OXA Machine

The Odyle Xenotaph Anarchive, commonly known as the OXA Machine or OXTA, is a device that is said to be capable of clairvoyance, both by revealing past events and by supposedly prophesying of the future. Its latest iteration was destroyed by the Cabal Empire when the Psions were conquered and enslaved. Centuries later, it was rebuilt by Freeborn Otzot.

History

The OXA Machine is of unknown origins, having been built, destroyed, and rebuilt many times throughout history by a variety of different alien species. Umun'arath described it as a "black box for galactic civilizations", a way for civilizations facing destruction to record their demise and pass on their knowledge to others. Its oldest records contained information about the Hive.

At some point in the distant past, the Psion race became the latest to possess the OXA Machine. This was destroyed when the Psions were conquered by the Cabal Empire. Centuries later, a brilliant Psion scientist known as Otzot recreated the machine on a Psion moon called Brand. Umun'arath dispatched a Cabal armada to bomb Brand in order to destroy the device once again, but was ordered by Emperor Calus to stand down. Rather than punish Otzot, Calus rewarded her, and the OXA Machine was integrated for the Empire's use.

At some point, the OXA Machine led the Cabal to investigate the planet Aark, whose inhabitants had been annihilated by the Hive.

Calus claims to have "interpreted the mad prophecies" of either the remade or original OXA Machine, one of which detailed in vague terms the long-ago rise of the Hive under Oryx, the Taken King. Various elements of Hive history relayed by the machine would subsequently make their way into Cabal mythology and culture; for example, the Cabal learned of the Hive word caiatl, which expresses the concept "it may not always go as it needs to go," from the OXA Machine, and it became the name of both a star and later the Princess-Imperial Caiatl, daughter of Calus.

During the Midnight Coup, Otzot harnessed the OXA machine to transmit plans to her co-conspirators in secret.

The Vex kept information about the OXA machine accessible through the Insight Terminus on Nessus. This information was accessed at unknown times by both Otzot and a simulated instance of Ishtar Collective scientist Maya Sundaresh. After the Red War, Kargen, the Technocrat led an offensive on the Insight Terminus, attempting to empower a prototype of the same machine.

It is later mentioned again by Tazaroc, the Sun Eater in the Season of Dawn where she describes it to have "troubled ramblings" and is a "mad thing", suggesting The Sundial was superior to the OXA in its foretelling and predictions.

Trivia

• "Odyle" is another word for the "Odic force", a hypothetical "life energy" that was proposed to exist during the mid-19th century.
• "Xenotaph" is a pun on cenotaph, a symbolically empty tomb commemorating a person whose remains are elsewhere. Cenotaph is a compound word in Greek combining kenos (empty) and taphos (tomb). Xenotaph replaces kenos with xenos (literally foreigner or stranger, though commonly used to refer to aliens), so it can also be read as "alien tomb".
• The acronym "OXTA" is an anagram of Taox, the name of an ancient proto-Hive female who once served as mentor to the children of the Osmium King on Fundament, and who survived for millenia after the rise of the Hive before vanishing. As much of the information derived from the OXA Machine by the Cabal seems to relate to the Hive specifically, combined with the above etymology of "empty (alien) tomb", this may hint at a connection between these two entities.

List of appearances

• Cabal Booklet (First mentioned)
• Destiny 2: Warmind (Mentioned only)
  • Season of Opulence (Mentioned only)
  • Season of Dawn (Mentioned only)
• Beloved (Mentioned only)