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infinitewarden · 7 months

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The Vex, the Black Garden, and Mercury's Conversion. (Alt Title: I am going insane)

There's always something going on with the Vex in the background and I can't believe I didn't pay closer attention to it when these weird single-celled organisms have always been right up my alley right there beside Osiris.

Anyways. What's been on my mind lately is Brass Gardeners from the Inspiral lorebook (dropped from Root of Nightmares.) I was so caught up in the interesting implications and continuation of Unveiling that it completely flew under the radar for me.

Now what I want to focus on is these key aspects from this lore entry:

Garden state: neutral garden&&gardeners==root&&branch==leaf&&flower //intrinsic, inextricable, inescapable

And

anomaly One = leaf|invasive; Garden state: active (gardeners attend)

And

anomaly Zero = infinite|witness; archive data retrieved. Zero = infinite|witness == (a seed was planted here.) Recorded referent: "Black|Heart" Zero : seed :: One : DANGER [SIMULATION BREAKING. VISIBILITY NARROW. FRACTALS DISINTEGRATING.] anomaly Zero, absent. anomaly One, DANGER remaining. Garden state: acting (gardeners in unison)

And

//There is a majestic thorn. The anomaly is gone. The garden is peaceful. //It is known|seen|predicted that a primary function of irresolvable|irrecoverable presences is to trample. Flowers growing / damage repairing / threat unresolved Function called: escalation. Iteration. Function: winnow. Function: simplify. Function: flatten. //The first defense is offense.

Now I'm no expert at coding. But I know a little bit about logic algorithms, especially ones that are presented here. (This is an if-then type of algorithm. These kinds of logic equations are also used in Philosophy which I know much more about.)

The gist of this entry is that, from what I can glean, the Traveler visited the Vex once, and while the Vex considered it invasive they were not actively hostile. An indeterminate amount of time passed, presumably up until the Collapse (our time), and the Witness visited the Garden these Vex have created. (It very well could be that the Black Garden was not the Black Garden until the introduction of the Witness.) It left them a "seed" (or... a code...) that would become the Black Heart.

Or, as we now know, a failed attempt at recreating the Veil.

After this introduction is when the Vex became actively hostile. They did not stay gardeners, the Sol Divisive became winnowers only when the Witness introduced the concept. Which is an incredibly fascinating implication.

So what does this mean?

Well I have a couple theories. Remember this is just speculation, it's not canon.

So we know the Vex have been in our system for... a while. Ever since the Ishtar Collective and Clovis Bray decided to be stupid about them. But this idea of total conversion didn't seem to be the end-all state. I mean the Ishtar Academy was still intact despite some Vex conversion. It doesn't seem like Europa's conversion went very far either.

So why did they go into a frenzy with Mercury during the Collapse? Why did the Vex make Mercury their simulation engine for a Vex end-state? If they wanted to they could've made any of the thousands of planets they inhabit into a simulation engine to the degree of Mercury's but there's no evidence they did. Why target Io? Or Nessus? Why only planets the Light has touched?

Well... The answer is a little complicated. We don't know, really, how the Vex began to terraform Nessus and Io, but we do know how they got to Mercury.

So, let's remember this line:

anomaly One = leaf|invasive; Garden state: active (gardeners attend)

Now, let's look at how the Vex were introduced to Mercury in Trials and Tribulations (for the sake of clarity I will be cutting out the Witness lines save for one vital line):

It was a garden world. The phrase, uttered in confidence. The expanse above, a cup—rimmed in gamma-ink radiance—dammed against the Mercurian sky at the Kármán line. Against the howl of star-wind, the black fell open. Within the rip convulsed and excreted coils of shimmering life. Probing, clattering tendrils slithered down to make landfall. Chrome-hooked appendages stretched for miles through sun-soaked atmosphere. They bored into the marigold sands. From the great temporal chasms flowed an ocean of radiolarian fluid. Across the horizon the scene was resonant and multiplicative. Each injection site fostered a new lineage in stone and steel and fluid. The new age in sub-routine and observation. They would foster the seeds of a generation in time. From the sites bubbled pools that murmured chaotic, and wrung the Traveler's Light from Mercury. The Light coalesced within the pools. The planet transformed into a machine of prediction. The arms retracted, and returned to temporal hovels, suspended just above Mercury's influence. With them rose the spires. From the core, threads of iron fused reinforcement into the spires and brought them high. A surface driven flat by eons of solar erosion had risen. A million open mouths curled plated tongues in completion. Across the world grew a terrible consciousness that yearned to find its progenitor. The hulking vessels pulsed with light. The pools and spires pulsed dull tones in recognition, and the black sealed once more, restoring the sol-dominated sky |awaiting an angular shadow|. Illumination left the spires, and the Light was erased.

Okay, this one is a big one and might be a little difficult to grasp, but the gist of it is that a portal ("the black") opened and implanted the first Vex seeds into Mercury all while draining the Light. This portal was created by a Pyramid. This happened during the collapse.

The Vex were artificially implanted onto Mercury by the Witness for the purpose of creating a prediction engine. And not only that but they were meant to wait for the Witness's return.

Which they responded to in the last chapter of Trials and Tribulations:

Vance stood in the old Lighthouse, frantically assembling the Infinite Simulacrum: a machine formed from bits of simulation seeds and connective Vex architecture to mimic a pocket forest. Textured notes and schematics derived from Osirian lore guided his hand. He heard stories from passing Guardians of increasingly frequent coronal mass ejections. Vast bursts of charged particles whipped into space and furled around a gravitational monster buried from sight and sense in the roar of the star-wind. Passage to Mercury had become more dangerous for the uninitiated. These unnatural motions were heralds of speculation, and he had read the signs. He knew the prophecies by heart and mind and intention. Ruin. Something new |and so very old| emerged, brother to a shriveling star: An angular |hungering patient yawning deep| shadow reached across Mercury. Uncounted |known| spires fell under its grasp |with uniform relief|. Dulcet tones brought low under lightless breadth and the weight of dark |salvation| hummed beneath the shadow. Their echoes spilled out |awakened| and flowed over crumbling spires |in conversation|. One singular spec of illumination blinked into being, |an end| seen by none, and then |many| spread as the shadow did. The old Lighthouse |spire's collective| beamed |rose| and flared as shadow overtook it |to meet the underbelly|. Vance |the implement| could hear |their inspired voices| weeping, not with tears, but in the |voracious| low |ceremonial| hum he had come to associate with death. He closed his eyes |and saw what was to come|. This day had many names. None would suffice.

We know now that memory and consciousness is linked to the darkness, and in turn links to simulations. Is that why they made a prediction engine? Were the Vex on Mercury meant to help the Witness expedite the path to the final shape? Were they left in limbo because of Savathun's betrayal? Osiris saw what the Witness's final shape would result in within the Infinite Forest, was this the end goal the Vex were meant to look for? Was the Witness using the Vex as herbicides on Mercury,

I don't know what's going on with the Vex or the Black Garden or Mercury and its implications are driving me fucking insane. I don't even know what I'm getting at here anymore I just need you to understand that there is Something Here and I Can't Fucking Touch It. I started off trying to find meaning behind the change in the Vex if they changed at all but the rabbit hole just kept getting deeper.

Do the vex not understand Paracausality because the Traveler and the Veil were once one? I mean I made up this whole apple metaphor about how if you knew everything about an apple but then suddenly the apple was split into two separate things and the apple simply did not even exist as a concept anymore wouldn't you be just as confused? Also they say the Vex need to Veil in order to finally understand Paracausality. Is that why they don't? Because they only knew the two when they were one?

Does anyone hear me. What the fuck is happening. What's going on. What is the purpose of the Lighthouses. Why did the Witness plant the Vex there. Why did the Witness call Calus specifically to the Mercury anomaly. What's so important about Vance and the Tones for Osiris's memories of them to have possibly been removed!? (ANOTHER POST TO BE MADE.) Why was Sister Faora mentioned? WHAT DOES IT MEAN. I'm losing my train of thought there's just So Much Here.

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THE VEX AND MERCURY