Quria, Blade Transform

Quria, Blade Transform, also known as the Dreaming Mind, is a Vex Axis Mind Hydra that was Taken by Oryx, the Taken King.

Quria was created by the Vex with the objective of conquering Oryx's throne world and unravelling its secrets by gaining an understanding of the Sword Logic. Quria was unsuccessful in its campaign against Oryx and was Taken, but retained a measure of free will. The Mind was later gifted by the Taken King to his sister, Savathûn, the Witch-Queen. Following Oryx's death, Quria served as the Taken commander for Savathûn, having acquired the ability to Take via paracausally-enhanced simulations of Oryx.

Later, Quria played an integral role as the architect of the Endless Night, and served as the season antagonist for "Season of the Splicer".

Birth of the Vex Blade
"I have to kill everything... Then I will be powerful."

- Quria, deducing the Sword Logic.

The origins of Quria emanates from an ancient conflict between the Vex and the Hive. Crota, Son of Oryx once aspired to match the powers of his sister's and cut open a wound into an unknown region of space with the goal of obtaining new secret power, however, he unknowingly released the Vex onto the throne world of Oryx, the Taken King. The machines quickly dominated his father's throne and constructed large problems to understand the rules of the realm, however they lacked the ability to understand the Sword Logic and perplexing geometry of the world. The Vex then reformulated their strategy and sent the problem to a higher consciousness known as the "ritual-of-better-thoughts" who manifested a new Axis Mind into existence named Quria, Blade Transform. The Mind was built with aim of deducing the metaphysical framework that governed Oryx's realm. Quria deduced the secrets of the Sword Logic and understood that for the Vex to succeed they must kill everything to become powerful as only the strongest entities were able to rule and with the ultimate aim to survive anything in the universe.

Soon it summoned a warrior class of Vex to flood the realm through the portal. Crota attempted to fight these Vex, but they teleported away and slaughtered thousands of Hive in order to establish themselves as new powers and to usurp the established hegemony.



The Hive pantheon launched their own attack against the Vex incursion when the Deathsinger twin sisters of Ir Anûk and Ir Halak constructed an Annihilator Totem to repel the Vex, whilst Crota attempted to close the gate he opened. Quria prevented this by positioning itself on the other side of the portal and built a device to keep it open. The Mind still had an unfinished directive to attain divinity and organised a series of test invasions to better exploit the paracausal physics of the world. For centuries the Hive and Vex clashed against each other and suffered major casualties when they ventured to the opposite worlds. A stalemate ensured as neither race was able leave their origin world as the Vex were annihilated in the throne world, whilst the Hive lost too much power to win in the Vex world.

The Blade Mind became sharper in its understanding when it captured worm larvae for experimentation. It discovered that the Hive worshipped the worms and realised that by directing worship towards the worm would grant Quria the ability to alter their reality with mild ontopathogenic side effects. In brief terms an infection that plagues very existence of a thing. With quick efficiency, Quria created a new priesthood and directed its subminds to believe in worship of the worms. They then set out to abduct and kill dangerous organisms to bootstrap, in computational term, itself into the Hive godhood. For some reason only known by the Vex, Quria refrained itself from introducing a worm into its own organic mind fluid, possibly because its observations of the Hive revealed the dangers of the parasitic symbiosis.

The Witch Queen, Savathûn, laughed at the ordeal as she was the principal reason for influencing her arrogant nephew into cutting that region of space. This caught the attention of the worm god, Eir, who commanded the Taken King to bring order and to extinguish the forces of Quria.

Simulating the Taken King
Oryx returned to his throne world and quickly turned the Vex against each other with his Taken abilities and proceeded to send some into the Vex world through the wound opened by Crota. Quria attempted to fight the former Vex by employing a range of tactics against them, but was unable to adapt to the new threat. The Vex incursion came to an end when Oryx banished his son, Crota, into a Vex gate as punishment. Meanwhile Oryx reflected on the Vex and thought he found a worthy rival. His conversation with Savathûn revealed the nature of the Vex who sought to understand everything so they are primed as the last victors of the universe in its end stages. Quria's invasion highlighted a fundamental weakness within Oryx's throne world and inspired its reinterpretation by constructing the Dreadnaught.

The Blade Mind later ambushed the Taken King inside the Nicha Thought-ship after he destroyed the Harmonious Flotilla Invincible war fleet with his newly constructed ship.

The Taken of Quria
Following the Red War, Hidden agents reported unusual activity on the moon of Io where they observed the Taken behaving strangely with the Vex. The Guardian was enlisted by Ikora Rey to investigate and found the Vex imprisoned within Taken containment rifts. This raised alarms and Asher Mir noted that the absence of their King, Oryx, meant the Taken shouldn’t have the capacity to capture even the most dim-witted of Goblins. The Guardian then tracked a Vex distress signal broadcasted from the Spine Burrows and confronted a Taken Knight bearing the name of Quria called Ir Arok. As they attempted to challenge the Tongue of Quria, it disappeared as Elatiox, Beloved of Quria appeared to battle them, but was quickly defeated.

Ikora feared the Taken may have found new leadership and asked the Guardian to investigate a Cabal base that reportedly had a lot of Taken activity. They found more Vex were being abducted through dimensional rifts and trapped within containment fields and forcefully transformed into Taken by drowning them in the Blights energies. As they ventured into the main Taken conversion site, Ir Arok was spotted again, but left the scene. Nearby an imprisoned Hydra transformed into Erosus, Spawn of Quria after being corrupted by the Blights energies. Following its defeat, Ikora suspected that the Taken were now building an army. The Taken were later spotted near the Pyramidion and the Guardian finally cornered Quria's commander, Ir Arok, near the wrap gate of the Vex Collective. While the Tongue of Quria met its demise, some Taken however got through the Vex warp gate.

The Dreaming Curse
"Quria is the key. The Mind simulates Oryx, and thereby masters the power to Take. But of course, Quria is no power unto itself."

- Toland, the Shattered

When Riven met its demise at the hand of the Guardians, it fed on their collective wish to save the Dreaming City and granted a Last Wish where it manifested a Taken Curse. The Hive with the assistance of the directionless Taken were able to assault the City and targeted important temples and relics that contained many Awoken secrets. The Guardian took to action and defeated the Disciples of Quria, Inkasi and Ur Haraak, that were lurking within the lost regions of the City and prevented the Grasp of Quria, Vaksari, from enacting a restoration ritual within the Ascendant Plane.

They defeated the Curse at The Shattered Throne, however, the Curse took its true shape whereby the Dreaming City entered a state of perpetual time loop in which past events repeated themselves every 3 weeks and tied to the death of Dûl Incaru. Ghost noted that the closest records pointed to Vex simulations, but believed the Curse was far too cruel to be a simulation. Osiris shared his thoughts to Petra Venj and reported that only Vex simulations were capable of this level of fidelity, but due to no Vex presence within the City, they believed the Taken and Hive were behind this. In the third cycle, Ghost observed that the timing of the loop felt like clockwork similar to a Vex simulation. Sedia agreed and suspected that a Vex Mind may have helped orchestrate the Curse, but went no further with details.

When the Guardian came into contact with Toland in the Ascendant Plane, he explained that the Curse was a prototype to something far more cunning and mentioned that Quria was the key. Its paracasual state of being Taken allowed it to fully simulate the Taken King to command the Taken and to Take, but Toland noted that the Mind did not have the power itself. Quria's ability to Take differed to the King who was able to transform beings at will, whilst the new Taken army were previously observed to have been transformed through the overexposure of Blights.

A Lie to Power
As more weeks progressed, the Guardian received a series of cryptic messages encoded within glimmer that purportedly spoke truth to power. The very nature of speaking truth to power is a non-violent political tactic employed by dissidents against an established authority. Previously, Savathûn noted that Oryx's own doctrines were filled with lies and now attempted to challenge those Hive ideas with her own. However, these messages were a tool by Savathûn to express her radical Hive ideas and to manipulate the perceptions of the Guardian through a convoluted mess of lies and half truths.

Quria's Interference
Prior to the arrival of Black Fleet into the Solar System, Nokris sought an audience with his aunt, Savathûn, and both came to an accord to exchange secrets. The Witch Queen desired Nokris’s knowledge of Necromancy, whilst the High Priest wanted to witness the talents of the Dreaming Mind, Quria. Nokris was then instructed act as an interference between the Pyramids and Guardians. To aid his efforts, Quria began to direct its force onto the moons of Io and Titan which allowed the Taken to draw power from the nearby infestations of Darkness. As the Guardians attempted to make contact, the Wills of Quria intercepted them on various fronts. Eris Morn noted that Savathûn commanded great strength to wield Quria and believed the presence of Quria's Taken on Titan meant the Queen was threatened by the communications between the Pyramids and Guardians.

The Endless Night
"I see you. Crawling around my domain like insects. This realm answers only to one master. You are nothing. You know nothing of power. Thrashing around like a wounded animal. Unaware that you are already dead. Your failure is written in time. I have seen your grave. I see you. Rent asunder... Broken... Taken."

- Quria, "speaking" to The Guardian

After the events of Season of the Chosen, a shroud of night emerged over the Last City, requiring assistance, Warlock Vanguard Ikora Rey and Warlock Osiris ask the Kell of the House of Light, Mithrax, for help. Mithrax agrees, in exchange for aiding the House of Light in evading the Vex. On their first incursion to the Outer Nexus of the Vex domain, Quria detects the Guardian's presence after they had eliminated the Subjugated Curator. It attempts to purge the Lightbearer from the system while countering Mithrax's attempts to create an exit, but falls short of stopping the Kell from retrieving them moments after its first sighting.

After multiple intrusions in the Vex Network's Outer Nexus, Mithrax eventually deciphers that Quria is behind the Endless Night, and by extension, Savathûn, the Witch Queen. Mithrax would spend weeks deciphering Quria's location in the Network.

Soon after the Young Wolf destroyed Dimio, Oppressive Mind Reborn, Mithrax uncovered Quria's location at the core of the Vex domain. After going through the Nexus one final time, the Guardian faced the Dreaming Mind. Quria could not stop them, and perished after a long battle, leaving only it's head behind. Saint-14 was ecstatic to hear the news of Quria's demise, while Ikora and Mithrax were more skeptical of the Witch Queen's scheme.

Even after Quria's death, the Endless Night prevailed. It took weeks for Mithrax's Splicers to lift the veil of the false night.

Gameplay
Quria begins the encounter by putting up two pairs of rotating circular shields, making head on combat unadvised. Each shield set is powered by an Ultra located on the edges of the battlefield named the Evaluator of Savathûn and Nexus Minotaur, these minotaurs must be destroyed to make Quria vulnerable. The Evaluator of Savathûn, a Taken Minotaur, is located on the left side of the battlefield while the Nexus Minotaur is on the right, both are protected by a shield that must be taken down through delivering an authentication key to a deposit, which will leave them vulnerable. Once the key is inserted the minotaur becomes killable, which doing so will result in one of Quria's shields being destroyed and their immunity shield destroyed until a third of their health is drained. Repeat this for the other minotaur on the other side of the arena and Quira will become permanently damageable.

Quria itself can be a formidable foe if fought without a strategy. While completely immobile, Quria has a wide arsenal of weaponry it can use to overwhelm its attacker. Its main way of attack is with its pair of aeon maul Torch Hammers, along with summoning Temporal Disintegration Protocol walls to deal a third of the attacker's health regardless of any defenses once its shields are removed. Besides its own weaponry Quria can summon a swarm of Taken Psions to pressure the attacker, summon a pair of Taken Hobgoblins which can quickly finish off a foe after being weakened by Quria's Disintegration Protocols, and occasionally simulate a Harpy seeker which can detain anything it makes contact with, which can lead to a quick death if successfully landed.

Despite how powerful Quria is, it still has weaknesses. Due to its immobile state, precision-based weapons like snipers, linear fusion rifles, and machine guns are much easier to use. Quira's shields can also be bypassed via a weapon equipped with an anti-barrier mod. It is advised to finish the fight as quick as possible as Quria's whole strategy revolves around overwhelming and trapping with its Harpy seekers, constant summoning of Taken Psions, and the splash damage from its aeon maul preventing shield regeneration.

Trivia

 * Quria might be derived from the Greek Kyría (κυρία), which translates to "lady". Related Kýrios (Κύριος) means Lord, and is a common title for Jesus Christ of Christianity.
 * It may also be a portmanteau of "Query" (A question) and "Curia". (A group of institutions within the Roman Catholic church) Quria was created to answer a question, and its answer was to mimic the religious behaviour of the Hive.
 * Quria is the second known Taken in destiny to retain at least partial control of its will, after Malok and before Riven, of a Thousand Voices.
 * In the same lore entries that describe the (supposed) first contact between it and The Guardian, the Vex simulation includes a facsimile of Master Rahool decrypting the vessel of Medusa into a Shader, two generic tokens, and a non-descript rare-quality item. This is a reference to the meme "two tokens and a blue" in the Destiny community.
 * Quria is the second Hydra that has been observed to have arms and additional appendages, the first being Panoptes, Infinite Mind.

List of appearances

 * Destiny
 * The Taken King


 * Destiny 2
 * Forsaken
 * Season of Opulence
 * Season of Arrivals
 * Season of the Splicer
 * Season of the Lost