Rasputin

"Rasputin's fingerprints are all over this data. He doesn't even care if we know."

- Master Rahool

Rasputin (also identified as AI-COM/RSPN) is a Warmind housed in the Seraphim Vault in the Cosmodrome. He was created during the Golden Age and was believed to have been destroyed during the Collapse.

Golden Age and Collapse
Rasputin was the one to first discover the coming of the Darkness. At that time, Rasputin's original core programming was to protect humanity. However, every action he had taken to that point had either failed or was statistically predicted to have a 100% probability of failure. Once it became clear that no conceivable action could be taken to fulfill his core programming, he implemented a protocol known as MIDNIGHT EXIGENT and reconfigured his core programming to that of long term survival, abandoning his previous function and going dark, while simultaneously ordering all remaining forces at his disposal to do the same.

Unknown to the other Warminds, however, Rasputin had made his own preparations, known as the "ABHORRENT IMPERATIVE." If humanity was threatened with extinction, and that the Traveler attempted to leave, Rasputin would open fire with his most powerful weapons to immobilize the Traveler and thereby coerce it into a "pseudoaltrusitic" defensive action. In effect, the Traveler would be forced to protect humanity if it wanted to survive. Rasputin would avoid culpability for such an attack by initiating it through a series of proxies. Even before the collapse, Rasputin had been discretely stockpiling such weapons in the Cosmodrome, though some human operators suspected Rasputin's involvement. It is unknown if Rasputin's scheme was ever implemented during the Collapse, or if the Traveler remained on Earth for another reason.

City Age
In recent times, the Fallen and Guardians discovered Rasputin was still alive, and protecting something valuable in the Cosmodrome. After a communications array at the Terrestrial Complex was reactivated by the Guardians, Rasputin was able to reconnect with the old interplanetary defense network, resuming control of Warsats and ground installations across the system and launching a series of orbital strikes against the Vex and Cabal on Mars. Rasputin has resisted any recent attempts by the City to parley, even going so far as to dismember a scouting team sent by the Vanguard. Rasputin is later encountered on Mars within the Dust Palace, attempting to protect a broken AI related to the Warmind of Mars from the invading Cabal. The AI is ultimately lost after a long battle with the Psion Flayers.

Since awakening, Rasputin has faced a number of direct threats to himself. Omnigul and the Spawn of Crota accessed the bunker through unknown means and attacked Rasputin, either to destroy him or corrupt him for their own purposes, but were thwarted by the Guardian. Later, during the Taken War, a group of Taken also penetrated Rasputin's bunker to prevent the Guardian from obtaining Golden Age stealth technology; while they did not damage or corrupt Rasputin, they had ample opportunity to do so. The bunker was breached a third time when the Fallen attempted to hijack Rasputin's systems using the modified Shank S.A.B.E.R.-2, seeking to bypass the Warmind's security protocols and take control of his orbital weapon systems. Though S.A.B.E.R.-2 was ultimately destroyed, Rasputin again had to be rescued through the efforts of Guardians.

Conceding that his bunker's defenses had failed too many times, Rasputin triggered the IKELOS subroutine, an initiative to provide advanced weaponry to the Guardians to aid them against the forces of the Darkness. The end result of IKELOS was the Sleeper Simulant, a heavy fusion rifle with a unique core based on obsolete DVALIN FORGE fusion rifles that the Warminds had armed humanity with during the onset of the Collapse. The Sleeper Simulant represented a successful melding of Golden Age technology with contemporary designs and Banshee-44's gunsmithing expertise.

Quotes
The following are quotes from the mission The Warmind; when hacking the two antennas, Russian dialogue is overheard. It is believed that this is Rasputin speaking.


 * "Safety protocol 8-6-3. Hostile entities discovered."
 * "There's no one to blame, it is not their fault or ours. It is the misfortune of being born when the whole world is dying."
 * "There is no immortality of soul, thus there is no greater good. Therefore everything is permitted." (A reference to The Brothers Karamazov)
 * "Count up this, define the probability of that."
 * "They are but meat pressed in the mouth of the shell."
 * "If, as they say, the coming events cast their shadows ahead of time, then the past events cannot but leave their reflections behind them."
 * "The whole natural order stands as evidence of a progressive movement toward an elevated state of being."

Trivia

 * Rasputin was a Russian priest and mystic closely associated with the Romanov family, the last Tsars of Imperial Russia.
 * At the Tower, Xander 99-40 may occasionally say "Suspended bounty, Rasputin, no claimants." This implies that Rasputin is attempting to sponsor bounties for Guardians, or as a humorous aside suggesting that someone placed a bounty on Rasputin himself but no one stepped forward to carry it out.
 * The Ghost Fragment: Mysteries appears to be written from the perspective of Rasputin. Though heavily laden with metaphor, it appears to be a fractured chronicle of his encounter with the Darkness, his fruitless attempts to overcome (or even resist) it, and his fateful decision to abandon his primary function in favor of survival (a tactic which he claims to have learned from his enemy). The colorful descriptions seem to indicate that he has descended into insanity since the Collapse, either as a result of his encounter with the Darkness, or due to drastically rewriting his core protocols, or perhaps both.

List of appearances

 * Destiny