#io is.... questionable but asher was resolved

[thefirstknife]

What are the Tones?

Whomst've asked me this. You're fuelling my unending obsession, thank you.

I posted about the tones before! Most of it is listed in this post! But I'd like to add some stuff now that it's been some time since then.

The tones are noises made by the spires on Mercury (Lighthouses). Whenever someone dies, the spires emit a tone. They basically react to death in various ways, depending on how the death happens; there's different tones to dying to Light as well as different tones to a perma-death. This is peculiar because nobody could hear them except Brother Vance.

He made Trials of Osiris to study them (because it's an endless source of Guardians dying over and over). Mara knew about his research (Trials was accessed in the Reef in D1) and warned him to stop because it's dangerous. It's unclear why. Osiris did the same years later. As a matter of fact, Osiris was super dramatic about it:

"What I have discovered…" "…is dangerous enough to destroy every man, woman, and child in existence. You're meddling with forces outside your grasp," Osiris reprimanded.

The tones are interesting because they're still largely unexplained. Mara implied that they symbolise Guardians being attuned to Darkness and being able to wield it, which is true, but Osiris' reaction implies something more. And it has to be more, because Osiris detected the same tones as coming from the anomalies of the missing planets and from the Pyramids. Long post under:

In my previous post I also connected that to the fact that egregore seems to be emitting some sort of sound/frequency attuned to the same thing: anomalies, Pyramids and, obviously, to the source of it all (the Witness). So there's some sort of frequency in Darkness that is audible and comes from all places connected to the Darkness network (and that network manifests physically as egregore). And in this case, anomalies and Pyramids (and ships infested with egregore like Glykon and Leviathan) are fine; it makes sense that they link to the Witness!

But spires on Mercury? Why them? My bestie made a post recently after we went unhinged (again) because the same lore book that deals with the tones also makes a really strong implication that the Vex were deliberately led to Mercury by the Pyramid Fleet in the Collapse. There, the Vex drained Mercury of Light, hollowed out the planet and used its materials to make the spires (and the Infinite Forest, a simulation engine) and then they waited for the Pyramids to return. Which they did, in Arrivals.

To make things more complex, after Titan came back, it was confirmed that the Witness did not take the planets randomly. There was a purpose to each one being stolen. Mars was taken to search through our Golden Age and Collapse database in order to find where the Veil may have been hidden. This could've been just a random coincidence, but then Titan came back and we learned that the Witness wanted Ahsa dead because Ahsa not only knows the origins of the Witness, but also how to get through the portal (and who knows if she has any other potential powers to helps us get in there or help us otherwise).

Io is unclear, but there are many options; it may have been taken for the Pyramidion and Vex stuff which Asher got ahead of. It may have been taken to study the Tree of Silver Wings (the Witness had another seed it gave Calus in Lightfall), or it may have been taken to study the Traveler's past or the Light in general or maybe something else. The point is, there are options that we can understand.

But Mercury? Zero clue. The only thing that may have been of interest is the Infinite Forest, but Vance sealed it so if the Witness took Mercury for that and couldn't get into the Forest, then Mercury would've been useless and probably released sooner unless the Witness is just keeping it out of spite or thought that maybe it would be able to find a way inside. And of course... there's the spires and the tones. Mercury is somehow linked to Darkness and the Witness, it has to be, and we have no clue what the Witness wants with it.

Not only that, but there's another curious thing about Mercury, or rather, the anomaly of it. It was mentioned in Duality dungeon, by Calus. When Calus tried talking to the Witness on the Glykon, the Witness eventually responded and it told Calus to come to the anomaly of Mercury:

Through the Crown of Sorrow, the Voice in the Darkness called out to me, beckoning me to the absence of Mercury. At first, I feared the Leviathan would not survive the journey, as the Glykon had been rent asunder by a similar journey. By my Leviathan, it is strong. Its heart beats anew, and as it pierced the veil of creation... the Voice greeted me. There were such sights to behold.

So when Calus disappeared off the Glykon, he went back to the Leviathan and bolted straight for the Mercury anomaly in which he was able to communicate with the Witness. Why Mercury? Glykon went into the Mars anomaly. Why couldn't the Witness speak to Calus in there? Or in any of the other anomalies? Why specifically Mercury? This is driving me insane.

But if Mercury is somehow connected to the Darkness network through the spires, is it possible that it serves as some sort of a communications hub? Maybe that's why the Witness is still keeping it? And it still is! We can see it in Root of Nightmares, in the Witness' room. Titan is still obviously there as well because it came out before Titan returned, but Mercury and Io are still trapped. This is also confirmed by the tiny excerpt we can see from the TFS Collector's Edition which I talked about in here.

Or the reason for Mercury is something completely different. We have no clue why Mercury was taken and what's going on there and why the Witness called Calus there and why the tones happened and why are they the same tones that can also be heard from anomalies and Pyramids.

To fuel me even more, they decided to drop two lore pieces in Season of the Deep that relate to Mercury and the tones tangentially. I know literally everyone and their grandma thinks that Targeted Redaction is just there to be funny (and so did I at first), but I genuinely can't accept that as being just a joke. The gist of it is that Osiris has no clue who Vance is and that is, to put it simply, impossible.

Obviously Osiris did not like the Cult and they were annoying to him, but he knew Vance. He spoke to him only once, but Vance is the one who told him to "plant the seed," a message that Mara gave him years before. This literally sets up the entire Season of Arrivals. Not only that, but Vance told Osiris about the tones and Osiris was deeply troubled about them. He's the one who continued the research and went around the solar system after planets disappeared, investigating anomalies and discovering that they emit the same tones. He mentions Vance, by name, twice in Immolant:

"Do you hear that?" Osiris asks, turning to Sagira. He turns the ship's scanning array toward the anomaly. "Like the tones Vance described. From the spires, and then the Pyramids. It was coming from the anomaly that replaced Io as well."

"We could use the Crucible right now. Your trials. This will be very helpful. You mean to stay, yes?" "I will. Long enough to show you how to implement the simulation; but tonight, I must disembark," Osiris says. "So soon?" Osiris tenses his jaw in forced silence. He twiddles with code. "I'm worried about what Vance found."

At the same time, Osiris also sends us the seasonal artifact from Hunt, Fang of Xivu Arath. In it, he mentions:

The zealots that followed me to Mercury have proved themselves useful��� twice now, actually. They possessed an artifact in their stores: a Hive fang.

The zealots being useful "twice" refers to Vance telling him about the seed and having this artifact kept safely in the Lighthouse (technically, it's three times: in Curse of Osiris, Vance told us where to find the machine to bring Sagira back and it was being kept by the Cult, but it's unclear if we told Osiris the details). Osiris, again, specifically mentions Vance when he recounts where he got it from, in Immolant:

Sagira had chided him for storming the Lighthouse and ransacking Vance's possessions. "They're my relics," he said to silence her protests.

I know Osiris has been through a lot, but his memories are completely and perfectly intact... Except for Vance. That's bizarre to me, given that there's several important points that tie them together, like planting the seed on Io (something he wouldn't have known to do without Vance relaying Mara's message) and research of the tones, something that Osiris spent a lot of time doing and was explicitly worried about; so worried, in fact, that he was willing to part ways with Saint just to continue that research.

In my old post I also mentioned how Osiris even went to Ana to tell her to ask Rasputin if he heard any tones in the Collapse, but Rasputin wasn't up yet. And when Rasputin was finally up, we had much bigger problems to deal with so I assumed that Osiris never asked because the priority was to find what's on Neptune. But now I think that Osiris didn't ask because he doesn't remember. Because the memory of Vance and tones and whatever they mean was deliberately removed from him while Savathun had him imprisoned. Or, perhaps, the Nezarec tea messed with it. After all, Darkness is memory.

This would obviously imply that the tones are something so important and dangerous that Savathun (or someone else) wanted Osiris' knowledge of it removed so that maybe she could have leverage or to know something we don't or perhaps for some other purpose by some other actor. This was such a big point that the entirety of Immolant part 1 is almost exclusively dedicated to Osiris inquiring into the tones.

Another possibility is also that Osiris' memory of Vance was messed with because of Io and the seed and Tree (and then as a consequence, obviously, he would also forget about the tones).

There's also a possibility that Savathun is literally right now messing with me and she did it for no reason at all just to generate imbaru or mess with Osiris or maybe she even wanted to do one nice thing for him and remove the memory of the weird Cult and the tones aren't important at all.

But I don't know. The fact that they're the same thing that the whole Darkness network uses and that ultimately leads to the Witness seems like something that should be important. However, I don't think Mercury will return before TFS, especially since TFS CE has Eido writing about how Mercury is still in the Witness' grasp. But, consider also that we don't know the timeline of when Eido's writing is set. It has to be set after Ahsa's reveal about the Witness' origins, but before TFS. We don't have enough information to tell more. There's also Vex shenanigans to consider, something that will certainly be a plot point post-TFS and Mercury is a prime location for that.

Either way, there's something going on here, added also with the second lore tab release in Season of the Deep that tangentially ties to Mercury, which is Unexpected Resurgence. In it, Shayura is approached by Sister Faora, an incredibly niche character who was leading the Cult of Osiris before Vance. She's shown still wearing the insignia of the Cult. We never learned why she stopped leading them and why Vance took over; she just kinda disappears from the lore book (Trials and Tribulations, the one about the tones). But apparently she's in the City and she's still wearing the Cult robes and she's back in the story... for some reason??

It honestly feels like some sort of a setup for something in the future, something that might deal with Mercury's return. I need to stress just how small she is as a character: she only actually appears in three lore tabs before Unexpected Resurgence, all in the same lore book. The rest of her stuff is just flavour text on the Kairos Function armour pieces from Curse of Osiris. That's it. Why return her in Season of the Deep? Mind boggling.

This whole thing about the tones and Mercury consumes me every day and night. The fact that Deep mentioned Vance in a way easily dismissed as a joke (but also, note the name of the weapon: targeted redaction) as well as Faora coming back is just too wild to me to be a random throwback or a just a joke. Not when it's beyond clear that Osiris should remember Vance, the Cult, the tones and the rest of it. It's even unclear at this point if he remembers that he planted the seed on Io.

So what are the tones? What are they indeed. They're music from the spires of Mercury that reacts to death and uses the same frequency as the entire Darkness network with the Witness at the top. What is their purpose and what is the purpose of Mercury and why did the Witness take it and what is this plotline and when will it be resolved? Summary:

[fireteamepic]

“So, what is it about you that made you decide to go towards the ominous music coming from inside the walls of a dark cave? A misfired synapse? A faulty protocol? I mean, I know I can’t fix that, but I’d just like to know.”

Bandit, focused on wriggling her way past a particularly nasty rock jabbing into her abdomen, said nothing.

“I tried so hard, you know. Once, the Speaker himself asked me if I’d ever dreamed of the kind of Guardian I’d meet one day. Oh, I don’t know, I said. I think I’d just like my Guardian to be sensible. Sensible, Bandit. Does this seem sensible to you? I mean, you’re currently losing a fight with a rock.”

“You know,” Bandit grunted, wrenching herself free at the cost of a fresh tear in her cloak, “you’re making a really big deal out of this.”

“I make it a habit to make a big deal out of all your bad decisions. I’ve made fourteen big deals in the last five days. Anyway, have you considered this moon might be haunted? Think about it. I bet you didn’t.”

“Pyxis,” she hissed.

“I’m just saying! Haunted cave. Haunted music. Stranger things have happened.”

“Shush.”

Pyxis shushed.

The sound was… shimmering, somehow. Like it was alive. Like it was speaking to her. She let her eyes power down, leaving her there in the dark with it - this copper-toned melody, this patina of sound. It was beautifully intangible, like something from a forgotten memory.

Or a dream.

All at once, a wave of pain blanketed her - or, not pain, but its synonym. A hollowing, a frigid flame that bloomed in her skull, ravaged her chest and seared her legs. She clutched at the rock with fingers-turned-claws, thrashing those last few desperate feet to freedom.

Shapes in the dark. Cavern walls bathed in scarlet. Bandit staggered to her feet, her vision returning slow in the gloaming. Her fingers twitched towards her sidearm as the lights resolved themselves into single orbs of hateful red.

Vex eyes.

They stood motionless, Bandit and the Vex. In the middle of the room, like an altar, like the shape of something holy, hung a prism of some sort. Whatever it was, it was the thing that was singing. And they were all its captive audience.

“Who’s scanning who, do you think?” Pyxis asked quietly. Then, after a pause: “Bandit?”

Bandit’s arm swung upward on a pendulum, the weight of the sidearm featherlight in her hand. One by one, she executed each of the Vex. Pop, pop, pop, pop. Radiolaria splashed against her arms, the walls. She winced from the sting. As if in answer, the music box fell silent.

Pyxis scanned the thing idly, as if already not expecting to find anything of value. Then he did his best impression of a sigh. “I caught one other message. It was encoded in the harmonic frequency, somehow. ‘The great wisdom is like the water in the sea: dark, mysterious, impenetrable.’ Huh.”

Bandit shook as if freeing herself from sleep. “It’s a message,” she said, her voice flat. “I know it is.”

Pyxis’s shell spun anxiously, his little light narrowing in a squint. “You should contact Asher.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not for him.”

“Fine, then. I’ll do it. Hey, Asher?”

The disgruntled voice came sharp across the link. “What? What is it?”

“Have you picked up any broadcasts on channel… J-1869?”

“What? No! No, I haven’t picked up anything of consequence! Now I’ve lost far too much time on the two of you today! Leave me be!”

Pyxis started shaking out of sheer frustration. “Well, could you at least run an archive query for us? ...Asher?” Again, that imitation of a sigh. “Great. You made him mad. You’re both impossible. I’ll run the query myself.”

“Forget it,” Bandit snapped, holstering her sidearm and kicking the nearest Vex corpse. She had had enough of this place, with its secrets and shadows. She just wanted free air and open sky. “Just trace the broadcast.”

Even above ground, Io was a warren. But here, in the green and the black and the blue, in the endless cradle of twilight, Bandit felt truly limitless. Above her, the sunless sky filled with swirling tidal pools of hydrogen and helium: Jupiter, the failed star, the crowned king of the System. Beyond that, only shoals of stardust were visible. Bandit looked up and imagined she could fall into that sky, could fall forever. For each stone, a sky. For each Earth, a Sun. She felt herself swell with the possibilities of that. It was enough to get her mind off the music and the way it had poured itself, unwelcome, into her skull, if only for a moment.

Then, wrenching herself back to reality, she summoned her Holliday-made Sparrow and sped off.

“I’ve been thinking,” Pyxis said as they rode. “And, well, I know you said not to bother, but I ran an archive query on the words and the music. Guess what? They’re both Pre-Golden Age. Both of them!”

“So they’re pretentious,” Bandit said. She felt a pang of despair. This could be nothing - some time capsule left for no one in particular, not her, not the Vex. But she shook her head clear of the thought. This had to be something - some answer to a question she wasn’t yet sure how to ask.

At the very least, she knew it wasn’t some prank from Asher to expedite her departure.

Racing past Blights and hurtling through corridors barely wider than her Sparrow, she wondered why she was doing all this. She could fool herself into thinking it was curiosity - that Hunter cleverness, always seeking questions. But she knew it was something deeper than that, something etched into the core of her. Maybe she was the question. Then she wasn’t searching for answers. She was searching for apotheosis.

For the time being, she skidded to a halt in front of another cave. An overhang, really, nestled in the shadow of a nearby dormant Blight. Huddled amongst the rock and ammonite, still as statues, were five more Vex. They looked like they were…

“Sleeping,” Pyxis said, his voice low. “I think they’re sleeping.”

Bandit hovered for a moment, then swung her leg over the seat of her Sparrow. “It’s… They’re… hypnotized, or something. Held captive…”

As she inched closer, that swell of warmth hit her again. A thin, wavering melody and an echo of the emptiness in her. Her vision throbbed scarlet. Her head pulsed song. And she dropped to her knees, clutching at her face in the dirt and the bone.

She did not move for a very long time.