Battleground: Core

Prev:	Battleground: Conduit
Battleground: Core
Game:	Episode: Echoes
Player(s):	1-3
Location:	Nessus
Enemy faction(s):	Nessian Schism
Hostile race(s):	Vex Taken
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Battleground: Core is a mission accessible during Episode: Echoes as part of the Battleground: Echoes activity. It can be accessed via the director in the H.E.L.M.

Objectives

• Descend
• Eliminate the Taken
• Eliminate the Taken Blights
  • X of 3
• Navigate the Vex Structures
• Eliminate Vex
• Eliminate Antioptes, Hypogean Sentinel
• Collect Your Rewards

Transcript

(Mission Begins)

• Failsafe (Depressed): Hey, Captain? You've heading into the deepest parts of the planet. Those nanobots could only tell me so much.

• Failsafe (Depressed): You'll need to get down there yourself if I'm going to get any useful data.

• Saint-14: You are in unknown territory now, Guardian. Be ready.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: We are closer to the Conductor, Guardian. But we must first remove their Vex.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: The Conductor has made her domain deep inside Nessus. We must cut a path through her Vex.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: The Vex still defend their tunnels within Nessus. Destroy them, Guardian. It will only strengthen our position.

Or alternatively

• Failsafe (Cheery): Greetings, Captain! We are nearing the planet's core. How exciting!

Or alternatively

• Failsafe (Cheery): All of this was hollowed out by the Vex over a period of centuries! I find that quite interesting. (Depressed): And annoying.

Or alternatively

• Failsafe (Cheery): There is still much to discover beneath the planet's crust! Please continue your spelunking. (Depressed): It's honestly super fun for me.

Or alternatively

• Osiris: We've made a great deal of progress here, but we aren't finished. Descend further, Guardian. We'll see what awaits us.

Or alternatively

• Osiris: Sundaresh has accelerated the Vex's reclamation of the planet's resources. Delve deeper, and destroy her forces.

Or alternatively

• Osiris: Nessus has been completely hollowed out by Vex activity. Proceed to its core. We must hold the line against further destabilization.

Or alternatively

• Ikora: You're deep beneath the planet's crust. There's no telling what's down there. Keep moving, Guardian.

Or alternatively

• Ikora: Exploring the Vex structures beneath Nessus will give us intel on Maya's plans… and destroying her Vex will weaken her hold.

Or alternatively

• Ikora: Vex are still amassing inside Nessus. Get down there and destroy what remains of Maya's forces.

Entering a Vex portal to go deeper into Nessus's core, the Guardians continue further until they encounter Taken forces. Defeating the swarms of Taken and destroying the Blights, the fireteam vanquishes a Taken barrier blocking an entrance. They then enter into a Vex tractor beam which takes them deeper into the structure.

• Osiris: What do the Taken want? Why are they here?

• Ikora: Taken are drawn to paracausal forces and those with immense strength of will, but they're leaderless now.

• Ikora: No King and no Witness… and Xivu Arath either doesn't possess the power, or doesn't have the inclination.

• Ikora: All we can speculate is that they're drawn to the Conductor.

Or alternatively

• Ikora: All this space. All this architecture.

• Ikora: Even Failsafe didn't anticipate Nessus being hollowed out to this extent.

• Osiris: Is it more worrying to consider that this is the Conductor's doing… or the Vex's?

Or alternatively

• Ikora: Osiris, you worked with Lakshmi before I did. What was your impression?

• Osiris: I found the Consensus universally difficult. Lakshmi did not stand out among them.

• Osiris: As far back as I can reach… No. I cannot picture her in the Conductor's place.

Or alternatively

• Ikora: Vex activity on Nessus still hasn't tapered off. Failsafe will maintain her monitoring.

• Ikora: Between her nanobots and your work on the ground, the Conductor's next move will not escape us.

Or alternatively

• Osiris: Radiolarian fluid is alkaline. We have not yet learned how the Vex keep it from reacting to acids in the environment.

• Osiris: Or… chemical reactions could be a tool they use in the terraforming process.

• Osiris: Hmm. I must look into this… Later.

Or alternatively

• Osiris: This vast chamber was once filled with radiolaria. Billions of Vex minds working in concert.

• Saint-14: Now they work in concert under the Conductor's direction.

• Osiris: Not for long.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: This hall has the look of the Infinite Forest. The emptiness, the pillars

• Saint-14: Ah, no matter. It is not worth thinking of. The Guardian will uncover the Vex's plans.

• Osiris: And we will bring these pillars down around them.

Navigating across Vex structures, the Guardian defeats hordes of Vex units to lower the barrier leading further into the planet.

• Failsafe (Cheery): Since you released those nanobots into the radiolaria, I can track their movement through Nessus!

• Failsafe (Depressed): I couldn't have done it without you. Y'know, since I'm all the way up on the planet's surface.

• Failsafe (Depressed): It's fun looking at this place through your eyes, though. Exploring. Sightseeiing.

• Failsafe (Depressed): Even after all these centuries, there's a lot of this planet I haven't seen. Thanks, Captain.

Or alternatively

• Ikora: I am reminded of your reports from within the Pyramidion, Guardian.

• Ikora: I wish I could ask Asher Mir how much of this is familiar to him.

Or alternatively

• Ikora: The Vex don't want you here.

• Saint-14: A signal that you are exactly where you should be.

Or alternatively

• Osiris: These barriers are powered by radiolaria.

• Osiris: Living Vex, who made the choice to… [mumbles] spin endlessly in tubes.

Or alternatively

• Osiris: Vex defences are increasing in hostility.

• Ikora: We're getting close to whatever it is they most want to protect.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: The Vex will defend their machinery to the end.

• Osiris: An end you will assist them towards, Guardian.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: What are these moving bars? Pah, a children's game!

• Saint-14: It would take more than that to stop my friend, the Guardian!

Delving deeper into the planet, the fireteam encounter Antioptes, Hypogean Sentinel.

• Osiris: A Vex Mind has raised a line of defence. Take it down.

Or alternatively

• Failsafe (Cheery): Vex defences halt your progress! Go get 'em, Captain.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: The Vex Mind is mounting a counterattack!

Or alternatively

• Ikora: The Vex have established their defences. Remove them.

Upon destroying the Vex Oracle, the fireteam engage with Antioptes who activates rotating detainment walls.

• Ikora: Use Failsafe's countermeasures to their shielding!

Or alternatively

• Osiris: Failsafe has accessed a network backdoor. Bring down their barrier!

Or alternatively

• Failsafe (Cheery): I have initiated a security bypass! Your welcome!

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: Failsafe has hacked their security. Bring down that Vex, Guardian!

Despite the Cyclops's power and the overwhelming amount of Vex forces, the Guardians destroy Antioptes.

• Saint-14: This was here the whole time? Failsafe did not know?

• Ikora: Failsafe's sensors couldn't reach this far beneath the surface of the planet.

• Failsafe (Cheery): Now they can! Assimilating data…

• Failsafe (Depressed): Wow… wow. WOW.

• Failsafe (Depressed): This was here the whole time?

• Ikora: Maybe. Or it could be something new. Something the Conductor built when they grasped the Echo's power.

• Failsafe (Depressed): So, uh… speaking of? Those nanobots aren't responding to my signals. There's a pretty high chance that the Conductor hijacted them.

• Failsafe (Depressed): It ends here, Captain. Sorry.

• Saint-14: It's all right, Failsafe. We can figure out another plan.

• Ikora: Return to the H.E.L.M., Guardian. Failsafe and I will coordinate and find out our next steps.

Or alternatively

• Osiris: Maya Sundaresh's obsession was not born from love.

• Osiris: It is the same impulse that, with the Echo's power, reconstituted her from the Nessus radiolaria… control.

• Osiris: She didn't really want the Chioma from her own timeline. That Chioma was a real person with feelings and desires contrary to Sundaresh's own.

• Osiris: No, no. She wanted a Chioma she could control. And there is no version of Chioma in the VexNet that would have followed that Sundaresh.

• Osiris: Not any she could find, and never the one she remembered.

Or alternatively

• Osiris: I… I know how you feel, Saint. Being puppeted. I know what that can do to one's mind.

• Saint-14: No, Osiris, it is not the same. It is not how you talked about it before. It was not another presence in my mind. It…

• Saint-14: It was a-a voice in my ear… It made me want to do what it wanted me to do. I was not raging against it, like you told me you raged against Savathûn.

• Saint-14: Inside your head you were still yourself. But I… I don't know if I am as I was.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: I told Geppetto what I saw in my tomb. That together we destroyed many Vex.

• Saint-14: I told her, how she was brave, at the end. As I was… And, when she fell, she was proud that I tried to avenge her.

Saint-14: For a moment I knew, what it was like to lose her, and the Light. It was… lonely.

• Saint-14: I understand now, Osiris. I am sorry.

• Osiris: Sometimes I call for Sagira. I put out my palm and she's... not there. I do it less and less, but…

• Saint-14: I know I'm not alone in my grief. Eris understands, and now she and I can help Zavala through his own loss.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: We have not talked much about your search for me, Osiris. But the Sundial must have been a sight!

• Osiris: Yes. It was. An impossible marvel. But without the Drifter and the Guardian it would not have been able to find you.

• Saint-14: Drifter? Hah! After helping you and Sloane, it seems the basement man is not so basement after all.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: I have two lifetimes of memories now. Twice the man I was, hahaha! So much to be thankful for. So much to look back on with joy.

• Osiris: So now you remember the first time I told you I loved you?

• Saint-14: Ah, yes. It was very... formal.

• Saint-14: That, alongside what I remember before? I am lucky to be so loved, across all simulations.

• Osiris: I count myself lucky, too.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: Osiris… Maya believed that your search for me in the corridors of time was the same as her search for Chioma in the Vex Simulation Network.

• Osiris: No. There's a crucial difference. When I failed, I stopped looking. I would have caused damage to time itself if I had fallen into obsession.

• Osiris: And when I did find you, with the Guardian's help, I did not keep searching for some perfect version of you.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: There are hundreds of copies of Maya Sundaresh in the Vex Network. Which one was this?

• Osiris: We can't know. Perhaps one, perhaps a dozen merged into one mind.

• Osiris: But my theory is that the Sundaresh who reached out for the Echo and reformed herself into the Conductor, was the one who died on Neomuna.

• Saint-14: Ah, during her experiments with the Veil, after the Collapse.

• Osiris: Yes. We cannot know for certain, but that drive to experiment an iterate without any regard for the lives of others…

• Osiris: Hmph, I recognize it from Chioma Esi's logs.

• Osiris: There was no one to stop Sundaresh then… but, at least we have done so now.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: It is a terrible question, but… Why did Maya not use the Echo of Command on Chioma, as she did to me?

• Osiris: Beyond a destructive desire for authenticity? Hmm… I imagine that refusal was born from Sundaresh's vanity.

• Osiris: In her view, the real Chioma would not need to be commanded. To do so would be to admit a profound defeat.

• Osiris: And that would have been unacceptable to her narcissism.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: [sighs] I-Ikora, why do you trust me? After what the Conductor did, how do you know I am who I say I am?

• Ikora: Because we learned from Osiris, and from Eris. We can't be frightened into inaction, or into throwing away our allies.

• Ikora: You aren't comprised, Saint. Your essential. Remember that.

Or alternatively

• Saint-14: Ikora, I am a liability against the Conductor. They could command me again… and, I don't know if I can resist.

• Ikora: No. Whatever obstacles we face, we can't let the Conductor distract or confuse us. You're stronger than that, Saint.

• Ikora: We have a task to complete. We have a mission. And you're critical to our success.

• Ikora: So eyes up, Guardian. The Conductor can't take our purpose away, and I know you won't let this stop you.

• Saint-14: No, Ikora. I will not.

Or alternatively

• Ikora: Our plan in your tomb was a risky one. I almost didn't propose it. I knew Osiris wouldn't like it, and you…

• Saint-14: It had to be done. And I thought, maybe... in that moment, I-I thought that I would become him, instead.

• Saint-14: Be the Saint that our Osiris remembered... Lose who I was.

• Saint-14: I-I hoped for that. But it was a wish that came from my despair. I wanted to be the man Osiris loved. The man he lost.

• Ikora: You always were.

• Saint-14: Yes… I know that now.

Or alternatively

• Ikora: Osiris briefed me on your experience in your tomb. Reliving a lifetime of your own memories… I can't imagine it.

• Saint-14: Ah, was not so bad. Besides my death, it was not unpleasant. I was, who I am. Strong, feared, and loved. I was reminded of this.

• Saint-14: The Conductor cannot make me forget that again.

Or alternatively

• Osiris: We've descended as far as we are able. Still more to tread, but… we are closer to the Conductor, and the plans they have for this place.

• Ikora: A whole Vex city buried beneath Nessus. All built for the Conductor?

• Osiris: Perhaps. Or they have co-opted existing Vex architecture. We can't know without further exploration.

• Ikora: What lies at the heart of this place…

• Osiris: I have no doubt we will soon discover the answer to that question.

Or alternatively

• Ikora: We've received no more transmissions from Maya Sundaresh. Her facility inside Nessus is empty. Has she reentered the VexNet?

• Osiris: More than likely. We can search for her, but she is well versed in hiding among the simulations. Our efforts will not bear fruit.

• Ikora: She escaped with the Echo. We've failed.

• Osiris: No. No, we put an end to her plan, and saved Chioma Esi from continued destruction at Sundaresh's hands.

• Ikora: That might be enough.

(Mission Ends)

Enemies

Vex - Nessian Schism

• Precursor Goblin
• Choral Goblin
  • Uplifted Choral Fanatic
• Choral Hobgoblin
• Uplifted Choral Minotaur
• Copyphaeus Minotaur
• Compelled Aggressor

Taken

• Taken Acolyte
• Ravenous Taken Knight
• Servile Knight
• Ravenous Taken Phalanx
• Essence Bearer
• Ravenous Taken Goblin
• Taken Hobgoblin

Boss

• Antioptes, Hypogean Sentinel

Appearance

• Destiny 2: Episode: Echoes (First appearance)