An expansion to Horizon Forbidden West has been announced! Burning Shores, set in the volcanic archipelago that was once LA. We will also finally see a Horus in action.
Tilda van der Meer: Most, but not all. There were a few with whom I got along. Anika Moorjani, for instance, was always delightful. She founded the holonet's most successful dance channel, and was herself mesmerizing to watch. And I had fascinating discussions with Song Jiao about her work in cellular biology. Our immortality treatments are due in part to her achievements. But then there were others, like Devin Miller, the CEO of a fast-food printing corporation. His only real preoccupations were perfecting his golf swing and taking self-holos. When I think about all of us we really should've accomplished more. We had eternity.
Personal Log
User 56579637
Looks like I'm heading to the moon! Met with Jerry today, and he told me some of our Helium-3 mines are producing well below specs. Drone ops has eyes on the ground up there, but even they can't say what causing the problems, so the corp is going to send up a team to investigate first-hand. Low-G training starts Monday. Luna, here I come!
She took flight to Xiaolu Lunar Inc, and her arrival there led to a Helium-3 boom that sowed the seeds for Rama5's decline. Since Xiaolu's first automated Helium-3 plant was established over Tycho Crater in 2041, biofuel has lost market share in industrial power generation with every passing year. "It may seem redundant," said Sun in 2042, "but the moon represents the future. Unless Symbio accepts that fact, their days are [DATA CORRUPTED]
Good thing we've got the guy from that lunar-mining-base-overrun-by-sexy-vampires holo to remind us of our crimes against mosquitoes.
SHANGHAI - July 4, 2062 - The hacker collective Idiot Army has released nearly a terabyte of internal correspondence from Xiaolu Lunar Resources, Inc., sparking rumors that the Shanghai-based lunar mining company is preparing to downsize considerably.
Xiaolu's sizable robotic war fleet and competitive salaries attracted attention from young English-speaking professionals in the mid-2050s, but the leaked files suggest that the company's increasing reliance on automation may have made much of their human workforce obsolete.
The correspondence repeatedly touches on the potential cost of relocating redundant personnel, suggesting that if mass layoffs do occur, former Xiaolu employees will lose the Chinese citizenship guaranteed by their employment.
MILITARY RESPONSE ESCALATION
Addenda linked to this document cover the short-term effects of 'scorched earth' engagements in defense of the Western Seaboard and the ongoing effects of the Oceanic Economic Zone's use of nuclear weapons to delay the enemy's initial advance across the Pacific theater [DATA CORRUPTED]
Familiarize yourself with data on the catastrophic environmental impact of nuclear engagements vs. the swarm [Addendum B1] and unfeasibility of maintaining life in orbital, lunar, or undersea structures [Addenda C1, C2, C3] so that you can counter candidates' objections in depth.
Dictation on. My legs hurt. I keep reaching down to rub them but of course they're not there. I tell you, it's one thing to hear about ghost limbs, another to be haunted by them. Moment my hand passes into empty space I'm back in Bridgewater and that nano-haze is stripping my legs layer by layer as the squad's medbot drags me out of the line of fire. And I start screaming like I was screaming there, in two places at once, two halves but one of them gone forever... dissolved.
Behemoths have anti-gravity abilities, which they use for transporting cargo and in combat. Their drills allow them to pulverize rock.Soaring through the sky at high altitude, the fearsome Stormbird is a combat-class machine that can swoop down and attack its prey with tremendous force. It’s just as dangerous on land as it is in the air, with a variety of swift and powerful attacks that range from wing blasts to claw slashes. Its enormous metal wings are also capable of collecting and discharging the electricity in the air.
The Behemoth is a huge, rugged transport-class machine that uses anti-gravity technology to transfer precious cargo from smaller acquisition-class machines into its stomach container. When provoked, it may charge at the enemy or use its anti-gravity unit to hurl heavy objects. It is also equipped with a set of grinding drills that allow it to pulverise and propel rock projectiles.
Brin: “Before the time of the Sawtooth, the machines ran as one pack. Metal drumming on metal, keeping pace out to the lightning’s edge. The rumble of low storms, that’s them in motion. And then—a confusion. Something has changed. The great direction breaks, splits off like a dead branch! They’re tumbling now. When they recover, violence is what they know. Now metal screeches on metal. A death dance, learned from wars before our eyes learned to see. The Sawtooth, the Ravager, they hunt in the long shadows of others. Jagged shapes, old shapes, with bloody eyes. And the machines no longer rise and swell as one thing, an all-thing."
Brin: “These Corruptors never belonged to the herds. They crawled. From beneath desert or rust, from the bones of old machines. Sickness to spread. That’s how they came. Cold metal runs hot, buckles with thorn-cuts and tail-stings. A fever of obedience. My ears are ringing. I grasp at my tongue—an ingot falls out, stamped with circles and lines! Directions. Instructions. To break a machine’s will—I heard the metal screaming, huntress! I leave the ingot where it falls. This isn’t for us to know. Corruptor after Corruptor tramples it in their greedy tread.
Brin: “A Stalker, watching us. Watch by us! In red eyes I thought to see ourselves reflected! No—they were dull, and set. Set with a purpose precise from their machine-mother foundries. They prey. They will not flinch. They are indifferent to the wild, they are… final. They are weapons, that’s all. My heart drops. Why look for understanding in the ax the moment before it splits your skull? No. No, there is more. The ax does not remember its smelting. These machines do, and pine for the Metal World."
The final vision though, is not of the past but of the future. He sees a vision of the future in the Forbidden West, and of jungles on fire and the blue lights of machine eyes dying out in the eddies of ash, and Aloy herself seemingy dead. He talks about an onrushing storm, and a Metal World different to the one he knew (maybe a reference to the blight or to Far Zenith).Brin: “I followed red trails through a green world. Thunderjaw, striding, with the majesty of an old god. These wicked parts, fashioned to kill men—this great whole, made to haunt the sleep of children. And I realize: it is a young beast. It was not there to see the first strange birds roost upon a metal skull! It came because of us. Hunters. I saw many, of tribes gone and yet to come. I even saw you there, fiery-haired, fierce, bared—
"Aloy: "What--"
Brin: "Bared of metal, huntress! Bared of what we tore from their hides to be strong like them, savage like them. We built our world in the machines’ shadow. Called them out with every strike of rock and hammer."
Brin: “They must know how the orbit slows, fades, falls, decays. And yet, returns to more than zero."
We later see reference to him in the journal of an Oseram worker, where he's continuing on his way to the Burning Shores.Aloy: “You look… startled. Are you okay?”
Brin: “I must leave. You should, too.”
Aloy: “Without a story? I brought down a Stormbird—“
Brin: “You did. You’re very able. And you’re right. Owed is owed. But no more stories of the past—all told! All done! Future stories. I saw an onrushing storm. The future comes hungry, for man and machine. It will catch me, I expect. Catch us all! So enough hunts, enough visions. I’ll run—chase that teasing sun to the Forbidden West.
Aloy: “ I don’t understand – I mean, not that I ever understand – but are you saying we should fear what’s coming?”
Brin: “Ohhh. Yes. Jungle on fire. Machine-blue light dying out in the eddies of ashes. You, fallen, pale as snow-flash… eyes staring open. The Metal World, but not the one I sought! The future is a frightful dream, huntress!”
The official guide seems to confirm that he can indeed see visions of the ancient world and of the future.So there we were, picking our way along the trail when we saw him - a Banuk Shaman! In the Forbidden West! A sight as strange as a Carja swinging a hammer! But that wasn't where the strangeness ended, oh no. This Banuk was kneeling beside a Bristleback carcass, SLURPING its oil as a man dying of thirst laps up a puddle. And here I thought the Tenakth were the crazy blood drinkers!
And that's when he noticed us. A smile on his stained lips, oil streaks running down his chin. Kept muttering some nonsense about machine dreams and visions. And then he shouted that he had to keep running, to "the place of flames and brine," wherever that is. And then off he scattered, quick as a startled rabbit!
So tonight, we'd downed six rounds of Spitfire ale when Vulgert brought out a heavy flask, machine oil slick down its side. Now I'm as sensible as any other of my kinsmen, but I wasn't about to back down from a dare and let that softwelded boltbrain think he's made of tougher stuff!
Ugh. Gut won't stop aching. Better sleep it off. Everybody else passed out already. Who knows, maybe they're dreaming of Ravagers dancing in a meadow. Oof. Gotta remember to punch Vulgert in the morning. Right where it counts.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?