Angry Smithing

We came here to conquer.

We found ruins. Old ruins; stacked on top of older structures. The ones beneath beggared the mind and made a jest of the word ‘ancient’. We thought, in our supremacy, that nothing could contend with us.

First there were the machines: they tumbled from sparking portals that appeared without warning, without pattern. Deep within our established lines. Wakening from sweeps of desert thought empty and abandoned. They swept over our hardpoints, flooded garrisons and firebases.

We held them off. It’s what we do. We build lines, we carve out strongholds and we endure. We were the Siege Dancers. The machines managed a stalemate. We lost much of our foothold on this world, this world of dust and ruin. But we were not pushed away completely and confidence was high.

The machines surprised us. That was all. We were stronger and hardier than metal. More unbreakable than stone. As uncompromising as time.

Then the dead ones arrived.

They were not like the machines. The machines came in their thousands, in orderly ranks, pressed from molds and templates. They came with slaprifles and torch hammers, they came with blares and shouts of static and undecipherable code. They built glass and clockwork and geometric shapes.

The dead ones slunk in.

They crept in like vermin, they slipped through the cracks. A patrol would vanish here. Another there. No pattern. No reason. A psion studying the old technology would be found slain, scorched and torn to pieces, it’s protection detail dead to the last. When we started seeing them in the open they appeared singly, in pairs, sometimes in trios. Never more than six, or seven. So few. 

And they never died. 

We called them undead because we killed them and they never died.

With a swing of my shield I had shattered the body of an undead. I had stomped it into a red paste on my boots, shattering the plastics of it’s armor and soaking it’s robes in gore.

Then it popped back up, hearty and hole, and it killed my entire squad. I survived, barely, gasping past agonizing burns and armor cooked to my flesh.

The undead did what the machines did not. Alone or in pairs, in trios or cadres they slaughtered through a Legion that had held the line for years and years.

And that was not all. In our desperation we mustered our fleet, we gathered all our forces. The undead came from a City, their only City, the last City of their wretched kind. It cowered beneath the corpse of an unknown machine, some vast and great edifice - a relic of their fallen civilization.

We would break them, as we break all things, by striking at their core. Unrelenting, unremitting firepower.

Something found us first. It took our strength, it stole our ferocity. It turned brother against brother, Valus against Valus, oath against oath. It tore our plans apart and took no notice as they burned. In a single night our backs were broken. 

It was a God, a God worthy of the name, a God who came to square off against the Angels of it’s foe. 

In this forgotten, silent little star system, so far from any of importance, there are Gods, there are Angels, and there are Demons. They look at our might and they do not laugh, they do not spit, they do not even deign to care. They are so far beyond us that all our might is as the dust of the world I am to die upon.

I send this message, I broadcast this signal in the hopes it might breach the deep black and find purchase far beyond the bounds of this wretched space.

I am Phalanx Mol’usk, of the Siege Dancers. I am dying.

If you hear this message, do not respond. Do not come. Take note of it’s origin, and if you are wise, if you value what you have built, you will do one thing.

You will mark down on every map, you will take note in every database, you will teach your spawn in their creche, you will tell them one thing:

Here are monsters.

Fear them.

And pray they do not look beyond their war.

An enigmatic white orb resurrects people in order to protect others and preserve hope. Their main enemy is a manifestation of darkness who wants to corrupt everything and torment everyone.

These resurrected heroes are called Guardians.

Yeah, I liked Rise of the Guardians too.

Here’s the thing. How do you know if you can kill an enemy? You try. If I have a gun and there’s an Acolyte charging me - I’m going to shoot at it. The bullets are going to crack its chitin and leave it sprawled on the ground.

There’s a data point. Bullets kill hive. Okay.

Now there’s a Cabal phalanx in my way. I shoot at it. The bullets bounce off.

Data point two. Bullets don’t always kill Cabal.

You use the tools at hand. Sometimes the tools are warsats dropping kinetic impactors onto targets in the Martian dustpan. Sometimes the tools are hard light and encapsulated solar energy.

Sometimes the tools are a piece of rebar, bent around a concrete wedge.

Whatever gets the job done, right?

Warlocks like to be efficient. How can I kill the enemy in the least expenditure of Light and time? What applications of void light can coax the optimal amount of deaths? Shall we bundle it into an enormous, crude bomb? Maybe pulse it from our bodies like a lightning rod? How about solar light? Arc?

What can we use to kill the foes of the Last City before they can kill us?

It’s not a bad position.

Here’s the thing.

You’re not always going to have that void light. You’re not always going to have an IKELOS-forged weapon. You’re not always going to be able to fall back on Tex Mechnica, or Omolon. When your sword breaks, when your guns jam, when there’s nothing left, what do you have?

What argument can you posit against the encroaching darkness when all your trappings are torn away?

There’s just you.

There’s just me.

Against the dark.

When I woke under the ruins of the tower, with Cabal in the streets and in the buildings and in the sky, there was nothing left.

When I was cornered in a drain by a pack of war beasts, what did I have? Not my Light. Not my Ghost. Not my fireteam, or my friends, or the Vanguard.

I had me.

And I had my fists.

I left the war beasts broken behind me.

When the Cabal came after me, again and again, I left them broken in the snow. Faces broken, armor cracked, blood spattered.

I couldn’t open my left fist when I found the farm. The bones were all mashed and the cold had started to freeze the clotted blood. There was plasteel mixed with ivory chunks in the ruin.

Right hand wasn’t much better. Shaxx practically wired a gun into my grip when I said I was going after the Shard.

So here’s the thing.

You can keep testing your loadouts. You can keep finding fancy new abilities.

I’ll keep testing my foes against the one thing that will never leave me.

When it all is pared away, I’ll know what I can face. I’ll know what I can do.

I can punch back.

>when your queen says ‘guardians suck’ and you’re like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when your queen says ‘haha actually go hang out in the tower all alone and make the guardians do things’ and you’re like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when a week later your queen says ‘lol nvm let the guardians in’ and you’re like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when a week later your queen is like ‘lol trust me’ and then gets dunked by a giant flying barnacle man and takes your whole fleet with her and you’re like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when your queen’s shitty brother shows up high on space bath salts and says your queen is talking to him but you know that wasn’t part of the plan so you chuck his ass in jail like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when your queen’s shitty brother breaks out and starts killing all your people so you have to ring up the guardians to come make them fucking knock if off and this is all apparently part of the plan so you’re like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when you finally manage to kick the door down into that shed in the backyard you’d left locked up and holy shit its full of spiders scorn and you finally get to talk to your queen again and she’s like ‘lol give all our shit to the guardians’ and you’re like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when your queen’s disembodied voice tells you that falcor the fuckdragon who lives in the middle of your city is a dickhead and you have to kill her and you’re like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when you get the guardians to kill falcor the fuckdragon and surprise surprise she fucks your city up completely and the queen is like ‘lmao still part of the plan’ and you’re like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when your queen tells you to get the guardians to kill a shitload of scorn/hive/taken to because it makes her tingly and charges her well real good and you’re like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when every time your queen takes your calls she’s like ‘uh huh sure ok gotta go really busy war and stuff’ and you’re like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when only your guardian friend is invited to an actual in-person meeting with the queen and you have to stand up on some rock somewhere with a gun because everything is shit and you’re like ‘yeah definitely my queen’

>when your guardian friend reports back that your queen was definitely just chilling on a lounge out in space looking like a goddamn screensaver and also she stole your poncho

Or Sky and Deep, depending on your preference.

There has been much talk since Forsaken about the two, and some concept of how they’re very similar/Guardians needs to embrace both sides/sO MOrAlLy grEY.

Let’s have a look.

Ghosts are the closest we have to ‘speakers’ for the Light/Sky directly. Since the Traveler hasn’t deigned to talk, they’re the nearest to the direct source as we can get.

What do Ghosts have to say?

>Somewhere in this wide, amazing galaxy there was a person. They were quiet and dead, like We had been, but I could bring them back. I could share what was inside of me, this glorious warmth and life and breath and being.
-The We Before Us

“I don’t know where Ikora keeps you,” I told him, “but Osiris and I are not ‘a single unit.’ You’ve heard us argue. A lot.”

“And why do you challenge him?” O asked.

“Because no one else will.’
-Compliments

This little boy was not my charge. Those selected to return were champions. This child was so small, so frail. What devotion had he shown? What bravery? What had he sacrificed? But a thought lingered…Was it not my purest purpose to deliver hope? Every hero raised fought not for themselves but for the whole of humanity. If saving one life—if redressing this one terrible loss—was not a worthy cause… what was?

They will stay hidden until the Fallen are away, my Light serving as a distraction to lure them as far from these Humans as I can.

I made my presence known to the pirates and darted from the last of the survivors—made myself a target to buy them time. But that time is short.
-Confession of Hope 1&2

PEACH: Look, the answer no one likes to give is that no one knows what the Traveler is or anything about it. Not even us.
-Difference of Opinion

I am your guide and your friend, your ally and your tool. Use me.
I will never leave you, but should I fall, remain vigilant, remain true.
-Batteries Not Included

These are pulled from Book: Ghost Stories, included in Forsaken. They, together, paint a fairly clear and consistent picture of Ghosts, as avatars of the Light. 

Ghosts are mutualistic, bordering on altruistic, if we want to use the biological definition. They can exist without Guardians, but actively dedicate their existence to finding their paired Lightbearer and bringing them back to life. Understand that this often entails the death of the Ghost before finding their Lightbearer. Many, many die. Even if they find their Lightbearer, they have no idea of who that person might be, or what will become of them as that person’s Ghost. 

They exert no control over their Guardian. Difference of opinion is common. They can, at most, advise and guide, but not control. What they give is practical immortality. What they ask is…well, apparently not much. In Ghost Stories, we are given two Ghosts who abandon their Guardians. One of whom does so when their Guardian is alive, the other chooses not to revive them. In the former case, the Guardian had become a warlord massacring his way through the years and killing everyone he found. The Ghost left him because of that. Note that: the Ghost left him. She did not exert control over him to change him. He made his choices and she made hers. In the latter case, the Guardian had quite simply lost their mind. They were suffering from serious delusions and mania, fighting cranes and boulders and totally divorced from reality. 

We get instances of Ghosts sacrificing themselves for others. The Ghost who revived a child did so knew that the child wasn’t it’s pair. But it couldn’t stand to let the child die. Then it (presumably) died trying to lead the Fallen away from the few survivors that remained.

As Lightbearers and Guardians, we are asked to act as protectors of Earth and humanity. Asked. As we’ve seen - Guardians can rather well do whatever they want. It’s a conscious choice and decision on the part of the Guardian, not an ingrained compulsion or geas impanted.

Let us look at the Darkness, or the Deep.

In the Grimoire, the Deep has spoken directly, but the veracity of that passage is in question. A lot of the Books of Sorrow are in question, but they are also the only primary source we have.

We want to help you, Princes. We offer to each of you a bargain… a symbiosis.

Take into your bodies our children, our newborn larvae. From them you shall obtain eternal life. From them you shall gain power over your own fragile flesh: the power to make of it as you will. And should you find an imperfection in the world, an injustice or an inconvenience — you will have the power to repair it. Let no mere law bind you.

We ask one thing in exchange, oh Princes.

You must obey your nature forever. In your immortality, Aurash, you may never cease to explore and inquire, for the sake of your children. In your immortality, Xi Ro, you may never cease to test your strength. In your immortality, Sathona, you may never abandon cunning.

If you do, your worm will consume you. And as your power grows, oh Princes, so will your worm’s appetite.

-IX: The Bargain

Let us look at the phrasing. ‘We offer to each of you a bargain…a symbiosis.’

Yul is lying.

The worms are purely parasitic. 

Parasitism immediately evokes an image of tapeworms and ticks and things causing physical harm, yet remember this: Parasitism is not simply defined by causing physical harm, but also includes modification of the host behavior and alteration of the host to suit the parasite.

This is what the worms do.

As Yul describes: the worms will empower the Hive, but will feed on them and the power they gain, and will devour the Hive should they stray from the path the worms have clearly outlined for them. They hijack the Hive, essentially, constructing an illusion of will but binding their hosts to an extremely narrow path that cannot be strayed from.

In the Deep, we enslave nothing. Liberation is our passion.

-XI: Conquerors

Continuing on the theme of the Honest Worm lying, we have this claim. Liberation is our passion. Yet the worms bound into the Hive have enslaved them more thoroughly than anything has ever been enslaved before. 

Consider their phrasing when conversing with the Hive:

We can deal with the Traveler.

Do not hesitate. You’re fighting the hypocritical puppets of a cosmic parasite. Avenge your ancestors.      

-XIV: 52 and One

In sharp contrast to Ghosts, the Worms tell the Hive precisely what they must do, and the Hive, because of their compact with the Worm, are bound in absolute to obey or else die. Any whim the Worm has the Hive must answer.

Your will defeats law. Kill a hundred of your children with a long blade, Auryx, and observe the change in the blade. Observe how the universe shrinks from you in terror.

Of course, high Auryx, we know it was not curiosity alone that brought you back to the war. You felt your own death growing inside you.

You must obey your nature. Your worm must feed…      

-XVI: The Sword Logic

The Worms demand atrocity. This is not hyperbole or an attempt to spin emotional weight: this is an accurate word to describe what the Worms direct the Hive to do. The existence of the Worms and their power is predicated on actions of slaughter and horror, with any consideration of morality removed.

And as you may read here: the Worms have bound the Hive to this will.

We are the Worm your God, but we are not the Deep Itself. We only move within it. You shall too. You shall venerate and study it and haunt it in its passage.

-XIX: Crusaders

Of course, this is the Worm. They admit they are not the Deep, but they are close to it, as close perhaps as the Ghosts are to the Light. They channel it, study it, and claim to speak with it. Thus while there is a degree of separation between the actions of the Worm versus the Deep, there is still an undeniable connection.

[I feel] Sorrow, because we have killed so much (eighteen species this century alone), and joy for the same reason. Joy that we have put down these blights. Scoured them away and left the universe clean, ready to move towards its final shape. We are a wind of progress. Ripping parasites from the material world — for if they were not parasites, we would be unable to kill them, and they would still exist.

-XXIII: Fire without Fuel

The logic of the Hive and Worm is a self-sustaining tautology. We are right because we are right, because if we were wrong then we could not be right. It is a closed, circular loop of constructed logic that gives them the ability to rationalize whatever they do as ‘correct’. 

Yet this is all set-dressing, because ultimately the actions the Hive take, are, boiled down, nothing more than a function to feed their Worm:

My worm grows fat and hungry. I feed it with whole worlds.

I could go on, quoting more and more, but the best contrast is written in XIV: The Scream.

I will not quote it here, as I would end up copying the entire card, but it may be read in full here.

This card, in short, describes the realization that the Worm has lied. The Hive cannot live forever, because the growth of the hunger of the worm is exponential. For every species they exterminate the worm demands exponentially more, to such a degree that the Worms will, in time, be insatiable and consume the Hive.

This, here, is the core of the contrast. 

The Ghosts, as representatives and avatars of the Light/Sky, offer.

The Worms, as representatives and avatars of the Darkness/Deep, demand.

It is altruism v parasitism. 

Giving is for the Sky. You worship the Deep, which asks that we take what we need.

-XXVIII: King of Shapes

The Ghosts cannot and do not control their partner Guardians. If the Ghost is lost or slain, the Guardian can survive without it, even if their next death will be a true one. The death of a Ghost is not the death of a Guardian.

The Worm do and can control their host Hive. If the worm dies, presumably so too does the Hive, as Auryx, Savathun and Xivu in their concern and worry did not consider even once the removal of their worms. It is possible that they are actually rendered unable to consider it by the worm itself, as a facet of it’s adjustment of their nature and it’s control it exerts.

Worms are implied to be able to survive without their hosts. Yul, Akka, Eir, and others, did not have hosts. The Hive appear to function as incubators, and that in the end eventuality of death, the Worm within will emerge having feasted for aeons in safety.

Ironically, this is a direct contradiction to the premise of the deep: the Worm is safe, and risks itself not at all at the expense of the host. They do not outright kill their host, as they should by demand of the Final Shape, but use them.

Curious.

Back to the point, however, is the comparison between Ghost and Worm. The worms integrate themselves completely into their living hosts, changing their behavior patterns by brute force and enforcing their demands by threat of death.

Ghosts partner with their dead host and offer direction, by giving life.

It could not be more opposite in function. Ghosts take the dead and return them to the living. The Worms take the living and threaten them with death. Ghosts guide and advise, but do not control. Worms control and direct, and do not request. Ghosts do not know if there is a ‘true’ purpose to them, instead acting by their guidelines of morality to protect and defend. Worms know their direct purpose and follow their guidelines to kill everything that lives.

In another framing, moving away from parasites and altruists, we can examine this in terms of free will.

Ghosts and the Light do not subsume the free will of those they empower. This is sometimes devastatingly clear: Dredgen Yor, Cyrell, Panza’s Guardian, the unnamed Warlord, the original warlords and despots that came immediately after the collapse. 

Even in lesser ways: the Guardians that left the Vanguard, that disagreed. The different orders that stand against each other in philosophical opinion. The Sunbreakers, that left for Mercury. Osiris and his disciples. 

There is no central, unified demand that is propagated and enforced across all Lightbearers. They are revived by their Ghosts, and from there, that second life is their own. Whatever happens next is by the choice of the Guardian. The Ghost does not have to agree with it: they have been seen to leave their Guardian. But they do not enforce their views.

The Darkness does not allow for free will. The path demanded by the Darkness cannot be deviated from. To follow the Sword Logic, to tread the path of the Deep is to abandon free will and submit to the desire of this outside power. There is no option or choice.

This is the duality of the Light and the Darkness and why Uldren’s line that the line between light and dark is so very thin has no weight to it, no meaning. He is a dying man trying to rationalize his own failures and weakness. 

There is no grey.

There is no middle ground.

There is life or death, freedom or servitude.