[i]Phobos, as seen from Mars.[/i] [u][b]The Black Iron[/b][/u] Named after the Cabal's black blood (which may or may not contain iron like human blood) and the metallic appearance of most of the raid. This raid takes place on Phobos, one of Mars's moons. The moon is hollow and the Cabal have used this as an advanced research facility for their armies; Mars's very own Area 51, perhaps even Cabal's own [i]Death Star[/i]. You must infiltrate the facility and weaken the Cabal to hinder their militaristic advancements. [u]1. Goliath Encounter[/u] After landing on Phobos you are immediately greeted by an advanced Goliath tank. While having some visual similarities to the Goliath like the one in the mars strike, it is invincible and cannot be destroyed. It carries a deadly arc hull that kills at a touch. All you can do is get on your sparrow and race ahead as it chases you shooting in your general direction. You weave through the valleys and tunnels of Phobos's porous surface. To end the encounter you must take the correct route which leads to a canyon which your fireteam jumps across on sparrows while the Goliath falls to its doom. You arrive in front of the facility's entrance and begin the Black Iron raid. [u]2. Reactor Encounter[/u] The facility itself is dark yet clean. The floors and walls are dark blue steel. Pipes that carry a black oil pulsates a white light that lead you down the hall into an enormous open room. The shape of the room is that of the inside of a cylinder except with concave curved and smooth walls. The walls are clear, showing more intricate pipes of black oil. In the center is a reactor. To begin the encounter you turn on the reactor, which electrifies the walls showing energy running through the walls and at the same time circular ceiling opens up and cabal forces pour in. After defeating your first wave of Cabal your Sparrows come online and you must charge the reactor by riding on the concave walls via centripetal force. In doing so, the room slowly turns and descends as if it were an elevator. More Cabal forces pour in at the same time but the ceiling gets further and further as you descend. The enemies get stronger the deeper you go. Only 2 sparrows are online at a time and rotate through the guardians so you must keep switching who is charging the reactor. If no one charges the reactor, the reactor overheats, and after a certain time it explodes killing everyone in the fireteam. After fully descending the reactor stops, its ceiling closes preventing Cabal to drop in. It turns pitch black for a moment, then a faint light turns on revealing a single door which opens slowly. [u]3. Exiled Vex Encounter[/u] Your fireteam goes through the door into a small hallway that is dimly lit. It's not long before the hallway turns into a cavern. Stalagmites and stalactites cover these enormous caverns; the galaxies' rarest crystals can be found here, too. When you reach the other end of the caverns you find a large hatch. In doing so, you receive a hindrance: [i]Chill of Phobos[/i]. Your weapons have frozen up and jammed. You are forced to switch to your solar weapons if you want to survive the incoming horde of Exiled Vex. When you reach this hatch a single Vex Goblin shoots at your fireteam. Your fireteam laughs as it is quickly demolished. You chuckle along for a second but the smile turns into a façade of dread. You look at the dead Vex and notice this wasnt your typical "brass" Vex Goblin. It looked refined white in color, not unlike the Precursor Vex, but unlike any Vex they did not spill the white radiolaria fluid. Instead it was black oil. The hatch opens, leading to another enormous room of caverns with another closed hatch on the other end. Little did your team know, opening the hatch had initialized the dead Vex's reconstruction protocol. The Vex you had killed then puts itself back together except in doing so, it created another Vex. You cannot advance onto the next room without destroying all the Vex. So without a choice, your team demolishes this pair to unlock the next room, now with 4 vex at your tail. What was four soon becomes 8, then 16, then 32, 64, 128, and so on. Before long you are overwhelmed by the amount of Vex. Without a way to stop the insanity you reach the 11th room which contains an already opened hatch on the other side that leads to the next area. Your fireteam scrambles onward now ignoring the exponential army of now dark Vex at your behind, for even a team of Gjallahorns would barely dent this army... Why are there Vex in a Cabal base? Why did they look different? Why are they exiled? [u]4. Psion Mind Encounter[/u] The countless calculations and beeps of the Vex behind you echo as you escaped a certain death. The last hatch had closed behind you and you are back to a metallic hallway. Much like in the beginning, the hallway is of blue steel and more pipes of black oil pulse a light that leads you forward. Cabal guards patrol the halls but they are quickly dispatched of. You finally enter a large room. The pipes that had been there from the start all lead to this room. They all lead up, like a series of vines reclaiming what was once theirs. It culminated to the center of the ceiling where a large Psion was being fed this black oil, straight to its brain. It hung there dormant. Shooting it will activate its shield and begin the encounter, detaching the walls from the floor and leaving your fireteam into a large floating circular platform. Falling would be certain death. When the encounter begins Cabal jump up onto the floating platform trying to stop you and your team: the intruders. After defeating a wave, the Psion Mind [i]summons Guardians[/i]. You freeze. You think about all the lives of Fallen, Vex, Cabal, and Hive that you've forcefully taken then look up at yourself standing before you. They are exact replicas of your own guardian, although darker, almost as a silhouette. Are they real? Or just a figment of your imagination projected by the Psion Mind? They will mirror whatever you do across the center of the platform. If you move forward it moves forward. If you shoot it, it will shoot back at the exact same time. The fireteam is entirely shocked, most likely thinking back as you are, but that only lasts less than a second before gun fire breaks the silence. Shooting your own doppelganger will cause it to shoot you which gives you the hindrance: [i]Possessed by the Mind[/i] as soon as you are hit. During which you cannot control your own guardian, instead it will begin walking toward the edge. Your fireteam must shoot you if you're possessed to break the Mind's control. To not become possessed you must shoot someone else's doppelganger and hope that the your fireteam isn't in the doppelgangers crossfire. When the doppelgangers are gone, you gain the temporary aid: [i]Will of Light[/i] in which you can use to penetrate the shield and damage the Psion mind. After a certain amount of time, the Psion becomes enraged, summoning doppelgangers that are independent of you, firing at you whether or not you fire back. Defeating the Psion Mind will detach it from its pipes, leaking black oil onto the platform, which disintegrates and your fireteam falls deeper into Phobos. [u]Final Encounter: Chimiera, the Deviser[/u] A layer of debris break your fall. You look around and find remains of Fallen, Vex, Hive even Cabal and what looked like Human skeletons. Among this you find countless green and blue engrams, the gear of guardians who had failed before you. It was a large wide hall with a large door at the end of it. To the right was a series of Cabal floating inside cylindrical tanks with wires and tubes coming out of them. The first time you've seen Cabal without their armor. They floated there, likely in hibernation and unaware of your presence. The tanks themselves had enormous bases, presumably gravity generators to accommodate the Cabal outside their armor. To the left of this hall were assembly machines, some of them them with partly assembled robots. Some of these robots looked like [i]Vex[/i], very much like the unstoppable Exiled Vex you had no choice but to run away from. The machinery had Cabal etchings on them, and so did the bots. Chills went down your spine when you came to a realization. [i]The Cabal had created their own Vex.[/i] Maybe not intentionally but it was clear they were trying to manufacture their own bots to fight alongside them in their resolve to conquer the galaxy. You think back to the black oil the Exiled Vex spilled when they were destroyed. Were they called Exiled because the rest of the Vex race had rejected them? You ponder as your fireteam took this moment to regroup and rest before opening the final door. (Continued below)