Act 3 Week 3 Thoughts: [spoiler] Just when I thought I couldn't hate the Conductor/Maya Sundaresh more, this week's story comes and slaps me in the face. Maya killed her Chioma Esi, the one we knew from the Veil Containment logs. She found the Chioma Esi who was with her on Neomuna before we could, interrogated her, and degaussed her like all the rest when she didn't meet her impossible standard - that "her Chioma" would understand what she was doing on Nessus "for the sake of Humanity". She is even called out as being like Clovis by Ikora in the ending cutscene. The tragic thing about all of this, however, is that the other Chiomas, the other Mayas, did not turn out like this. From lore entries in this Episode and audio messages received in the Encore missions, and potentially the temporal anomalies from the Epilogue, the other Mayas and Chiomas are happy together. They loved each other, and Mayas worried for Chiomas when they started going missing because of the Conductor. [url=https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/vi-glass-house]VI. Glass House [/url] shows us one such pair. This Chioma convinced her Maya to let go of the obsessive drive to find an end she couldn't define, to stop and build a life together. They built a haven within the Vex Network for travelers within it. But not the Maya Sundaresh who became the Conductor. Who lived through the Collapse and found the Veil. Her drive consumed her, led her to sacrifice fellow scientists to her experiments with the Veil, [url=https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/vii-mind-body#book-polyphony]to send her own consciousness into the Veil[/url]. To do what she did during this Episode. A drive so strong that Chioma could not save her from it. Perhaps entering the Veil and returning, to realize how much time had passed and that Chioma was in a grave, according to the Vex she spoke to, broke her. It broke her so much that, even when she found her Chioma in the Vex Network, she couldn't believe it was the real her and degaussed her like all the rest. It was satisfying to see Ikora hit Maya point-blank with a Nova Bomb, even if she survived and escaped into the Vex Network with the Echo. She will be a problem, further down the line. I look forward to dealing with her when that time comes. [/spoiler] Dynasty Entry 3 Spoilers, since I presume it is now available for everyone: [spoiler]In my original write-up, I realized I needed the full context of Acts 2 and 3 to understand what happened in the third and final lore entry. Now that Act 3 is finished, the context is quite clear: The third entry follows with the Qugu fleeing through a gate to what they believe is their last star system of Se'Otan. Instead, Savathun had carved etchings into the gate that appear to have redirected the gate into the Ascendant Plane, leading the remaining Qugu right into a final ambush. This brings us to the events Oryx recounts in [url=https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/xxiii-fire-without-fuel#books-of-sorrow] Books of Sorrow XXIII: fire without fuel[/url]. He shows up in the middle of the battle in a pillar-ship, which seems to have been the ship he once commanded before constructing the Dreadnaught, and engages with Savathun's fleet before slicing through Savathun's flagship. What happens next is very interesting, as Te'Qal takes the opportunity afforded by the ambush to strike at the Pyramid which had once been the Mountain. They reach through the Darkness to connect to the ancestral lines of the Qugu and their memories and fuse that Darkness with the beam fired at the Pyramid, and successfully pierced the Pyramid. As the lore entry states: "The Darkness-linked fury of generations turns the beam Resonant. It strikes true, impaling the Pyramid's obscene hull in a fatal wound. Their final stand forever branded into the Pyramid's flesh." Guardians have indirectly utilized Resonance in the past, and the Resonance effect was briefly seen as we acquired Prismatic in the Final Shape. The Sol Divisive Vex, in Season of the Wish, used Oracles that gave off readings of Resonance to get ahead of us and abduct one of Riven's eggs. However, to my knowledge, this is the first time in the lore we've seen Resonance directly used by anyone outside of the Witness and its Disciples, and it was powerful enough to destroy a Pyramid ship. However, I can't say for certain if this was natural to the Qugu, or if it was a result of said Pyramid being hidden under the Mountain. But it wasn't enough to save Te'Qal and the remaining Qugu, as the Pyramid seemed to detonate in a wave of Resonance that washed over them and wiped them away. But if I'm understanding the end of the third entry correctly, the Witness took notice of Te'Qal and offered them Salvation at the end. Then there is the following: "They see the line of their people extend through them, through all Qugu, through Darkness, and death, and memory. All swept into an obliterating Echo. And then nothing. They extinguish, together." -------------------------------------------------------- With the full context of the story, I am certain this was the moment the Witness subsumed Te'Qal and the Qugu into itself. The Witness made an offer to Zavala to become part of its gestalt consciousness in the Final Shape. I believe the Witness made the same offer to Te'Qal and, given Maya knows of them and the nature of the Echo of Command, they took the offer at the end, becoming an Echo within the Witness' gestalt consciousness. Now, that memory has been forged into the Echo of Command as a result of the Witness' unmaking. I imagine we will receive a similar set of memories and lore entries when Revenant comes around, and we learn about the nature of the Echo Fikrul will get his hands on.[/spoiler]