Spoilers down below:
[spoiler]This week has confirmed that the storied location we're going back to is the Simulant Future where Saint 14's grave is located. This will be bound to create debates for the next week about what the Sundial did. We could be thrown a curveball where Saint's body is missing because we really did "break time" to rescue Saint; it could be we created a branching timeline, and that was the one the Saint we know is from.
I have doubts about Saint-14 being a "simulation", given the Vex cannot simulate Paracausal forces like the Light. The Corridors of Time are a place inhabited by the Vex, but it was not created by the Vex. After all, Ergo Sum was created by the Traveler's Light, within the Pale Heart, a place the Vex would have no knowledge of or ability to simulate, yet the blade appears on our tomb within the Corridors. Next week will likely provide the answer, but I'm partial to either the branching timeline or us literally "breaking time". I've heard speculation that it might also have to do with Perfect Paradox. We did give Saint-14 the shotgun, after all. It might have a role in resolving this issue, given it seems set to drop next week.
Something else that will likely come up next week, I suspect, is what Saint-14 revealed about what the Conductor told him. To paraphrase, if Osiris hadn't used the Sundial to save Saint-14, then Sagira would still be alive. This screams Ahamkara to me, and all but confirms that something related to an Ahamkara was powering the Sundial. A wish to save Saint-14.
It would be a suitably Ahamkara-engineered tragedy if this turns out to be the case. Osiris made a wish to save Saint-14. When that finally came to pass, the wish influenced events so that Sagira's death was the price Osiris would pay.
It reminds me how frightening Ahamkara wishes are. They seem capable of anything within the Ahamkara's power, and they can not only choose which wishes to grant (Riven outright refused to grant the wish to follow the Witness, initially), but Taranis showed they can choose to grant the wish as desired, not insert some cruel twist into it.
Finally, there are Taken making their way down to Nessus' core, following the Echo and the Conductor. There was already a Taken presence this Episode with the Enigma Protocol missions, but now we know they're searching for the Conductor, for someone with the will to command them. As if the immense control the Conductor has demonstrated over the Vex isn't enough cause for concern, I am terrified of what the Conductor could do if they could take control of the Taken.
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2 RepliesEdited by Vongola654: 7/24/2024 1:12:44 AMNOTE: The recent Polyphony entry, "As a Stranger Gives its Wisdom", seems to describe the moment the Echo fell into the network. [spoiler]The Vex themselves seemed unaware that the Echo had landed within their network. It mentions how they are "lacking any framework and parameters beyond what they could predict", and so they did not acknowledge it, were unable to see or feel it, and couldn't hear anything when the Echo called out. This falls in line with the Vex being unable to predict Paracausality, and the Echo is a paracausal force. What did happen was the Echo called out to those who held onto their identities within the network, and most of those individuals responded to the Echo and reached for it. Though we know who got the Echo first - the Conductor - the list of described individuals is quite interesting. The first group is the simulated versions of the Ishtar Collective researchers, all two-hundred-and-twenty-odd instances of them. The second seems to be Asher Mir, who survived his unspooling into the Vex Network. Then there is the Great Quiet Thing, the Not-Worm. More on it later. The fourth seems to be a version of Osiris, one who still has Sagira by his side. I don't know if this is a wayward Echo, a Reflection, or an alternate-timeline version of Osiris trapped in the Network. It seems even more reached for the Echo, and from the rush of voices near the end of the entry, at least one of them seems to be Praedyth, or at least someone is saying "TELL ELSIE PRAEDYTH STILL-" But since only one can be first, the Conductor/Maya Sundaresh was the one who found the Echo first. I guess this was the moment where she "reawakened". ------------------------------------------------------ But back to the Great Quiet Thing. I've never seen this mentioned anywhere before, and I have only guesses as to what the heck it could be. It heard the Echo, but unlikely every other stated party it chose to ignore it, because "it was still too soon". It did react with a shiver, and that shiver formed bubbles of hypothetical simulations where it didn't which then burst and scattered nutrients into the Vex Network. My best guess is, whatever this thing is - a proto-Worm, an Ahamkara, [i][b]something else[/b][/i], I don't know - it is not locked within the Vex simulations and radiolaria, but is a physical entity that's just...sleeping in the network amongst the Vex. Whatever this thing is, apparently the presence of the Echo, a Prismatic force, is "too soon" for whatever it is waiting for. Whether it is on Nessus or somewhere else connected to the Vex Network, I also have no clue. But this has caught my attention, and I am eager to see what our mysterious new entity is, and when it will appear.[/spoiler]