Maya Sundaresh

"Brilliant. Driven. Beautiful."

- Cayde-6

Maya Sundaresh was a Venusian researcher and member of the Ishtar Collective and a founder of the Future War Cult.

Ishtar Academy
During the Golden Age, Maya Sundaresh was part of the Ishtar Academy, studying various phenomena on Venus, such as the Vex and Ahamkara. She, along with Dr. Shim, Chioma Esi, and Duane-McNiadh, extensively studied the Vex after capturing an operation platform they designated as "Subject 12." In the process, Esi discovered that the Vex were running a simulation of their research team that was completely accurate. After much debate, they concluded that the only way to save themselves from the simulation was to bring in something the Vex could not simulate, proposing that a Warmind was far too complex to simulate. They were able to rescue 227 undamaged copies of themselves from inside the Vex, and all copies voted to become explorers in the Vex information network.

Founding the Future War Cult
Nearly forty years later, Maya was part of a new research team on Earth in Lhasa. They had built a form of mind-forking device in mimicry of the Vex gateway systems from Ishtar. The experiments were overseen by a Warmind, and they were locked in complete isolation. The experiments proved emotionally taxing, and potentially fatal, and the team resulted in ritual and worship in an attempt to appease the device. After experiencing an unknown event while using the device on herself, she became determined to reunite with her partner Chioma and quit the program. She advised her team to continue the log she started at the beginning of the experiments. Years later by the time of The City the same log was still being used by the Future War Cult, who continued to experiment with her device.

Activities on Europa
Shortly before the collapse, either Maya herself or one of her virtual copies infiltrated Clovis Bray I's research facility on Europa.

Later, a virtual copy of Maya within the Vex network subverted Clovis I's automated surgery machinery, causing him to be gruesomely vivisected and awakened prematurely. She revealed that she was one of the copies of Maya that had been captured by the Vex, and had been selected from among billions of further Vex-made copies for her willingness to serve them. She tortured him for information about "Clarity", the paracausal force which Bray had been guided by and made use of in developing his Exos. However, Elisabeth Bray (who had by now been uploaded into an Exo body) intervened, destroying the corrupted medical frames and reassembling her grandfather.

The copy of Maya persisted within the Vex network, however, and continued to torment Clovis I even as he prepared to be uploaded into an exobody. Clovis' final journal entry, which contains a transcript of his last words before uploading, also contains taunting messages from the Vex copy of Maya, written in Clovis' own handwriting.

Journal Excerpts

 * RECORD 0-CHASM-0

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

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

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

''But I believe it’s important. The least I can do is keep a few notes for you.''


 * RECORD 0-CHASM-01

''Trial one. Subject one.''

''It was an act of stupid loneliness. I used the device on myself because I...''

[silence: 0:08]

''I missed you. We hadn’t been apart for more than a year since we met. I’m not a very good wife, am I? You write me every week, even with all Hyperion’s work and all Hyperion’s distance keeping you from me. And I act like it’s not enough.''

''We built the device in mimicry of the Vex gateway systems from Ishtar. An observatory, yes, but I think of it as a mind-ship. Capable of displacing its payload across space and time.''

''The lab is cold and isolated. We are quarantined from the world, physically and mentally. We can’t send messages out. If we breach the Vex manifolds, even our words might transmit contagion. One night last month I missed you and so I —''

''I thought that I could look inside the device, and find one of the other Chiomas. I thought I could call out to one of the forks we sent out there to explore.''

I just wanted to send my love.


 * RECORD 0-CHASM-02

''Zakharik Gilmanovich Bekhterev. May he rest in peace. When our probes continued to fail, when my report remained our only positive finding, he volunteered to use the device. One minute of subjective experience inside.''

''We took precautions. They worked. Bekhterev’s experience left no physical damage.''

''After we extracted him, he said that he felt determined. I asked him what he meant and he said that he meant it, he had been determined, he could feel all his choices set out before him like a railroad. Deviation was impossible.''

''He died by suicide. I wonder if he was trying to make a point.''


 * RECORD 0-CHASM-03

''We’ve decided not to abort. It’s insane, isn’t it? There are pressures on us I can’t tell you about until I see you again.''

''The purpose of the system is intelligence, you see. It’s stenciled right on the hull: SxISR. Special asset. We would very much like to make it work reliably.''

Our supervisory warmind has devised a drug it says will protect and prepare us.

''I am beginning to wonder if we were wrong about the merchant and the alchemist. Or if that explanation of time was incomplete.


 * RECORD 0-CHASM-09

''Kind Lakpha. He meditated before he went in. Nothing but déjà vu and three seconds of screams. The screaming passed and he remembers nothing. The déjà vu hasn’t. He says it’s getting better — he feels that we’ve had this conversation only ten times before, not a thousand.''

''I’ve suggested that we attempt mind forking. We need more sane people to work with. Please forgive me, my love.''

''We are all growing superstitious. The behavior of the device is inconsistent. Impossible to replicate. We turn to ritual behavior to appease it.''


 * RECORD 0-CHASM-31

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

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

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

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

RECORD 0-CHASM-52

''I heard you, my love. I was at six, oscillating on the event axis, coordinated with a known manifold. I heard you. You were talking to me — not me, but another me, another Maya Sundaresh.''

''You said, my love, so many strange things have happened, and it’s been so long. We’ve come so far. Do you ever want to go home?''

And I said, not me but the other me, I said, my love, I am always home.

''I’m resigning, my love. I’m done with this work and I’m done with being apart from you. I’ll see you again soon. I can’t take this journal out with me, so I’ve left it for the others, and asked them to continue the log.''

''Maybe it’ll become a tradition. The gospel of our little cult.''

Trivia

 * Cayde-6 served as her bodyguard during the Golden Age. He was in love with her, but she paid him little mind.
 * Maya Sundaresh, along with her partner Chioma Esi, were the first two confirmed LGBT+ characters in Destiny.
 * In The Insight Terminus Strike, at the end of the strike in one of the alternate dialogues, the Ghost mentions someone in the access log named "MSund12", this could very likely be referenced to the 12th simulated copy of Maya Sundaresh.
 * Maya’s description of “the device” as a “mind-ship” echoes the name of the Nicha Thought-Ship, an ancient alien vessel recorded in the Books of Sorrow. As the Nicha Thought-Ship was associated with the Vex, and the “device” is capable of reaching across time and space, this similarity may not be merely coincidental.

List of appearances

 * Destiny
 * House of Wolves
 * The Taken King
 * Cayde's Treasure Island Book
 * Destiny 2
 * Warmind
 * Season of the Undying