The Undying Mind

The Undying Mind
Biographical information
Species:	Vex
Faction:	Sol Divisive ; Weavers
Rank:	Ultra
Class:	Hydra
Combat information
Mission:	The Undying Mind; Vex Offensive: Final Assault
Weapon(s):	Aeon Maul
Abilities:	Three Shields ; Midair Levitation ; High Durability ; Detonation Melee ; Summon Blockage ; Blinding Confluxes ; Death Blast ; Summon Vex

"When the Undying Mind is threatened, its ancient creators step through time portals to defend it, ensuring that it will continue to thrive, until the Vex once again control the Black Garden."

— In game description

The Undying Mind is an ancient Axis Mind of the Sol Divisive Vex, serving as the final boss of its own aforementioned strike and later the main antagonist in Season of the Undying. Its purpose is to protect the Black Garden from intrusion by sealing it out of space and time and restoring the Black Heart.

History

Early History

"We are starting to believe that time is home to the Vex, and somewhere in those unmappable voids dwell their undying minds."

— Maya Sundaresh, Fragmented Entry 10938, Ishtar Collective Archive^[2]

Long feared by the Vex, the Undying Mind was created by the Precursors eons ago and has laid dormant in the channels of the Black Garden since.^[3] The ancient Hydra gets its title from its immortal Vex programming, making it seemingly impossible to destroy permanently. Its existence became documented by Maya Sundaresh and the Ishtar Collective.^[2]

Sealing The Garden

Months after a Guardian found entry into the Black Garden and destroyed its heart, the Undying Mind awakens to reseal the Garden away from the Guardians once more. Its secondary directives are also to restore its birthplace by summoning back the Black Heart; an act that would result in the destruction of the Traveler.^[4] Deep within the garden, the ancient Vex Mind weaves the fabric of space-time around the realm while the Vex gather from across the gate network to protect it.^[3]

Word of the growing surge of Vex activity reaches The Hidden lead by the Warlock Vanguard Ikora Rey. With its readings matching no temporal functions, Ikora uncovers the ancient mind responsible for resealing the Garden and resolves to deal with it accordingly. She begins mapping out its pathways with fragmented data from the Ishtar Academy's archive and successfully pinpoints its hidden channels, with the aid of Cayde-6 and Zavala.^[2]

A fireteam of Guardians is dispatched to the Black Garden at Ikora's behest to face the Undying Mind, while dealing with a growing number of Sol Divisive Vex protecting it. With the ancient Mind under threat by the Light-bearing intruders, swarms of Precursors are summoned to defend it with a massive Divisive Oculator barring the way. The Guardians kills the Cyclops and its Precursor army as they proceed to an open Vex gateway and disrupt the nearby Confluxes. The Undying Mind is successfully drawn out of the gateway along with armies of Precursors to defend it, but it is destroyed nonetheless.

True to its name though, the Undying Mind would not stay dead for long. It would come back from its destruction to seal the Garden yet again, forcing fireteams of Guardians to confront the immortal Vex mind for no end until the events of the Red War. The arrival of the Red Legion would push the Cabal to retake the Meridian Bay and destroy the only gate to the Black Garden, sealing it off once more and completing the Undying Mind's objective for it.^[5]

Season of the Undying

An undetermined amount of time passes within the Garden as it and the Vex within lies patiently in wait for the Darkness to return power to them both. During then, the inactive Undying Mind became buried in a barrow of flora growing around it. During the events of "Shadowkeep", however, Darkness returns to the realm in the form of the Pyramids, which have sent an distant pulse throughout the Black Garden enpowering it yet again. The Undying Mind likewise wakes from its barrow in response as well. Goblins write more circuits to weld to the Mind, building it up to take advantage of its newfound power.^[6] ^[7]

The Undying Mind re-establishes itself in the Vex network after the destruction of the Consecrated Mind and the deactivation of the Sanctified Mind, and directed the Sol Divisive’s invasion of the moon in an effort to seal entry into the Black Garden. In addition, it established itself across thousands of timelines by creating copies of itself. The Mind was considered unreachable until Ikora Rey constructed a modified Vex portal from Vex chassis components, allowing the Guardians to draw the Hydra out of the timelines it established and destroy it once again. However, as multiple copies of the Undying Mind existed in the timeways, the Guardians had to pull every single copy one at a time until all were destroyed. With the destruction of every copy, timeways on Mercury became unstable, prompting the Cabal Red Legion to attempt to change the past and retroactively win the Red War.

Gameplay

"Interesting, undying, huh? What do you suppose they meant by that."
"I'll alert the Speaker. Let's find out."

— Cayde-6 and Zavala

The Undying Mind is a unique Hydra in that it has three shields instead of one. When it first spawns, the passage which the player came from will be blocked, ensuring that there is no escape. It also has the ability to "detonate" when a Guardian gets too close, instantly killing them, and can summon endless waves of reinforcements, and while doing so, two vertical confluxes will send out blinding waves of energy to disorient Guardians. It is otherwise functionally identical to Hydras in that it is capable of blasting through a Guardian's shield very quickly with its Aeon Maul.

Trivia

While the Undying Mind's Aeon Maul blasts are orange-colored (Solar) the killcam clearly shows they are the same as ordinary Torch Hammers or Aeon Mauls (Void). This may be a developer oversight.
The Undying Mind is the third Axis Mind to return. Sekrion, Nexus Mind and Dendron, Root Mind being first and second respectively.
The Undying Mind's appearance in Destiny 2 has been slightly altered, bearing a resemblance to The Templar in D1.
Despite the Undying Mind being part of the Sol Divisive, Precursors are seen protecting it in Destiny 1. This may show the desperation of the Vex to keep the Undying Mind active as to bring forth models from other times to protect it.
The Undying Mind is one of the few characters in Destiny that the player canonically kills multiple times.