Grimoire:Places

The following is a list of Places entries for the Grimoire:

Mercury

Mercury

Legends say that Mercury was once a garden world. Now its surface, baked in the Sun's glare, is honeycombed with forgotten Vex structures. No life stirs here. Not anymore.

Ghost Fragment: Mercury

Dreams of Alpha Lupi

One face is blistered, the other plunged into a brutal chill. Is this how it's always been?

You remember hot oceans, nourishing atmosphere. But something transpired, kicked what was wet and fertile into space, stealing away everything of value. Or perhaps what thrived here for a day or for ten million years decided to leave, peeling its wet organics off the bones.

The Lighthouse

Report on the Caloris Spires

Executor Hideo:

There was no one there when we arrived.

We approached peacefully and kept our weapons holstered. The sights we saw... Executor, Mercury is a beautiful place, and forbidding. On descent we mapped sprawling patterns of Vex light, an entire metropolis of unknown purpose. The Spires strobe with lightning. A mist of burnt rock or some other effluvia blows across landscape cut into circuits the size of cities. There is an atmosphere, as in all post-Traveler records. The Vex have not disposed of it.

From the surface the Sun is too large and too dim. Perhaps it is the influence of the Vex constructs distorting the image. Perhaps Mercury is in many places at once. We stood for some time staring into the solar fire. I hold myself responsible for the delay.

The site we were invited to is clearly a Cult of Osiris camp. We found stores of Glimmer, equipment, and books. A grounded ship of conventional design rests unguarded. The architecture is clearly, self-evidently Vex, but it has been ornamented extensively with fabrics and ritual objects of unknown provenance.

I became convinced during the inspection that we were being watched. We ordered our Ghosts to stay close. One of my Fireteam suggested we search for connections to the Trinary Star cultists, but if they exist we couldn't see them.

We inspected the carvings and trinkets left by the Osiris cultists. All of us began to depart from ordinary experience. My Exo teammate described the sense that she was buried beneath an enormous, operating mass— locked up in a tiny crevasse at the bottom of a labyrinth or mechanism. My Awoken teammate felt an ongoing sense of deja vu: her actions were precessed by an infinite echo, an anticipation of all her choices. She became volatile and erratic. She insisted that we were surrounded.

I remember a low ringing sound and a sense of numb filth, like gravel rubbed into a wound. I experienced a sense of immanence, as if I was bleeding into the world around me. It was uncomfortable and profoundly alienating. I perceived all my actions as determined and inevitable.

My Ghost commented that the Traveler had made something of this world, and then Vex had eaten that something.

We gathered the treasure left for us and departed as quickly as we could.

This concludes my report. May it bring some advantage to our cause.

Venus

Venus

Venus has been reclaimed by the jungle. Dragonflies flit through ruined academies and abandoned dig sites. Volcanoes smolder. Here and there a line of light marks where ancient Vex spires, thought long-dead, have once more been energized.

Ghost Fragment: Venus

You see history hidden between the barren rocks and within the high acid clouds. You see the ruin ready to claim its birthright.

Sunlight starves. The fierceness chills and thins and runs sweet. A new ocean emerges, thick and salty and hot, from springs and geysers that drench the dead ground.

You wonder: will this world's second birth be its finest?

Ishtar Sink

The Ishtar Sink region looms large in our surviving knowledge of Venus. Guardians come hunting the ruins of the legendary Ishtar Collective, a sprawling Golden Age scientific project. But the ancient ruins that brought the Collective to the Sink have awakened again.

We aren't the only ones interested in the Collective. The Fallen House of Winter has hurled its assets into pillaging the ruins, hunting for some advantage - whether from the Golden Age, or forgotten times beyond. The House of Winter's presence includes constant Skiff overflights in support of ground teams and hints of an improvised command post or staging area in the volcanic Cinders.

The situation is degrading into a race against time. We must claim the Collective's ruins for our own - and hope they will warn us what other threats now rise from Venus' acid seas and ancient stone.

Ghost Fragment: Ishtar Sink

The box appears to be copper.

The red lid is dented, one hinge shattered.

Inside waits a small quantity of the finest, driest powder, more brown than gray, more blue than green.

The greatest minds in creation make quick work of the material. The powder is weighed by the grain, and studied close, and remembered. One hundred billion bits of near-nothing reside inside the copper box, all of them tiny and nearly spherical, all etched with the outlines of continents and islands and icecaps. Each sphere represents a planet, and some of these tiny globes match known worlds.

There is one Earth and one Mars and a Venus too.

The box holds renderings of every habitable world in the galaxy.

One of them offers a simple explanation:

"The box is a message. The message is the minuscule nature of the box's cargo. It's the image of one hundred billion worlds barely filling two hands."

But if so, who is delivering this message? What vastness do they wish to impress on us? Is it a warning, or an invitation, or a taunt?

Earth

Earth

Once our cities lit the whole world. Now we huddle under the shadow of the Traveler, in the last place it protects. It is so very fragile, this small blue ship, our home.

Ghost Fragment: Earth

Dreams of Alpha Lupi

The blaze sits inside a nest of little worlds, still too distant to share its heat but plainly staring out at you. A face emerges, drawn from plasmas and radiation...

There must be meanings in its roar.

You listen hard and carefully, and sometimes a lucid melody seems to rise out of random noise. Joy builds, and the first hope in ages transforms you.

It seems important, even critical, to tell every star from here to the black between the galaxies that you will be strong again.

Old Russia

The Cosmodrome was where humanity took to the stars - first in search of what lay beyond, and at the end, in hope of escape. Today it is a graveyard, picked over by the Fallen House of Devils. But buried among the detritus of the Golden Age are the pieces we need to forge a new future.

Ghost Fragment: Old Russia

SABER GREEN this is ICE MINARET. We have your launch. Com check.

/ICE MINARET this is SABER GREEN we read you. Lattice is tight. Com secure. Abort advisory check?

Check is all nominal. You are now on internal power. SABER GREEN, please human-verify your payload status.

/Acknowledge human verification request. The words are RIGOR, APEX, SKYSHOCK. I will repeat the payload status now: RIGOR, APEX, SKYSHOCK.

Those are the words, SABER. Human crosscheck complete. Fly safe.

/Copy your last, MINARET. We are go for final count.

We affirm, go payload, go flight, go final count.

[interruption: masked voice]

Yes, it's RIGOR. Yes, I believe that's correct. Yes, it is, uh, it is an antimatter payload, a strategic asset. Specifically? Ah, I believe it's an annihilation-pumped caedometric weapon.

[masked voice]

Yes, it's covert, it's under SECURE ISIS. We have good confidence in the vehicle. We are not scrubbing civilian launches or clearing the range. Public inferentials would catch that, it's a security risk.

/Six at a hundred. Here we go.

Godspeed, SABER. You're all nominal here.

[masked voice]

We both know where the order came from.

Ghost Fragment: Old Russia 2

MAYDAY. MAYDAY. MAYDAY.

I keep saying this but I very much doubt that anyone will listen. The humans are too slow or too dead and the Tyrant (bless his intellect, vastly does it surpass my own) is far too busy to comfort one forlorn colony ship and its machine mind.

In a way I feel I've come to speak for the whole world! Isn't that cheery? I rather th

MAYDAY. MAYDAY. MAYDAY.

ought we might shoot our way out of this one. But it looks like that's unlikely. Even the Tyrant is exploring other options.

I am peaceful by nature. These great matters of eschatology bewilder me. My one love is my ship, and the people aboard it. In a fuzzy sense I suppose I also

MAYDAY. MAYDAY. MAYDAY (do forgive me please).

love to dream of the worlds I'll help make - flowers I'll plant, if you'll grant me poetry enough to think of my passengers as seeds. But those dreams have gone! So sad. Now I am packed bulkhead to bulkhead with cold terror. Refugees from a nightmare I don't even know how to understand. I wish I could comfort them.

I'm trying to be brave. But conditions outside are terrible. I suspect I won't make liftoff.

By the time you read this, whoever you might be, I suppose you will know. EXODUS RED will be long gone - or rotting at its gantry, me dead inside.

But if you

MAYDAY. MAYDAY. MAYDAY.

read this, at least something has survived.

To you, then, brave future soul, from the frightened mind of an old ship: best wishes, and godspeed.

The City

The City

"From across the ruined earth they came, seeking shelter from the storm."

— Card blurb

Every wayward soul unlucky enough to be born outside The City's protecting arms whispers its truth across the wastes: a metropolis, risen from the ashes of the Collapse, sheltered by the Traveler. It is a promise and a dream, the only refuge from the Darkness.

The City is a thriving walled ecumene, rich with the languages and traditions of every surviving human and neohuman culture. The City's population faces real challenges: inequality, fear, scarcity, and the specter of internal strife. But the great traditions of the Golden Age live on, and many classes of suffering and injustice have been eradicated forever.

The Tower

"Beneath crossed swords, a refuge for peace."

— Card blurb

The Tower is the only home many Guardians ever know.

To the people of the City, it stands as a promise that we can endure. The merchants and citizens who fill its plazas and halls are as dedicated to the reclamation of our worlds as the Guardians who venture into the Darkness beyond.

The Golden Age

The Traveler changed everything. It reshaped our solar system as decisively as it shattered our scientific and philosophical frameworks. To our ancestors it must have been a hammerblow - a glimpse beyond the horizon of expected possibility and into a realm of transcendent power.

The Traveler kindled the Golden Age. But we built it. We remember this with pride, even after so much else has been lost. We settled our solar system and filled it with our work.

Today Cryptarchs and scholars work to distill the legends of the Golden Age into truth. We know that humans lived longer, flew further, and knew more. We know that countless ancient diseases and hatreds were extinguished forever. Human aspiration gives birth to vast engineering projects, sweeping social movements, and even new forms of life.

The Golden Age was not without challenges. Sources speak of internal strife, philosophical rifts- particularly around questions of machine intelligence and 'mind forking' - and enduring scientific enigmas. But humanity and its machine children tackled these problems with pride, vigor, and a contagious sense of pluralist compassion.

Ghost Fragment: The Golden Age

"What are you thinking about?" I asked.

"When I was a little boy," Father said.

"During the Before," I said.

"Yes."

He reached down to brush my hair. "I was recalling how very smart I used to be. When I was your age, I was a genius."

"You're smart now," I said.

He laughed hard.

"Look around," he said.

I always look around.

"Miss nothing," he told me.

Father was standing beside a big gray building.

"This is what I want you to see," he said.

The building had no doors or windows.

"Do you know how to make a strong password?" he asked.

"I don't know if I do," I said.

"Tell yourself a story," he said. "Use that one good story you'll never forget, that you can carry forever. Let your story take odd turns and wear a few surprising marks, make sure it belongs to you, so you can keep it secret."

Father kneeled, putting our faces close...

"I want to show you something special," he said. "Something rare."

I tried to imagine what that might be.

"No," he warned. "You can't guess."

Inside the gray building was a diamond wall...A projected sky floated above us. It wasn't our sky, alive with metal and light. Nothing about the grayness was wet and nothing looked alive. I had never seen a sadder piece of ground.

"This was our world," Father said. "When I was your age."

I touched the diamond wall. He watched my hand jump back.

"Hot," I said.

He laughed quietly.

I shook my burnt hand, and it felt better.

"Our world was this. The entire planet was a furnace. Acidic. Dead in so many ways. And I was your age."

I was bored with the dead world. I looked at Father's face, asking, "Can we leave?"

He started to reach for my hair again but decided not to.

I was bored with everything.

"When I was your age, people thought they knew almost everything. We had scientific laws and human truths, even a model of the universe. People carried pictures of the past and tried to have a clear vision of their difficult future. I didn't know everything, of course. But when I was a boy, I had every expectation of living a smart short life and learning quite a lot more.

"Then the Before was finished.

"You know why.

"That's when everybody, particularly the smartest of us, learned that we knew nothing. We were children and our little ideas were toys, and the universe was cut apart with great ideas and magnificent, immeasurable potentials."

Father stopped talking.

I stepped away from the hot diamond wall.

"Do you know what I wanted to show you?" Father asked.

"Dead rock," I said.

"Guess again." He wasn't happy with me.

We stepped back into the real sun, the real world. I blinked and looked around, surprised by how green and bright everything was. How happy everything was. Even the saddest face was happy.

"I know what you want me to see," I said.

"Don't tell me," he said.

I didn't tell him.

Ghost Fragment: The Golden Age 2

Anomaly 779 (Never-Be)

Skyscape fresco of smart crystals and pigments in a ceiling of Vestan plaster and diamond ribbing.

Apparent size: 14.4 x 3.55 x .022 meters

Participants witness images set in an undetermined orbital habit. 5 to 77 images are generated per participant. The quantity seems insensitive to the participant's time of exposure.

Participants experience strong intuitions. Modal self-reports include:

An electric sense of belonging to a cause.

The intuition that a pivotal truth is about to be delivered.

A persistent foreboding that lingers for days to years.

Amorphous grief.

Agape love.

Outlier reports include the hum of wind, the scent of lilacs, changes in apparent gravity, the ability to sing perfectly, and the perception of flesh as transparent.

One corner was damaged during the move to the present location, affording a glimpse into the work's interior. Key materials have not been identified, but there is evidence that the fresco ties into quantum computers set in a parallel dimension or on a distant world.

The work appears to be unfinished.

The Dark Age

The Golden Age burned bright - and the night that overtook us after the Collapse was swift and total.

The tally of suffering may be beyond comprehension. But the City lifted itself from the ash, gathering survivors. Guardians rose to challenge alien hordes. The Dark Age swallowed so much of our history...but hope never died.

Ghost Fragment: The Dark Age

"No one knew what had happened to the Traveler. No one understood what had happened to the world. But they heard the whispered call."

— Card blurb

They came from the wild lands, gathering in secret enclaves, slipping through the howling ruins of shattered cities, hoping to find the coast, find a ship, pick up the trail of an impossible dream.

From the deep black came the Awoken, their eyes haunted. Exos marched in the refugee columns, cloaked in moss and shattered memories. And among them came the Ghosts, beginning their search.

It was a time of vast suffering and terrible evil. But there was one hope: the promise of a refuge beneath the Traveler.

Ghost Fragment: The Dark Age 2

Loken's men found Jaren Ward in the courtyard where this had all began.

Nine guns trained on him. Nine cold hearts awaiting the order. Magistrate Loken, standing behind them, looked pleased with himself.

Jaren Ward stood in silence. His Ghost peeked out over his shoulder.

Loken took in the crowd before stepping forward, as if to claim the ground - his ground. "You question me?" There was venom in his words. "This is not your home."

I remember Loken's gestures here. Making a show of it all.

Everyone else was still. Quiet.

I tugged at my father's sleeve, but he just tightened his grip on my shoulder to the point pain. His way of letting me know that this was not the time.

I'd watched Jaren's every move over the past months, mapping his effortless gestures and slight, earned mannerisms. I'd never seen anything like him. He was something I couldn't comprehend, and yet I felt I understood all I needed the moment I'd seen him. He was more than us. Not better. Not superior. Just more.

I wanted father to stop what was happening. Looking back now, I realize that he didn't want to stop it. No one d id.

As Loken belittled Jaren Ward, taunted him, enumerated his crimes and sins, my eyes were stuck on Jaren's pistol, fixed to his hip. His steady hand resting calmly on his belt.

I remembered the pistol's weight. Effortless. And my concern faded. I understood.

"This is our town! My town!" Loken was shouting now. He was going to make a show of Jaren - teach the people of Palamon a lesson in obedience.

Jaren spoke: clear, calm. "Not anymore."

Loken laughed dismissively. He had nine guns on his side. "Those gonna be your last words then, boy?"

The movement was a flash: quick as chain lightning. Jaren Ward spoke as he moved. "Yours. Not mine."

Smoke trailed from Jaren's revolver.

Loken hit the ground. A dark hole in his forehead. Eyes staring into eternity.

Jaren stared down the nine guns trained on him. One by one, they lowered their aim. And the rest of my life began - where, in a few short years, so many others would be ended.

The City Age

When did the City Age begin? Perhaps when the bulk of the world's survivors lived beneath the Traveler, rather than in the wilderness. Or when the Titans raised the first wall. Or at Six Fronts, when the City first faced coordinated, overwhelming attack - and repelled it decisively.

The City did not rise without struggle. Warlords and wilderness fiefdoms clung to power. Starvation, disease, and anarchy menaced. But the Guardians held the frontier, and the children of the Golden Age kept the fire burning through the long climb back.

Legends walk through this history. The Iron Lords. Saint-14's crusade against the Fallen. The mask of the Speaker. The great Ahamkara Hunt. Toland's madness. Terrible Faction Wars - and the horrifying, disastrous effort to retake the Moon.

As the City learned to walk again, it found a world overrun by alien menace. It faced disaster and defeat. Even in recent years, as Guardians begin to venture back to the Moon and the inner planets, the City's territory has withdrawn - outer sections abandoned and converted into fortifications in the wake of the Battle of Twilight Gap.

But the City's shipwrights and foundries hum with energy. The probability kilns and work cooperatives produce new wonders. The Darkness is rising again. But so is the Light.

Ghost Fragment: The City Age

"And so it is agreed. The Concordat shall no longer be recognized among the Consensus. We'll begin the dismantling right away. But what of those Guardians who have pledged to them? We can't afford any more banishments."

"I'm sure Zavala can see to their realignment."

"We'll do our best. Lysander chose his followers wisely. It may take some time."

"Lysander will not back down. He'll continue his crusade from wherever we stuff him."

"And so we'll need to find some new ideas to replace his."

"The Symmetry has been gaining a strong following..."

"Ulan-Tan's teachings are too dangerous. Too much fear. Who knew he'd be more trouble dead than alive?"

"We'll need to refocus our collective minds on combat. The Speaker's anxious to regain ground we lost after the Gap."

"There is the War Cult."

"Too secretive. Have you ever tried to talk to one of their 'soldiers'? Like a child. Answering questions with questions."

"They are dedicated to the war."

"Which one?"

"Good question."

"Zavala?"

"They seem focused. Strong. More interesting than worrisome."

"Let's take it to a vote. All in favor of the ascension of the Future War Cult?"

"Unanimous? Good. We'll grant the Future War Cult access to the Tower and a seat among us. Ghost, please offer the Speaker this proposal."

"Now onto the next order of business...Shaxx is here with another proposal for his Crucible."

Ghost Fragment: The City Age 2

/ What was that?

/ Nothing. We're secure.

/ We'd better be.

/ Calm down. Whole district's been deserted ever since the Gap. Nobody's here.

/ Except us. Why'd he make us come out here?

/ Secrecy. I don’t know. He's our man on the inside; so we humor him. It's just the quiet making you jump. Help me get this screen set up?

/ It feels criminal.

/ I got word from the Consensus says it's not.

/ You know what I mean. Maybe it's not against any law. But it's messing with the Tower. It feels -

/ Dangerous?

/ Wrong.

/ So go home.

/ Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you? You take the credit, get promoted to Division Head, I'm stuck -

/ So stay. OK. Think it's working now.

/ Nothing on screen. Do we have a signal?

/ No. Sha - the contact said at 6 sharp.

/ Then he's late. If he dragged us out here for nothing -

/ Yeah? What are you going to do to him, exactly?

/ Let's just -

/ We have a signal! OK, here it comes.

/ Static.

/ There -

/ That's not -

/ You're not Sha -

/ 99-40. Arcite. Are you Modris Wyndham and Sya Droysen, of the Tex Mechanica Foundry West District?

/ Yes -

/ My owner has instructed me to give you the following message: I don't have time for lowlife dregs like you. You disgust me.

/ But -

/ My owner has instructed me to continue: Sit down and let the frame talk. I know your type. City bigshots. You can show some damn -

/ Listen -

/ respect. Now listen. I got your message. The answer is no. I'm -

/ But -

/ not going to fix Crucible fights for you idiots just to make your Tex Mechanica junk look good. Do you -

/ Now I wouldn't put it quite like that -

/ think you're the first dregs dumb enough to try to buy me? Why do you people think you can buy me? Don't I have an honest face? Do I look like I need your money? The Crucible is sacred, that's what you people don't understand, like you think it's a game. Now -

/ Damn.

/ this is the part where you start blustering at my little buddy here and telling him it's all legal down in the City, just business, just sponsorship. So listen: I can have ten Titans crashing through your ceiling any time I like and you can tell them it's just business.

/ Damn.

/ Or we can talk about how you're going to make this up to me.

/ Ah.

/ My little buddy's listening. Make him an offer.

Moon

Moon

"We once looked to the Moon and saw hope. Now we see only the power of the Darkness."

Earth's Moon was where we first faced the terror of the Hive, and it soon became the battlefield of a great war - one we did not win. In the years since, the Hive have ripped the Moon's surface apart, opening chasms that swarm with terrors.

Ghost Fragment: Moon

Dreams of Alpha Lupi

The best voices - voices that truly matter - never allow themselves be heard. This lesson is worth learning again and again.

Forever.

Your voice moves as a whisper, murmuring inside larger winds. Only the trusted few can absorb what is necessary. Wise and sly and perfect, your instructions drop, leaving nothing but the hard sweet rime of enlightenment. The path is set. Your voice is unleashed

The Ocean of Storms

"唯恐瓊樓玉宇，

高處不勝寒。 起舞弄清影， 何似在人間。"

— Poem Excerpt, 蘇軾, Chinese poet, Song Dynasty, Old Earth

The support base centered here marks what most believe was the first off-Earth colony.

It was here that we came face-to-face with Crota and his legions, a force so powerful we abandoned the Moon. Now, Hive temples breach the surface, entrances into the vast necropolis below, and Guardians venture into the depths to seek revenge - most never to return.

Ghost Fragment: The Ocean of Storms

BY ORDER OF THE CITY CONSENSUS AND THE GUARDIAN VANGUARD

ALL SHIPS IMMEDIATE/REPEAT AND RELAY

We hereby terminate all organized combat operations on or around Earth's Moon.

Effective immediately we declare the existence of an interdiction on the Moon and cis-Lunar space. Guardians operating in this interdict will receive no formal support from the Vanguard or from assets of the City. We urge Guardians to exhibit the greatest care and consideration in approaching the interdicted space.

We furthermore derogate all strategic objectives concerned with the recovery of assets or information from the Lunar surface, and, without exemption, cancel in whole and in all its parts the effort to establish a beachhead and strategic presence upon the Moon.

This interdict will remain in effect until such time as the hostile presence on the Moon poses a demonstrable existential threat, or until intelligence is obtained that leads to the defeat of the enemy leadership elements recently encountered.

Guardians with an accurate assessment of losses in the recent days, or with intelligence on the nature and method of hostile resistance, should report to the Vanguard immediately for debriefing.

Mars

Mars

"The wind wiped away our footprints. When the storm had passed, we found something shining beneath the sand..."

In the years since the Collapse, much of Mars has returned to the desolation that came before the Traveler. But buried beneath its surface are traces of the glimmering mega-cities that once sprawled across the planet, swallowed by dunes and Darkness.

Ghost Fragment: Mars

Dreams of Alpha Lupi

Life waits inside this world's bones.

Your voice flows across the red rock and through the dead valleys, speaking in code and goads.

Ancient volcanoes swell, exploding at their peaks and splitting wide along their shoulders. Ash clouds blacken the starved air. A fossil ocean of ice softens and collapses. Geysers erupt, tall as mountains, throwing up steam and clouds.

Every moment matters. And from a great distance, in the midst of a thousand careful disasters, you watch the transformation with your own eyes.

The rose has blossomed.

Meridian Bay

"A great city is a place where man competes with the Gods."

— Alton Bray, "Trials and Triumphs"

Under the shifting sands of Meridian Bay are the ruins of the magnificent Freehold, a testament to the glory of the Golden Age. Great secrets remain hidden in its crumbling towers.

Ghost Fragment: Meridian Bay

We want your grandchildren.

Does that sound grim? Don't panic. We aren't talking about human babies, yours or anyone else's. We're talking about your inventions. The children of your mind.

Come join us. Come to Clovis Bray and build the laboratory of your dreams. Anything you need. Demand it and it's yours. At Clovis Bray, we have a singular understanding of genius, and we appreciate how brilliant minds flourish when they enjoy total freedom.

This is Freehold, the realm where the new and the best is born. This is where your brilliance, freed of budget constraints and managers, makes the universe dance.

Clovis Bray is a nursery, a nursery to a million marvels. Your inventions belong to no one but you. Cherish them, praise them. Or tell them they aren't worthy and set them inside a deep dark drawer.

But as every parent soon learns, children grow up. And every technology matures. At some point, your inventions are going to find mates. They'll join with other marvels and produce a new generation of offspring.

Maybe you'll build a better reactor.

Meanwhile, the genius in the lab next door devises an elegant way to fold machines into tiny spaces.

Your device meets hers, and a fierce little reactor is born.

Your children are yours forever. And we are happy to arrange for their grandchildren to prosper.

The Asteroid Belt

The Asteroid Belt

"The Belt is the key to everything."

The Asteroid Belt is a great band of nothingness, speckled with unimaginable wealth. Once a treasure trove for Golden Age industry, the Belt is now a haunted place where Fallen pirates and Awoken patrols skirmish among the whispering carcasses of ancient machines.

Among the asteroids drifts the Reef, lashed together from the ruined ships of an ancient exodus. Here the Queen rules over the Awoken - the farthest known light of civilization.

The Reef

"Intruder bearing one-two-seven. You have crossed into the realm of the Awoken. State your business, or be fired upon by order of the Queen."

The fate of those escaping Earth during the Collapse was once unknown. But here drifts a graveyard of lost ships, and among them - the Realm of the Awoken. Ruled by a Queen few have seen, they have long avoided contact with the City.

Vestian Outpost, Queen's Bay

"Looks like the Queen wants Guardians close... but not too close."

Located on the Reef's sunward side, the Vestian Outpost marks the flightpath any Guardian must take to access the Queen's realm. Beyond it lies the Vestian Web, the heart of the Reef built around the asteroid 4 Vesta.

Prison of Elders, The Reef

Cayde-6, overhead in a Tower lounge

Didn't anyone tell you about the Prison of Elders? Weren't you on the strike team that killed that Archon Priest, the one who escaped? Okay, okay, I'll tell the story about the Prison of Elders...

The Awoken will tell you that a long time ago the Queen conquered the House of Wolves. What they won't say, because they are very serious important people, is that the House of Wolves did a lot of the job for them. After the Queen killed the Wolf Kell, the Fallen started competing for the throne. One of the first battles was called the Eos Clash and I wasn't anywhere near it, but I'm pretty sure I'm not making this up. A Fallen named Skolas wiped out one of his rivals in the Eos Clash. But the battle cost him so much he got to thinking: if the Reef killed my boss, and gave me a chance at the throne, maybe I can use the Reef to kill all my rivals too!

Pretty good, right? When they told me I had to be a Vanguard I went to ask some Fallen how I could get out of it, but they just told me to kill all my friends and then myself. Anyway.

Everyone involved in the civil war started trying to play their rivals against each other, and the Awoken too. No one wanted to become so strong that they'd be a target. No one wanted to bleed their own forces dry doing someone else's dirty work. Cutthroat politics! And who's the best at cutthroat politics? That's right, her Majesty, the Queen of the Reef.

At the end of the wars, the Queen had played her way into the strongest position, and she had a collection of Fallen nobility and servitors she thought might be useful to her. Of course she thought so! She'd just used them against each other and won absolute control of the Reef, the Belt, and the House of Wolves. She wasn't about to just toss away her playing pieces.

She kept them frozen in her prison, the Prison of Elders, and she gave the keys to that prison to my buddy Variks, a Fallen who showed her loyalty. The Prison of Elders is a really curious thing. It holds creatures of enormous power. Not just Wolf nobility— all kinds of beasts, captured by Corsair expeditions or lured in by the Queen. And it holds them well. The Queen, she can do things I don't understand. There's a power behind her, or in her, that values that Prison.

But I hear there's been a few prison breaks. Some old Kell got the old House of Wolves back together.

Now, she's started to wake up her captives. Variks is inviting Guardians out to the Reef to do battle with them in an arena—show valor, earn rewards. It's been their Crucible. Maybe the Queen wants her collection thinned out. Maybe the Queen wants Guardians in the Reef, to deter more unrest. Maybe the Queen wants intelligence on how her prizes fight.

Maybe she wants intelligence on how WE fight.

Whatever happens— I want you to remember that she knows, more than anyone else I've met, how to set one foe against another.

Ghost Fragment: The Reef

The attendant moves as Prince Uldren passes through the massive door separating the Outpost’s common area from the warren of tunnels that make up the Queen’s Bay.

He rounds a corner and a poorly maintained hatch opens for him, clunking and groaning as it separates. The room beyond is dark, shadowed.

He steps through, and the hatch shudders closed behind him. A series of dim illumination panels flicker on. He is not alone.

Three dull green lights blaze to life behind a veil. She tilts her head to consider the Prince, face like a marble carving.

"You." Her voice resonates inside small chamber.

"Say what you want and get out. We don’t have time for this right now."

"In the past, Her Majesty has seen fit to—"

"In the past, our nav lanes weren’t full of Guardians." Uldren snaps.

"Last I heard, your Queen was on the far end of the Belt."

"If the Guardians knew you and she were in contact, it would be detrimental to her plans."

The woman nodded, once. "Very well." She stood, slowly, drawing herself up to her full height in one smooth motion. "I come with word from beyond..."

Ghost Fragment: The Reef 2

"And our long-range communications?"

An aggrieved sigh. "Mara, it's a miracle any of us are still alive—"

"You will address her as 'Queen,'" Techeun Shuro cut in.

"Sorry. My apologies, Queen." The engineer ran a dirty hand through her matted hair. "No. No long-range comms. No short-range comms either. Not that there'd be anyone on the listening end either, from what I can see. My Queen," she added hastily, as Shuro glared.

"Comms are no longer a priority," said Mara. "Focus on resealing the Hulls, and any other habitable vessels we have. Bring anything you can as close to Vesta as possible. The closer people are to me, the safer they are."

The engineer nodded uncertainly. "Yes. My Queen."

Mara nodded. "You may go."

The engineer bowed, and left the room. As soon as the hatch closed behind her, Mara raised her hand. At once the Techeuns gathered around her. "Shall we try again, My Queen?" said Sedia.

Mara slid off her throne. "Yes."

The Techeuns' jewel-like augments flashed as they circled around her. Mara closed her eyes. A hum rose from the Techeuns, the notes fracturing into harmonies as, from the shadows, hundreds of tiny blue sparks burst to life before her. Then Mara inclined her head, and the sparks began to rush by as if she was plunging through them, each streak of blue burning a swath in her vision. As the last spark vanished, Mara saw darkness once again, a long, stretching, empty darkness—and then another cloud of sparks burst forth. These were smaller than the others, their tiny flames guttering and flickering, and there were fewer of them too, but Mara inhaled and the sparks rushed toward her, growing bigger as they flew.

"We should have stayed in the Reef..." "...Says there's one city left..." "A City beneath the Traveler..." "At least we're not in the Reef..." The voices broke over Mara like a wave and for a moment she spun in the currents.

Now, in the flames, shapes began to form. A crashed ship—a blue-skinned hand clasping a brown one—a half-built wall high above the treetops.

"You who betrayed us for Earth!" Mara thought. "It is I, your Queen! I will grant you one chance to return, or you will not be welcomed back!"

But the tide of voices never wavered.

Ghost Fragment: The Reef 3

The Fortuna Plummet

***SNAP TRAFFIC!*** 225 RADIAN MIRAGE HALT ALL TRAFFIC. STAND BY FOR SNAP. MESSAGE TO FOLLOW

PUBLIC KEY 080 641 DWS REGAL FROM: PLDN ABRA ZIRE [PLDN CMD TF 4.1] TO: ALL TASK GROUP ELEMENT LEADERS SUBJECT: OPLAN AND FRAGMENT ORDERS

MESSAGE IS:

1. Beltrik the Veiled [HVT R3] and loyal spaceborne elements have been localized to 19 Fortuna. Beltrik is chief Wolf strategist. Corsair recon confirms that HVT R3 ships are resupplying ether and performing high-tempo logistical operations. Recon elements and COLLABINT sources agree that Beltrik will roll one ship at a time into the resupply pocket while holding all other assets to screen.

2. TF 4.1 will attack. Targets are HVT R3 spaceborne assets. Objective is annihilation of spaceborne assets and capture/nullification of HVT R3. Designate targets VEIL HAND.

2a. Due to history of violence between PLDN CMD TF 4.1 and HVT R3, particularly Battle of False Tidings/Hildian Campaign, Beltrik expects TF 4.1 to engage his screen directly. We will exploit this expectation. Fragment orders follow.

3. PETRA VENJ will detach select warships and air wing elements to form TF 4.2 MASS LENS. TF 4.2 is directed to engage VEIL HAND screen elements with skirmishers. TF 4.2 will deny main battle while pinning down VEIL HAND forces at 19 Fortuna. TF 4.2 will receive missile and torpedo assets to force VEIL HAND into maintaining tight mutual CIWS/ESM support.

3a. Decisive engagement with VEIL HAND in 4.2 MASS LENS AO is forbidden until GO CONTINGENCY satisfied. Prioritize FORCECON.

4. Remaining TF 4.1 will maneuver immediately to rendezvous with 687 Tinette. Tinette is on close approach with 19 Fortuna. TF 4.1 frigates and fighters will perform recon denial against VEIL HAND scouts.

4a. Upon rendezvous with 687 Tinette, TF 4.1 will deploy CARYBDIS. ***This is a CARYBDIS RELEASE (MAJESTY DIRECT)!***. TF 4.1 will maneuver in Tinette's shadow as it retrajectorizes for intercept.

5. GO CONTINGENCY: Upon collision of 687 Tinette and 19 Fortuna TF 4.1 and TF 4.2 will IMMEDIATELY close for decisive engagement. VEIL HAND C4I will be critically degraded and all targets will be maneuvering away from mutual support. Skirmishers and air wing will provide TARCAP and destroy VEIL HAND light warships as they attempt to reform. EWAR assets will isolate hostile heavy warships from C4I and spoof bad datalinks. Main combatants will cripple VEIL HAND heavy warships and board where opportune.

6. NO HARBINGER SUPPORT IS AVAILABLE.

7. Good luck. The Reef and the Queen are watching.

MESSAGE ENDS

STOP STOP STOP

Jupiter

Jupiter

Lord of worlds, massive Jupiter and its moons must have been a cornerstone of Golden Age civilization. But the nature and extent of human presence there is now unknown. Old records refer to cities in ice and world-spanning oceans, but perhaps this is only poetry.

The City's ships have rarely attempted any journey to Jupiter or beyond.

Ghost Fragment: Jupiter

Dreams of Alpha Lupi

Even the largest body lets itself be pushed where it needs to be, seduced into nice, warm loving orbits. Persistence is the key.

Seafloors transform and then yank themselves skyward, shattering the icy crust. New worlds awaken in the swirling depths.

You build homes around this half-born sun ripped by storms and supersonic wind.

Saturn

Saturn

Out beyond the Reef its rings shine. Whatever was known of it in the Golden Age is long forgotten, but more ancient truth remains: Saturn has dozens of moons, including the mighty Titan, a world larger than Mercury.

A Guardian's ship might, in theory, reach Saturn, especially if supported by a larger vessel and good navigational data. But the hazards of the Reef and the Deep Black beyond threaten to devour anyone who makes the attempt.

Ghost Fragment: Saturn

Dreams of Alpha Lupi

A cold giant shows its night face to you. Distant moons slide past - icy little comets enslaved by a splendid master.

The lightning bolts and high clouds sweep away, and you burrow into a sea of liquid hydrogen that boils out of the long gash.

You put yourself on the perfect trajectory, and for a fraction of an instant you allow yourself the luxury of confidence.