SIVA Crisis

The SIVA Crisis was a major conflict fought between the SIVA-infected Fallen Devil Splicers and the Guardians. The crisis was triggered when the Fallen Splicers rediscovered SIVA within the long-sealed Plaguelands. While the orthodox leadership of the Splicers saw SIVA as another technology to be worshiped, the sect loyal to the House of Devils was more ambitious: they sought to use SIVA to make themselves into gods. Imbuing themselves with SIVA's power, the Devil Splicers began subsuming the rest of their House and spreading the techno-plague. Recognizing the ancient threat his fellow Iron Lords had sealed away long ago, Lord Saladin Forge issued a call-to-arms to the Guardians.

Events

Prelude: Transmission Incident

The Owl Sector reconvened for the first time since an event called the Dawn Calamity in response to field reports from Guardians whose armor had become infested with "tech mites", which manifested as swarms of colorful specks that swirled around their heads. Five varieties of tech mite were documented, each with a unique coloration: Brilliance 3.2 (green), Glory 2.1 (white), Splendor 2.6 (yellow), Magnificence 2.0 (blue), and Fortitude 3.1 (pink). The tech mites originated from the Dust Palace on Mars, but rapidly spread to other Guardians. While this phenomenon, designated "Transmission", initially alarmed the Vanguard as it overrode Guardians' armor systems, Guardians responded to it with enthusiasm and mocked attempts by the Owl Sector to quarantine them.

Unable to contain the mites' spread among the Guardians, the Owl Sector and Vanguard instead implemented a quarantine on the Last City in order to prevent non-Guardians' exposure. Meanwhile, Bypass Authority Berriole traveled to the Dust Palace to learn the origin of the tech mites. She followed sets of tracks to a lab, where various locked storage cabinets had been cut or blasted open. At a console in the lab, she discovered the mites were linked to a Clovis Bray project overseen by a Dr. Zarin Shirazi who worked under Dr. Willa Bray. Berriole transmitted records of Dr. Shirazi's experiments with the mites, which had been encrypted to an unusual degree, to the Owl Sector. The records revealed that the tech mites were a nanomachine therapy to improve subjects' intelligence and strength for the Golden Age's colonization effort, but they produced several unforeseen side-effects including manic and paranoid behavior, loss of voice, levitation, and comas. Shirazi developed a countermeasure and saved the test subjects, but she had become disillusioned with the project and recommended to Dr. Bray that it be abandoned.

Eventually, a third of all Guardians became affected by at least one variety of tech mite, prompting the Vanguard to further tighten the City's quarantine. The Owl Sector's Liaison to the Vanguard, Shun Li, accidentally became exposed to a sample of tech mites and lost consciousness soon after, forcing his fellow operative Ramos to take on the duties of Acting Liaison. Fortunately, the countermeasure was discovered among Shirazi's records, and the combined efforts of the Owl Sector's research corps, the Hidden, and the Techeuns succeeded in replicating it. Shun was revived, and the cure was administered to the Guardians, much to their disappointment. With the crisis ended, the Owl Sector was returned to standby status.

After sealing Shirazi's lab, however, Berriole noticed that the tracks that led to the lab appeared to have been made by Fallen, implying that a group of Fallen, possibly the Splicers, were responsible for the entire incident.

Raid on Felwinter Peak

At some point during the SIVA Crisis, the Fallen raided the abandoned Vostok Observatory under the command of Sepiks Perfected. Unable to respond to the incursion before the Fallen completely overran the Iron Temple, Lord Saladin summoned the Guardians to help him hold off the Fallen until he arrived with additional forces. Upon the Guardian's success, Saladin arrived just as Sepiks flees. Having been ordered to track Sepiks escape, Shiro detects several breaches on the Cosmodrome wall, prompting Saladin to send the Guardian to track Sepiks down.

The Cosmodrome Breach

As tasked by Saladin to investigate the breach in the Cosmodrome and to confirm Saladin's fears, the Guardian arrives at the wall and finds a section of it in ruins with a heavy Devils presence. Tracking Sepkis, the Guardian fights through the wall and finds a pattern outside the wall and with Ghost scans, discovers that a nanotechnology is consuming the building, confirming Saladin fears that SIVA has returned. Instantly Hive ships appear, apparently driven out of their holds. Fighting both Hive and Fallen to a sensor grid to restore the sensor network for Shiro-4, the Guardian encounters a new enemy of Fallen, The Devil Splicers. After defeating the new powerfully-augmented Fallen, Saladin now knows for sure that the Fallen have restarted production of SIVA for they're own desires. Shiro-4 tracks to Fallen to Plaguelands, an area that has been quarantined for years, but has now become the Devil Splicers territory.

To open up a new front for the war and to establish a beachhead in the Plaguelands, Saladin and Shiro-4 have the Guardian infiltrate Splicer defenses for reinforcements but find that the Splicers have repaired a gun emplacement that was destroyed during the Collapse using SIVA. Any reinforcements would be destroyed but thanks to the Guardians efforts, destroyed the SIVA nodes powering the cannons, allowing reinforcements to arrive and Guardians to explore the quarantined zone.

Destroying SIVA

After retrieving the SIVA prototypes from the Clovis Bray lab on Mars, Shiro-4 and Lord Saladin task the Guardian to go into Site 6 and destroy the SIVA replication chamber to end the SIVA Crisis. Once the Guardian enters the replication complex, the Guardian sees the remnants of the Iron Lords that died during the attack on Site 6 in the Dark Age and are being controlled by SIVA. Once the remnants were defeated, thus putting the Iron Lords to rest, the SIVA self-destruct sequence is initiated and the Guardian successfully escapes, preventing any more SIVA from being created.

Breaking the Devil Splicers

The SIVA Crisis was not fully averted though, since any remaining SIVA was still out there and in Fallen hands, not to mention the Splicers' latest Archon was still alive, Aksis, Archon Prime inside his Perfection Complex. The Guardians were ordered by Shiro-4 to infiltrate the Devil Spilcers' true lair and end the radical group. After defeating Vosik, the Archpriest, repairing the Siege Engine and defeating Meksis, Siege Engineer, the Guardians infiltrated the SIVA Server Farm and descended into the Perfection Complex. There the Guardians faced and destroyed Aksis using his own SIVA Charges and Empowerment, successfully breaking the Devil Splicers' leadership.

During the attack on the Devil Splicers' lair, five mysterious monitors were activated. These five monitors unlocked a laser grid barring access to a SIVA engine. After Shiro-4 saw the engine, he told a fireteam to go solve the patterns on the SIVA Engine while it was normal, charged, and unstable. After solving the patterns, the engine turned out to be the Outbreak Prime, an Exotic Pulse Rifle.

List of appearances

• Destiny
  • Rise of Iron (First appearance)