Hey there everyone, I've re-read some of the Grimoire cards related to the Ishtar Academy and I think I've started to come up with several theories regarding the following: The identity of our Exo Stranger, who is Dr. Shim and what is the function of the Vex Citadel. WARNING! Long read ahead... Vex Fragment 1: From what little we gleam in this card Esi and Maya are studying "Twelve" a Vex operational platform. Now, we don't know if these characters are in the same reality as our own player characters or not. We aren't told how they acquired this Vex specimen, only that they are studying it. Esi has discovered that the Vex unit has begun simulating its current situation to include the doctors themselves. Esi then informs Maya of her findings and that the copies appear to be doing the exact same thing in the simulation as their real selves. Implying that the simulations are so exact they could be considered real people. Note that as you read on in the cards there appears to be a slight delay in the Vex simulation when this happens so our choices don't happen instantaneously in the simulation. Esi speculates that the Vex could have infiltrated the researchers shared virtual workspace and their neural links to gather the data needed to create the simulation. Notice they point out neural links, why would they have or need neural links? They both suddenly come to grasps with the reality of the situation and decide that a meeting must be held to talk about what this means. We then learn the virtual sims have come up with the same exact decision. Vex Fragment 2: Here we are introduced to Shim and Duane-Mcniadh. Maya and Esi have just told them what's going on. Shim seems to say what exactly is on his mind without censoring himself from the others (he seems like the fun one). Duane appears a bit confused and asks that if the Vex is just making virtual copies then what's the harm? What power does it have over them? He's kind of slow to grasp the problem pretty much. Esi responds that the Vex can cause the copies harm, pain, fear etc. Basically it's God in there, it's now studying them and it could could go on doing it forever if they don't let it go (I'm assuming the Vex has been captured, we don't know if they just came upon it on their travels or if it's an enemy at this point). Duane then asks why they should care if any harm comes to the virtual copies and that they have no obligation to them in the first place. This seems to anger or annoy Esi and Maya. They respond saying that they owe it to their selves to save them. Shim chimes in and appears to call Duane an idiot or something (I like this guy!) and also says that if the vex can run one simulation then it can probably run more and then there will only be one reality* (this bit is weird and maybe someone could theorize or explain what Shim meant). He also states that they themselves could be a simulation as well. Duane appears to snap out of it and realizes the implications and the predicament they seem to be in. Shim goes on to say that the odds don't seem to be in their favor on this one, that this may not be their reality and that they may be inside one of the simulations. Vex Fragment 3: The researchers are talking about a way to get themselves or the copies out of the Vex specimen. Maya states that they should assume they are in the real world and that they have to come up with a way to outsmart the Vex. Note that characters seem to regard the Vex with something like disgust or hatred at this point so maybe the Vex is a combatant/enemy in their time. Maya thinks that bringing in a Warmind will let them escape the Vex bubble. Essentially it will let them know they are the real ones, that the Vex will not understand it or be able to predict it's moves and thus this will exempt them from the simulations. Note that if they are in a simulation it will differ from the rest because the Vex will be trying to counter the Warmind (the wild card). What we don't know is if every simulation has a Warmind of their own. We then are told that as soon as they call for help the Vex may do something, what that will be nobody knows. It is also hinted that Maya and Esi either embraced or kissed and that Duane could have taken a job at Clovis Bray before all this. Ok so my big takeaway is that we DON'T know if the Vex knows anything about the Warmind. The sims appear to be exact copies, trapped human beings based on the researchers. It's not clear yet if the copies have their memories or knowledge of classified information. Vex Fragment 4: Maya, Esi, Duane and Shim decide to have a picnic before they send themselves into infinity. Up here they have to act by biomechanical proxy (frames?). No human being in the Ishtar Academy has ever crossed the safety cordon and walked the ancient stone under the Citadel, the Vex construct that stabs up out of the world to injure space and time. It's not safe. The cellular Vex elements are infectious, hallucinogenic, entheogenic. The informational Vex elements are more dangerous yet— and there could be semiotic hazards beyond them, aggressive ideas, Vex who exist without a substrate. Even now, operating remote bodies by neural link, the team's thoughts are relayed through the warmind who saved them, sandboxed and scrubbed for hazards. Their real bodies are safe in the Academy, protected by distance and neural firewall. Each of their explorer bodies carries a slim computer. Inside, two hundred twenty-seven of copies of their own minds wait, patient and paused, for dispersal(similar to our ghosts and how they can digitize our bodies, early prototype?). "I wonder where it came from," says Duane. "The Citadel. I wonder if it was here before the Traveler changed Venus." "It could have been latent," Esi suggests. [b]She's the leader[/b]. She kept them together when it seemed like they faced actual, eternal torture. She pulled them through. "Seeded in the crust. Waiting for a period of geological quiescence, so it could grow." Dr. Shim shrugs. "I think the Traveler did something paracausal to Venus. Something that cut across space and time. The Citadel seems to come from the past of a different Venus than our own. It doesn't have to make any sense by our logic, any more than the Moon's new gravity." Maya walks at the center of the group. She's been too quiet lately. What happened to them wasn't her fault and maybe she'll believe that soon. "What could you do with it?" she murmurs, staring up. "If you understood it?" Esi puts an arm around her. "That's what we're going to find out. Where the Citadel can send us. Whether we can come back." "They're not us any more." Maya looks down at herself, at the cache of her self-forks. "We're not going anywhere. We're sending them. They're diverging." They rescued themselves from the inside of a Vex mind, two hundred and twenty-seven copies of themselves, untortured and undamaged. Those copies voted, all unanimously, to be dispatched into the Vex information network as explorers. They climb. When they find the Vex aperture they plan to use, they overlay the luminous stone and ancient brassy machines with images of sun and sand. They set up the transmitters and interfaces that will translate two hundred and twenty-seven simulations of the four of them into Vex language, into the tangled pathways of the Vex network, to see what's out there, and maybe come home. "Do you think," Duane begins, halting, "that you could use this place to change things? If you regretted something, could you find a way through the Citadel, go back, and change it?" Esi, she knows physics. "Time is self-consistent," she says. "I think it's like the story of the merchant and the alchemist. You could go back and watch something, or be part of something, but if you did, then that was the way it always happened." "Maybe you could bring something back to now (Strangers Rifle?). Something you needed." Maya runs a hand across the surface of the Vex aperture, feeling it with sensors ten thousand times as precise as a human hand (Warlock gauntlets?). These proxy bodies (early Exos?) are limited— they crash and need resetting every few hours, they struggle with latency, they can't hold much long term memory. But they'll get better. "Or go forward and learn something vital. If you knew how to control it, how to navigate across space and time." The four of them set up the interface. Their stored copies wake up and prepare for the journey, so that as they work they find themselves surrounded by the mental phantasms of themselves: two hundred and twenty-seven Mayas and Esis knocking helmets and smiling, two hundred and twenty-seven Dr. Shims making cynical bets with each other about how long they'll last, two hundred and twenty-seven Duane's blowing goodbye kisses to the sweet golden sun, two hundred and twenty-seven of them shaking hands, smiling, making ready to explore. Ok so Citadel=Time Machine? Has anybody seen the Citadel concept art where it is exploding? http://www.videogamesartwork.com/sites/default/files/images/image/1418986957/destiny_action_citadel_02_by_jesse_van_dijk_additions_04.jpg Dr. Shim=Us but is he a copy or the real one? Is the Archive computer recognizing the real Shim or the copy? Is Maya or Chioma Esi the Exo Stranger? Read the Exo Stranger Grimoire card for more information. Strangers Rifle brought through the Citadel? Sorry for the format, its hard to fit everything, what are peoples thoughts on this? Post your theories below!