the superior position and overwhelming firepower, but they refused to press their advantage, because doing so would have meant the certain death of Drevis and destruction of Kaliks-4.
The last time the Wolves had amassed such a huge force, the Awoken had smashed it with Mara Sov and her Harbingers leading the way. But this time, that wasn’t so easy. With the Wolves besieging a major population center, the use of Harbingers would have lead to a massive number of deaths on both sides! In desperation, Mara Sov sent Armada Paladins Abra Zire and Kamala Rior to search for Skolas among the Hildian Asteroids, but they were unsuccessful in their missions due to the cleverness of Skolas’ chief tactician, Beltrik, the Veiled.
The siege of Pallas finally began to crumble when a Dreg named Weksis the Meek launched an unsanctioned attack on the Athens Hull, which I’m guessing is the name of Imogen Rife’s flagship. Weksis and his small group of followers were able to blast their way into the Athens Hull in an attempt to rescue Drevis and Kaliks-4 from imprisonment, but the timely intervention of Commander Hallam Fen stopped them in their tracks and saw the would be rescuers imprisoned beside those they had been trying to rescue.
Unfortunately, this attack spurred Pirsis, who by now had been dubbed “Pallas-Bane”, to launch a more major attack of her own. Her larger, more able strike team fought their way through the breach that Weksis had opened and managed to free Kaliks-4. We’re told that Pirsis might have gotten away with the important Prime Servitor, but she instead tried to free Drevis as well. This lead to a face to face clash between the Awoken and Eliksni leaders in charge of their respective sides of the siege.
Perhaps Pirsis and Paladin Imogen Rife had seen each other during negotiations over the previous few years, but they probably never met in person. Now though,they fought one another gun vs gun and blade vs blade! Paladin Rife was forced to destroy Kaliks-4 in order to prevent its escape, but she, in turn, was cut down in battle by Pirsis!
Ultimately, Pirsis attack was a second failure, but her siege of Pallas might have continued if not for the efforts and quick thinking of Awoken Commander Hallam Fen. He somehow managed to get through what must have been intense jamming from Pirsis’ fleet and, with quick thinking, coordinated with the Queen’s Crows and Techeuns to create an enormous illusion of approaching Harbingers. Pirsis’ forces went mad. They still remembered the battle that took place at Ceres before the Scatter. Remembered how their ships had been disabled or destroyed by the thousands by the intense power of the Queen’s Harbingers. And so, they broke ranks and fled in complete disarray.
In the confusion that followed Commander Fen’s bluff, he along with Paladins Leona Bryl and Kamala Rior pounced on the Wolves. They managed to force most of them to retreat, and even more importantly, they managed to capture Pirsis, Pallas-Bane! In return for his service and innovative thinking, Queen Mara Sov allowed Hallam Fen to succeed his mentor, the late Imogen Rife, in the role of one of the Reef’s four Armada Paladins.
For those who are curious, the Reef’s forces are headed by seven Royal Paladins:
Royal Armada Paladins:
- Abra Zire
- Kamala Rior
- Leona Bryl
- Previously Imogen Rife, now replaced by Hallam Fen
Royal Army Paladins:
- Pavel Nolg
- Devi Cassl
Royal Awoken Guard Paladin:
- Yasmin Eld
Following the failure of the long siege at Pallas, Skolas’ forces were again forced to move into the open in an effort to seek a new advantage over the Reef. The end of the siege of Pallas would come to mark the beginning of the end of the Reef Wars. In the few remaining battles, the Awoken would demonstrate that they had learned well from their previous clashes with the Eliksni, and before long Skolas himself would be betrayed!
Bite-sized Backstory 32: The Eos Clash & Amethyst
After the Awoken smashed their fleet and their leadership at Ceres, the House of Wolves splintered into a variety of groups vying for control. As we saw last time, the three primary contenders for the Kellship were three of Virixas’ lieutenants: Irxis, Wolf Baroness; Parixas, the Howling; and Skolas, the Rabid.
The first order of business for these three claimants was to gather their forces and, critically it seems, take command of as many servitors as they could. Servitors are still somewhat mysterious to us. The basics are as follows:
Servitors are living relics of the once-mighty Fallen civilization. Packed with ultra-sophisticated machinery, they process matter and energy into the Ether that the Fallen depend on for life. In battle they support the Fallen with defensive systems and their own powerful energy weapons. Outside, they anchor Fallen comms and provide vital technological acumen.
Servitors have complex relationships with each other and with their Fallen crews. Servitors are attached to a Prime, a massive Servitor which exists in unclear symbiosis with a Fallen Archon. The Archon conveys the Kell’s wishes to the Prime Servitor, and exerts some measure of control. Recent developments suggest that Prime Servitors are more than a focus of worship and logistical activity. They may play a key role in Fallen star flight.
– Servitor
We quickly see this “complex relationship” servitors have. Skolas and Parixas fight over control of the Kaliks line of servitors, but Irxis somehow knew that the Orbiks servitors had at least some control over the Kaliks line of servitors and used that advantage to deal heavy blows to her rivals.
The next major battle to take place in the Reef Wars was an important battle called the Eos Clash. One way or another, Peekis, one of Skolas’ subordinates, managed to pin Irxis’ forces in or near the orbit of the sixty-four mile wide asteroid 221 Eos. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a brilliant strategic move on Peekis’ part but one of desperation even though he had overwhelming numbers. Reading a bit between the lines, could it be that Skolas forces were being severely harmed by Irxis’ partial control over the Kaliks servitors?
In any case, this large scale battle of Wolves on Wolves ended with Irxis dead and both fleets in ruins.
Though technically a victory for Skolas, the Eos Clash came at a terrible cost for him. He docked Peekis’ arms and demoted him to Dreg as punishment for his recklessness.
– WANTED: Peekis, the Disavowed
At this point, we are told Skolas changed his strategy. How did he change it? Cayde-6 has the answer for us:
The Awoken will tell you that a long time ago the Queen conquered the House of Wolves. What they won’t say, because they are very serious important people, is that the House of Wolves did a lot of the job for them. After the Queen killed the Wolf Kell, the Fallen started competing for the throne. One of the first battles was called the Eos Clash and I wasn’t anywhere near it, but I’m pretty sure I’m not making this up. A Fallen named Skolas wiped out one of his rivals in the Eos Clash. But the battle cost him so much he got to thinking: if the Reef killed my boss, and gave me a chance at the throne, maybe I can use the Reef to kill all my rivals too!
The first, and maybe best example of Skolas’ new strategy can be seen with the Silent Fang’s attacks and trickery at Amethyst and Iris.
The Fang used to do hit-and-run attacks against civilian targets during the worst days of the Reef Wars. I’m not sure, but I think that’s what made Variks turn against Skolas. Assassins unleashed on miners, on teachers. That’s a long way to fall.” – Petra
In order to defeat his challenger for leadership of the House of Wolves, Skolas had Drevis, the leader of the Silent Fang assassins, personally lead an attack on a civilian station of Awoken called Amethyst. The Silent Fang killed everyone there, including Petra’s sisters, one of which, Pinar Venj, was the leader of Amethyst. This massacre becomes one of the biggest driving forces in Petra Venj’s life, as she later noted in a letter to her Queen:
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.
In response, the Reef’s Paladin Abra Zire lead a fleet chasing after Drevis in the direction of the bright, reflective asteroid Iris. Her response had come too late to protect Amethyst, but she wasn’t going to let anything stop her from punishing those responsible.
Except, at the same time, Grayor, who was likely another leader among the Silent Fang, led an attack against one of Skolas’ remaining Eliksni rivals. They hit Parixas’ ketch then fled so that Parixas would chase after them towards… the bright reflective asteroid Iris.
7 Iris is an asteroid about about 2.3AU from our sun, is about 200km across, and its surface is very reflective and very bright:
Iris’s bright surface and small distance from the Sun make it the fourth-brightest object in the asteroid belt after Vesta, Ceres, and Pallas. It has a mean opposition magnitude of +7.8, comparable to that of Neptune, and can easily be seen with binoculars at most oppositions.
Through a combination the glare coming off Iris and the Eliksni’s jamming and cloaking we’re all fairly familiar with, the two members of the Silent Fang slipped away leaving Paladin Zire’s forces to clash with Parixas’! By the time the battle was over, the Reef’s forces were victorious… but so was Skolas! Not only had his forces badly bloodied the Reef’s nose, he had also managed to use their response to further his own ambitions!
Unfortunately for Drevis, the Reef’s reach was quite long. As we’ll see next, she was soon captured, but instead of an easy victory, her capture would spark the largest and longest series of battles in the Reef Wars.
Bite-sized Backstory 31: Meanwhile! At Twilight Gap!
As the House of Wolves scattered and splintered among the many planetoids of the asteroid belt, the House of Devils lead the other Houses against the City.
In some ways, the City had unfortunately set its self up for such an attack. What started as settlements underneath the Traveler slowly grew into a metropolis protected by high walls, artillery equipped towers, and scores of nearly immortal Guardians. After establishing itself, the City began to expand outward but those new outer sections were not as well defended and gave the Eliksni a weak point to attack.
This lookout station at the edge of the City’s borders was decommissioned in the face of increasing Fallen attacks shortly before the Battle of Twilight Gap.
– Frontier
As the City learned to walk again, it found a world overrun by alien menace. It faced disaster and defeat. Even in recent years, as Guardians begin to venture back to the Moon and the inner planets, the City’s territory has withdrawn – outer sections abandoned and converted into fortifications in the wake of the Battle of Twilight Gap.
During the battle, the combined forces of the Eliksni houses, except, of course, the House of Wolves, managed to breach at least some of the City’s defenses. Eliksni walkers traded shells with the City’s guns while other Eliksni forces worked on swarming those gun positions. Despite the City’s defenses being lead by the Iron Lord Saladin Forge, the Eliksni even managed to fight their way onto (and possibly into?) the City’s main defensive walls. Things weren’t looking good!
“Kei-Ying. Gave his last full measure at Twilight Gap.” —The Last Stands of First Pillars
At the desperate battle of Twilight Gap, Warlocks worked in concert to shatter the enemy. It was not quite enough.
The House of Wolves and the Awoken tore the Reef apart trying to get a tactical advantage. All the while, we were desperately trying to hold the Walls against the Devils, Kings, and Winter. It was one of the darkest chapters in the City’s history.” —Zavala
But, ultimately, the City’s walls held, thanks in large part to both the Guardians who died defending it and the legends who finally drove back the Elkisni’s advance.
Lord Shaxx is one of the heroes of the Battle of the Twilight Gap, having led the counterattack that pushed the Fallen from the City walls. Fearing that another full-scale assault would be more than the City could repel, Shaxx chose to stay in the City to mentor Guardians in the Crucible.
One day Shaxx vows to return to the war beyond the City, but only after he is confident the fires of the Crucible have forged a new generation of warriors.
A hero to the City and a legend in his own right, Saladin Forge led the City’s defense during the Battle for the Twilight Gap. His protégés, Commander Zavala and Lord Shaxx, now lead the Tower’s Vanguard and the Crucible, respectively.
You want another story about the Twlight Gap? Ana Bray, the Hunter. We all dug deep that day. We all touched the Light in ways we never thought we could. Or should. Ana, though. When she fired the Gun, where her Golden blasts hit home, she left behind the pools of light. Like splashes of sunlight that burned and burned.” —Lord Shaxx
He could feel his light draining. He pulled all of it into one last hope.
He reeled back and bam!
His helm found purchase, breaking through just above the Kell’s eyes. The Ether screamed from his head and together they fell to the ground.
The Exo Guardian rose, staggering back. He couldn’t take his eyes off the Kell’s body. He’d never seen any Fallen withstand a skull puncture, but this was no ordinary Fallen. He waited…and waited.
“Ghost?” The words barely audible. He heard her flash in, but had a hard time pinning her down. She was buzzing about, surveying the Fallen Kell.
“He’s dead alright. So that’s it, we are done now?”
He removed his helm, tossed it aside, and dropped to his knees.
The Devils without a Kell. This war was over, at last. They could finally go home.
Because of the Reef’s intervention in attacking the House of Wolves as they approached Earth, what should have been a great, if perhaps costly, victory for the Elkisni instead turned into a major defeat. In all likelihood, the Battle of Twilight Gap ended their chances of reclaiming the Traveler through conventional warfare.
The near defeat at Twilight Gap changed things for the City as well. Outlying districts were abandoned or converted into fortifications. Lord Shaxx began the Crucible as a method of training Guardians to fight foes just as dangerous as themselves, and Lord Saladin, who had an even better understanding of what it meant to face an unwinnable battle, instituted the Iron Banner to challenge Guardians to fight with the full strength of their Light without the concept of fair play helping or hindering them.
Oh! And of course one other very famous thing resulted from the Battle of Twilight Gap:
” If there is beauty in destruction, why not also in its delivery? – Feizel Crux
The Gjallarhorn shoulder-mounted rocket system was forged from the armor of Guardians who fell at the Twilight Gap. Gifted to the survivors of that terrible battle, the Gjallarhorn is seen as a symbol of honor and survival.
Amusingly, not everyone working on the famed rocket launcher saw it Crux’s way, and that included his gunsmith partner Victor Lomar!
This commission is a commemoration! They deserve something dependable. These men and women did not survive the Gap so that you could make art!
Bite-sized Backstory 30: The Nobel Queen and the Scatter
When the Eliksni came to our system, the various houses did what they always did. As Variks says:
House Winter, attack. House Devils, plot. House Kings, plan. House Wolves circle. House Judgment… wait.
The attacks the House of Winter performed are referred to in Draksis, Winter Kell:
Kell of the Wintership Simiks-fel, has been an elusive target for the Vanguards. After his countless raids on jumpship reclamation convoys, Cayde-6 personally upped the bounty on him. With confirmed sightings of the Kell in the Ishtar Sink, the time to strike is now.
The result of which is seen in Ghost Fragment: Hunter:
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.
Which eventually leads to us boarding Simiks-fel and killing Draksis ourselves in Destiny. We get to see a lot of the House of Devils plotting firsthand as well. They try to capture Rasputin in Destiny and they eventually try to take control of SIVA in Rise of Iron.
The House of Kings we see very little of. There’s that one meeting between the House of Wolves and House of Kings that we break up. The one deep in the Cosmodrome around that hologram of the Traveler. But other than that, the Kings are very cautious and generally do not stick their necks out.
Now, the House of Wolves? At some point after the Eliksni fight their long running skirmishes against the Iron Lords, and after the establishment of the City, all the Eliksni houses put their heads together and plan a massive attack. The House of Wolves is apparently intended to be the muscle:
The transmission was broadcasted on all Fallen frequencies. Lacking, at the time, the ability to crack Fallen encryptions, the Master of Crows could discern only that the Fallen Houses were all talking to each other. That was a thing that had never happened before.
Then the Techeuns looked Earthward—and saw the Fallen there becoming bolder. Tactics suggested they were planning a massive attack. We had no interplanetary arrays—no way to warn Earth. We thought we would be able to do nothing but watch.
But then the Wolves arrived from the Jovians. Their army was hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions strong: a dark wave that washed over the Reef, rushing toward the Earth. As soon as we saw them it was clear that if the Wolves reached Earth, the City would fall.
– WANTED: Skolas, Kell of Kells
So, while some houses like the Devils essentially parked themselves right on top of the homeworld of the immortal, unkillable Guardians, the Wolves had been somewhere far away past Mars and past even the asteroid belt. Arriving from the Jovians means that the House of Wolves had taken up residence on or near Jupiter’s moons.
We’re also told in Vestian Outpost, Queen’s Bay that:
the Reef’s sunward side, the Vestian Outpost marks the flightpath any Guardian must take to access the Queen’s realm. Beyond it lies the Vestian Web, the heart of the Reef built around the asteroid 4 Vesta.
That would put the Reef here some 2.5AU (21 light minutes) from the Sun:
By contrast, Ceres is a little farther out at roughly 2.7AU.
But, of course, these two asteroids are in constant motion and depending on exactly when Destiny takes place they might be closer together or on opposite sides of the sun from each other.
The WANTED: Skolas, Kell of Kells Grimoire Card then continues with:
Seemingly oblivious to our existence, the bulk of the Wolf fleet stopped to regroup at Ceres. The Queen’s decision was this: attack the House of Wolves, thereby saving Earth but revealing the Reef’s presence to any and all enemies in the quadrant; or remain silent, preserving the Reef’s invisibility but allowing the City to perish.
That a pretty bold move by Queen Mara Sov, but we actually have a more detailed look at it in Ghost Fragment: Fallen 4. This is one of my favorite scenes in all of the Grimoire so I’m going to post it in its entirety:
This happens long ago, but not too long to matter.
Ceres rules the Asteroid Belt. Ceres is the white queen of this space, four hundred million kilometers from the Sun. Ceres is round. Round means power, out here: nothing else in the Belt is big enough to crush itself into a sphere with its own gravity. Ceres has its own chemical stars. Shavings of salt and ice that glint in orbit. Like a crown.
There are other lights, newer stars, newer crowns. Warship engines. Another queen is coming to conquer Ceres, because Ceres is full of warrens and shipyards and habitats, because Ceres is round and lucky as a Servitor. Because Ceres is full of the Wolves she wants to rule.
Shark-fierce ships gather in squadrons and tribes. Skiffs. Ketches. The Kell of Wolves has a fleet gathered here. The Kell of Wolves heard the call, and summoned the House of Wolves to prepare for the great battle on Earth. The salvation of the Kell’s people depends on their ability to shatter the City. It’s a matter of survival.
Now the Wolf fleet turns to meet the Queen.
See the squadrons of Skiffs wrapping themselves in stealth, cold and transparent, knifing out invisible and brave? See the Ketches like broad blades, the bright thoughts of a Servitor guiding them to battle? See them turning, accelerating, waking up their jammers and their arc guns? All doomed. The Kell of Wolves will never make it to the Twilight Gap. The Kell of Wolves put all that strength in one place, and now the Queen of the Reef is coming to break it.
Out there, coming out of the dark, are the Awoken. Not so great a fleet, is it? Little fighters scattered around like four-pointed thorns. Destroyers and frigates and salvaged hulls pulled out of the Reef. And right at the front, at the speartip, flies the Queen.
The Wolf Kell, practical, brave, tallies strength of metal and equipment. The Kell considers the chance that the Awoken have some secret weapon, something gleaned from hulks in the Reef or whispered up by the witches, and sets that chance aside. The Kell thinks the House of Wolves can win decisively. So the Kell sends challenge and warning. I AM LORD OF WOLVES, the Kell sends. YOU ARE AN EMPTY THING WITH TWO DEAD SOULS. THIS IS MY HOUSE. THESE ARE MY TERMS. SURRENDER AND I WILL ONLY TAKE YOUR SHIPS.
The Awoken fleet cuts their engines. Drifts. Wolf strike elements, torpedo-armed Skiffs hidden under jamming and camouflage, find their firing solutions.
The Queen’s ship broadcasts. I AM NOBLE TOO, she says, OH LORD OF WOLVES.
The Kell doesn’t mind a little banter before the kill. It gives the Wolf ships longer to draw the battle away from Ceres. The Kell replies. YOU HAVE NO LINE. YOU HAVE NO POWER. Captains and Barons signal their readiness, Skolas and Pirsis and Irxis, Drevis, Peekis, Parixas, all of them bound by fear and loyalty, all ready for war.
STARLIGHT WAS MY MOTHER. The Queen’s ship whispers in eerie erratic radio bursts. Servitors begin to report a strange taste in the void. AND MY FATHER WAS THE DARK.
Here, at last, too late, the Kell begins to feel fear. CALL ON THEM, THEN, the Kell sends, one last mocking signal before death and ruin, AND SEE WHAT HELP THEY OFFER.
So the Queen calls, as only she can. Every Servitor in every Ketch hears it. Every Captain and Baron roars at their underlings as sensors go blind, as firing solutions falter, as reactors stutter and power systems hum with induction. Stealth fails. Space warps. The House of Wolves shouts in spikes of war-code, maneuvers wild, fires blind.
Behind the Queen’s ship, the Harbingers awaken.
The Queen’s line there “I am noble too, oh Lord of Wolves. Starlight was my mother; and my father was the dark.” gives me chills each time I read it. We don’t really know what that means yet, but clearly the Queen is not nobody! Cayde-6 once said of her:
And who’s the best at cutthroat politics? That’s right, her Majesty, the Queen of the Reef.
…
Whatever happens— I want you to remember that she knows, more than anyone else I’ve met, how to set one foe against another.
So, what happens next?
Her Harbingers ripped into Ceres, destroying the asteroid and killing Virixas, Kell of Wolves and more than half his House. The remaining Wolves scattered, burrowing deep into the Belt for cover. There, new claimants to the Kellship quickly arose: Irxis, Wolf Baroness; Parixas, the Howling; and Skolas, the Rabid.
– WANTED: Skolas, Kell of Kells
The Awoken win a decisive victory here, but, as we’ll soon see, the conflicts that the Queen just kicked off aren’t called the Reef Wars for nothing!
Bite-sized Backstory 29: The Eliksni vs The Iron Lords
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.“Guardian Down!” Lord Saladin’s ghost informed him as a barrage of arc missiles streaked across the outskirts of the town turned battleground. The excited clicks and grunts of the alien pirates echoed above the fighting. They were winning!
The hundred or so Fallen advancing on the town were a problem, but in truth they weren’t much more than a screen for the spider-shaped walker standing on the ridge behind them. Saladin knew he had to get up there, somehow, and put an end to that threat, but Ragashingo had already shown a solo charge through the Dregs and Shanks would not be enough.
“Up and over, not through!” Efrideet’s said from her place beside him, her voice as young and cheerful as always. “Me or you?” she asked.
“Me,” Saladin growled in replied.
Together, they sprinted at the Fallen hoard, Saladin’s shield of arc energy deflecting what small arms fire came their way. At the critical moment, Efrideet increased her pace and then, gripping Saladin tightly, launched them both into the air. As her catapult gave out, Efrideet surged forward with a burst of speed and a crackle of lightning as she propelled her fellow Guardian forward with all her might.
Saladin flew towards the walker straight as an arrow, flaming axe now in his hands. With one final burst of lift and one mighty slash of his axe, he severed the robotic tank’s cameras and sensors from its body and guns.
With the walker dead, Ghosts were free to relight their Guardian’s embers, and what had been a dwindling defense quickly reversed into a thundering attack as cheers for Efrideet and Saladin rose above even the scavengers’ calls for retreat.
Ok, that’s not actually a Grimoire Card, but it’s what I imagine might have happened when I read this small section of Efrideet’s:
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.
…
The Iron Lords originally formed to put an end to human warlords who were using their gifts of Light and Ghosts to rule and terrorize populations who somehow survived the collapse. It was only later that the Eliksni arrived and began scavenging and killing. The focus of the Iron Lords quickly shifted to fighting this new alien threat and completing the walls of the City.
While there’s not any cohesive timeline to be found, there are some great stories from this time period. Stories like:
The plan Lady Skori comes up with to ambush a group of Fallen while her fellow Iron Lords are pestering her about spending too much time writing the Iron Song:
”…
A lot of people are relying on us, Skorri. If you don’t think you’re up for—”“Hunters up top, 11 o’clock on the ridge. Two shots to the Servitor, draw their attention up. I come in with Radiance, Dregs are blinded, Jolder’s powered up, she rushes in, splits ’em in half. You hopefully don’t trip over your cloak like you did back at the Flood Zone, but I’m not optimistic. The rest come out of the cave, take out the Captain, Felwinter finishes off the south group with a Bomb, everything else is candy.”
…
The epic stands Lord Silimar made defending the same location against the Fallen again and again:
…
As the Fallen charged, Silimar refused to abandon what he’d built, though others retreated to a stronger position. “Go,” he told them. “Save yourselves. I’ll slow them down.”The enemy came in overwhelming force. A breaking wave of blades and firepower and death. Atop the structure’s central bulwark, Lord Silimar held his ground.
“Take it if you can, you bastards!” He shouted at the swarming enemy.
He leapt upon the great edifice and there put up a final stand as the enemy engulfed him. He died with his dagger in the guts of an Archon while the great structure shook with explosions and rained stones down upon the land.
Later that night, when Lord Silimar rose again from the ashes, he found Lord Saladin already there and waiting, standing near the place where he’d made his final stand.
…
Lord Timur’s Stormtrance defeating hundreds of Shanks and their Vandal keepers in an unusual way:
…
Lord Felwinter, I know what you are. And you are no Warmind or even one of its puppets. Come. You must see this.” He makes a gesture like he’s casting a spell over the sand. “Follow my footfalls; this area’s rigged with dirty Fallen nonsense.”They struggle up the dunes. Felwinter glides ahead. As he lands, a sandstorm rises to meet him. More shanks. Hundreds of them. Behind them, a lone Vandal sniper lays down covering fire.
Felwinter, realizing his mistake, runs back toward Timur, shielding himself in the Light of suns.
Timur continues forward, grasps the brass familiar around his neck, and closes his eyes. A slight hum rises and his trance takes him deep into the sea of shanks, his trusted Lash raised and tearing his path through the darkness. Felwinter is slow to follow, but fast enough to witness Timur’s focus turn shanks by the pack against their Vandal keeper, chasing him back toward the sea.
…
And Rezyl Azzir who, while not an Iron Lord, existed as a figurative and literal Titan of the City around that same time. His defeat of a Fallen Kell is the stuff of legends!
…
A massive blast cratered the ground a few feet from the Titan. The Ketch had turned its guns on Rezyl.Another blast impacted to Rezyl’s left and he stumbled. A third exploded directly in his path…
…and Rezyl fell.
From the treeline, his Ghost watched as the Fallen celebrated and a Skiff drifted down from the Ketch above.
The circle around Rezyl’s body parted and the imposing figure of their Kell stepped forward to admire his prize.
The chittering excitement quieted to a steady drone as the Kell lifted Rezyl’s limp body by the neck.
A chorus rose among the crew, growing louder as the Kell hefted Rezyl over his head for all to see.
Rezyl’s Ghost darted low through the crowd. He didn’t like Rezyl’s plan, but now he understood it.
Distracted by their Kell’s triumph, the Ghost’s presence went unnoticed until a beam of light swept over Rezyl’s body.
The mood shifted instantly, cheers turning to ravenous shouts.
The Kell’s gaze fell to the Ghost as the beam faded.
The circle began to collapse — the Fallen set to pounce.
As the Kell moved to toss Rezyl aside, cold steel met the underside of the alien marauder’s jaw, followed by a red flash as Rezyl pulled his cannon’s trigger.
Ether spewed in an angry geyser and the Kell’s grip loosened. Rezyl hit the ground and unloaded five more rounds into the Fallen leader’s torso. The monster dropped.
Frenzied, the Kell’s crew closed in like a flood.
Rezyl’s Ghost lifted above the fray, frantic, “Now! Now! Now!”
In one motion, Rezyl rose from a crouch, his fists clenched and raised high as a storm of Arc Light built within him, his full might raining down on the Kell’s chest. The shockwave of Rezyl’s attack hit like a meteor, shattering the Kell’s body and any Fallen within the Havoc storm’s radius.
…
You’ll note almost all of the quotes above are just smaller sections of each story. The stories of the Iron Lords are fantastic, especially when you put them together which is why we’ll loop around and revisit them someday. But for now, I hope you can see that the Iron Lords and their contemporaries like Zavala and Rezyl did a lot to safeguard humanity during the early years of the Eliksni’s incursion into our solar system.
But as much as they did, it was a distant noble Queen who saved us.
Bite-sized Backstory 28: Facts and puzzling things about...
Before we really begin, I thought it might be interesting to explore some oddities of Eliksni biology, and take a quick look at two of the key individuals we’ll see driving the Eliksni’s fate before and during the events of Destiny.
Skolas the Rabid:
The incredibly difficult Fallen Kell many of us faced in the Prison of Elders was once merely one of multiple captains serving the previous House of Wolves Kell before the Reef Wars. We ultimately killed him to earn treasure from the Queen of the Reef, but did you realize that Skolas had been caught by the Awoken once before? And that it was Xur, or some other Agent of the Nine, who released him and set him on his (ultimately failed) quest to become the prophesied Kell of Kells?
Take a quick look:
He looks up. At the tiny hooded shape before him. The cell’s mist is clearing. He can see.
“I believe that I am here,” the creature says. To Skolas’ ears it has a strange voice, a strange accent. It speaks his language. “I have a clear purpose. I cannot explain it. Forgive me.”
From beneath its hood, tiny fingers of shadow probe the air.
Skolas rises up to smash it, to show his strength, because the alternative to violence is waiting for violence to come from a universe that has neither respect nor compassion. But he checks himself. His ambitions have brought him here, to this cell in this strange place… only it’s not so strange, is it? It’s the hold of a Ketch. “The Queen,” he says to the thing. “You work for the Queen.”
“The Nine made me aware of my purpose,” the creature says. “If am here, then it is because the Queen sent you to the Nine, and they wish you sent back.”
Whoever or whatever the Nine are, they sure had it out for the Awoken!
Variks The Loyal:
Throughout all the wars and battles the Eliksni have undertaken in our solar system, and despite all the powerful leaders that have risen up in opposition to the various pockets of Humanity, Variks, a lowly scribe from the Eliksni House of Judgment may yet be the most influential Eliksni of all. We’ll get to his story in a bit, but first I wanted to point out something interesting that he revealed to us with his own words:
Traveled with the many houses before Wolves. We move, across the dark. Follow the Light. Advise Kells, worshiped Primes. House Judgment must survive, yes?
Did you see that?! Variks claims to have been alive before the Eliksni found our star system!
With Rise of Iron, we learned that the Iron Lords were at the height of their power some 500 years before Destiny’s present day, and that some Iron Lords were fighting Fallen well before that. If Variks’ quote above is to be believed, he and a good number of other Eliksni might have been present during the Whirlwind. Even if he was born much later, it certainly seems he might have braved the part of the journey to our solar system in search of the Traveler. That would mean that Variks, and many other Eliksni, might very well be over 500 years old!
There are two other interesting things we know about the Eliksni and their biology. First, they have the ability to regrow limbs:
Dregs cling to the lowest rung of Fallen society. Docked of their lower arms in a ritual of humiliation and obedience, Dregs seek to prove their worth. Only a few will survive to gain promotion and regrow their limbs. Their suicidal bravery is fueled by ambition and shame.
–Dreg
Interesting, then, that Variks has at least one robotic arm… but we’ll get to that…
And second is the ability for Eliksni to literally grow in size when they are able to feed on large amounts of Ether:
The Guards are handpicked from birth, stuffed full of Ether to make them strong and brainwashing to make them unthinkingly loyal to the Kell.
Kell uses Ciphers to control the Ether flow. Archons and Barons take deep draughts, grow tall. Dregs with tiny sips stay small.
It’s kinda neat to get even the smallest confirmation that, yes, Eliksni really do range in size from the small Dregs to the impressively large Kells. It seems likely that this Ether fueled growth is fairly slow, but we don’t know that for sure.
Oh, and about ether, and the way it releases from an Eliksni’s body upon a successful headshot? Some Guardians talk as if the Eliksni really do have souls that escape when the body they are in is killed:
Those Fallen in the Ishtar Sink on Venus…story is they raided the Prison of Elders in the Reef. Got an Archon Priest. The Queen’s bounty is high so we know it’s powerful. We need to hunt this thing down before they fully restore its soul. -Cayde-6
The Fallen will continue to claw at the walls of our City, unless we strike them down. Beneath the ruins of the Cosmodrome, in the shadow of an old colony ship, we’ve located the House of Devils’ Lair – and the High Servitor feeding them their strength. We must destroy this machine god…and send their souls screaming back to hell. -Commander Zavala
I have devised a technique to liberate the soul from the flesh. It works very reliably on Fallen.
But someone out there, perhaps an Eliksni, has this to say on the subject:
The gas is no soul. An ethereal lifeblood, maybe, but a soul? I think not.
Who’s right? In a universe where Hive undo their own deaths by surviving in alternate dimensions, and where our Guardians are brought back to life some five hundreds years after the devestating defeat at the end of our Golden Age… who can really say!?
Up next? I think I’ll just post all the cards relating to the Iron Lords in their proper order and expect you to read them straight through from beginning to end. The story of the Iron Lords is pretty awesome, and some of those cards talk a little about early Eliksni activity, so… it’s all good! Right?