Our Pal ‘Big Red’ Possibly Joining Us At The Tower

Hello Guardians, you read that right, Earth’s A.I defender Rasputin could soon make an appearance at The Tower alongside other vendors who have grown comfortable within the social space. 

The new exotic Exodus quest has sent our Guardians to the four planets with this season’s unexpected guest. Within the quest we are to aid each planet and their solemn defenders in any forms possible, whether that be field research for Asher Mir, or searching for golden age tech for Sloane, or quite possibly the heaviest of them all; helping Ana Bray plant Rasputin into an exo body. 

With the arrival of the pyramid ships Rasputin was shut down, sending Ana spiraling to maintain her tether to hope. Given to us within the dialogue with Ana during the Exodus quest it is revealed that moments before,possibly during, the pyramid ships landed on Mars, Rasputin funneled as much of a signal as he could into the comms buffer. Which is where we come in and help Ana recover this part of Rasputin, however much that may be. When we return to end our part at Mars, she is soldering brain circuits on an exo-chasse, which turns on and responds to ‘Big Red’ when Ana calls it, so safe to assume that Ana succeeded to some degree. 

Another piece of information regarding the status of Rasputin is found in the lore book, ‘Duress and Eagerness’ in Ana’s entries. These chronologically released after completion of the preparation step of the Exodus quest, which is before we receive the dialogue on the evacuation step, which leads me to believe there may be different versions or status of Rasputin. The ‘Ana:Frayed’ entry says the following:

“The ghost’s shell reformed to forge a directing structure before her core erupted with Light and data. A stream of pure information beamed into the Engram, filling it with spiraling wisps of Light.

‘Did you…. ?’

‘As much as I could.’”

This describes the process presumably directly after Rasputin’s crash. Jinju, Ana’s Ghost, pressed Ana to enact a plan, Pillory Engram, which Ana was clearly unsure of, meaning it’s possibly still in the process or an idea too dangerous to have been considered, until now of course. This plan obviously was to also push as much of Rasputin as possible into some other form, so it is somewhat unclear if our efforts had anything to do with this engram, or what future purposes it could still hold. 

Upon reading the initial lore entry from ‘Duress and Eagerness’ I thought this engram-Rasputin would be held on until Beyond Light, where we would go to Europa and Deep Stone Crypt, where the first exo consciousness was transmitted, and in some sort of event like a raid or strike implant Rasputin on an exo frame. This new information shuts down that idea–which is okay–lore in the Destiny universe is mostly speculation and theories to be proven or disproven so ideas are meant to come and go naturally. Though what I can say for certain is The Tower is about to get a little more crowded with fabled gunslinger of six fronts and an A.I who commands world-crushing powers coming to town.

“Jinju ran final checks on the jumpship. A dark pyramid loomed overhead. An experimental Exo chassis was secured in the ship’s cargo hold. One foot in front of the other.”

-30-

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