#we'd have ice ages and fucked up seasons

[sunlitmcgee]

making an original setting is so funny. girl i have to look up how it would realistically affect the planet if the moon got split in half. it wouldn't be good for us btw. in case you were wondering

[ahungeringknife]

I've got a lotta thoughts about the final cut scene but I don't wanna talk about that right now. I wanna talk about Eramis right now.

And how this is, legitimately, all her fault.

Eramis wanted safety for her people. A new start. She wanted Riis Reborn to be the new home for Eliksni. It was supposed to be a safe place from Guardians or humanity who attacked them.

It was. And it was for a long time. Decades. Maybe even a century or two. Riis Reborn was not built in a handful of years. Eliksni have been building and crafting Riis Reborn for a long time. And no one bothered them. Earth had no reason to investigate or go to Europa. We thought it was an abandoned ice world. That not even the Traveler or our Golden Age had been able to colonize the frozen ocean moon. We had no reason to even look at Europa. So we didn't. Even if there was a Pyramid there so what? There are Pyramids everywhere in our system. I'm sure there's one on every moon. I mean there's one on Earth's moon so why not?

Riis Reborn was a safe place for Eliksni. They were sheltered against the elements, ether probably wasn't so strictly rationed, the city was big enough to produce its own food and the Eliksni are smart enough to do so!

But Eramis couldn't be happy with Riis Reborn being as it was. It wasn't enough. She hated the Traveler. It had abandoned her and made her lose her mate and child and she blamed it for all the wrong doings of the uncaring universe. She needed revenge.

And she fucked it all up! She fucked it up for all the normal Eliksni living in Riis Reborn trying to have a normal life without fighting where they could raise their children and not be afraid they'd end up at the other end of a Guardian's gun or Light.

Eramis' need for revenge spoke to the Darkness. And the Witness spoke back. And it offered her a boon. A boon of Stasis; to get her revenge.

From what I understand Eramis' need for revenge is 1: Traveler=Whirlwind, 2: hates humanity for being Traveler's next chosen, and 3: hates humanity for the slaughter of her people.

I know a lotta people like to go 'yeah! Humanity sucks they killed a lot of Eliksni for no reason when they came in peace' as we get from Inaaks' lore book from Season of Plunder. The books tells how humanity gleefully killed Eliksni without a second thought and how they were monsters.

And here's why this part always bugs me. It bugged me in Beyond Light, it bugged Splicer, it bugged me in Plunder. It's bugged me since the Eliksni got more lore and became Eliksni and not just the Fallen. Everyone loves to point the finger at humanity for 'mindless' killing and slaughter of Eliksni, especially with what we found out Saint did in Splicer. I'm not saying he should have done that, he definitely shouldn't have, but the sympathy stick is used heavily in Splicer.

When the Eliksni arrived in Sol humanity was in the middle of its Collapse. We'd just suffered a system wide level of devastation we'd never felt before against a threat we had no idea how to fight. That we couldn't fight. A wave of Darkness fucked up our shit and caused a system wide catastrophic extinction event for humanity. It cut us off from our colonies and our colonies from Earth, it destroyed ships, it crashed Exodus ships. It left humanity at a state I'd say somewhere around the bronze or iron age but with the knowledge that we could rebuild and we could get back to where we were it'd just take time. But we were a broken, defeated, species who'd just been toppled from it's highest point of the Golden Age by an extraterrestrial threat: Nezarec (and I assume some Hive).

And then these other aliens show up. We can't speak to them and they can't speak to us. And maybe humans did strike first but humans also have a long long LONG history of showing up some place and colonizing it and killing the natives who live there. So how did we know that wasn't what these aliens were??? Or that they weren't working with Nezarac. In D1 and a lot of D2 the Fallen are 'minions of the Darkness'. We see them as being directly in line and aliegenced to the Darkness. This started a war because the eliksni are like 'wtf we came in peace and you killed some of us!??!!?' without any insight of what humanity was going through or dealing with.

In BL, Splicer, and Plunder there's a lot of 'this is YOUR fault' at humanity. When really, these aliens show up after a system wide extinction event, we have a bad first meeting and then the Eliksni go 'okay murder it is then!' and we end up where we are. Neither side is right. Neither side is wrong. Both are completely justified in their distrust and even hatred of the other. Eliksni and humans have devastated each other and been at war for literal centuries.

And back to Eramis.

Eramis was there for that. She was alive for that. She saw what happened, or at least heard about it. And then she comes to Riis Reborn, a safe, neutral moon that the Earth doesn't know about, that the Guardians do not care about. And Riis Reborn had normal Eliksni style strife like House infighting or petty bickering. But the people weren't being slaughtered. And it's like she went 'yeah man. That's cool. But also fuck humanity now that we have a foot hold here let's get them'. And as sOON as she was given Stasis by the Pyramid she didn't even hesitate to go 'okay now I can attack the Guardians, Earth, and the Traveler.' Even though Stasis is very heavily a defensive subclass. It is meant for CC and defensive positioning and possibly given to Eramis by the Pyramid as a gift to protect Riis Reborn.

Can't have that.

And that's why Variks sends out an SOS. He sees what this has done to Eramis and how it will destroy the peace here on Europa if she's allowed to attack Earth. How it will cause those who want to live peacefully to be brought into a war they never wanted to be in to satisfy Eramis' need for revenge. And he knows whatever happens will also not be good for Riis Reborn but it's better than watching Eramis destroy House Salvation (and kill Servitors).

And then the Guardian arrives on Europa. Because the Eliksni we trust (sort of) sent out a desperate SOS knowing we were the only hope for Europa before Eramis did her very best to ruin it.

And from there Eramis blames everything on us. Her friends getting killed. Her people fleeing Riis Reborn. What's happened to House Salvation. All of it is somehow our fault. Even though Eramis is just reaping what she sewed.

None of this would have happened if Eramis had been able to move on and forgive, or at least try to, the way Saint has, the way the City is doing, the way House of Light is, and probably a good amount of House Salvation as well. But she can't. So she blames us for all of her misdeeds, all of her torment, all of her dead friends. But if she'd put her need for revenge after the need to keep her people safe none of this would have happened. Riis Reborn and House Salvation would have been whole and Europa would have had a whole House full of Stasis users to protect it.

I fucking love Eramis so much she's so fucking cool and interesting and deep as shit.