The Device

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"Future War Cult has an artifact they call 'The Device' which may be Vex in origin."

— Sister Faora, "Theories on the Vex"

"The Device", as it is referred to by the members of the Future War Cult, is a machine that allows its users to view possible futures, as well as alternate timelines. Though originally constructed by a research team during the Golden Age, the Future War Cult's members recovered the prototype and reconstructed the machine during the City Age

History

Golden Age

"We built the device in mimicry of the Vex gateway systems from Ishtar. An observatory, yes, but I think of it as a mind-ship. Capable of displacing its payload across space and time."

— Maya Sundaresh in a letter to Chioma Esi

The Device was designed and built by a team of scientists in Lhasa during the Golden Age, among them Maya Sundaresh, who had left the Ishtar Academy and its Ishtar Collective around 40 years prior. It was designed to emulate Vex gateway technology that had been studied by the Ishtar Academy on Venus. The Device may have been intended for intelligence-gathering purposes, as it bore the label "SxISR" on its exterior, an abbreviation presumably indicating its status as a special asset for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.

During the initial tests of the Device, volunteer test subjects experienced a variety of disturbing visions or cognitive effects, in at least one case resulting in a suicide. A "supervisory warmind" that was involved with the project (presumably Rasputin or one of his subminds) developed a drug intended to help protect subjects during use of the Device, but this appears to have been ineffective. The seeming capriciousness of the Device caused many members of the research team to become superstitious, hoping that by engaging in ritualistic behavior they might encourage the Device to work more reliably. This research team ultimately became the first members of a pre-Collapse "Future War Cult".

The Collapse & the City Age

The Future War Cult would survive the Collapse, and later become a major Faction in the Last City. The device, initially lost to the march of history, was recovered and rebuilt through the efforts of numerous members of the Cult. The Cult's members (especially their leader) would continue experimenting with the device throughout the years.

The Endless Night & The Cult's End

During the Endless Night, Lakshmi-2 would become more and more paranoid from her use of the Device and the influence of Savathun (masquerading as Osiris). This was especially the case after a vision from the Device showed Fallen standing over a destroyed Last City after a massive battle, with Mithrax among them. Believing that the House of Light posed a threat to the Last City and that the Vanguard were not taking her warnings seriously (as they did before the Red War), Lakshmi took to creating incendiary radio broadcasts, accusing the Vanguard of conspiring with "the enemy", and whipping up hysteria about the new Eliksni residents of the City, causing street brawls and conflict between the Human and Fallen residents of the City, including (at one point) an attack on the Eliksni Quarter. Novarro, a senior member of the Cult and one of those who had helped retrieve the Device in the first place, resigned over Lakshmi's increasingly incendiary rhetoric and paranoid behavior.

Lakshmi's descent into darkness came to a head when she unleashed the Vex on the Last City in a bid to "banish" the Fallen from the City, which resulted in her death at the hands of the machines. The intrusion would be stopped by the Guardian and their allies, but the damage to the Cult had already been done. The coup planned by the Cult, Dead Orbit and New Monarchy was revealed, causing their leaders and remaining members to flee the City. Lakshmi's final message put much of the onus behind the Vex intrusion on Osiris, who subsequently fled the City.

With the end of the Cult and the death of Lakshmi, the fate of the Device remains unknown.

Trivia

• The effects that

List of appearances

• Destiny (First mentioned)
• Destiny 2 (Mentioned only)
  • Curse of Osiris (Mentioned only)
  • Season of the Splicer (Mentioned only)