Amidst unverified rumors that the last leaked datafile was from the Future War Cult, we have now received yet another datafile. This one again comes with no official claim for responsibility, but has been traced back to a terminal in the Crucible Control Section of the Tower. Datafile: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Of the Fallen I have managed to learn much. As they are the most predictable and easiest to ensnare of all our current foes, they are also the nearest to the city so the easiest to get hold of. As well as from direct “enquiry”, I also gained knowledge from an induced hypnosis at the Anomaly in K1. That place is quite remarkable. What I have learned is as follows: The Fallen home world was one much different to our own. They come from a planet much larger than our Earth, and as such had far greater gravitational forces to deal with. These forces made it such that the primary growth of species all had fluid based respiration. However, at the pressures on their planet water as we know it would have been a solid, and rather the liquid lakes and seas were of hydrocarbon base. The respiratory systems of the Fallen are based on a fluid that contains high ethylene and krypton levels. It is from this ethylene that we coined the term “ether”, and it is the krypton that gives their respiratory fluid its white colour as it turns to a gas after being released from their pressurised breathing containers. The increased gravitational pressure also gave rise to several other defining characteristics of the species. Their additional appendages were part of the evolutionary process, as it made them more adept swimmers as well as making them better able to manoeuvre on land after they had mastered the technology that they needed to bring their ether with them to breath. It wasn’t until many generations after this that the developed proper bipedal movement and the use of their additional limbs became lessened to little more than useless. It also meant that their early structural creations were of a spherical design, as they struggled to find materials that would provide enough strength under the massive gravity for their needs in other weaker shapes. After the Traveler visited them they became, as we did, much more advance in their use of technology, and not only managed to produce inter planetary travel within their own solar system, but once they had access to the resources on other planets were able to create ships and structures that were more practical in design. They still had a historical reverence for the spherical shape, and as such, when they decided to create their own portable AI devices they created these as spheres. These Servitors were meant to assist the High Priests in their search for cosmic enlightenment, however, instead of finding the Gods, they Servitors found the Vex. Once the Vex had knowledge of the Servitors they were quick to corrupt their relatively simple neural design and use them to their own designs. Once it became apparent that the Servitors had communed with beings of the cosmos when the High Priest had not, it wasn’t long before the Servitors were moved to the position of utmost authority in the Fallen hierarchy. However, the High Priests were not so easily denounced, their position over the century’s of Fallen evolution held great weight, even in light of the Servitors apparent connection to the Gods. It was through this, as well as a faction of the Fallen that were still nervous about giving complete control to an autonomous creation, that meant the High Priests kept some face and were given the responsibility of maintaining the Spiritual guidance of the Fallen. However, as the High Priests were most often in commune with the Servitors, and held them ultimately in no less regard than the other Fallen did, the Vex had no challenge at all in using them to further their own machinations. Once the Vex had supplanted their control at the top of the Fallen’s social hierarchy, it wasn’t long before that social standing was corrupted. Thievery and violence became the only ways to gain respect. It became seen by the Fallen as their right to take from others that which they had laboured to build. This caused the creation of clans within the society, members grouping together to protect what they deemed to be theirs, and take what they deemed would be theirs. Production and advancement all but ground to a halt, with military supplies and Servitor production being the only industries that maintained any semblance of existence. Then, once the Vex deemed it was time, they, through the Servitors, told the Fallen of other worlds, and other races that they could also steel from. And so it was that the Fallen spread forth, pillaging everything in their wake. Following the direction of the Vex, and thus ultimately the Darkness, they have been unknowing pawns in the Darkness’s battles for centuries.