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The Hidden Dossier: Difference between revisions
Pages 4 and 5. Figured out additional formatting tricks.
(Pages 2 and 3. 45 more to go. Fun.) |
(Pages 4 and 5. Figured out additional formatting tricks.) |
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Text in <span style="color:#735c99;">this color</span> indicates handwritten notes made by Ikora Rey. | Text in <span style="color:#735c99;">this color</span> indicates handwritten notes made by Ikora Rey. | ||
==Letter From Ikora<ref group="Note" | ==Letter From Ikora<small><ref group="Note">Letter itself is a separate item, however is included on this page for the purposes of compiling transcriptions to a single page.</ref></small>== | ||
[[Guardian]], | [[Guardian]], | ||
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it is how you end which counts.</span> | it is how you end which counts.</span> | ||
==<tt>SUBJ: INITIAL REPORT ON UNPAIRED GHOST COMMUNITIES</tt>== | |||
===((02))=== | ===((02))=== | ||
<br> | <br> | ||
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===((04))=== | ===((04))=== | ||
<br><br> | <br> | ||
:: So: speaking mercilessly and fearlessly, but with<br> | |||
:: compassion, where is our friendship now? What does it<br> | |||
:: mean? Does it mean that I check in on you every few years<br> | |||
:: and otherwise just let you do your thing? Is that your<br> | |||
:: nature—to draw away forever while I chase after you and<br> | |||
:: nag to be sure you're all right? Friend, you are not Mara<br> | |||
:: Sov, and I am not one of her cadre. I'm not doing that. I<br> | |||
:: want to see more of you, and I want you to want that.<br><br> | |||
:9. Maybe I shouldn't expect a lot of personal insight from<br> | |||
:: the woman who wrote the Hidden creed. Which reads, and<br> | |||
:: I quote, "Find thy self. Know thy self. Destroy thy self."<br> | |||
:: But I'm really worried that if people don't know you, they<br> | |||
:: might end up destroying you. Our much-foreshadowed<br> | |||
:: Stranger saw the future, Ikora. You were dead. Dead<br> | |||
:: because someone you trusted turned on all of us.<br><br> | |||
:10. Can't end on nine paragraphs. Too spooky! I noticed<br> | |||
:: one common thread among these unpaired Ghosts. They<br> | |||
:: REALLY like the Books of Sorrow. Ever since Eris<br> | |||
:: deciphered the calcified fragments, Guardians have been<br> | |||
:: fascinated by the history of the Hive. But these Ghosts—I<br> | |||
:: don't think it's fascination. I think it's pity. They see<br> | |||
:: the Hive as an exploited underclass, for goodness' sake!<br> | |||
:: Victims of a cosmic parasite that tricked the poor krill<br> | |||
:: into eternal slavery. No wonder they haven't found their<br> | |||
:: Guardians. They don't want to help anyone kill Hive!<br><br> | |||
:: But this is troubling, isn't it? Because if Ghosts can decide<br> | |||
:: that they have moral qualms with raising Guardians, and if<br> | |||
:: they can convince other Ghosts to follow suit... we're going<br> | |||
:: to need a program of counter-persuasion. We'll have to start<br> | |||
:: keeping an eye on the morale and loyalty of our own Ghosts.<br><br> | |||
:: This way lies a terrible future.<br><br> | |||
<tt>'''MESSAGE ENDS'''</tt><br><br> | |||
==<tt>FIRST CALLING OF THE HIDDEN, ANNOTATED</tt>== | |||
===((05))=== | |||
<small><span style="color:#735c99;"> | |||
I feel the need to ground my commentary here with anecdote. | |||
</span></small> | |||
:'''1. Find thy self.''' | |||
<small><span style="color:#735c99;"> | |||
To be Osiris's student was to orbit a star. The man would occlude you if you let him; and if you<br> | |||
came too close, you would be burnt. It became tempting to define yourself only by your distance and<br> | |||
angle with relation to him: "Today he is distracted but warm, so I am at a close approach but a high<br> | |||
inclination." This was a mistake. You must know who you are with respect to yourself. This is not an<br> | |||
emotional allegory! If you intend to conduct thanatonautics alongside a teacher, to die and become<br> | |||
as fire and return to life, you must know what parts of you are yours!</span></small> | |||
:: Accurate knowledge is impossible if you do not understand<br> | |||
:: the device by which knowledge is obtained. One of<br> | |||
:: humanity's most monumental achievements is the metric<br> | |||
:: system, an enduring system of measure usable by all<br> | |||
:: people in all situations. But the metric system had a flaw:<br> | |||
:: its units were defined by physical objects. The standard<br> | |||
:: kilogram was an ingot of platinum and iridium. This<br> | |||
:: ingot changed over time, as all material things must; and<br> | |||
:: therefore, it was unreliable. The metric system was not<br> | |||
:: completed until the kilogram found a truer, more absolute<br> | |||
:: definition based on pure knowledge: in this case, Planck's<br> | |||
:: universal constant.<br><br> | |||
:: In the future, we may discover that Planck's constant<br> | |||
:: varies between different volumes of the multiverse. If we<br> | |||
:: do, we will need to find a truer definition of the kilogram.<br> | |||
:: So it is that this is the first step—finding thy self— so<br> | |||
:: that you may know the instrument by which you obtain<br> | |||
:: knowledge, and it is ever ongoing.<br><br> | |||
:'''2. Know thy self.''' | |||
<small><span style="color:#735c99;"> | |||
I thought I knew my self. I'd fought in the Crucible, which requires self-knowledge to check the<br> | |||
impulses that control most Crucible players. ("I'll go straight to the ammo drop again; this time, it'll<br> | |||
turn out differently." No, fool, it will not!) I'd flown high-risk scouting missions far from Earth, and<br> | |||
always returned. I had even bargained with an Ahamkara and, I thought, come out ahead. What I<br> | |||
had wished for was a teacher greater than me.</span></small><br> | |||
<small><span style="color:#735c99;"> | |||
But I did not know my self. I could find myself, certainly, but the map is not the territory. Just<br> | |||
because I could locate Ikora Rey did not mean I could enter Ikora Rey and understand her: and if<br> | |||
you do not know the interior mechanism of a device, you do not know what the device will do.</span></small><br> | |||
<small><span style="color:#735c99;"> | |||
I found myself in a place of crisis. The Vanguard had determined that the Ahamkara had to be<br> | |||
made extinct. But to confront Ahamkara, you must know and accept exactly what it is you desire—<br> | |||
you must let it pass through you without either repudiation or longing, or it will become a wish for<br> | |||
the Ahamkara to feed upon. And oh, the longings I hated to have! To shatter Ophiuchus, to astound<br> | |||
my critics with a display of my full power, to die alongside Osiris and be reborn as one being in an</span></small><br> | |||