[Part 1] It’s been quite a while since I’ve made an actual lore post. I had some planned, but never really found the time to research them. This post will basically be a shortened version of one of them mixed with something I’ve wanted to do since the Shadowkeep ViDoc. This post will be an analysis of the lore entry “Fragment” from the lore book “Stolen Intelligence”. I’m also going to look into what this entry might mean for Shadowkeep. Lore entry link: https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/fragment#book-stolen-intelligence I’ve had to break this post into two parts, so definitely look at part 2, that’s were the juicy stuff is. ____________________________________________________ Stolen Intelligence is a personal favorite of mine and many other lore enthusiasts. Almost every entry in that book has a connection to things happening in the game/current story. One definitely hasn’t (yet). Fragment. Since we’ve always gotten hints towards future expansions or stories, we probably already received one or more for Shadowkeep and I think Fragment is one of our best candidates. ____________________________________________________ [b][u]Analysis:[/u][/b] The first paragraph is already very interesting, since it seemingly contrasts everything we know about the current and future state of the moon. [quote] ACCESS: RESTRICTED DECRYPTION KEY: 73XK5V2PG1$AUN-326 REP #: 12059-INCID-LUN AGENT(S): FEN-092 SUBJ: Affidavit regarding Incident #12059 1. Last week, I was deployed by IKO-006 for routine surveillance of the quarantined zone outside the Hellmouth. Hive populations remain low and grow ever lower thanks to the efforts of a small contingent of veteran Guardians who have made their homes on Luna.[/quote] Immediately you should notice something we know to be false. [quote] Hive populations remain low and grow ever lower[/quote] Judging by the big ass scarlet fortress that suddenly inhabits the Ocean of Storms and a revitalized Hidden Swarm, they’re definitely going strong up there right now. And that fortress has to have been there for quite some time, it probably wasn’t built in the last months. Now there’s one possible reason for this contradiction: The report, that this lore entry contains, is a little older and from the time before the revitalized moon. When exactly that would be is unknown, but maybe around right before or after the Red War. I admit that this goes against the theme of the lore book that contains this entry, that being the latest and greatest Vanguard recon gossip, but it’s the only way that I can currently explain this. The only other thing that I could imagine but wouldn’t really count as a legit argument is...let’s say it all together...Savathûn is tricking someone again, yaaay. At this point it feels wrong to use that argument because that can be said about literally everything in Destiny, so we will ignore it. Next passage: [quote] 2. Around 1900 hours yesterday afternoon, I began to experience a crushing headache and excused myself from patrol to recuperate. Though I originally intended to lay down for a nap, I fell asleep instead, and experienced multiple vivid dreams over the next 11.5 hours. In all of these dreams, I was trying to catch up with agent ERI-223 in a crowd. She was always out of reach, whether by 200 m or 20 m. I had the sense that I needed to speak to her.[/quote] So here we get our first mention of Eris. It is the most obvious link to Shadowkeep other than taking place on the moon. We’ll talk about some of this later down the line. The third passage is where it gets interesting: [quote] 3. When I woke, I found that my headache had not improved. I prepared my armor and exited my bivouac to find a single stationary Thrall crouched nearby. It stood as I approached, but made no motion to attack me. I fired one shot, killing it immediately. Upon stepping forward to examine its corpse, I saw a solid black fragment of an unknown material embedded in its chest cavity. The fragment resembled a flake or a shard of some larger object, not dissimilar to a high-gain photovoltaic panel.[/quote] So we have an idol Thrall with a black, mysterious fragment in its chest. I don’t know about you, but I first imagined it as triangular, but due to it being described as a shard or flake, I doubt its off any particular geometrical shape. This fragment is obviously the main point of interest in this entry, hence its name. It’s fair to assume that the strange behavior of the Thrall and the fragment are linked. The next few paragraphs describe the fragment, how the guardian removes it from the Thralls corpse and two scans of the object by the ghost. The most interesting paragraph of these is definitely 5. [quote] 5. I requested that my Ghost attempt to contain and transmat the fragment for quarantine on my jumpship. He was unable to establish a Light link with the object, describing the fragment as "slippery" and "tiring" to try to catch hold of.[/quote] The key point here is the fact that the ghost was “unable to establish a Light link with the object”. We will also return to this fact later. Now to the last paragraph we will cover. I think this is the most important one: [quote] 8. At this point, I broke protocol and did not request additional backup. Instead, I picked up the fragment by hand and immediately experienced a vivid hallucination: I stood over VIP #0704's shoulder as she dressed a seven-inch gash on agent ERI-223's thigh. Both #0704 and ERI-223 were dressed for combat. Hundreds of fragments of the unknown material hung in the air around us, apparent shrapnel from the wreckage of a nearby ship of unrecognizable make and model. ERI-223 looked directly toward me and said, "Патетическая."[/quote] First up, the translation I get for Патетическая is “pathetic”. I don’t know if that’s accurate, so feel free to correct me on that. Next, VIP #0704. I don’t really know who that could be other than an unknown female guardian or someone from the OG Crota fireteam. It definitely isn’t our guardian, since our number is #2014 and we are never referred to as “he” or “she”, at least not in the lore. Moving on since that isn’t even the part of the paragraph I want to focus on. I’m most intrigued by this: [quote] Hundreds of fragments of the unknown material hung in the air around us, apparent shrapnel from the wreckage of a nearby ship of unrecognizable make and model.[/quote] So we know that the fragments either come from the hull of the ship or, more likely, from something it was carrying. I also think that this is our second link to Shadowkeep, but more on that later. So what do we learn about the fragments: - makes Thrall/Hive behave abnormally - seemingly repulsive towards Light - causes hallucinations/visions/dreams and headaches -comes from a larger mass - was brought to the moon by a crashed ship - the Hive have taken an interest in them The fact that they are black and repulsive towards Light seemingly suggests a link with the Darkness, but I’m not 100% convinced about that yet. But it’s definitely pointing us in that direction. Another important thing to note is the effect they have on guardians, giving hallucinations and visions. In short: making us see things (remember that for later). It’s unknown if the Thrall was the only Hive to carry such a fragment at that time. It could be a majorly spread “modification” or a small experiment. But since some time has definitely passed between that incident and now, both are now possible. Maybe this could also explain the somewhat different look of the hidden swarm. ____________________________________________________ -Continued in part 2- Link: https://www.bungie.net/de/Forum/Post/252803214/0/0