I went through yesterday and acquired *most* of the grimoire cards/ghosts around the world and started to read them today. Some interesting dialogue about the Vex and Rasputin/Warminds. Seems that the Warmind is the only thing the Vex cannot "simulate" or understand unlike humankind. I've bolded some of the more interesting tidbits. It makes it seem like this whole game, is just a simulation of the Vex. Kind of explains how we can just "materialize" from our ghost like we never died, and how the gorgons/templar just "erase" us from existence.... because we are just copies of guardians running in a Vex simulation. This is under grimoire cards --> enemies --> vex --> ghost fragment: vex 1-3 From the Records of the Ishtar Collective ESI: Maya, I need your help. I don't know how to fix this. SUNDARESH: What is it? Chioma. Sit. Tell me. ESI: I've figured out what's happening inside the specimen. SUNDARESH: Twelve? The operational Vex platform? That's incredible! You must know what this means - ah, so. It's not good, or you'd be on my side of the desk. And it's not urgent, or you'd already have evacuated the site. Which means... ESI: I have a working interface with the specimen's internal environment. I can see what it's thinking. SUNDARESH: In metaphorical terms, of course. The cognitive architectures are so - ESI: No. I don't need any kind of epistemology bridge. SUNDARESH: Are you telling me it's human? A human merkwelt? Human qualia? ESI: I'm telling you it's full of humans. It's thinking about us. SUNDARESH: About - oh no. ESI: [b]It's simulating us. Vividly. Elaborately. It's running a spectacularly high-fidelity model of a Collective research team studying a captive Vex entity.[/b] SUNDARESH:...how deep does it go? ESI: Right now the simulated Maya Sundaresh is meeting with the simulated Chioma Esi to discuss an unexpected problem. [indistinct sounds] SUNDARESH: There's no divergence? That's impossible. It doesn't have enough information. ESI: It inferred. It works from what it sees and it infers the rest. I know that feels unlikely. But it obviously has capabilities we don't. It may have breached our shared virtual workspace...the neural links could have given it data... SUNDARESH: The simulations have interiority? Subjectivity? ESI: I can't know that until I look more closely. But they act like us. SUNDARESH: [b]We're inside it. By any reasonable philosophical standard, we are inside that Vex.[/b] ESI: Unless you take a particularly ruthless approach to the problem of causal forks: yes. They are us. SUNDARESH: Call a team meeting. ESI: The other you has too. CARD 2 SUNDARESH: So that's the situation as we know it. ESI: To the best of my understanding. SHIM: Well I'll be a [profane] [profanity]. This is extremely [profane]. That thing has us over a barrel. SUNDARESH: Yeah. We're in a difficult position. DUANE-MCNIADH: I don't understand. So it's simulating us? It made virtual copies of us? How does that give it power? ESI: It controls the simulation. It can hurt our simulated selves. We wouldn't feel that pain, but rationally speaking, we have to treat an identical copy's agony as identical to our own. SUNDARESH: It's god in there. It can simulate our torment. Forever. If we don't let it go, it'll put us through hell. DUANE-MCNIADH: We have no causal connection to the mind state of those sims. They aren't us. Just copies. We have no obligation to them. ESI: You can't seriously - your OWN SELF - SHIM: [profane] idiot. Think. Think. If it can run one simulation, maybe it can run more than one. And there will only ever be one reality. Play the odds. DUANE-MCNIADH: Oh...uh oh. SHIM: [b]Odds are that we aren't our own originals. Odds are that we exist in one of the Vex simulations right now.[/b] ESI: I didn't think of that. SUNDARESH: [indistinct percussive sound] CARD 3 SUNDARESH: I have a plan. ESI: If you have a plan, then so does your sim, and the Vex knows about it. DUANE-MCNIADH: Does it matter? If we're in Vex hell right now, there's nothing we can - SHIM: [b]Stop talking about 'real' and 'unreal.' All realities are programs executing laws. Subjectivity is all that matters.[/b] SUNDARESH: We have to act as if we're in the real universe, not one simulated by the specimen. Otherwise we might as well give up. ESI: Your sim self is saying the same thing. SUNDARESH: Chioma, love, please hush. It doesn't help. DUANE-MCNIADH: Maybe the simulations are just billboards! Maybe they don't have interiority! It's bluffing! SHIM: I wish someone would simulate you shutting up. SUNDARESH: [b]If we're sims, we exist in the pocket of the universe that the Vex specimen is able to simulate with its onboard brainpower. If we're real, we need to get outside that bubble.[/b] ESI: ...we call for help. SUNDARESH:[b] That's right. We bring in someone smarter than the specimen. Someone too big to simulate and predict. A warmind.[/b] SHIM:[b] In the real world, the warmind will be able to behave in ways the Vex can't simulate. It's too smart. The warmind may be able to get into the Vex and rescue - us.[/b] DUANE-MCNIADH: If we try, won't the Vex torture us for eternity? Or just erase us? SUNDARESH: It may simply erase us. But I feel that's preferable to...the alternatives. ESI: I agree. SHIM: Once we try to make the call, the Vex may...react. So let's all savor this last moment of stability. SUNDARESH: [indistinct sounds] SHIM: You two are adorable. DUANE-MCNIADH: I wish I'd taken that job at Clovis.