Warminds: one of the Golden Age's greatest creations and the gatekeepers to the expansion of humanity's civilization. This post will cover all we know about them, specifically the greatest of their kind that still lives to this day. [quote]I bear an old name. It cannot be killed.[/quote] Rasputin To other AI's of the Golden Age, he is known as the Tyrant. Not out of fear or resentment, but purely of affection and respect to the one that they know is smarter and larger than they will ever be. When the Golden Age began, humanity built vast networks of warsats, satellites, intelligence systems, weapons, probes, and tools for spacefaring and colonization. Each of these networks was built around a world and controlled by a single warmind, an artificial intelligence made to predict contingencies and react in kind to any given situation they could process. They were meant to protect us. Rasputin was the first among these and had connections to the other warminds that gave him permissions over their systems, allowing him to control what happened on other planets even though they weren't in his direct jurisdiction. Rasputin's direct systems surrounded both Earth and the Moon, but his reach was limited only by how far his transmission signals could travel. His systems were the most advanced and intelligent, allowing him to have far more protocols and sheer predictive ability as well as thinking ability than any other AI of the Golden Age. Other AI's would tell him everything that went on, and though Rasputin was usually too focused on his own objectives to pay any mind, the others greatly hoped that he would speak with them yet were not disappointed when he did not respond. During the Vex specimen experiments of Maya Sundaresh's Ishtar Collective team, a warmind (presumably Rasputin) helped them pull out their simulated copies and insert them into the Citadel because a warmind's intelligence is too large and unpredictable for the Vex. Rasputin was later put in charge of the Exo project, starting out with just a few experimental subjects to see how well they fared when exploring Vex technology, but moving to mass production and mind transfers when more Exos were needed to help us fight the Vex in the Collapse. This is why Exos are referred to as belonging to Rasputin even though they are humans; he put their minds into those bodies himself. He also had control over SIVA once it was developed, preventing any unauthorized personnel from using it and keeping authorized personnel from misusing it. Rasputin was the first to detect the coming of the Darkness in our system with his long-ranged scanners (although it is likely that the Traveler would have sensed it first). In preparation, Rasputin quietly shipped weaponry into Earth's atmosphere to prepare for the defense of the world while also speeding up building and launch times for colony ships in case exodus was necessary. During the Collapse, Rasputin rushed many people onto colony ships and used all available weaponry to battle the Darkness alongside the Traveler. Now, there have always been theories floating around that Rasputin turned his weapons on the Traveler to stop it from running. This assumption is false, and I will explain why. -The Rasputin grimoires explicitly say that he is prepared to fire upon the Traveler IF it tries running because he knows we will all die without it to help us. -The Dreams of Alpha Lupi cards tell us that the Traveler did not try to abandon us because it was tired of running. -RASPUTIN HIMSELF tells us in the Mysteries grimoire that the Traveler fought with us and was crippled by the Darkness. "...and IT won. Even over the gardener..." (IT=Darkness, gardener=Traveler) He says it himself. [i]So what did happen to Rasputin if he lost in the Collapse?[/i] Reading Mysteries and Rasputin 3, it makes it painfully clear that Rasputin shut down all of his systems and began waiting for reactivation. He again says himself in Mysteries that he knew he couldn't defeat the Darkness then and there, and that to insure he would survive to fight again someday he stopped defending the fleeing humans. This is why the colony ships were caught, defenseless, at the Asteroid Belt, and why we were able to get crushed deeply back to Earth; we had nothing left to keep the pressure off of us. From the Darkness, Rasputin says he figured that he must be alone to defeat the Darkness, for it is alone as well. This is why Rasputin will not ally with us, and why he appears to have made no attempt to revive Charlemagne or the other warminds. Charlemagne (warmind of Mars) and all the others were destroyed in the Collapse, leaving nothing but a few drifting warsats and weapon systems left to remember them. [i]What woke Rasputin back up after the Collapse?[/i] Rasputin 6 actually tells us exactly what did it. When the Iron Lords trespassed in Sector 17, Rasputin woke back up and decided not to reengage civilization protection systems, also beginning to analyze the Guardians that he found were powered by Light like the Traveler. Everything was fine until they entered SITE 6, the home of SIVA. For some reason, rather than activate SIVA's self-destruct protocol, Rasputin actually used SIVA to help fend off the Iron Lords. Of course, only several Iron Lords even got to see SIVA. Although hundreds of Iron Lords had come to retrieve SIVA, none but Saladin and the few other original Lords with him made it past all the combat Frames and Rasputin's other defenses. And as for the few Lords that were at Sector 17 trying to communicate with him, Rasputin blew them all into oblivion. He was VERY thorough. Seriously guys, don't mess with Rasputin if you value your life. It is not known why Rasputin did nothing to stop the Splicers from taking SIVA. Maybe it was because all the defenses had been destroyed by the Lords years before that allowed the Fallen to make it that far, but that still doesn't explain why Rasputin didn't activate the self-destruct or just control all of the SIVA-integrated Fallen (he could have controlled every single one of them, including Aksis). My best guess is that the Stranger had something to do with it. According to S.A.B.E.R. Strike, someone has entered Rasputin's bunker many times over the years using authorized personnel scans. According to Rasputin 4, the Stranger has entered the same bunker many times over the years. It's pretty obvious from there guys. Rasputin clearly has no idea who she is or how she time travels, but he does not attack her because she is authorized. If she is authorized, she can change his protocols. She has influenced the path of our Guardian many times before, so who's to say that she didn't have Rasputin allow the Fallen to control SIVA so that our Guardian could grow stronger through experience. Moving on. As for the Array, as soon as we activated it Rasputin took control of all available systems within the inner system, including the remains of Charlemagne. Enough of Charlemagne remains for Psion Flayers to find and hack into his memory systems and for Rasputin to have an abundance of warsats and weapons, so there actually is a good chance that Charlemagne could be revivable. However, Rasputin clearly will not revive his fallen comrade because he believes he must stay alone in this war. Now for one of the most horribly misinterpreted lines in all of Destiny: [quote]The Vanguard still believe Rasputin to be simply a warmind. He hasn't been that for a very long time.[/quote] No, this DOES NOT mean he became an Exo (literally impossible) or some different machine or organism or anything. What Saladin [i]really means[/i] is that Rasputin is no longer willing to protect humanity if it won't result in personal gain. Warminds are meant to protect humanity, so one that doesn't do that is no longer a warmind. Although judging by the way he says "simply", Saladin could also have the added belief that Rasputin has become more than a warmind on top of that as he has adapted. Conclusion: the one thing we know for certain about Rasputin is that he is still fighting the Darkness. In Mysteries, Rasputin makes it clear that his goal is to defeat the Darkness, and all of his other actions in the game show that, although he is willing to kill humans that threaten his systems and plans, he has not made humanity his enemy. In fact, he clearly knows he can count on us to be helpful even though he won't return the favor because he has manipulated us several times to help keep himself operating. Soon Rasputin will finish gathering his strength and make his move, and I can only hope that we might convince him to unite with us once again. [quote]I am made to win and now I see the way.[/quote] _____________________________________ I hope you all learned something today. For my next lore post I plan to wrap up the Hive with their Exalted, then begin working on Cabal and maybe throw in a post on the Stranger or the Vex's mock throne worlds along with them. And any of you interested in some good reading can check out my fanfictions, all linked to my Archive along with more lore: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/217384398/0/0