By Nemesis Black, Warlock Adept Introduction I recognise that my time both as a Guardian and as explorer has been brief, however I have taken it upon myself to begin a colatation of my findings gleaned from my combat actions against that most ubiquitous of our Earthbound antagonist, the barbarain raiders know as The Fallen. In the 10 days since my Ghost...resuscitated my...remains into Guardianship I have taken part in many actions against the Fallen in and around the ruins of the New Russia Cosmodrome, have engaged and damaged several of their dropships, faught and vanguished Riksis, the Archon Slayer among the wreckage of a crashed jumpship, hunted servitors across the Forgotten Shore with the Titan Guerda, single-handedly destroyed a Fallen Devil Walker, and assisted in a fireteam strike against the High Servitor designated Sepkis Prime. These statements are not put forth boastfully (as many of my Hunter bretheren are want to do..ahem), but are mentioned only to indicate my credentials as to my contact with the Fallen and their piratical habits. I seek no accolade or status in compiling these observations and theories and hope only my insights will benefit all Gaurdians in the crusade in these most...intriguing of the agents of Darkness (if that is indeed what they are...) Initial Analyse: The antagonistic race known only as The Fallen appear at first glance vaguley arachnid, if still, anthropomorphic in nature and incredibly agile. all subjects sport two pairs of eyes, a mouth of sharp teeth indicating a predatory origin and multipe limbs on larger subjects - this has led tot he popular colloquial descriptor of "Spider Pirates". Cursery examination of corpses on the battlefield notes a recuring upright posture, two legs and either one, or two pairs of arms depending on stature of subject, with 3 fingered hands, with the larger statured subjects again, sporting extra digits in the form of opposable thumbs. As mentioned above, the subjects vary in stature from the two-armed, skittish "Dregs" to the more robust and up-right "Vandals" and "Captains" mostly commonly encountered. As inferred there does appear to be some correlation between, size, posture, and number of limbs of a subject and some kind of cultural heirarchy - the so-called Dregs being subservient to Vandals, who in-turn follow the Captain. Supplemental: On closure inspection of corpses on the field the Dreg subjects do indeed have indications of an extra pair of limbs as their superiors - but the appear to have been uniformly amputated! I can only presume this is symbolic, a tribal custom possibly corporal punishment...or a voluntary act of ...contrition? Certainly the practice was known amongst some cultures of pre-Collapse Earth. Intriguing.... It has now been over a week since my last entry. Much has transpired. Recent days have yielded knowledge and horrors I could never have envisioned, not in my headiest dreams, nor my darkest nightmares... In the words of an ancient warrior poet "I have seen things you people wouldn't believe..." Since my last entry I have plundered the library of a Hive fortress beneath our now-hollow moon, with my Titantic comerade I have infiltrated a Fallen flagship and burned down the Kell of the House of Winter with hand-held atomic fire in his very throne room. I have witnessed the rebirth and re-killing of an Archon Priest, and stolen into a garden outside of Time entirely to battle profane contructs animated by a fragment of the Great Dark itself! This experience alone nearly shattered my sanity and I dare not meditate too long on the ramifications and possiblities of what I learned there (if Rasputin's logic could have led to such...such outcomes, such...consequences(?)...no, no reasonable mind could tread those... pathways into darkness... and who- what is the signicficance of the Nine?) And yet despite all these relevations my mind keeps returning to subject of the Fallen. Consider this: We Guardians are dead. Dead warriors resusciated by the supreme (nay-God-Like) science of The Traveller, to be it's soldiers against the Darkness - a force that has pursued it across the stars and crushed or corrupted everything in it's path, include or own solar estate. The data my Ghost procurred from the World's Grave ( a massive Hive archive beneath our moon) hints at them witnessing the Darkness decimate and out right annhilate countless other civilisations in it's march across Creation. Still, with me? Now what if the rag-tag pirate kings we know as the Fallen were one of those vicitms. What if they were as we were - an ascendant, possibly even noble people, striding the stars like colossi, swords in hand...hands -Princes of the Universe... (analyse of their House heraldry and cultural artifacts seems to indicated that at least they though so...) Perhaps the Traveller, reached out to save them, bathed them in it's light just as it did us.... ...Then pulled away. Perhaps it had run out of time, perhaps it fled. Perhaps it deemed the race we know as the Fallen too decadent, too casually brutal. Perhaps it saw a shadow of the Darkness with in their spidery hearts and decided they were already lost... Perhaps the Fallen got a glimpse, a fleeting glimpse of how the Traveler could help them survive. And, perhaps, with the meagre tools of their tattered remnant they decided to sythesise their own salvation. Pale imitations of the Travelling Sphere. And thus were born The Prime Servitors - imperfect spheres made in the Traveller's image. In place of Light, they have Ether, both literally and figuratively the lifeblood of th fallen race. Samples recovered from the battlefield dead show a substance possessing the qualities of both liquid, gas and energy. How exactly it animates the Fallen themselves is still a mystery under investigation by both the Warlocks and the Cryptarchs, but I have first-hand witnessed the House of Devils master Servitor (an interesting contradiction...) Sepiks Prime draw forth the Ether from dead Fallen and use it to breath new life into it's defeated guards. The lesser servitors, each an "offspring" of a single Prime accompany the Fallen in the field in very much the same way our Ghosts accompy us, not each bound to an indiviual Fallen but certainly attached to cadres. They have been observed performing logistical support, data hacking, and rationing out precious Ether to sustain their attached units. Whether Ether is produced by the Servitors themselves or harvested from the enviroment is another mystery. Suffice to say that even the highest of the Fallen castes, the Archon's and Kells, seem treat their life-giving globes with the greatest reverence in a macabre analogue of how we cling to the light of The Traveler and rely on the guidance of our Ghost companions. Surely these similaritaries cannot be mere coincidence? And if we run with this supposition - that in their desperation the Fallen sought to manufacture their own God-Sphere's to fend of the Darkness, what then do we make of their waging of war against the both Hive and the Vex - perhaps the most overt of pawns of Darkness- on both Venus, our Moon and even in the shadow of our City walls? And what of Queen of the Reef who has declared herself the Kell of the House of Wolfs? It is now common knowledge that she has taken Fallen Captains as her royal honour guard! For who do these doomed warriors truly fight- for the Darkness as we first though as the House Devils led the greatest assault upon our kind since The Collapse at Twilight Gap? For themselves and their dreams of lost glory? Or simply for the strongest, for whoever can overcome their abject contempt for weakness and pasivity by matchin them into both brutal force and viscous cunning? If this is true, dare we believe that a House be swayed to our cause? That we may gain potent allies in our battle for survival, that we may not be alone in this long twilight struggle...