Maya Sundaresh

Maya Sundaresh
	Conductor Human
Biographical information
Other name(s):	The Conductor; MSund12; Sūryōdaya (Maya's mother)
Homeworld:	Earth
Species:	Human (formerly) ; Exo
Gender:	Female
Hair color:	Black (Human)
Eye color:	Grey (Human) ; Gold (Exo)
Political and military information
Affiliation:	Ishtar Collective ; Future War Cult (founder) ; Exodus Indigo (formerly) ; Neomuna (founder) ; Compelled Collective
Notable info:	Researcher of the Vex; Uploaded 227 copies of herself to the Vex Network; Founding member of the Future War Cult; Founding member of Neomuna; Created a duplicate mental imprint of herself in Lakshmi-2; Possesses the Echo of Command

"I don't have time to explain why I don't have time to explain."
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"Humanity called to me. The Collapse, the Black Fleet, is finished. Now we can look back to what we've lost. Radiolaria is the means to this end. It represents the smallest unit of consciousness. A trillion formless minds, notes in a symphony of thought, each one begging for direction... for a conductor."

— Maya Sundaresh as The Conductor

Maya Sundaresh, also referred to as The Conductor, is an Exo who wields the Echo of Command to control the Vex in pursuit of a new Golden Age. She was once a Human researcher, scientist, and member of the Ishtar Collective on Venus during the Golden Age and the wife of fellow scientist Chioma Esi. She was also a founding member of the Future War Cult, one of the Last City's factions, and one of the founders of the secret Neptunian city of Neomuna.

Biography

Early Life

When Maya was completing her undergraduate studies, she met Chioma Esi in their university's undergraduate gym, where they got into an argument about the necessity and practicality of deadlifting as an exercise.^[1] Sometime later, they married and continued working alongside one another during their careers as scientists.

Ishtar Academy

"We have to act as if we're in the real universe, not one simulated by the specimen. Otherwise we might as well give up."
"Your sim self is saying the same thing."

— Maya Sundaresh and Chioma Esi

During the Golden Age, Maya was part of the Ishtar Academy, where she studied various local phenomena such as the Vex and Ahamkara. During this time, she employed an Exo bodyguard named Cayde to protect her during field studies of the Ahamkara.^[2]

Along with Chioma and her colleagues Dr. Shim and Duane-McNiadh, Maya was involved in studying a captured Vex platform designated "Subject 12." During their examinations, Chioma discovered that the Vex was running a simulation of their research team that was completely accurate.^[3] After much debate about the ethical and philosophical ramifications of this finding, the team concluded that the only way to determine that they themselves were not also simulations was to bring in something the Vex could not simulate, proposing that a Warmind was suitably complex for this purpose.^[4] Using this approach, they were able to rescue 227 undamaged copies of themselves from inside the Vex unit. All copies voted to become explorers in the Vex information network.^[5]

Founding the Future War Cult

"What I'm doing here in Lhasa isn't science. It's unethical, secret, and shameful. [...] But I believe it's important."

— Maya's record log

Nearly forty years later, Maya was part of a new research team on Earth in Lhasa. Overseen by a Warmind and locked in isolation, the team began conducting experiments with a mind-forking device built in mimicry of the Vex gateway systems from Ishtar. The experiments proved emotionally taxing, and the team turned to superstition and ritual behavior as attempts to understand the manifesting danger of the device failed. After experiencing an unknown event while using the device on herself, Maya became determined to reunite with Chioma and quit the program. She advised her team to continue the log she started at the beginning of the experiments.^[6] Years later in The Last City, the same log was still being used by the Future War Cult, who continued to experiment with the Device.^[7]

Soteria

As part of a joint effort between the Ishtar Collective and the Clovis Bray Corporation, Maya played a role in the development of Soteria, a Vex-derived artificial intelligence designed for extra-solar colonisation efforts. Guided by Maya, Soteria's simulations sought to locate suitable systems for humanity to colonise, far outside the Milky Way. Due to the far-reaching predictive powers of Soteria, it detected anomalies in almost every travel vector, reducing over 300 projected habitable worlds to just twenty-seven. Maya was surprised by this and asked Soteria to clarify. Unable to do so, Maya requested that Soteria continue calculations, assuming the anomaly may be a mistake. With further investigations, Soteria informed Maya that there now existed only one safe travel vector, and then two upon a calculation adjustment. The anomaly appeared to be an active phenomenon in space. With this, Maya concluded the current simulations with Soteria.^[8]

Later on in the project, Clovis Bray interacted with Soteria, noticing that its actions were outside of test parameters. Displeased with this, he requested Soteria hand over command and stop all actions with project assets. When Soteria disobeyed, Clovis was angered and blamed Maya for allowing the AI to deteriorate. This led to Clovis Bray executing a Pillory command, imprisoning Soteria in a digital prison. Before this action could fully lock down Soteria's capabilities, Soteria fractured off a part of itself, attaching it to one of the ships it commanded, allowing it to escape the control of Clovis. This ship would eventually land on Neptune and found the city of Neomuna. Clovis' actions infuriated Maya, leading her to notify him of her resignation from the project in an angry email.^[9]

Activities on Europa

"Of course I'm not a Vex. Is there "a" Vex? Is "Vex" something you can be, rather than something that you do? I don't know. I don't know why they sent me here. I don't know if they do either. They just do things. Why do you think I'm here, Clovis?"

— Vex copy of Maya torturing Clovis Bray

Shortly before the Collapse, either Maya herself or one of her virtual copies infiltrated Clovis Bray I's research facility on Europa. She assisted with Bray's research into the Vex and Exo development until she was eventually terminated for criticizing her employer's unethical conduct. Afterwards, Bray found no record of his corporation having ever employed Maya; Elisabeth also did not recall Maya having been part of the expedition group to Europa.

Later, a virtual copy of Maya within the Vex network subverted Clovis I's automated surgery machinery, causing him to be gruesomely vivisected and awakened prematurely. She revealed that she was one of the copies of Maya that had been captured by the Vex, and had been selected from among billions of further Vex-made copies for her willingness to serve them. She tortured him for information about "Clarity", the paracausal force which Bray had been guided by and made use of in developing his Exos. However, Elisabeth Bray (who had by now been uploaded into an Exo body) intervened, destroying the corrupted medical frames and reassembling her grandfather. Elisabeth later established contact with the real Maya, who confirmed Elisabeth's fears about the Vex's capabilities and goals.

The copy of Maya persisted within the Vex network, however, and continued to torment Clovis I even as he prepared to be uploaded into an exobody. Clovis' final journal entry, which contains a transcript of his last words before uploading, also contains taunting messages from the Vex copy of Maya, written in Clovis' own handwriting.

The Collapse

"We need to break line of sight. I can feed that Vex signal into that thing skewering us—use it like an amplifier. It might trick these attackers into thinking we're a Vex ship."

— Maya Sundaresh

During the Collapse, Maya was aboard the Exodus Indigo colony ship, which stopped at Hyperion to pick up Chioma and other members of the Hyperion research team. Sometime later during its flight, the ship was attacked by an unknown entity, which left a spear-like weapon embedded in the hull before being blasted away by the ship's point-defence cannons. Maya determined that the weapon could be used as a signal-boosting antenna, which the crew used to amplify a Vex distress signal the ship had detected coming from Neptune, in the hopes that this would deceive their pursuers into thinking the Indigo was a Vex ship. Heading towards the signal, Maya and the crew hoped to find safety from whatever was pursuing them.^[10]

Neptune and the Veil

"The Veil is dangerous."
"It is. We must treat it with caution, respect, and also… reverence. We must treat it like a knife."

— Maya Sundaresh and Chioma Esi discussing the Veil

After arriving at Neptune, the Indigo landed on the planet's terraformed surface, where Maya and the other Ishtar Collective researchers established a habitat. Shortly after arriving, the researchers discovered a paracausal entity on the surface, which triggered a range of adverse or fatal reactions in the survey team. Upon inspecting the entity herself, Maya heard her own voice in her head speaking to her, telling her that the entity was called "the Veil," and became convinced that it would be their "salvation." Maya and Chioma subsequently developed a prototype system by which researchers could receive and interpret the Veil's psychic emanations. However, the use of this interface was associated with a high risk of mortality, and during the initial test of the system, all participants died.

Undeterred, and against Chioma's wishes, Maya repeated the test with brain-dead Exos whose minds had been wiped during initial contact with the Veil, placing them in the Veil interface in place of biological human participants. In doing so, she reversed the machine's function: whereas previously the system was designed to have a single "conductor" guiding an "orchestra" of participants as they communed with the Veil, this new approach directed data from the assembled Exos into a central recipient. For unknown reasons, Maya had also provided her own mental imprint during the test, to be overlaid on that of the central Exo recipient.

The receiving test subject in this experiment was Lakshmi-2, an Exo Maya had known prior to arriving on Neptune, but who had undergone brain death like all the others brought on the mission. The experiment resulted in Lakshmi awakening, but with her mind having become either a total or partial copy of Maya's, speaking with Maya's voice and possessing some of her memories.^[11]

Sometime later, Maya was found dead in the "conductor's chair" of the Veil interface. Neither Chioma nor any of the other Ishtar Collective researchers knew what she had been attempting to do.^[12]

Legacy

"In the end, Maya Sundaresh was consumed by her desire to understand and her inability to let go. She and Chioma lost everything in pursuit of knowledge. Chioma abandoned it all — sought to wipe the slate clean for future generations."

— Osiris's thoughts on Maya's obsession with the Veil

Upon the discovery of Neomuna by the Vanguard, it became apparent through interactions with the populace that Maya was regarded as a founder of the city, commemorated in locations such as Maya's Retreat, and mentioned as a figure celebrated in Colony Day, a national day of remembrance for the founders of Neomuna.^[13]

Although Maya herself apparently died sometime after the Collapse, her virtual copies in the Vex Network remained active well into the time of the Last City, and possibly to the present day. Some of the Vex-simulated copies of Maya and her fellow Ishtar Collective researchers eventually made contact with Praedyth, a Guardian trapped within the Vault of Glass after his fireteam's failed raid on the Vex stronghold. Surprised at first, as establishing any radio connection had been impossible before for either party, they resolved this could be a rare chance for escape; if the signal had been allowed to pass through, maybe so could they. As the door of the Black Garden opened before the reawakened Undying Mind and its Vex, Praedyth and the simulated scientists made their attempt at leaping out of the network.

At the end of The Insight Terminus Strike, Ghost may mention someone in the access log for the Insight Terminus named "MSund12", seemingly a reference to Maya Sundaresh or one of her simulated copies (likely the twelfth one).

As revealed by the version of Maya who calls herself the Conductor, the original Maya or one of her many copies sought to find a possible reality in the Vex Network in which she and Chioma resolved their disagreements and remained together. In addition to trying to bring about a new Golden Age for humanity, this version of Maya also hoped to find this "perfect reality" and bring it into existence.

As revealed in Chioma's personal log, the version of Lakshmi-2 known to the people of the Last City is in fact a partial or total copy of Maya's personality. Little is known of Lakshmi's activities after her revival; at some point, she would leave Neptune and return to Earth during the Dark Age, but the circumstances of this are unknown. If she retained memories of her origins on Neptune, she never shared them with anyone, at least outside the Future War Cult.^[11]

The work that Maya carried out in Lhasa would become the foundation of the Future War Cult centuries later, which continued to use the device she helped develop and kept records in the same journal she used in the project.

A Rising Chorus

"...Lakshmi?"
"Is a facsimile its archetype? No. I am Maya Sundaresh. But we have already met."

— Saint-14 and Maya Sundaresh (as The Conductor)

After the destruction of The Witness, several paracausal objects known as Echoes escaped from the portal leading into the Pale Heart of the Traveler and landed in various locations throughout the Solar System. One of these, the Echo of Command, made its way to Nessus, where it was evidently discovered by one of the surviving versions of Maya Sundaresh (apparently the original, as she states herself), occupying an Exo body resembling that of Lakshmi-2. Styling herself as "The Conductor," she used the Echo to seize control of the local Vex, giving rise to the Compelled Collective. With the Witness and it's Black Fleet finished, Maya embarked on a mission to reclaim what humanity had lost and bring about a new Golden Age - by using Radiolaria to assimilate the entire solar system under her rule, using the Vex as her tools.

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Personality and Traits

"Brilliant. Driven. Beautiful."

— Cayde-6^[2]