#psions

[wastedpotentialsblog]

I've been thinking about this all week. There are a lot of threads and puzzle pieces floating around in my head, but I can't put them together in a satisfying way.

The most likely scenario I have is this:

The OXA machine is likely derived from Vex influence, like the Device created by Ishtar. That would explain how the Vex have data on it in the first place and why both machines are practically identical. The Vex are pervasive, so it's likely that the Psions have encountered them while they were free, or Otzot used Vex tech when they rebuilt it after its destruction after their enslavement. Using the OXA machine to guide them and the Sol Divisive's research, Otzot seeks to reverse-engineer the mind-melding technology used by the Witness (successful attempt) and Maya (failed attempt) to become a God-Thought, a term used by Psions (or at least a Psion under Caiatl) when referring to powerful psychic leaders. We already know Psions are capable of merging minds and even bodies. Tazaroc, Niruul, and Ozletc did this when they formed Inotam during the Season of the Dawn, using an "ancient technique."

This makes the most sense, but I feel like there are holes that I can't see. Either way, Micah's Ghost missions are pulling loose threads and using them to start weaving a tapestry. I'm excited!

[splooosh]

Old Foes

Francis Portela

[telestoapologist]

what if i was a big strong legionary and you were a small and fragile psion and i held you close against my body in the confinement of our cramped ship while we crash into the earth and possibly meet our deaths. you have one less eye than i but that doesn't stop us from looking into one another for what may be the last time.

[torobatl]

I will never be able to get the Robes of Detestation lore out of my head. Psions canonically snuggle one another and sleep in piles of pillows and blankets. Their homes are filled with trinkets and decorations. I will never stop thinking about it.

[ahamkara-apologist]

[Jerks upright] VIVIPAROUS SCIONS THAT SECRETE A LIPID-DENSE SUBSTANCE FROM SPECIALIZED SKIN PLANES FOR THEIR YOUNG LIKE PLATYPUS (THEY ARE NON-PLACENTAL AND THE 'MILK' IS ALMOST WAXY IN NATURE)

[doctorslippery]

[princeruby]

POV: You run away together, and you're both planewalkers. ✨

-Prince of Erosia -

[harloqui]

My mental health has improved substantially since I left and cut off all of the old (kin-associated) groups. At this point in my life I really cannot tolerate the attitudes of non-shifters and otherkin (who don't shift) mucking up my feed. Out with the old!

Now I'm going to be exclusively around shifter-positive groups. I'm having trouble finding those that are alterhuman-friendly, but I'll keep searching... or moderate my own, lol. The gatekeeping on amino (not just with physical shifters, but with all types of shifting) killed my desire to go back there so I've been scouring the net looking for other sites to frequent. I've found a few, but they're all so desolate and inactive... Reddit is the only place I've ever found some decent activity.

If you want to know more about the gatekeeping problem, the shifter community has a habit of placing one type of shifting over others...sometimes this is reasonable, but many other times it ends up suppressing the activity in communities, as people keep their experiences to themselves. I do get where the gatekeepers are coming from-they don't want misinformation to spread, and people claiming fantastical things should not always be taken at face value (though I am open to hearing their claims if they have a good case for them). I do get we need to keep our communities safe from people who may abuse our trust (and claim whatever to get us to do things for them) but at the same time, I don't believe this is the way to do it.

The supernaturals I have found on reddit seem open-minded, however. There are telepaths and psions, psychics and magicians, and even alien abductees. I've been hanging out with the telepaths in the meantime, learning about their ways and abilities. Telepathy has always interested me as a concept-I can't remotely do it, but it does fascinate me.

But that's what I've been doing these past couple of weeks. Exploring the internet for signs of life from the community, and finding more supernaturals on reddit than I could dream of.

[dominque-writes]

prompt: mind over matter

“Don’t you feel completely and utterly stupid? What were you thinking, trying to take on someone like me? You know what I’m capable of.” The psion cocks her head to the side, watching as the young knight claws at the dirt ground as he tries to pull himself away from her. His sword lays discarded, out of his reach.

The blood coating it is no one’s but his.

Stabbed into him by his own noble hand, as she wished.

“All that effort,” she says, looking over her raised arms as if checking herself over, “and not even a scratch. You people keep coming to the outlands to ‘kill the mind witch’, each and every one of you thinking you’re more clever than your predecessor.” She sighs. “I don’t take joy in killing idiot men. But if you’re going to let yourselves into my home unannounced, I have no choice. You understand.”

She extends her hand, fingers outstretched. The essence of his mind sits in her palm as she has drawn it out.

“Please…” but he is ignored.

“I did nothing to you. Any of you. Nothing to deserve this, anyhow. I existed, is that a crime? Your people wish to burn me at the stake for it. You write your stories of my wickedness and make your children fear me. They grow to hate me.”

The psion moves to kneel at the knight’s side, free hand gripping his matted hair and forcing him to look at her. Forcing him to watch as she leverages her hand before him and begins closing her fist one finger at a time. “You grow, you train, you hunt me down. Allow me to pass on some advice for your next life, boy. Fighting a psion is pointless. We are of the telepaths. We know your every move before you do.”

And just like that, she squeezes her hand to a fist and, like a bowstring snapping in two, the knight’s mind is extinguished. His body falls limp. After a moment to catch her breath, she stands upright and brushes off her cloak.

“Foolish mortal.”

[warlords-folly]

Tentative PlansWarlord Awakens

If the timeline doesn't match up, please inform me.

Comes to life and becomes a warlord

Becomes Saint-14 before Saint-14 (the Fallen happen to be there)

Goes to the moon due to the Hive

Gets a lil' affected by Nezi

Breaks through the Exclusion Zone to talk with some psions

Convinces a few to defect (slaughters the other Cabal nearby)

Takes them to the Reef and goes back to 'Demon Saint' mode

Helps Mara subjugate the wolves (didn't hinder her)

Allowed to stay in a corner of the Reef

Gets more psions (General Timeskip)

Helps kill Oryx

Claims a lil' of Oryx's power and makes a [knife]

Inverts the tiny ascendant realm into his ship

Moves the psions to the ascendant realm and proceeds to deal with infrequent nightmare incursions.

Offers them to stab themselves with a [knife]

Creates some Taken Psions (actually called Given)

The Dread invade the realm as Rhulk and Nezi become active.

Nezi becomes a little more agitated that he can't just take all of the Given (they basically became mini witnesses)

Rhulk and Nezi die leaving less Dread and Nightmares in the realm.

The Witness enters the Traveler.

???

Profit

[wastedpotentialsblog]

Destiny enemies and enemy models that I really really liked and could've been used more:

Marauder Ultras:

They're fun to fight! They're fast, can use stealth, can use shock blades, and don't have to Boss StompTM. I would've loved to see these guys decked in white, cream, blue, and black if they were on Europa. You don't have to give em Stasis but a different boss than just Large and slow Captain is a nice change of pace.

House Salvation elites (Enforcers, Disciples, and Assisstants)

>Makes 3 custom enemy types that use Darkness powers for the first time, all with unique models and animations

>barely uses them

>they disappear for 2 years

They didn't come back til Seraph! SERAPH. Come on man. These fuckers should've been everywhere throughout BL. I also think their lack of appearance also contributed to the lack of urgency of the "our enemies have darkness now" threat. I mean, we fought like 8 or 9 named "Salvation Elites" but most were just standard Ultra Captains. If they were Elites, they could've just been these guys.

Side note: Out of the new factions of Lucent Hive, Shadow Legion, and House Salvation. Salvation didn't get an "invasion" season to go with their expansion. Robbed. Truly. They made a Military-Industrial Complex and barely set foot anywhere else besides Europa. I also think this was a factor that didnt create any kind of urgency during BL.

Berserkers

Need I say more? Look at this swagged out motherfucker. If House Salvation really subsumed multiple houses under its banner, Kells Scourge included, should've thrown a couple of these bozos out there. Alter the shield mechanic to be more easily disabled by a solo player. Could even make their armor jet black. Given they have stealth itd be a nice visual contrast when they reveal themselves. I didn't play Scourge of the Past too much, but I did enjoy these guys when I did.

(Can you tell I'm biased at this point?)

Psion Flayers

Easy miniboss material. They dont have to be Ultra sized, maybe just slightly bigger than standard Psions. Could even give them a supporting role on the battlefield. Empowering Cabal around them with their enhanced telekinetics, those enhancements varying by elemental type and tying back to our Light 3.0 abilities. (Sun Flayer/Solar=heal, Abyss Flayer/Void=overshields, Storm Flayer/Arc=movement speed). Of course, their armor would have to have more visual differences and distinct silouhettes as I imagine trying to pick out which one is which based on color alone could be difficult for some. Hell, truthfully, I'd be fine if they were just the fucking Psion Sisters from Season of Dawn copy and pasted everywhere. But a supportive role would add more variety to a fight.

Rocket Centurions

Bet you forgot about these dudes, huh? They pop up in the EAZ but, you know, we've been fighting the Cabal for this long, you think more would've strapped rockets to their backs by now. While their missiles are just Colossus slow missiles (iirc), they could just be normal missiles that explode and don't slow just to keep them different. While these could be neat minibosses, if you want an Ultra one at the end of a story mission or something, they could take the Elykris (The Machinist) route of firing missiles where they go straight up in the air and red dots target the ground around you and you have to keep moving. They could've popped back in with the Shadow Legion. I think they could rock black, gold, and purple

Anyway this is mostly about House Salvation and Psion Flayers and I remembered Rocket Centurions in the middle of making this post. If I remember anything, I'll reblog it. I was gonna say something about the other races but Hive don't have a lot of variants that can be turned into minibosses and the Vex got Wyverns (seriosuly. No notes. A perfect enemy type). Obviously it's like way too late to add these to previous story missions, but if we are gonna reuse enemy types, can we reuse some of the cooler ones? Please?

[241731bbean]

Daily Dragon Day 11! Psion the fae all finished!

[telestoapologist]

"When Calus made public his intentions to free all Psions within the Uluran Empire, Otzot rebelled because it would dilute the prestige of her status as a freeborn. Otzot participated in the coup to oust Calus by using the OXA Machine to communicate with the conspirators, ensuring that the Psions remained subservient to the Uluran."

otzot you rat bitch if i see you it is on sight

[rkdvanguard]

Commission from @Rpbattleman

H'rask Hackshear

A hobgoblin that grew up isolated due to her appearance. Her friends were imaginary but a particularly odd pancake creature often stood out. When her talent for psionics grew, the creature she imagined may have been real after all...

[thefirstknife]

love the little extra info we got about Nezarec, and that in universe confirmation of the questioning of if it's even possible to kill him in anyway that matters

SAME!!!! Fascinating stuff that clears up some of the issues I've had back in the day that didn't make sense to me.

For those that don't know, one of the Lost Ghosts quests from Micah has you going to the Lunar Pyramid which shows this dialogue:

So first, what got me, is the confirmation that Nightmares aren't Nezarec's original power. This bothered me since LF CE because in LF CE, Elsie is shown having a Nightmare appear to her in the Europan Pyramid. This felt like it was telling us that Nightmares are a generalised power of the Darkness, which makes sense since Darkness deals with emotion and memory and the mind and consciousness.

That explains why they could appear in other Pyramids, but also since Plunder and onwards, there was an insistence that Nightmares are some sort of Nezarec's original power. Which, again, didn't make sense to me because of Elsie's Nightmare. Now it's a lot clearer. Nightmares are an untapped power of Darkness and can appear anywhere, but Nezarec also co-opted this power and became famous for using it. This could perhaps have something to do with the fact that he was in charge of the Veil during his disciplehood. And of course, the implication that even after we killed him, he still persists, something also apparent in the raid after he dies and he still speaks to us, promising to be around.

Also from the same quest, some additional stuff about Nezarec and Psions which I am very excited for given the other Psion stuff being mentioned in the other Lost Ghosts quest. But in the Lunar one, we get to hear an old message from the Witness to Nezarec:

Really cool!! The first one (which I didn't catch in my own video so I had to find another which is why the quality is different) is incredible because it appears to be proving a theory that the old Psion faith (Y-goblet faith) was wiped out and replaced by Nezarec's influence through God-Thoughts:

I explained how I worshipped my ancestors and the sacred chalice that cupped their spirits. I admitted that I had put these beliefs before him in my heart. He listened as I told him how the ancient God-Thoughts of my people, the operant overlords who dominated our prehistory by sheer mental penetration, had exterminated my faith for daring to see a spark of the divine in every common person.

It makes sense that this would've been Nezarec's influence, but before this, there was no other confirmation. All of this also happened a very long time ago, in their prehistory. So Nezarec's influence on Psions is very ancient. In a way, since the Psions are still very much under this influence, Nezarec continues on through them as well. Super interested in seeing if they delve deeper into Psion stuff in the future. Some of these details seem to be hinting at it.

[thorough-witness-enjoyer]

thoughts on nezarec .....

Greetings!!! I need him to keep his freaky hand feet away from me, I am so disturbed by them☺️!!!

But thank you for the message!!

To be completely honest, I think about Nezarec 24/7 just because of how intriguing the concept of his character is! Not only do I find his design to be very interesting and eye catching (I’m free tonight Nezarec), I’m forever in a perpetual state of hunger for lore about him!

You‘re telling me the Final God of Pain is a disciple of an entity who wishes to end all pain because he wants the „fullest gamut of existence“? How did he even get into the Witness‘ clutches and how did it justify having such a sadist as a disciple? What was the relationship between the two like?

He‘s from an unknown species, but can never truly die and was remade by the Witness‘ hands? Tell me more!! How does he possess such powers?!

I am so starved for Nezarec lore and I cannot WAIT to receive more once we start dealing with Misraaks‘ situation, hopefully getting his origins like we did Rhulk. I completely understand that he was not the main focus in Lightfall, but I’m climbing my walls at the fact that Bungie would release such a long awaited and theorized character just for us to have to wait so long for a follow up!!

Bungie drop more Collapse lore that focuses on Nezarec being killed and the Witness losing the Veil and my life is yours, I’m so hungry.

As for his personality, what a guy!!! I have a plethora of headcanons about him, but I like to imagine just how far his tendency to be a sadistic nuisance can go! I make him torture the Witness‘ patience in my head as karma for all it has done and I often wonder if he has an underlying philosophy to his actions! Maybe his love of pain and mastery of nightmares is related to the species he comes from, who knows!

Overall, freaky guy who should be even freakier and is in dire need of more lore! I love you Nezarec, stay freaky, and never improve as a person because you are so funny as is!

Also a little headcanon drop, I think Nez would be very fond of goats as I imagine he finds their horns to be charming (like his) and he often gets them as sacrifices from his human acolytes! In my head, he has a pet goat he treats as his baby (much to the dismay of the Witness who finds his sentimentality towards the thing frivolous)! I love making that guy do silly things.

Love the glasses and gold chain by the way.