Tears of Olympus

Lore
#1

So i was doing some research on the Cabal when i finally came to the item we collect from them, Fallen have Ether Sups, Hive those leech things, both of which sorta make sense based on what we know of them, but Tears of Olympus (beside the connection to the greco-roman naming associated with the Cabal and Vex) always seemed so odd to me.

Well i just found something that actually directs us to the root of the Tears, a Bounty.

Relic Harvest

A lost machine fills Mars’ air with Olympus Tears. They attach to Vex and Cabal tech, particularly if it’s powerful. Kill enemies and harvest their Tears.

So it’s not something that the Cabal actually use themselves, like the other item we collect from them, Slug somethings… but actually something native to Mars.

I got pretty easily distracted from my primary research, but what i found doesn’t fit with what i was doing and i thought it too good to just leave alone and not share with anyone.

To give a short explanation Niobe is a character in Greek myth who had 14 children, 7 daughters and 7 sons, and on a day of worship for Leto (mother of Apollo and Artemis) she became very arrogant, “hubris” is used to describe her. Claiming that she was better than Leto because she had 14 children while she only had 2.

Leto’s children heard these boasts and punished Niobe for it by killing all of her children,and then based on who interpreted the story the father died seeking revenge, or killed himself in grief. So in one swing Niobe lost her entire family, everyone she loved dead and all her sons were dead at her feet. Apollo killed them all right in front of her.

She pleaded with the gods to take pity on her and cease the pain she felt. described as “sorrows sent from the gods” Zues felt sorry for her and turned her into stone, so that her feelings would be that of stone, and yet she still cried.

.

So this brings me to my main point, the Tears of Olympus that attach themselves onto Cabal and Vex were from something built, and who had more hubris, who was more arrogant, who built more machines in the Golden Age than the Clovis Bray Facilities on Mars?

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#2

It would be my assumption that the ‘lost machine’ is from a Clovis facility. But if Tears of Olympus are floating around Mars, can we see them?

#3

I think it is something akin to nanotechnology that is designed to mimic a gas.

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#4

Could be coming from Charlemagne, or whatever’s left of him that Rasputin controls.

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#5

There is a volcano on Mars called Olympus Mons. The house of kings is said to have a listening post there. Perhaps its their tech.

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#6

There are two entries for “Tears of Olympus” on Ishtar Collective.

  1. A lost machine fills Mars’ air with Olympus Tears. They attach to Vex and Cabal tech, particularly if it’s powerful. Kill enemies and harvest their Tears.
  2. The Olympus Tears are tiny cytomachines - living relics of the Golden Age. If we could read their cellular memory, we might learn secrets of our foes.

From those two items we know that it was built by humans and was a cellular based machine. I might assume based on advanced tech form and location that they were designed by Clovis Bray. We have seen they worked on micro technology. This might have been an attempt to create something that could harness energy, explaining why it is attracted to energy. Based on the second entry it could also seem like a hack tool essentially. It finds sources of power and learns more about it. Possibly is was designed to learn more about the Vex.

One idea could be that these went hand in hand with Charlemagne and when Rasputin showed up there he sent them out to learn more about the Vex and Cabal.

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#7

That second entry makes me think of SIVA and the Transmission Crisis. Perhaps this was yet another one of those byproducts of that research, and is benign unlike Transmission, which was moderately threatening, and SIVA, very threatening.

#8

I would have to disagree with that train of thought. SIVA was a single project that was based in nanotechnology. Its directive was to consume a material, enhance it, and then replicate it. It was essentially a 3d printer that could take any material. Transmission was the cause of human testing with SIVA.

The tears are said to be cytomachines, which mean cellular machines. This area is still very young in development in out life time but it does appear to be the design of organic technology. This would put it into a different field of study and development. It also appears that the directive is related to finding power sources and attaching onto them. This could be to consume the power but based on the second entry it seems more likely to be for studying. The Tears attach to a power source and hack into to gain information.

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#9

Not exactly. Nanomachinery is small, very small, and while it is conceivable that they were two different areas of research and development I offer that they “grew out of” SIVA’s development, much like how Transmission did. You mentioned that Transmission was SIVA being tested on humans, but they are described as “tech mites” that are designed for biological enhancement; SIVA’s more industrial.

Cells and nanomachines are similar, as we’ve seen in Destiny the nanotechnology is designed to mimic living things. But I’m stretching at this point, since they are vastly different in function.

#10

SIVA is was a very isolated project though. It didn’t end well either. The Tech mites were directly related to SIVA but were for a different purpose, but both had the same base directive. Cells and Nanomachines, like you said, are similar but vastly different at the same time. Nano technology tries to replicate some form of biological development. Having an organic machine however is very different. Organic technology is a whole other field and that technology would have drastically different testing and processing. One perk of using organic technology for the tears would be that most technology would not be able to detect or defend against something as complex and fluid as an organic computer brain. Look at the Vex, they are organic machines and they have beat almost every piece of tech we have, excluding our most advanced tech, the warminds. I could see tears being related to warminds but I find it a stretch to think that tears came from SIVA.

#11

Both are related to nanotech. As you’ve observed, they’re cellular machines, biological, a fluidity of sorts. SIVA is suppose to replicate its surroundings. I don’t find it a stretch to think that they weren’t related. Though their purposes are different, SIVA for industrial usage and the Tears for recon/research of alien technologies/biospheres, they are not entirely dissimilar.

#12

Cellular machines sounds one or two steps away from radiolaria.

#13

Perhaps influenced by study of the Vex? Wouldn’t be the first thing based off of the Vex, a.k.a the Exo.

#14

If there are tools at Charlemagne/Rasputin’s disposal that are based off the Vex, that could explain why Mythoclast is shaped for human hands. Not necessarily saying it was made by Rasputin, but just as proof positive that Vex tech can be cannibalized in other ways besides how Skolas did it.