Grimoire:Guardian/Races: Difference between revisions

{{quote|The others sing this song of Light and Dark. We, together, have transcended such unimaginative limitations.|Card blurb}}

It is said the [[Awoken]] were born in the [[Collapse]], descended from those who tried to flee its wrath. Something happened to them out on the edge of the deep Black, and they were forever changed. Today many Awoken live in the distant [[The Reef|reef]] aloof and mysterious, but others returned to [[Earth]], where their descendants now fight for the [[City]]. Earthborn Awoken sometimes venture out to the Reef, hoping to learn its secrets - but find no special welcome from the reclusive [[Queen of the Reef|Queen]].

Presumed to have collided/merged with one-kilometer comet: assessment based on depth of hydrocarbon crust covering the hull, water content of soil, atmosphere of oxygen and carbon dioxide with isotopic ratios placing the comet in the Oort population.

Fear. That’s the only vivid memory left in me. It’s the moment when my fear was so thick and urgent that I gave up breathing. I stopped pretending to think. How I remained on my feet was a mystery, because the terror was bearing down on me, like a mountain about to crush my soul.

But I have to ask, “What was terrifying me?”

Darkness ruled the sky. The world around us had shattered, and it seemed vanishingly unlikely that we would outlive this one awful day. Yet the fear didn’t come from the surrounding mayhem and despair. The source was inside my skin. I was utterly terrified of my own awful nature.

And it occurred to me then that nothing in the universe was more dangerous than human hubris.

That’s why I was afraid.

Maybe it was me. I don’t remember.

I was trying to focus, and a new thought took me: My soul lay between those two entities. And that’s how I am still: The boundary, the seam.

And that’s when the fear began to fade.

Built for a long forgotten struggle, the Exos are self-aware war machines so advanced that nothing short of a Ghost can understand their inner functions. They remain ciphers, even to themselves: their origins and purposes lost to time.

Whoever built the Exos fashioned them in humanity's image, gifting them with diversity of mind and body. Many of the City's Exo citizens live and work alongside their organic brethren. But others fight again, re-forged in the Light of the Traveler to serve as Guardians.

My friend, you should meet the Vex. There is nothing human in them.

I think someone wanted to live forever.

Warlock thanatonauts die and come back with insight. I'm going to attempt the same process to get at buried memories. Specifically, I'm going to fire a charged particle beam into my head and see what comes out. We Exos have been around a very long time. I want to know what's in there.

We are on the ice. This is elsewhere and elsewhen. There is a mighty aurora and it is reflected in the ice so I walk between two fires although the one below is cracked and full of corpses. I have and am a weapon.

Up in the sky there is a hole in Jupiter and it tears at me when I look at it. It tears at me. It is hungry. Maybe the hole is not in Jupiter but in me.

Shame. Did I ever suffer exhaustion? Someone asked the question. Or maybe I asked it of myself. Then it looked at me. This moment was real. I told it what every Exo knows: “What can’t touch you has no strength over you. And there’s no place for fatigue to latch onto me.”

I’m a soldier. I was forged by other hands and forced into the role of warrior. According to my scars, I fought and fought. Besides bits and flashes, every battle has been forgotten. But I have this clear, awful sense that others died. In my unit, every soldier was killed except for me. Yet despite a thousand chances to be shredded and scrapped, here I stood, no weapon in my hands, making fists out of habit but with nothing to hit.

I’d fought to save the Earth. That was my sense of things. But our world was collapsing around us, and every soul was doomed. Even cockroaches and microbes would die. And being an expert in the art of losing battles, I saw no ending to this battle but another loss.

It is stubborn. A curse delivered by the gods will hold you when everything else has given up on you. And it was obvious that survival was my eternal curse. A thousand battles and how many were won? Judging by the evidence, none. And that’s why the shame was chewing at my ceramic guts. But despite the horrific losses, I had endured.

“This isn’t over,” I said. To this enemy, to myself. To the wind threatening to carry me away.

“This war isn’t done with me.”

{{Quote|This was our world, our solar system. We were here first. And no matter what the darkness brings, we will be here at the dawn.|Card blurb}}

[[Human]]s are survivors, tough and resilient, descended from those who built a [[Golden Age]] only to see it ripped away. Now, after an age of retreat and desperate struggle, they fight to take back their solar system and claim a new future. There are those who believe the Traveler chose Earth for a reason. Now it is humanity's obligation to prove itself worthy of the Traveler's faith.

''From the diaries of Commander Jacob Hardy, pilot, Ares One''

The mission is a go. Crew of three: Mihaylova, Qiao, myself. Immediate departure at the next Hohmann window to Mars. The MREs and return ships will chase us out.

Now we go because we have to. Because the unknown came to us. In fourteen months we'll be face to face with it, and by the time we arrive, it should be active again - just like it was active on Jupiter, and Mercury, and Venus.

That’s what I remember. Hope churning beneath my skin, assuring me there was a place besides this place. A realm that would nurture us, not kill us. The Earth was ruin. Chaos and madness and death. We were standing on the Earth. Where I am now. But why am I still here? It was my turn to leave. I remember. I was waiting with others like me, and the ships would soon take us away.

I don’t know. Something has stolen my words, the imagery. But I still remember what it promised us...