XI-23-1C · The last invitation
Bungie · Original English text
ANNOTATED TRANSCRIPTION FOLLOWS
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My distant friend,
I hope you still have your communicator. Though our last parting was acrimonious, and it has been many centuries since I have last seen your message alert glimmering in the corner of my vision, I choose to believe you have not cut this last atomic line between us. I compose this message in secret. The rest of the Consensus would not understand; they do not know you as I do - did? - but they could. It is in that hope that I reach towards you now.
My friend, the Consensus has won. Yesterday, the Penitent* voted aye. The [Nihilists] and [Solipsists] have been destroyed. We will exuviate, and shepherd the universe to its final shape. We will prune away its dead branches and coax forth its full potential.
Even as I say those words, I feel the old doubts crawling through my thoughts again. But it has been long, and longer still, since you renounced the Consensus and set off into the cosmos. You have not seen the violence that visited our shores; a terrible reflection of that ancient history, which we believed was behind us. Though we were steadfast in our position and would have continued to argue it, however long it might take… there were dangerous elements. Subversives and defectors. We did not strike first! Nor did we choose our response lightly.
It had been so long since I wielded pruning shears; I had forgotten how. My hands shook. I could only imagine how you would have looked at me. But it is over now. What has been done, is done.
They were the last, and now we are all in Consensus.
If I wished to persuade you with words alone, I would not have told you this. You have steadfastly abhorred such measures since they were first proposed. I do not tell you this to shock or intimidate you. Nor would I withhold this truth, because I do not seek to persuade you with a lie, even of omission.
I tell you this because I respect you. Of everyone I have ever known, you have been fiercest in your compassion; most keenly aware of the gap between means and ends. If you return, if you join the Consensus, then I will know our cause is true. That, after all this time, we have finally found our apodictic truth. I will discard myself with no regrets.
I do not say this to put my finger on the scale of your decision, only to inform you of the situation. After our exuviation, we will no longer know the shape of your absence. What we are becoming will not be capable of doubt or dissent. It never will have been capable of such things. We will forget our pain, our strife, our petty grudges, our prejudices. It will no longer exist, and therefore will never have existed.
Do you understand?
There is not much time. Now that we are in Consensus, our progress is unhindered. The Veil unravels before us. The fundamental principles we have long hoped for are woven in its threads.
And when we have completed the process and thrown off our lesser selves… we will be perfect. Even so, I cannot help but nurture this seed of heresy, the grit which I hope will be subsumed by the pearl: that what we become will be lesser, if it is made without you. How could perfection be lesser? Yet the feeling burns in my veins, so I must share it with you.
I confess this in selfishness. I do not want to forget you.
HNW047622
TRANSCRIPTION ENDS
SCRIBE NOTES
*This group appears to be the same as the [Merciful/ Penitent/Benefic] mentioned in SCRIBE ARCHIVE XI-9-2C. There is no usage of ternary semantic clusters whatsoever throughout the text.
I did not expect to find this. I pen these notes as I await my audience with Marakel in the Reef. As there are many matters which require her attention, the hours stretched on, and I searched the databanks for those old identification codes on a whim.
To think that this data was retrieved by Prince Uldren Sov. Is this what Humans mean when they say they feel someone walking on their grave? Though, in the prince’s case, that grave is empty. Would it be too awkward if I thanked Crow for an act done in a past life?
I apologize. I am rambling, and two different Techeuns have asked me now if I’m quite alright. Physically, I suppose, I am a little tired - this journey has taken me far, and I have slept perhaps slightly less than is ideal - but in truth, I feel deeply disturbed by this record.
I cannot clearly interpret my own reaction. It is too visceral. Overwhelming. Disgust and horror mix with pity. I even find myself feeling sympathy.
Sympathy! For someone who admits openly to murdering dissenters! For a people who purposefully erased their own history, as though not remembering those crimes would absolve them of it! For the minds that would form the Witness - for those who destroyed Riis!
And yet, in my horror, I am reminded of Guardians. After all, we do not blame Crow for the actions of the prince, nor should we. When Glint brought him back in the Great Machine's Light, Crow was born anew. As were Ikora, and Zavala, and you. It is as Ikora says, is it not? Grace and memory. The Light forgets.
Just as the Witness forgot.
But then I think, no! The Witness did not forget! It was not reborn; it did not choose unreasonable grace. It exuviated, in its own words, but it remembered where it came from. It chose what to forget, not to allow for new possibility, but to destroy it. A self-justifying teleology.
It is not just reality that the Witness mutilates. It has dissected and reassembled itself, its own memories, its own history. The Witness went from confronting the uncomfortable truth to erasing it. It is grotesque.
As a Scribe — as Eido — I cannot feel anything but revulsion.