The Brightest and the Darkest: Intro

[i][b]For the posterity of my kind, that they may know where we came from and how we came to this system:[/b][/i] We were once a proud race. We were blessed by the gifts granted us by the Great Machine. I need not tell you the yearning tales your mothers told. What you [i]need [/i]to know is the truth. Forget the hope that radicals claim, that we can redeem ourselves. When the Great Machine left, it did for a reason. We were never meant to bask in its glory for eternity. It must have seen within us a flaw, a splinter of shadow lodged in our being that we didn't see. When the Great Machine left, we were quick to blame each other. Houses turned on Houses, and only mine, House Judgment, knew why the Traveler left: it saw a proud people, too proud to accept the possibility that we did not deserve its gifts. But no one would listen. Kells challenged and blamed Kells for the disappearance. Chelchis, Kell of House Stone and leader of our military, did well. He was just as proud as the rest of us, but he had pride in our people, not just his House over the others. He did not tolerate our infighting, and did his best to maintain peace. The other Kells respected him the most, but that was still not enough to quell their spiteful hearts. Without the Great Machine's Light, the Deep came rushing in like a Whirlwind to fill the void. Chelchis rallied his house to fight the oncoming storm, inspiring House Judgment to act as well. No longer content to watch our society crumble around us, we determined our world was doomed, and that evacuation was the only means of survival. We commandeered the great fleets made in our Golden Age, and told everyone they needed to come aboard or perish. Of course, some chose to stay. Like Chelchis. We knew that it was only a matter of time before our people carried our civil disorder to the leaving ships, but with Chelchis around to discipline everyone, there was a chance we could survive and colonize a new system instead of becoming scavengers. But Chelchis wanted to stay. So, Judgment acted a second time. The night before our departure and before the Whirlwind was to break over our planet, House Judgment drugged Chelchis and some of his commanding officers and spirited them away to the ships. We took off before they awoke to find themselves alive as their planet died. Chelchis was furious. House Judgment was the object of distrust and scorn, though our actions were more than justified in the following cycles in deep space. As we predicted, Chelchis kept the Houses from destroying each other, as well as prohibit deplorable practices like docking our lower arms. Ether was strictly rationed to all members of the crew equally. After what would have been several months, Judgment's choice was recognized as good. But we would have continued to be set adrift had Chelchis not given his people a purpose. He believed in our redemption, and thought the best way was to find the Great Machine and beg for its mercy. We traveled to many ally worlds gathering supplies needed to locate the Great Machine, sometimes taking what we needed by force. Once we had the necessary equipment, we set to task for another year or more. Discipline was hard to maintain, but Chelchis' dream of finding it was incorruptible. When we found it, it was on another world, helping its people reach the heights of prosperity. Chelchis made contact with its people and asked for peaceful asylum on their world, and in their prosperous state they were too quick to agree without hearing our warning. Like before, the Deep descended on their world, but most Eliksni were quick to leave them this time, following the Great Machine when it left, much like the winged serpents who grant wishes. We followed this ritual for generations, integrating with a new brilliant world only to have it conquered by the deep. We remained one step ahead of it, no more than 100 of our kind dying at every catastrophe, and only because they stayed behind. Eventually, the Great Machine came to a system fed by the light of a yellow sun. Orbiting it was a planet called Earth. The Earthlings were younger than the other worlds the Great Machine had visited, so our people lingered in space for a few months before introducing ourselves to them. They were weary at first, listening to our tales of desperation. Some acted out in fear and aggression, calling us and the Great Machine harbingers of their doom. Radicals of our race, like the House of Wolves, believed the humans were undeserving of the Great Machine's gift and committed retaliatory acts of terrorism. Fortunately, the Light pervaded both people and we made peace with each other. More than any other world we had occupied, we grew closest with the humans. We worked alongside and marveled at their creative capacity, sharing technological advancements whenever we could. More than surviving, the Eliksni prospered once again. Only House Judgment remembered that it would not last. The humans saw the signs of the approaching deep earlier than most worlds had. Even then, it wasn't enough to save the outer planets of their colonized system. It was strange to see the Great Machine leave one of the moons to return to Earth. We thought it would leave again, and Judgment encouraged everyone to make preparations. Chelchis didn't listen. He had grown fond of our alliance, and decided to stay to fight the Whirlwind he was denied on his homeworld. As the storm ripped through the system and we prepared to leave, we noticed the Great Machine still wouldn't leave. Judgment realized it was going to stay and help, and we chose to stand beside Chelchis and our human allies as well. Of course, some Eliksni decided it was better to leave, and they convinced other humans to make the exodus with them. We lost contact with them all before they ever left the system. The Deep would not leave any survivors this time. The humans would call their Whirlwind the Collapse. Chelchis earned the death in battle he had long yearned for, as did several other leaders of the other Houses. The Great Machine stayed and produced the strange small machines that called themselves Ghosts. They found ancient dead humans and granted them the power of the Great Machine. The Eliksni dead were not so blessed. What should have been a time of help and rebuilding became an era of schisms. The empowered humans quickly became mad warlords, drunk on power. Skolas, the last living leader of House Wolves, played on our people's jealousy of the humans and once again encouraged attacks against the humans to reclaim the Great Machine. He did not understand that the Great Machine sacrificed itself and gave them its last gift for a reason. Skolas' attacks were enough to galvanize the humans against us. They gathered beneath the Great Machine, strengthened by the reborn beings called "Guardians." The Wolves rallied a large force against the advice of House Judgment in a plan to claim this settlement beneath the Great Machine. On the eve of what would have been a terrible battle, they came. In our travels with the Great Machine, the Eliksni had drawn the attention of a great interplanetary empire: the Cabal. Even as the Deep claimed most of the world, the Cabal followed close behind to claim the survivors, never once actually experiencing the horror of a Whirlwind. They followed us to our system, remaining undetected and waiting to claim another world for the empire once the Deep came. But when the Deep arrived, it came to claim everyone. The Cabal's conquering fleet 1,000 strong was reduced to less than a quarter of that when the Deep arrived. They could not fight and could not flee. They only knew defeat. This changed the Cabal. They now knew their true enemy, and a worthy opponent to war with. They had seen the Great Machine's sacrifice, and realized that it was in their best interest to keep the humans and Eliksni alive. Before we destroyed each other, the Cabal arrived and stopped us from killing each other. Unfortunately, the Cabal only knew how to take over, not negotiate, so their solution was to conquer us like so many they had before. But this time, they integrated us into their legions, making us fill the role Chelchis had left vacant. House Judgment was chosen to oversee all the Eliksni Houses as they became one legion, the Sol Legion. The Houses became sub-legions, led by their former Kells as high-ranking Vals in the Cabal military. The Cabal built a powerful base of operations around the Great Machine, encompassing it in a massive dome called the Geode. From the Geode, we mount assaults against the lingering forces of the Deep that threaten the Light. The Hive, a race the Eliksni have seen time and again from previous cataclysms, have lingered and seeded Earth's moon, and there is no doubt they will try to take the planet as well. Awakened by the Great Machine's demise, Vex have converted Mercury into one of their machines while stalemates have been reached on both Venus and Mars. This is how we were and as we are. We have survived too much to be killed now, and we must not let them reach the Great Machine. The Hive and Vex will try to kill us. Kill them back. [i][b]Valus Variks Former member of House Judgment Commander of the Sol Legion[/b][/i] [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/244991280?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=1]Table of Contents[/url]