Parting the Veil (Mission)

This article is about the quest step only. For the complete Quest, see Parting the Veil (quest).

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Parting the Veil
Game:	Destiny 2: Season of the Deep
Campaign:	Lightfall
Player(s):	1-3
Location:	Neomuna, Neptune
Objective(s):	Uncover the Ishtar Collective's research of the Veil.
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Parting the Veil is a Mission of the Lightfall expansion, and a post-campaign mission made available during Season of the Deep. It is also the fourth step in the quest of the same name.

Objectives

• Enter the Irkalla Complex.
• Decipher the Research Data.
• Reach the Veil.
• Defeat the Tormentor

Transcript

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

Log 1

(Mission Begins) The Guardian enters Irkalla Complex.

• Nimbus: You know, ever since we defeated Calus, I've been wondering a lot more about the Veil. I think... I think we take it for granted. It's always been here. We always assumed that the Ishtar Collective brought it with them on the Exodus ship, but...

• Osiris: But now you question that assumption.

• Nimbus: Nezarec seemed to know something, didn't he? When we were inside the Vex network, he said something about... Savathûn.

• Osiris: My memories cast shadows of Savathûn's. Echoes of the time she and I were bound by her dark magic. The more time we spend here, the clearer the outline of those shadows become. The Ishtar Collective didn't bring the Veil here, Nimbus. Savathûn stole it from the Witness and left it here... quite possibly for the Ishtar Collective to find.

• Nimbus: Why? Why would she do that? Isn't she our enemy?

• Osiris: She is. And yet, at times, she is our ally... when it is convenient to her, and in that convenience, we find common ground. or as a friend once said, the line between Light and Dark... is very thin.

• Nimbus: [grunts] I kinda hate that.

• Osiris: As do I.

The Guardian enters Veil Containment as they pass through an Ishtar Collective laboratory. The Guardian finds a working terminal in the Veil observation room.

• Osiris: Excellent. That terminal is functional. I've sent a data-mining application to your Ghost. Upload it, and let's see what we can find.

Ghost decrypts the archive.

• Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, personal log: incidental. Maya arrived yesterday with the Exodus Indigo. I should be relieved, but... in light of the current situation, I... I don't feel much of anything. We're presently en route from Hyperion to the terraformed surface of Neptune. I'm scared. I'm so scared! We don't even know what we've lost. Comms are dead. It's just silence everywhere. We might be all that's left. Maya was right about everything. The cult, the end... how we'll survive. [sighs] I hate this.

• Nimbus: Chioma Esi was one of the founders of Neomuna. There's a part of the city named after her! This is... like hearing a legend.

• Osiris: I knew of Chioma Esi and her wife, Maya Sundaresh. They were Ishtar Collective researchers on Venus during the Golden Age.

• Nimbus: Is this all there is? The one log?

• Osiria: No — there's an entire archive here. It could be the key to unraveling the mystery of the Veil.

Taken appear below the Veil.

• Nimbus: Not to cut this short, but we've got incoming! There's Taken popping up all over the courtyard and — Tormentor! There's a Tormentor heading into the facility!

• Osiris: Guardian, neutralize the Tormentor! We can't lose this data!

As the Guardian engages the Tormentor, tendrils from the Veil surround the arena. The Guardian defeats the Imprint of Nezarec.

• Nimbus: Exterior's all clear. How you doing down there?

• Osiris: The Tormentor is defeated, and the area is secure. However, the remainder of Dr. Esi's logs are encrypted. She's using an adaptive Vex algorithm to protect them. It will take me several days to break through. Whatever this is, it must be valuable. Guardian, I recommend you check back here later to see what we've uncovered.

(Mission Ends)

At the Hall of Heroes, the Guardian meditates at the Pouka Pond, receives the Epochal Integration Hand Cannon, and unlocks additional Strand aspects.

The Guardian leaves Strider's Gate and receives a transmission from Osiris and Nimbus.

• Osiris: Thank you for assisting me in this fact-finding mission, Guardian. There is much to uncover about the Veil, and your work here is indispensable.

• Nimbus: I got you on overwatch. Heh, let's get to work!

Log 2

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: the Veil. [sighs] I don't even know where to start. When we landed on Neptune, there was... something waiting for us. An alien structure. It's an electromagnetic anomaly. No mass, but a tangible surface area. It's like a thesis statement to the Von Neumann-Wigner hypothesis. It's definitely paracausal, like the Traveler. Maya calls it the Veil. She says she heard the name in a whisper when... when she looked at it. When I asked her who whispered, she said it was... her own voice. I still haven't had time to process that. Everyone on the initial survey team died. The minute they touched the object, they entered a state of... of brain death. All of them. To make it worse, the EM radiation emitting from the Veil is causing psychological distress in the Exos that came with us. They've all described moments of intense, hallucinogenic reverie. Some of them went silent and rigid and just... stopped. Maya called it "billboarding." Something from the early days of Clovis Bray's Exomind project. She doesn't seem afraid. Or surprised. She's convinced this thing—in her own words, she says—it'll be our "salvation."

• Osiris: Fascinating. This corroborates what Nezarec said... that the Veil survived Savathûn's escapade. This must have been the root of Savathûn's betrayal: stalling the Witness's plan to buy time to counter it.

• Nimbus: So... she stole the Veil from Nezarec?

• Osiris: And killed him in doing so. It explains what happened to the lunar Pyramid. Why it's dormant.

• Nimbus: And what about the rest of this? What happened to the Exos? Is... is that what happened to all of them?

• Osiris: I have some theories, but... it's too early. Regardless, it sounds like the Veil had an ill effect on Dr. Sundaresh. We must be cautious. Hopefully the next log we decrypt will shed more light on this enigma

Log 3

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: the Veil. We shouldn't settle here. It's a mistake. But Maya is insistent that we have to build our long-term shelters near the Veil. We're almost done constructing an enclosure around it. Once the field emitters are up, we should at least be safe from its radiation. The SIVA tech Maya had on the Exodus was a lifesaver. Not only for building the enclosures, but shelters, tools—we'd be dead without it. But it still wasn't fast enough. The last Exo in our group, succumbed to brain death yesterday. Maya's... quarantined the bodies for study. She says our next step should be finding a way to draw power from the Veil so we're self-sufficient. I'm insisting on turbines instead. But she doesn't think that's good enough. Not for as long-term as this might be. Which—I guess. But I can't shake this feeling... like we're making a terrible mistake.

• Nimbus: I'm not getting a good vibe from this. Quinn says these records contradict some of her own. But there's a ton of references to Maya Sundaresh in our archives that are redacted. I'm... I'm worried, Osiris. What if everything we've been told our whole lives—what if it was all a lie?

• Osiris: Don't despair yet, young friend. The truth may be somewhere between these logs and what you've been told in the past. In my experience, history can be contradictory. Regardless, we won't know until we decrypt more of these logs.

Log 4

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: the Vex.

• Osiris: Interesting.

• Chioma Esi: Six weeks ago, our settlement came under attack by an intrusion of Vex forces. It was a test of our defenses for a larger incursion. Yesterday, scouts discovered temporarily realigned architecture just outside the stronghold limits. The Vex had retroactively inserted themselves into Neptune's history... just like they did on Venus. But unlike Venus, something stopped them short of our habitat. They had to fight their way in. I think it's the Veil. Something about the paracausal nature of the Veil is preventing their temporal excursions. But the Vex aren't giving up. They did something to Neptune's magnetic field — wove a sim into it. A screen to isolate us. It's a double-edged sword. The Vex screen hides us from the outside world, from whatever's happened. So we're safe... ish. But we're stuck with the Vex. Thankfully, they're slow to react, and it's giving us time to research countermeasures. Huh... it's almost our anniversary. I should do something for Maya. She'll forget. She's always so busy. Computer, prepare food synthesis. File: Chioma data night 6. Oh, and add a bottle of port.

• Nimbus: Osiris? You... all right?

• Osiris: Y—yes, I'm fine; I just, um... saw shadows. My choices. Saint. Dr. Sundaresh and I walked very similar paths of obsession, it seems.

• Nimbus: Oh.

• Osiris: [stutters] Nevertheless... it appears that Neomuna's history is deeply tied to the Vex. Hopefully the next decryption will shed more light on this.

Log 5

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: Exos. Maya and I have built a working theory around the deaths of our Exo crewmates after their exposure to the Veil. According to Maya, Exominds contain a combination of Vex radiolaria and something known as "Clarity". Radiolaria are alien microorganisms living within a hive mind state. Or, I suppose more accurately, a community. Clarity is.... Maya described it as a paracausal power derived from an alien artifact. Something BrayTech had kept secret. Something Maya... Maya thinks the Veil and this artifact are related. That the paracausal force from the Veil overloaded their Exominds. Unraveled them. It's like taking a powerful magnet to an archaic magnetic storage device. Full erasure. But Maya... she thinks we can reverse-engineer this phenomenon. Use it to write data to a Clarity-infused object. Fabricate consciousness. Scientifically, the process seems sound, but morally... [sighs] Maya keeps saying that we're past the point of morality. She said that! She's convinced that our survival hinges on mastery of the Veil. It's like SHE'S the one unraveling. I feel like I'm losing her. But every time I try and push, I feel her move a little further away. I'm — I don't know if I can lose anything else. How much more can any of us lose before there's nothing left?

• Osiris: Nimbus... how much do you how about the Cloud Striders' creation? The technology used?

• Nimbus: You don't think...

• Osiris: I make no assertions yet. But I worry that your neon-lit city may have darker roots than either of us knew.

• Nimbus: Oh.

Log 6

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: SIVA. SIVA is a nanotech fabrication system, intended to be used by Exodus ships to rapidly build necessary resources from base matter. Maya calls it "Willa Bray's obsession" without a hint of self-awareness. But we — we both see the potential it poses for the future. Each nanomachine in SIVA's design is an independent, thinking machine, utilizing a distributed quantum network to coordinate movement. Like a... mechanical version of radiolaria. Probably where the design was inspired from, if I'm being honest. But the design can be pushed. We're, uh — we're looking at ways of incorporating components from disabled Vex and erased Exominds. If we can insulate the nanomachines from the radiation that killed the Exos, maybe... maybe their deaths won't be for nothing.

• Nimbus: Wait... does this really mean I'm part Vex?

• Osiris: It's too early to jump to these conclusions, Nimbus! But there does seem to be some connection between the Vex and the Cloud Striders. It may explain why you and the others are able to enter the Vex network without the aid of Splicers.

• Nimbus: Can I... time travel?

• Osiris: [laughs] Oh... let's hope not.

Log 7

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: Veil interface. Maya and I have finalized a prototype interface for the Veil. Hopefully, it'll allow our research team to investigate it in detail. The system's designed like an orchestra, with a central "conductor" directing a symphony of minds to act like a distributed network. The... idea came to us by watching how collective networks like SIVA and the Vex operate. The hope is we can aggregate and parse the vast amounts of psychic data emitting from the Veil. Turn it into something intelligible. If we're successful, the interface will provide us with a starting point for any future technological research tied to the Veil. The risks of — of such integration are high. The estimates mortality rates are... but I... I... I don't know what I'm doing. This is wrong. This is so wrong! We shouldn't — all she ever talks about is survival! "Think big picture!" What about your survival? What about your heart? My heart? [sighs tearfully] I can't keep doing this. I can't. I can't!

• Nimbus: Damn.

• Osiris: I... again, I see a shadow of myself in Maya Sundaresh. The man I could have become had I let obsession continue to rule me. I'm worried what the next recording will reveal.

• Nimbus: Me too.

Log 8

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: Veil interface, supplemental. They're all dead. Chorus, conductor... everyone. It was too much. Swept their minds away like... like grains of sand on a beach. They're all dead! Maya... Maya called it "valuable data points." Wellsprings and rivers, or... something. What have I done?

• Nimbus: Dead? They — this killed their entire research team, but it sounds like — it's like—

• Osiris: Like their lives held no value to Dr. Sundaresh. There's a troubling symmetry with data we've recovered from Titan. Data on the origin of the Witness. It too, was once multiple people that became conjoined by the way of some sort of... ritual with the Veil. Perhaps a "conductor" and a "chorus." It is troubling that Dr. Sundaresh seemed to be moving down the same path.

• Nimbus: I don't like this, Osiris. I don't like this at all.

Log 9

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: Lakshmi-2.

• Osiris: What?!

• Chioma Esi: Maya's... I don't even know what to say. I'd recused myself from further experiments. Told her to take some time off. She refused. And she... the minute I wasn't there, she started hauling the braindead Exos out of cold storage. Hooking them up to the Veil interface. She burned through dozens of them. Reversed the entire machine's design. Used a chorus of braindead Exos to funnel data down to the conductor seat, projecting a mental imprint. Hers. I... I didn't know Lakshmi-2, but Maya did. And now she's.... she's made this thing. It speaks with her voice. Has some of her memories. The way it looks at me... It's like it knows something I don't.

• Nimbus: Osiris, do you recognize that name. "Lakshmi"?

• Osiris: Yes... and no, Lakshmi-2 was an Exo and once-leader of a faction on Earth known as the Future War Cult. She died over a year ago. But she never once made mention of any of this. Of Neomuna, of... Maya. Did she know. Did she remember? This is all as much a revelation to me as it is to you. It throws everything she did while in the Last City into question.

• Nimbus: I mean, with... if she was a copy of Dr. Sundaresh, then... is she really dead?

• Osiris: I don't know. For now, I must deliver a rather uncomfortable report to Ikora.

Log 10

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: The Veil. She did it! Maya connected people to the Veil. Our own scientists. And they survived. I should be happy, but... happy that all this horror wasn't for nothing? But I'm not. I'm disgusted. In myself. In Maya. In all of us. This thing, the Veil. It's... it's some kind of web of consciousness. Just like the Vex network, but organic instead of artificial. It make sense why the Vex want it. Paracausal simulations? There'd be no stopping them. I should be happy. To— to be a part of history, to solve a cosmic riddle. Happy for Maya; happy for all of us. But I'm not. I don't feel anything. Maya is gone. The woman I knew... may as well have died when we landed on Neptune. But her Ghost still haunts me... this place. I don't know what to do. There's a generation of children born here now. This is their home. [sighs] I don't know what to do.

• Nimbus: Damn. Osiris, this is... I don't know if I want to listen to this anymore.

• Osiris: Obsession is a beast with long, sharp talons. A beast that does not so easily release its prey. Maya Sundaresh is... but one victim.

• Nimbus: That sounds like you're talking from experience.

• Osiris: Painfully so. But unlike Dr. Sundaresh, I found a way out of the beast's grasp, before it was too late.

• Nimbus: How?

• Osiris: By losing.

Log 11

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, personal log: incidental. Maya's dead. I found her in the conductor's chair, alone. Nobody knows what she was doing. Her "copy" — that thing, Lakshmi — is still developmentally incomplete. It doesn't understand what happened to Maya. I had it quarantined until we can... Until we... Do something.

• Nimbus: There's no dates on any of these files. There's no telling how much time is set between them.

• Osiris: Time enough for loss. How many are left?

• Nimbus: Three more.

• Osiris: Then let us hope there are yet more answers to uncover

Log 12

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, log... whatever. The Warmind has reactivated. Our base on Hyperion detected network activity. He found us. Classified our location "Nefele Stronghold". We already estimated that Rasputin has attempted remote interference with our network. Our research. It can't. I won't let what we've learned here ruin more lives. I'm going to send Stargazer off-world to... to deal with the problem. They can take Lakshmi with them and... do whatever. As long as it's out of the city. Out of my sight. It's a risk, taking an action off-world. Exposing ourselves. But we have to. What we've done here has to be quarantined. The Veil is too much power. Too much for anyone.

• Nimbus: Stargazer! That puts the time of this recording around the foundation of the Cloud Striders. Chioma must have been... REALLY old.

• Osiris: And Stargazer is the one responsible for redacting Nefele Stronghold from Rasputin's records... or Maya by proxy with Lakshmi. Fascinating. There's two more logs left; once we've decrypted them, I will need to take time to contemplate the larger picture they present.

• Nimbus: [exhales] You and me both.

Log 13

Chioma Esi: The Veil is too great a power for humanity to wield responsibly. All that's left is to close down the facility. Neomuna will go on. Humanity will persist on the back of our unspeakable work. But I won't pass that guilt on to humanity's future. My hands can be bloodied. Let the children have innocence. And in my dissolution, I will find peace.

• Osiris: I don't know if I agree with Chioma's choice to hide the sins of the past. But... I also do not know what I would do in her place.

• Nimbus: Quinn says there's a data signature on this file, like something else was crawling the network. A... Vex signature? What's... MSund12?

• Osiris: There's one log left to decrypt. Perhaps we'll find out.

Log 14

Chioma Esi: Years ago, back on Venus, the Vex simulated copies of us — Maya and I. Trapped in a virtual hell. After so long, even hell can look like heaven, can't it? [chuckles] I'm tired. I'm done. Maya has to be out there. The Maya I remember. And all I want is one more moment with her. To hold her in my arms. Tell her that I love her. So she can tell me to "hush" one more time. If... if we learned anything from the Veil, it's that eventually... we all have to learn to let go. So... I made contact with the Vex. I'm ready. And it's time to say goodbye.

• Osiris: In the end, Maya Sundaresh was consumed by her desire to understand and her inability to let go. She and Chioma lost everything in pursuit of knowledge. Chioma abandoned it all — sought to wipe the slate clean for future generations.

• Nimbus: What did we learn from all of this?

• Osiris: That the Veil is Darkness — the power of consciousness made manifest — as much as the Traveler is the Light, the power of the physical world. The implications are great. But so too are the risks. As a younger man, I may have fallen into the same trap Maya did. But now, I know better. We must proceed with caution... lest the river sweeps us away.

Log 15

Osiris: I found no more logs from Dr Esi, but I have used her algorithm to crack the data core of the Vex Conceptual Mind.

• Nimbus: That's the doodad we got from the Black Garden, right?

• Osiris: Indeed. The data within contained the Vex's blueprints for their artificial Veil: the Black Heart. It all but proved Dr. Esi's theory. Dr Esi theorized that the paracausal energy of the Traveler operated on a quantum wavelength parallel to electrons.

• Nimbus: Um... magnets?

• Osiris: In simpler terms: the Traveler's power runs parallel to the forces of nature. Gravity, magnetism, sound, light. The Veil does this too. It is synchronized with the Traveler. Wherever the Traveler came from, the Veil may have as well. But what the Vex made, while connected to the Traveler, was inherently flawed. It did not create the link the Witness desired. Instead, it weakened the Traveler, created... "static" in the flow of their cosmic forces. But it did reveal one intriguing possibility... that at one time, they may have been... united. Part of a whole.

• Nimbus: Whoa! So, wait... does this mean the Light and Darkness... were the same once? One force?

• Osiris: Dr. Esi believed so. I am... not as unconvinced. But it is a theory. One many scholars will explore once this data is shared. But this data allowed me to calculate the telemetry of the beam the Veil fired at the Traveler. When the Witness linked to the Veil through a Ghost, it created a faster-than-light connection of Darkness to the Traveler's Light... ...a bridge to the Traveler's consciousness. If it has one. But the beam did not stop at the Traveler... rather, a point inside of it.

• Nimbus: Inside? Wait, what's inside the Traveler?

• Osiris: No one knows. But if the data I have been able to extrapolate here is correct, that is where the Witness is now: inside the Traveler. It may be the reason why the Traveler has gone dormant—its attention directed inward, where the true threat is. But I am speculating. There is more I need to study, but I fear it will take a substantially longer amount of time.

• Nimbus: How long do you need?

• Osiris: Months. If we have that long left, that is. Until then, I suppose.

Log 16

Osiris: I've reached the extent of what I can glean from the research data.

• Nimbus: What've we got?

• Osiris: Less than I'd hoped for. But the last of Chioma Esi's research has led me to an intriguing topic: Ghosts.

• Nimbus: Ghosts? As far as I know, Neomuna never had any contact with a Ghost before you all showed up. We knew about them, but...

• Osiris: Precisely. Chioma Esi was researching the entanglement of Light and Dark without fully understanding either. Our Ghosts are a link to the Light of the Traveler. Then how was the Witness able to — on numerous occasions — communicate through them?

• Nimbus: Is this about the, uh, the magnets thing? The parallel energy fields, right?

• Osiris: Very good. In areas of Darkness, the Witness is able to create a link, not unlike what it created with the Veil and the Traveler.

• Nimbus: Ah, like the Vex are able to hack into the CloudArk with their tech! It's a parallel connection.

• Osiris: And I believe that connection may not be one-sided. I believe that our Ghosts may be able to leverage this connection against it.

• Nimbus: Turn the enemy's weapon against 'em — well, that sounds great. But how?

• Osiris: That... I do not know. But what I do know is that while the Witness is out of our reach, it is also out of the reach of our Ghosts. Which means whatever lies beyond that portal — whatever is inside the Traveler — has left the Witness blind to OUR actions.

• Nimbus: And given us an opportunity to make a plan without it knowing.

• Osiris: Precisely! The Witness has played all the pieces it can. This is its final act, win or lose. Whatever we do from here determines the fate of everything.

• Nimbus: No pressure.

Enemies

Taken

• Taken Acolyte
• Taken Centurion
• Taken Goblin
• Taken Knight
  • Ravenous Taken Knight
• Taken Phalanx
• Taken Thrall

The Dread

• Tormentor

Bosses

• Imprint of Nezarec

Appearance

• Destiny 2: Season of the Deep (First appearance)