Good ol’ Saladin said that, I think somewhere in the middle of ROI’s questline. But you’re right.
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It may be true he is no longer our direct ally, but he never abandoned us, and he is still working to stop the Darkness. So friend or not, he is no enemy.That’s gotta count for something.
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That is a GREAT point!
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Text from The Iron Tomb mission:
“The Vanguard still believe Rasputin to be simply a Warmind. He hasn’t been that for a very long time.”
This would seem to support the idea that, when Rasputin decided to go silent rather than fight, he was not only merely altering specific directives but instead was refocusing his entire purpose for existence. In other words, this is the moment he evolved from only controlling the means to a predetermined end (protecting humanity) to controlling the end itself (his own survival).
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How are folks centuries in the future supposed to understand what a machine from a time they still do not fully understand what Rasputin is, what his job is and what he is doing? They can’t even build interstellar ships yet so they are not capable of understanding anything about Rasputin beyond their expectation for him to jump to their aid.
What do you mean by that? I’m pretty sure jumpships qualify as interstellar.
Noun, occurring or situated between stars.
“interstellar travel”
The only reason we’re not traveling out-system is that it’s not safe or reasonable yet.
Jumpships are “near” lightspeed, not lightspeed – that’s why we have an NLS Drive. They are classified as interplanetary, not interstellar. Nowhere in Destiny have we seen a human ship leave the solar system.
@Arcmind, I’m not sure the reasoning behind that paragraph. Of course they lost much of their history and knowledge but why on earth would they not try to understand him more? All they can glean from him is how he acts, and as they lack knowledge of his inner workings, they wouldn’t know what goes on inside of him. Several of the Rasputin cards are marked in-universe for his personal reading anyway.
"A rare and precious commodity, the jumpships utilized by Guardians are cobbled together from the salvaged wreckage of interplanetary ships built long ago. Only in recent years have the Tower’s shipwrights begun working to build new hulls from the keel up. The City’s factions are also keen to develop flight capability, whether through salvage or their own shipbuilding projects.
Today, it falls upon each individual Guardian to find and maintain their own craft. Those skilled enough to acquire a ship with off-world capabilities join the front line in the long war to retake what is ours." – Obviously this is self explanatory in regards to backing my previous point: we do not build anything that travels from one planet to another. We scavenge them.
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What I mean is that since no one completely understands the Golden Age, our history, technology level etc. No one in the tower is qualified to characterize Rasputin’s objectives or purpose as per this quote: “We cannot characterize Rasputin’s strategic objectives and capabilities, cannot define its physical or computational architecture, cannot ascertain its disposition with regard to the City, and cannot be sure it retains memory of events before the Collapse.” So when it comes to Lord Saladin’s claim that Rasputin has not been a Warmind for a very long time; who is he to know what a Warmind’s purpose is? And from the quote above, we cannot know what his mentality towards the city is. Just because he has not jumped to start fighting against a force he lost to once immediately upon revival does not mean he has given up completely on f, he is just going about it differently. Rasputin still remembers his losses and is not going to jump to save a city just because it is the last. He is still planning in the long run because he still is at a disadvantage.
Saladin’s words can be trusted because he is technically the first of the Guardians to encounter Rasputin, and under hostile circumstances. As the years passed, and as our Guardian reawoke Rasputin, and Raspy went and did his thing – again, people are watching him, seeing what he does but not understanding – Saladin is more fearful than his compatriots in the Tower. Observe:
SALADIN Last time, his presence was almost physical. I think he was trying to communicate, but we did not understand.
GHOST How can you be so certain Rasputin won’t get involved once we’re inside?
SALADIN The Vanguard still believe Rasputin to be simply a Warmind. He hasn’t been that for a very long time.
The Iron Lords knew what a Warmind was, or else Felwinter wouldn’t have tried to contact Raspy. The City knows what a Warmind is, or else the Vanguard wouldn’t keep trying to get him on our side. They know this partly through reclaimed history and partly through observation. They don’t know the entire story, obviously, like what the extent of Rasputin’s power was in the Golden Age or how many other Warminds were there, but what they do know they’re certain of it.
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I am not saying his words can’t be trusted. I am saying they should not be taken as doctrine for what Rasputin is and is not. A Warmind is a protector, now just because this Warmind is not jumping to protect does not mean he will not. Now as for meeting him under hostile circumstances, I am going to just point to the Plaguelands, the Devil Splicers, the hole in the Cosmodrome wall, the countless strikes we did to stop some evil minions and then I am going to look at Saladin aka cause of this problem. Rasputin is still fighting the Darkness, he obliterated a Vex-Cabal army for no apparent reason than either to test his strength or to help a girl he remembered - not evil or uncaring to me. Sounds like he is getting ready for action actually. Now again, if he wins - for whatever reason he does - then we win. Simple as that. He is still a Warmind, he is just choosing to temporarily override his core programming. How do we know that; "Query: Re-engage population protection objectives. (N) Query: Reset moral structures. (N) Query: Activate defense subroutine AURORA RETROFLEX. (Y)"
Notice he can revert to his normal defense routine, but with the Darkness still looming, he chose not to and to defend the hidden stores of tech he had rather than release it. But thanks to the golden guy Rasputin failed. And if you think about it, Rasputin did not have to worry about what happened with SIVA if he was no longer a Warmind. Yet for some reason, he cared enough to destroy the Iron Lords in an attempt to warn them of the impending crisis they would unleash. What did the humans expecting protection do? Defy the protector’s warning and wreck havoc on themselves. Nice going “Iron Lord”.
lol, you have a good point.
I think what Saladin was saying is that Rasputin isn’t what the Vanguard’s hoping he’d be, with his past experiences liberally flavoring that statement. Even so, he knows just as much about Raspy (apart from Raspy himself) as everyone else in the setting, which is precious little compared to what we know, so I wasn’t saying that what he said is doctrine.
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Oh I know what you mean. But my original statement was to make that point as someone had quoted it as proof Rasputin was on the wrong side, and I was merely pointing out how that could not be so. However I just think Saladin’s view is bordering on Bias; “The Vanguard and the Consensus hope that continued outreach towards Rasputin will develop into a strategic alliance.” And guess what? He now calls for human aid. Gives Golden Age weapons to Guardians in return for securing his safety. – On the other hand you have Saladin who is still salty that his stubborn pals got shredded before they could see their mistake realized. So I think that his OP that Rasputin is not what they hoped is not rooted in truth so much as his own opinion on the matter, because as I just pointed out - Rasputin has helped a bit (put one foot in front of the other) which is something and might continue to improve as the story goes on. After all, it is not like he will not eventually see how we are what is left of what beat the Darkness to begin with.
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I think you’re probably referring to my comment here and I think I wasn’t being totally clear. I didn’t intend to use that quote as proof that he is on the wrong side, but was trying to convey that he may just be on his own side now and everything’s cool as long as we share his goals.
Your point regarding his ability to alter and reset moral structures is well-taken and may be the best evidence to argue that his choice to stand down was temporary. You also make interesting points regarding why he would make that decision.
However, I do think that we have to give Saladin’s (admittedly biased) statement some gravity seeing as how he’s the character with the most experience with Raspy. [quote=“Arcmind, post:31, topic:126”]
And if you think about it, Rasputin did not have to worry about what happened with SIVA if he was no longer a Warmind.
[/quote]
Here is where I would point out a small but perhaps important point: Saladin states that he is no longer simply a warmind, this suggests IMO that Saladin has some knowledge that he may not be sharing openly about the nature of warminds in general and Rasputin in particular.
This very well may be right, we don’t know yet. However, there is a relatively robust strain of theory-crafting which questions why exactly Rasputin chooses to help when he does; the general thought being that he may be using guardians for his own ends rather than helping with ours. I’m not totally sold on that argument, just something that’s interesting to think about. I’d find some background info on it but my lunch break is up!
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Ooops, I think it was your comment. Sorry I did not mention you, when I wrote my subsequent comments I had not thought to check back to see who wrote that and I forgot your username.
I see what you meant now, however I was attempting to convey that that Saladin’s testimony on this matter cannot be trusted because of his limited perspective in-universe as opposed to us who can see all events and the thoughts of each side. Whereas he can only interpret actions based on his views and what he thought may have happened. And regardless of his experience with Rasputin, examining the evidence, we see it is not enough to substantiate his claims; Lore-wise, we see that the Iron Lords wanted to rebuild our civilization and eventually stumbled upon records from Clovis Bray relating to SIVA and the Warminds. They then went to the Cosmodrome in search of it. Finding Rasputin dormant, they tried to wake him and make contact only to be attacked. Now seeing that this encounter was unprecedented by any currently known encounters with the Warmind in a manner that might give Saladin a factual and clear idea of what the Warminds were or their purpose beyond what their name implies. Therefore his experience with the warmind was from an ignorant standpoint - not understanding why Rasputin attacked, he views him as hostile whereas we see him as trying to contain defective tech. So it all boils down to a matter of perspective, being the readers, we know the thoughts, intentions and reasons of everything in the game. Saladin, being a character, only knows what he interprets based on his knowledge.
As for Saladin’s choice of words, I would agree that it sounds like there may be more to this than what we can see, but it also appears to mean that the Vanguard thinks him to be just a Warmind when in fact, he has changed much over the centuries.
As for him using us to his own ends; he is a machine, there is no reason for him not to exploit us as a disposable asset. Its what the government does every time it sends men into battle. The point is that our current relation to the warmind is a mutual one. In turn, he provides us with weapons to continue to protect him. Without us, his security is breachable, but with our help, his security is enhanced. So considering he will need our protection until the Darkness and its minions are defeated, I do not think he is totally unconcerned with our well-fare. Now when the Darkness is destroyed he will ask the same question: “Query: Reset moral structures.” and what do you think his answer will be?
Points well taken again. I guess I just tend to think that the writers approach dialogue very carefully and a phrase that carries such heavy potential implications is there for a reason.
As for what he does when the darkness is defeated: I shudder to think…
I getcha, but I would pose that sometimes writers do not exactly weigh the implications of what they write on the word-to-word basis. The word simply might have a larger impact on you because you are looking for meaning and purpose. So what it implies to you might be deeper than what it means to them, which may very well be a word synonymous with “just”. If I were to interpret that phrase, to me it would mean this: The Vanguard still believe Rasputin to be just a Warmind, but he has not been that for a long time. To me, this means that a Warmind is a very specific thing to them and to Saladin, he has evolved into something more than what he was before, and maybe this is what you were saying before, but if he did change, it would have been as stated in the Grimoire, his objectives > transformed by some vital information it obtained during those dark days. And when the Darkness is gone, his query will again be whether to reengage his population protection objectives, or to remain dormant. Seeing there is no longer a threat, he will not need to continue in Midnight Extingent, and he will return to his original purpose. After all, he has the ability to toggle between the two, seeing we are in an unusual predicament, he is going to change his stuff to suit that. Once things are normal,I believe he will be too.
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Do we have any idea what Yuga and Voluspa actually are? Are they some sort of defensive measure not as violent as Loki Crown? Rasputin seemed to use them before Loki Crown is even mentioned.
Yes. According to the Darkness Grimoire card: Promote event to SKYSHOCK: OCP: EXTINCTION. Activate VOLUSPA. Activate YUGA. Cauterize public sources to SECURE ISIS and harden for defensive action. Though the exact nature and details of these measures is unknown given their context it can be gleaned that they are both defense measures which are meant to bring all assets online and on standby for immediate action. The following lines then proceed to shed light on Carrhae White; a program designed to allow Rasputin access to all Solar defenses.
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For a more technical analysis on the words themselves and their possible context, check out this Bungie forum post.
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