@@ Line 294: / Line 294: @@
 ===Shredder===
-[Redacted]
+The Shredder, like so much Hive technology, appears to be an arcane joining of uncharted sciences that verge on magic. It has no discernable mechanism. But in the hands of a Hive warrior, it generates bolts of Void fire.
 ===Boomer===
@@ Line 325: / Line 325: @@
 ==Vex==
+===The Vex===
+{{Quote|"Living metal. Incomprehensible intelligence."|Card blurb}}
+The Vex are architects of ancient and complex structures thought to be buried within every celestial body. Linked by a network unlike any on Earth, they operate in unison, directed by a single unfathomable purpose.
+===Goblin===
+{{Quote|"All their joints turning together. Moving together. Towards you."|Card blurb}}
+The Goblin is the basic unit in the vast computational network that is the Vex. Shattering the large, fan-shaped head does not seem to cause lasting damage but sends the Goblin into a crackling frenzy.
+===Hobgoblin===
+{{Quote|"The air by my cheek twanged twice, stinking of ozone, before I saw it."|Card blurb}}
+Specialized for sniping, this lean, tough Vex model is fitted with improved optics and acute sensors in its horns. Like the Goblin, the Hobgoblin contains a milky radiolarian fluid.
+Attacking a Hobgoblin often triggers a defensive reflex - the Hobgoblin seals itself in stasis and waits for help.
+===Minotaur===
+{{Quote|"I thought it was at a safe distance. I was wrong."|Card blurb}}
+Minotaurs pack brutal heat, but most of their processing power is devoted to the physics of building massive Vex complexes, suspected to extend through multiple dimensions. Minotaur models are thicker and harder to crack than any other bipedal Vex, and they use their teleportation capability aggressively.
+===Harpy===
+{{Quote|"It swam back and forth through the air, spinning, the single red eye looking - I realized - for me."|Card blurb}}
+The fastest and most mobile Vex, the Harpy is an airborne unit often deployed in flocks on patrols and scouting missions. They must stop and stabilize before attacking.
+===Hydra===
+{{Quote|"Our shots dissolved in the translucent matrix around it, useless."|Card blurb}}
+The Hydra is a miniature fortress. Despite its physical slowness, it is a rapid processor of the data fed to it by other Vex, and what it lacks in mobility it makes up for in impregnable defenses and rock-melting firepower.
+===Hezen Corrective===
+We understand the Vex as a network of thoughts, unified and vast. But not all Vex are the same. The Hezen Corrective is one example of a Vex subtype, set apart from other Vex by distinct behaviors and objectives.
+Swarming across the Ishtar Sink, these Vex aggressively seek out and attack the Fallen House of Winter, perform inscrutable operations around shining Confluxes, and even show interest in the Golden Age ruins left by the Ishtar Collective.
+The bulk of our contact with Vex forces on Venus has involved the Corrective. Those scholars willing to risk their reputations speculating about the Vex often assert that the Corrective is an agent of change, designed to solve problems and remake the world in a form suitable to the Vex. Others contend that Corrective is simply a strategic distraction - meant to draw attention away from the actions of the Hezen Protective.
+===Hezen Protective===
+The mysterious Hezen Protective is the second major Vex behavioral unit on Venus. Concentrated around the legendary Vault of Glass and the Endless Steps, the site of a massive Vex gate and the access point to the towering Citadel, the Protective's behavior seems very defensive.
+But leading Cryptarchs and experienced Guardians warn that it would be a fatal mistake to think of the Vex as a conventional military occupying an area. Vex behavior is always a process, active and purposeful. The Protective is clearly engaged in a colossal project, but as with much Vex behavior, it's unclear whether their ultimate purpose is even comprehensible to us. The Protective may be reacting to an event that has yet to occur, or working towards a goal that - to us - is already historical fact.
+===Virgo Prohibition===
+Mars is wracked by an ongoing theater-level conflict between the Cabal and a Vex subtype known as the Virgo Prohibition. These aggressive, relentless Vex constantly test the Cabal exclusion zone, apparently heedless of losses.
+In spite of the Vex onslaught, the Cabal have managed to expand its beachhead and maintain a hold on several mysterious Vex structures. The Prohibition's tactics seem to be failing in the short run.
+But it seems unlikely that an organization with the sheer computational scope of the Vex could be dragged into a losing war of attrition. Is it possible that the Vex are trying to draw out the Cabal strength? Or that their surface losses are a distraction from a deeper strategic ploy?
+Ikora Rey has proposed that the Vex units can best be understood as algorithms - each a unique mapping of inputs to behavioral responses. Perhaps the Virgo Prohibition is simply the wrong algorithm for its environment, and its failure will drive the greater Vex network to adapt and improve.
+===Sol Divisive===
+Beyond the towering Meridian Bay gate lies the Black Garden, adrift in time and space. And within the Garden dwell the Vex of the Sol Divisive, frozen in rapture.
+We have precious little insight into the Divisive's behavior. They seem central to Vex actions in the solar system: the Garden is clearly a place of enormous power.
+Legends and scant field reports all indicate that the Divisive Vex behave religiously. Why would a hyperintelligent, time-spanning thought mesh exhibit religious behavior? The answer seems as obvious as it is chilling: if the Vex found worship and devotion more effective than any other behavior, they would adopt worship. Whatever the Vex found - or made - in the Garden, it transcends even their power.
+===Precursors===
+Those who delve deep into the Vault of Glass have seen time itself torn asunder. Awestruck Ghosts report encounters with ancient Vex, their casings built long before the age of humanity.
+It would be easy to assume these Vex are the ancestors of those we face today - but with the Vex it is never so simple.
+===Descendants===
+Survivors of the Vault of Glass report sightings of ancient Vex - ancient in the sense that they have endured for eons. Convergent analysis from multiple Ghosts suggests that these Vex exist in our future.
+If the Vex exist in our future - or in a possible future - should we take this as evidence that their defeat is impractical or unattainable? The Guardian Vanguard is quick to point out that time travel remains a mystery, and that the continued existence of the Vex is not remotely a sure indication of humanity's extinction.
+===Ghost Fragment: Vex===
+{{Quote|From the Records of the Ishtar Collective|Card blurb}}
+ESI: Maya, I need your help. I don't know how to fix this.
+SUNDARESH: What is it? Chioma. Sit. Tell me.
+ESI: I've figured out what's happening inside the specimen.
+SUNDARESH: Twelve? The operational Vex platform? That's incredible! You must know what this means - ah, so. It's not good, or you'd be on my side of the desk. And it's not urgent, or you'd already have evacuated the site. Which means...
+ESI: I have a working interface with the specimen's internal environment. I can see what it's thinking.
+SUNDARESH: In metaphorical terms, of course. The cognitive architectures are so -
+ESI: No. I don't need any kind of epistemology bridge.
+SUNDARESH: Are you telling me it's human? A human merkwelt? Human qualia?
+ESI: I'm telling you it's full of humans. It's thinking about us.
+SUNDARESH: About - oh no.
+ESI: It's simulating us. Vividly. Elaborately. It's running a spectacularly high-fidelity model of a Collective research team studying a captive Vex entity.
+SUNDARESH:...how deep does it go?
+ESI: Right now the simulated Maya Sundaresh is meeting with the simulated Chioma Esi to discuss an unexpected problem.
+[indistinct sounds]
+SUNDARESH: There's no divergence? That's impossible. It doesn't have enough information.
+ESI: It inferred. It works from what it sees and it infers the rest. I know that feels unlikely. But it obviously has capabilities we don't. It may have breached our shared virtual workspace...the neural links could have given it data...
+SUNDARESH: The simulations have interiority? Subjectivity?
+ESI: I can't know that until I look more closely. But they act like us.
+SUNDARESH: We're inside it. By any reasonable philosophical standard, we are inside that Vex.
+ESI: Unless you take a particularly ruthless approach to the problem of causal forks: yes. They are us.
+SUNDARESH: Call a team meeting.
+ESI: The other you has too.
+===Ghost Fragment: Vex 2===
+{{Quote|From the Records of the Ishtar Collective|Card blurb}}
+SUNDARESH: So that's the situation as we know it.
+ESI: To the best of my understanding.
+SHIM: Well I'll be a [profane] [profanity]. This is extremely [profane]. That thing has us over a barrel.
+SUNDARESH: Yeah. We're in a difficult position.
+DUANE-MCNIADH: I don't understand. So it's simulating us? It made virtual copies of us? How does that give it power?
+ESI: It controls the simulation. It can hurt our simulated selves. We wouldn't feel that pain, but rationally speaking, we have to treat an identical copy's agony as identical to our own.
+SUNDARESH: It's god in there. It can simulate our torment. Forever. If we don't let it go, it'll put us through hell.
+DUANE-MCNIADH: We have no causal connection to the mind state of those sims. They aren't us. Just copies. We have no obligation to them.
+ESI: You can't seriously - your OWN SELF -
+SHIM: [profane] idiot. Think. Think. If it can run one simulation, maybe it can run more than one. And there will only ever be one reality. Play the odds.
+DUANE-MCNIADH: Oh...uh oh.
+SHIM: Odds are that we aren't our own originals. Odds are that we exist in one of the Vex simulations right now.
+ESI: I didn't think of that.
+SUNDARESH: [indistinct percussive sound]
+===Ghost Fragment: Vex 3===
+{{Quote|From the Records of the Ishtar Collective|Card blurb}}
+SUNDARESH: I have a plan.
+ESI: If you have a plan, then so does your sim, and the Vex knows about it.
+DUANE-MCNIADH: Does it matter? If we're in Vex hell right now, there's nothing we can -
+SHIM: Stop talking about 'real' and 'unreal.' All realities are programs executing laws. Subjectivity is all that matters.
+SUNDARESH: We have to act as if we're in the real universe, not one simulated by the specimen. Otherwise we might as well give up.
+ESI: Your sim self is saying the same thing.
+SUNDARESH: Chioma, love, please hush. It doesn't help.
+DUANE-MCNIADH: Maybe the simulations are just billboards! Maybe they don't have interiority! It's bluffing!
+SHIM: I wish someone would simulate you shutting up.
+SUNDARESH: If we're sims, we exist in the pocket of the universe that the Vex specimen is able to simulate with its onboard brainpower. If we're real, we need to get outside that bubble.
+ESI: ...we call for help.
+SUNDARESH: That's right. We bring in someone smarter than the specimen. Someone too big to simulate and predict. A warmind.
+SHIM: In the real world, the warmind will be able to behave in ways the Vex can't simulate. It's too smart. The warmind may be able to get into the Vex and rescue - us.
+DUANE-MCNIADH: If we try, won't the Vex torture us for eternity? Or just erase us?
+SUNDARESH: It may simply erase us. But I feel that's preferable to...the alternatives.
+ESI: I agree.
+SHIM: Once we try to make the call, the Vex may...react. So let's all savor this last moment of stability.
+SUNDARESH: [indistinct sounds]
+SHIM: You two are adorable.
+DUANE-MCNIADH: I wish I'd taken that job at Clovis.
 ==Vex Arsenal==
+===Slap Rifle===
+From a tactical perspective, the Slap Rifle is a Vex directed-energy weapon that fills their analog of the light infantry role. From an engineering perspective it's something much more interesting: a terminal. The Slap Rifle receives a bolt of Solar energy from somewhere (or somewhen) else and it points it at a target.
+The terminal's flexibility is impressive. In non-combat conditions, the Slap Rifle seems like it might serve as a viable field transmitter, construction tool, navigational beacon, network repeater, or any of a number of other utility functions.
+===Line Rifle===
+The Vex Line Rifle fires high-velocity Solar particle jets. Deployed on the Hobgoblin chassis, the Line Rifle serves as a sniper weapon, pinning down targets or delivering the killing blow.
+Like the Slap Rifle, the Line Rifle is a terminal weapon, although its source is much more energetic. Some believe the weapon pulls material from the accretion disk of a galactic singularity. This would imply the Vex are near - or have already achieved - access to a terrifying range of civilization-killing weapons. Others consider this unlikely, and propose that the Line Rifle simply draws from a central Vex power supply.
+===Torch Hammer===
+The Torch Hammer is a devastating Vex heavy weapon. Firing projectiles of strange matter, the Hammer mauls targets with exotic particle decay and deadly radiation.
+===Slap Grenade===
+The Vex use Slap Grenades to drive targets out into the open. These devices behave more like miniaturized gates than conventional explosives, channeling a Void energy pulse from a remote location.
+===Cyclops===
+The Cyclops is a huge, stationary Vex construct with a powerful Void weapon. Guardians think of Cyclops as gun platforms - batteries installed to protect key points with devastating mortar fire.
+But some evidence suggests that the Cyclops is in fact an enormous sensor or beacon, and that its weapons capabilities are secondary. What the Cyclops senses remains unknown, although its mind core is vast. It may play a role in the Vex networked intelligence, or in navigation across space and time.
+A damaged Cyclops can be forced into a state of punch-drunk confusion, its inputs overwhelmed by hostile fire. This can result in fratricidal kills on other Vex units.
 ==Vex Axis Minds==
+===Prohibitive Mind===
+Vex Axis Minds are individual Vex hulls that contain local instances of superordinate Vex goal sets. This cryptic phrase means something reasonably simple - the Axis Mind contains a copy of all the information required to pursue a particular objective.
+This allows other nearby Vex to focus on their local tasks, leaving global planning to the Axis Mind. Of course, this also introduces a centralized weakness for enemies to target. But the Vex seem to consider the tradeoff worthwhile.
+The Prohibitive Mind seems to coordinate Vex action against Cabal positions in Meridian Bay. The current Vex operational plan - to the extent that we assume the Vex have operational plans - appears to involve an attritional campaign on the surface, supplemented by disruptive use of gates to bypass Cabal hardpoints.
+===Zydron, Gate Lord===
+The intelligence we call Zydron seems to exist in a liminal state, stretched between gates in the Vex network. It manifests as a physical being only when called.
+Warlock scholars believe that Gate Lords regulate traffic between Vex gates, and that their minds contain codes that might open the way into forbidden realms. An enormous amount of hope and anger has been spent on a particular debate - could we find a Vex gate that opens onto a place and time before the Collapse, and somehow forestall it?
+===Sekrion, Nexus Mind===
+The Vanguard's intelligence sources now believe, with good confidence, that Sekrion oversees the expansion of the Vex network through the crust of Venus.
+The Hydra chassis common to many Vex Axis Minds boasts impressive computational capacity. Sekrion likely uses this capacity to regulate coordination and crosstalk between Minotaurs operating in the construction role.
+Destroying Sekrion should significantly hamper the Vex effort to incorporate the entire planet into their network.
+===Sol Progeny===
+{{Quote|To Commander Zavala - My Thoughts on Recent Events|Card blurb}}
+Zavala -
+How like you to ask me for the bad news, even in this moment of triumph. I've finished going over that Ghost's report.
+It is my hypothesis - a hypothesis at best - that the Vex saw the abominable presence at the heart of the Garden as a divine power. I can hear your protest already: how can machines have a god?
+The answer is simple. The Vex, for all their voracious intelligence, could not understand or decipher what they found. They searched through all available reactions, and they settled on the course with the greatest payoff...to worship this power, and to remake themselves in its image.
+I believe the three Axis Minds found in proximity to the abomination were Vex machines built to serve as vessels for this power: a way to extend its reach across space and time, binding it to the Vex, and the Vex to it. If they had succeeded, I cannot begin to guess what horrors they would have unleashed.
+Attend carefully. There is cause for hope. When endangered, the abomination activated these vessels and defended itself. This tells us that it was threatened. Whatever it was, Guardians could harm it.
+And it activated only a single vessel at a time. Its strength was limited. Whatever it intended, it was not ready yet.
+We must assume the abomination was part of something greater. And we cannot flinch from the terrible, obvious comparison: just as the Traveler acts through us, this power was able to act through its own servants.
+Let us be wary. There may be other abominations, and other vessels.
+Ikora
 ==Cabal==

Grimoire:Enemies: Difference between revisions

Grimoire:Enemies (view source)

Revision as of 12:54, September 11, 2014