There is more to the Eliskni than we know

Lore
#1

I recently played through the Gjallerhorn quest and it really stuck with me this time. The first time through I didn’t think about much, just enjoying the game, but on a second veiwing somethings stood out.

When we search Bannerfall the Eliksni attack. They had planned to attack, so we just got lucky being there. They placed two bombs on the tower and were prepared to blow it up. These Eliksni, who were not SIVA Eliksni, almost broke through the wall. Not to mention the big bad boss at the end. These were forces we had not seen yet.

Then we visit Skyshock and fight off a horde of Eliksni. The one interesting bit I found here was our ghost mentioning that we didn’t even think that many Eliksni were alive. Now, those Eliksni were SIVA so that might explain it.

So those events bring up several points.

  1. Even with all leadership broken the Eliksni have launched an attack on the City. Which is succesful would have opened up a full-scale attack on the city by the forces we stop at Skyshock.
  2. There were a lot more Eliksni then we knew of. This either means they have forces we do not yet know about, or SIVA was used to bring many of them back from the dead. Either way we know the Eliskni are not completely shattered.
  3. We still have yet to see much of the House of Kings compared to the other houses. If these “Broken Houses” managed that attack, what could the Kings do?
#2

I think you’re missing the obvious. We only ever patrol a small section of each world in-game, whereas our enemies control entire planets. The House of Wolves are alone described as containing possibly millions of Fallen.

The Devils have their base in the Cosmodrome, because of Rasputin’s there, but they have other bases elsewhere on the planet; so do the Kings, except we don’t know where their base is or the identity of their Kell, Prime Servitor, or Archon. Winter has its home in the Ishtar Sink because the Ishtar Academy and archive are there.

At the very least, I’d say there’re probably several billion Fallen scattered between the Inner Planets and whatever else is out in the Outer Planets. Wolves came from the Outer Planets, so I think it is safe to assume there are more Houses coming our way.

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#3

If that was based on our view point alone I would agree. I think the key line is our ghost commenting about numbers. Within the world we would have intel telling us that there are more Eliksni. If your theory was true there would be no sense in our ghost stating that the numbers were surprising. We do know that most of the Kell, Primes, Archons have been wiped out. So we know the houses are broken. Also within the game it does appear that we are fighting more Eliksni then we actually are. So we kill 200 but in reality it’s 2000. At least base off our ghosts line entering the ember caves (There must be thousands in here) where we only kill a few hundred if that.

#4

What’s the exact Ghost line?

#5

I will have to play the mission again tonight to get an exact quote but essentially it is

“I didn’t know there were this many Fallen”

or

“Did you know there were even this many fallen?”

The quote expressed surprise at the number of Eliksni there.

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#6

It could be expressing surprise that this many had gotten that close to the City Wall. -shrugs-

#7

The quote comes from the mission at Skyshock, which is in known devils territory. It could be expressing surprise of the number of Eliksni that have grouped together, but if there were a lot more Eliksni within the solar systems I feel like it still seems a little odd.

#8

Mission at Skyshock?

#9

Mission “Beauty in Delivery” which takes place on the Skyshock crucible map.

#10

Aha. Gotcha.

Shouldn’t this be categorized as a lore post?

#11

Indeed it should and now it is.

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#12

I love how Ghost constantly calls them Fallen and Gaurdian calls them Eliksni.

But going back to the topic, I think you can’t really connect gameplay/quests to the lore. The devs obviously made the attack for the speific reason of the Gjallahorn quest, as if there were more of these attacks in the lore the City would easily be dead by now.

From a lore standpoint, if the Kings manage to get their hands on Siva and launch a full-blown attack, they can easily overpower us with their vast armies and weaponry. However, from a gameplay standpoint, they’ll decide to launch a small attack for some reason and we’ll hold it off somehow.

#13

Only Variks ever calls them Eliksni.

The Fallen are disorganized and engaged in internecine warfare against one another. In two engagements the City has consistently shown itself to be able to repel Fallen forces of significant size of no less than three major Fallen Houses. The Guardians are what stand between the City and the Fallen, and right now the Kings can’t get the rest to attack the City again. Here’s why:

Their primary puppets, the Devils, have had their Kell killed by Saint-14, meaning the House had a civil war within for a time, have had their Archons killed by Guardians – including one in Dock 13 by our Guardian – and last but not least had Sepiks Prime destroyed by Guardians. Even though the Splicers managed to give them an edge they still lost their leadership, and a reborn Sepiks to the Guardians again.

The House of Winter has had their Kell, Draksis, killed by the Guardian. They have their Archon killed, which is why they rescued prisoners from the Prison of Elders twice. These Archons were killed, first by Guardians, then Oryx came and co-opted the other, which was also killed by Guardians. Furthermore, their Prime Servitor, Simiks Prime, had been destroyed long ago and without an Archon they can’t protect another.

The House of Wolves, as we all know, had been famously destroyed by the Reef; their first Kell obliterated when Ceres was shattered, along with half of his House. Then much of their nobility either destroyed themselves in civil war or were incarcerated in the Prison of Elders. Their Prime Servitor is currently hiding among the Ananke satellite group of Jupiter. Later Skolas led a rebellion and freed many nobles and attempted to co-opt broken Winter into his forces. Guardians put a stop to that, and captured Skolas, who was later killed. All surviving Wolves who escaped in the rebellion were put down. Those few who survived sought refuge on Mars under Archon Keldar and a rebuilt Orbiks Prime, but were destroyed by Guardians and the Cabal.

Now we come to the Kings. They alone have had their leadership untouched by Guardians, mostly because we don’t know where they are. And they don’t dare challenge the City head on like at Six Fronts and Twilight Gap. Otherwise, the Guardians – our Guardian especially, who killed Crota and Oryx, as well as Aksis; not to mention the fireteam of Guardians who killed Atheon – would hunt them down and kill them, breaking apart the House of Kings like Winter and Devils are.

The Kings Kell is not stupid. He’s biding his time.

As for why those Fallen attacked the City there, well, they were probing its defenses again. They failed obviously, put down by the Guardian.

So there.

#14

I think he meant as ghost (You) were refer to the fallen as Fallen where Gaurdian (Me) refers to them as Eliksni.

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#15

Haha, Eliksni lives matter! I would slightly disagree with the connection though. I think (though it was designed for the quest) it should have been run by the story developers to fit their picture of the world. If we can’t trust a quest to be connected to the real lore then there is no real point in the lore itself.

I think we can assume the Kings are not that powerful. They have remained fairly untouched since twilight gap but the Guardian forces are still way to strong. I don’t think we will see them launch a full attack unless like you said they have SIVA. Even then I think we would see them sneak into the city and take it down from inside. Based on the sizes of the houses after Twilight and comments from characters I don’t think any house has too many numbers. Wolves seemed to have the most. I am still hoping they end up turning to our side and being our allies.

#16

…

I hate myself for not seeing this. :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, the Wolves are scattered and broken and are not a significant force anymore. The fact they dared trespass on Mars shows how desperate they are.

#17

Great discussion!

In my opinion we have to presume that the things that happen in the game are the primary source of lore. The Grimoire Cards might be our best available source for a lot of the lore of the game, but if something happens in the game and we see it with our own eyes then that takes precedence.

I don’t believe for a second that any missions get put into the game without the story team approving them.

I would argue that the Fallen are probably carrying out raids on the wall fairly regularly, but generally the Guardians patrolling the wall are able to deal with them. The attack on Bannerfall may have just been an unusually large one, further inside than expected?

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#18

Good answer as any. The Fallen can’t attack us head on like previously, but they can keep us off balance.

#19

The Ghost could have simply not known there were that many Eliksni in that particular engagement.