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[[ | [[File:LoreTAOR.png|300px|thumb]] | ||
'''The Awoken of the Reef''' is a [[Lore]] book introduced in ''[[ | '''The Awoken of the Reef''' is a [[Lore]] book introduced in ''[[Forsaken]]''. It explores the history of the [[Awoken]] people after they left the [[Distributary]] and founded the [[Reef]]. Entries are unlocked by collecting memory crystals scattered across the worlds of ''[[Destiny 2]]''. | ||
__TOC__ | __TOC__ | ||
{{clear}} | {{clear}} | ||
==Revanche I== | |||
[[Uldren Sov|Uldren]] returned to the [[Reef]] during the Long Unquiet Night, when the Awoken people huddled in their beds and hammocks, gathered in ice caves and half-lit habitat cylinders, haunted by visions and portents. Faces appeared to them in the sublimating swirl of cometary ice: images and portraits became impossible to distinguish from their real counterparts. All statues were shrouded, lest they appear to passers-by as corpses. | |||
Something had changed in them after their return to the outer cosmos. A live-wire hum passed through the tendons in their hands, their jaws popped when they swallowed, and flashes of light like the impact of cosmic rays obscured their vision. It felt to [[Mara Sov|Mara]] as if they had lowered their feet into an ocean of charge and raised their hand to some invisible cable overhead: as if they were now again in contact with immense and opposing forces that had left an ancient mark. | |||
"It feels like I've got scurvy," [[Sjur Eido]] snarled, having never had scurvy in her life. "As if all these old wounds in my soul are opening up again." | |||
"People keep sending me notes," Mara said. Her sensorium had died in the transit, so the notes came to her through whispers and scraps of precious paper. "They say… I saw your face in my dream. I saw your eyes. I heard your voice." | |||
"So it's not just me." | |||
Uldren was the second person to bring her revelations on that day. First was [[Kelda Wadj]], the Allteacher, one of Mara's most joyful recruits to the expedition: She was a master of pedagogy, able to mold any mind into a shape ready to learn, able to melt any fact into a fluid that could be poured. "I'm in from the Gensym labs," she said, "and they've learned something wonderful. We're all a bit magic now." | |||
"Tell me more." Mara poured her a snifter of icy cometary water. "What does magic mean?" | |||
"Some sort of weak acausality." Kelda lowered her flowerbulb build into a hammock of tangled plastic. "They've been firing encoded neutrino beams through volunteers, and it looks as if the resulting patterns of scatter depend on the cognitive and emotional state of the target. It's a very reliable detection, at least four sigma, but the effect size is terribly small." | |||
Mara digested this with a shot of ancient ice, slushy against her tongue. "Acausality. You mean that whatever's happening—whatever influence we have on, say, neutrino beams—it's not accounted for by physics?" | |||
"Not by any physics we know. At face, it seems to violate some conservation laws, which would make Emmy Noether's head spin." Kelda remembers the names of her ancient physicist heroes even when she cannot tell which way is sunward. | |||
"Secret physics." Mara thought of the [[Traveler]] and its works. "We've all felt it, haven't we? We know we're…" How to say "trapped in the clinch between light and dark," she wondered, without quite so much portent? "We're in contact with certain numinous elements." | |||
Kelda held out her cup for more water. "The question is, your Majesty—" | |||
"Don't call me that. We're operating on a direct democracy here." | |||
Kelda rolled her eyes. "The question is, do we continue to think of this as science? Do we teach it as physics? Causal closure says that everything that happens in a material system has a material cause. However, if symbolic structures in the mind are triggering material effect… shouldn't we call that what it is?" | |||
"Death had no dominion," Mara whispered. | |||
"Pardon?" | |||
"We're in Death's dominion now. We're all dying again. We were immortal in the [[Distributary]], weren't we? Some part of us was… attuned to the universe. And now that we're no longer receiving the Distributary's signal, we're attuned to something new." | |||
That was when the hatch slammed open and Uldren stumbled in, grinning ferociously, clutching a scummy fistful of cytogel to a slash across his neck. | |||
"Aliens!" he rasped. "I found aliens, and one of them cut my throat!" | |||
==Revanche II== | ==Revanche II== | ||
Mara calls a caucus of elected representatives in the [[Sacred Fire]], one of the largest hulks in the reef of derelicts. The Fire was built to support habitat construction on [[4 Vesta]], where Mara hopes to one day anchor the entire flotilla and set down roots—but the hopeful, fearful faces before her make Mara afraid that it'll never happen. What if everyone runs off at the first hint of home? Having come so far, across worlds and eons, to see [[Earth]] again—how can she ask them to hold back now? | |||
"We've found [[Humanity]]," she tells them. "We've found our ancestors." | "We've found [[Humanity]]," she tells them. "We've found our ancestors." | ||
The cheer of triumph and wonder thrills her to the marrow. Most of these [[Awoken]] are | The cheer of triumph and wonder thrills her to the marrow. Most of these [[Awoken]] are Distributary-born, raised on myths of Humanity and the Traveler. She has just opened the pages of their storybooks and conjured them to life. | ||
"What remains of the Human species lives in a single settlement." She nods to [[Uldren Sov|Uldren]], who snaps his fingers for footage. His ship's holographic perspective plunges through fluffy strata of clouds and mist, out into clear air. A lucid vista, a perfect instant: the white mountains, the city, and the enormous shattered sphere that hangs above it. | "What remains of the Human species lives in a single settlement." She nods to [[Uldren Sov|Uldren]], who snaps his fingers for footage. His ship's holographic perspective plunges through fluffy strata of clouds and mist, out into clear air. A lucid vista, a perfect instant: the white mountains, the city, and the enormous shattered sphere that hangs above it. | ||
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"Maybe they'll come hunt the Scorn." Maybe one day Tellia will be a scientist again, in a proper lab, with a proper place to sleep. "Like the days after Skolas…" | "Maybe they'll come hunt the Scorn." Maybe one day Tellia will be a scientist again, in a proper lab, with a proper place to sleep. "Like the days after Skolas…" | ||
"I've got other hopes." Koro slaps his thighs, bounds to his feet, and, as if he is a true prophet, heads for his hovel just a moment before his baby bursts out crying. "You hear about that one Fallen on [[10 | "I've got other hopes." Koro slaps his thighs, bounds to his feet, and, as if he is a true prophet, heads for his hovel just a moment before his baby bursts out crying. "You hear about that one Fallen on [[10 Hygiea|Hygeia]]? He pays for people willing to maintain a few remote telescopes." | ||
"You work for the [[The Spider|Spider]]?" Tellia cries. "But he's—" | "You work for the [[The Spider|Spider]]?" Tellia cries. "But he's—" | ||
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Dear Master [[Ives]], | Dear Master [[Ives]], | ||
I write to you on behalf of the | I write to you on behalf of the [[Cryptarch]]s of Earth in sympathy for all those who died in service to your Queen. We Earthborn feel your loss and hope this tragedy will usher in a new era. We have made great strides in unraveling a richer and deeper history of Earth and its colonies—a history buried below merely ordinary truths. This content is, of course, far too sensitive to publish generally. We long feared that if it were intercepted by her Majesty your Queen, it would be denied or manipulated to serve some need of her own. Some of these discoveries relate to the nature of our "awakening," while others point to the occurrence of journeys like our own… journeys that may have had troubling results. All of this scholarship would benefit from cross-reference and critical comparison with your own collected records. We hope you agree that this knowledge is far more important than any schism that once defined our peoples. We look forward to cooperation between our libraries, correspondence between our scholars, and the beginning of a new intellectual Golden Age, a time of lucidity and truth. | ||
Respectfully,<br> | Respectfully,<br> | ||
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Zavala lowers his brow to the Ionian earth. It feels like the respectful thing to do. There's a big coiled ammonite fossil right under the thin topsoil, though, and he knocks his forehead on it. The pain and the blowing sulfur dust make him sneeze. | Zavala lowers his brow to the Ionian earth. It feels like the respectful thing to do. There's a big coiled ammonite fossil right under the thin topsoil, though, and he knocks his forehead on it. The pain and the blowing sulfur dust make him sneeze. | ||
"Humbly I come," he says, almost laughing, "to speak to thee." Ikora said this was the place. [[Io]]. A world still half-born, connected as if by an untorn umbilical to the Traveler. "I wanted to say… thank you." | "Humbly I come," he says, almost laughing, "to speak to thee." [[Ikora]] said this was the place. [[Io]]. A world still half-born, connected as if by an untorn umbilical to the Traveler. "I wanted to say… thank you." | ||
He finds he's looking up at Jupiter. He's accustomed to seeing the Traveler above the City, so he fastens on the nearest huge floating sphere as a proxy. He forces his eyes down to the soil again. "Thank you for what you did to Ghaul." | He finds he's looking up at Jupiter. He's accustomed to seeing the Traveler above the City, so he fastens on the nearest huge floating sphere as a proxy. He forces his eyes down to the soil again. "Thank you for what you did to Ghaul." | ||
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WASHING SKIN: I have gathered my belongings in a gray porcelain sink. The soap clings to my fingers. As I wash what I possess, my things begin to dissolve. I scrub harder because I know that the washing is a way to remove impurity, and I must be certain that I will not dissolve too. My mother tells me that silver is the element of false-life, blue skin poison. I worry that my fingernails are soft. | WASHING SKIN: I have gathered my belongings in a gray porcelain sink. The soap clings to my fingers. As I wash what I possess, my things begin to dissolve. I scrub harder because I know that the washing is a way to remove impurity, and I must be certain that I will not dissolve too. My mother tells me that silver is the element of false-life, blue skin poison. I worry that my fingernails are soft. | ||
MOUNTAIN: I am on the mountain at [[Felwinter's Peak]], except there is an express monorail to my neighborhood grocery in the City, which is all out of what I need. A Guardian brings me a special engram. I refuse to decrypt it. I tell the Guardian it is better this way, unactualized, secret, certainly containing the thing that will be needed when the moment comes. | MOUNTAIN: I am on the mountain at [[Felwinter Peak|Felwinter's Peak]], except there is an express monorail to my neighborhood grocery in the City, which is all out of what I need. A Guardian brings me a special engram. I refuse to decrypt it. I tell the Guardian it is better this way, unactualized, secret, certainly containing the thing that will be needed when the moment comes. | ||
TYRA: I am someone else. I hope that someday I will meet [[Tyra Karn]]. | TYRA: I am someone else. I hope that someday I will meet [[Tyra Karn]]. | ||