The Desert Perpetual (Raid)
The Desert Perpetual is the Edge of Fate raid. It is the first Raid or Dungeon to replace an entire encounter with a new one — the original Koregos, the Worldline encounter was replaced with its Fractured in Time encounter.
Transcript (Standard)
Location: The Nursery, Spawning
Mission begins. The Guardians interact with a beacon on the path leading to the central platform from spawn.
Chioma Esi: Dr. Chioma Esi, team .50 of 227, calling from somewhere in the VexNet. In my escape from the Conductor's lab, I seem to have lost my bearings. I'm searching for stable coordinates… and for my partner, the Maya Sundaresh of the .87 team. That's a new receiver picking up my signal. Where are you, Maya? Where am I?
The Guardians clear the Vex from the central platform and select their boss from the command spire.
Epoptes, Lord of Quanta
The Guardians interact with a beacon in the transition area between the Nursery and Fallow Pavilion.
Chioma Esi: To my new listener: Fluctuations in dark matter are destabilizing your local space. Be wary.
Maya Sundaresh: .87 Maya here. Chioma, what did she do to you?
Chioma Esi: Maya! Is that you? The real you?
Maya Sundaresh: I am not the Conductor! How can I prove it?
Chioma Esi: (exhales) I don't know.
The Guardians confront Epoptes, Lord of Quanta and shatter the lenses protecting it and destroy it. The Guardians interact with a beacon found after the defeat of Epoptes by the exit.
Maya Sundaresh: Quantum entanglement. They're studying how disturbing dark matter in one place can affect matter distant in both space and time.
Chioma Esi: With precise enough control over their dark matter, the Vex wouldn't need to enter a timeline to affect it.
Agraios, Inherent
The Guardians interact with a beacon in the transition area between the Nursery and Velocity's Tomb.
Maya Sundaresh: If you're fighting the servants of my other self, then I wish you well. The Conductor was a monster to the hundreds of our selves within the network. A phantom snatching Chiomas away in the dark. What a relief to finally have a target to aim at. Even if it's me.
The Guardians face off against Agraios, Inherent, dodging it and its copies and sabotage its test, drawing it out and finally breaking it apart. The Guardians interact with a beacon found after the destruction of Agraios.
Chioma Esi: The death of your Nine has left the Vex with a surplus of dark matter. It shouldn't accumulate like this naturally. They're studying how that dark matter interacts with materials superposed in space and time, across phase and dimension.
Iatros, Inward-Turned
The Guardians interact with a beacon in the transition area between the Nursery and the Chambers.
Chioma Esi: The Vex are focused on cold dark matter. Their work is pulling at the bonds of real space where it's tied to your location… a corner of Unknown Space.
Maya Sundaresh: The Conductor must be taken down. And don't tell me off for self-destructive impulses, Chioma.
Chioma Esi: Have I ever?
Maya Sundaresh: Once… yes. Memorably.
The fireteam engages Iatros, Inward-Turned, utilizing its defenses against it and weakening its Radiolaria, leaving it finally exposed enough to be taken down. The Guardians interact with a beacon found after the neutralization of Iatros, found by the exit.
Maya Sundaresh: That Vex was running experiments on its own chassis — looking to neutralize the effects of the dark matter contaminating it.
Chioma Esi: Dark matter is inimical to the Vex. That's an advantage of ours we can't see taken away.
Koregos, the Worldline
The Guardians direct the pillar's energies forward and interact with a Vex cube in the center of the arena.
Chioma Esi: The Vex intend to digitize this place. Pull it whole into the VexNet. Why?
Maya Sundaresh: The Conductor wants control. I know my other self.
Chioma Esi: (chuckles) And I know you. You couldn't be her. Trust me, there's only one Maya I've had to shout at for self-destructive impulses.
Or, if the Guardian fireteam chooses to face Koregos immediately on subsequent runs of the Desert Perpetual:
Chioma Esi: Facing the Vex directly without investigating their methods first is a rash move… or a bold one. For your sake, listener, I hope it's the latter.
Maya Sundaresh: And for all our sakes, I hope you make them pay.
Koregos answers the Guardians' challenge, rising from the ground and activating its weapons before teleporting into firing position. The Guardians prevent its digitization efforts, blast open its armor and quickly destroy its rampant head before it can retaliate. Escaping the burning wreckage of a crashing Koregos, the fireteam can finally reap the rewards of saving the realm from digitization. The mission completes, and the team interacts with a beacon that appears next to the chest.
Chioma Esi: Real space is stabilizing again. It's done, Guardian. The Vex here were sifting for the locations of other sapient gravitic anomalies — in your terms, the other members of the Nine.
Maya Sundaresh: This one was commanded to trade the places of today's Earth with the Earth of my time. It failed and was punished. The Conductor will not accept a second failure.
Mission End.
Transcript (Epic / Koregos Fractured in Time)
Location: The Nursery, Spawning
Mission begins. The Guardians interact with a beacon on the path leading to the central platform from spawn.
Chioma Esi: After her recent failure, the Conductor's fled into the VexNet. It's time to chart a path to the end of this. Their experiments are running again under new parameters. We need your help, Guardian. Your experience will make you more effective here. But be warned that the Vex have experience here now as well.
The Guardians clear the Vex from the central platform and select their boss from the command spire.
Epoptes, Lord of Quanta (Epic)
The Guardians interact with a beacon in the transition area between the Nursery and Fallow Pavilion.
Chioma Esi: The Vex are varying their experiments. Repeating them under different conditions, just like with their simulations.
Maya Sundaresh: They're looking for a specific result.
Chioma Esi: Not a result. A win condition for the universe itself.
The Guardians confront Epoptes, Lord of Quanta and shatter the lenses protecting it and destroy it. The Guardians interact with a beacon found after the defeat of Epoptes by the exit.
Maya Sundaresh: We know that measuring the quantum state of a particle changes that state. To speculate, with enough data, the Vex could systematize that measurement. Predict what changes their observation make.
Chioma Esi: Look at a particle here. Change something thousands of kilometers — or years — away, in any direction. Another tool at their disposal.
Agraios, Inherent (Epic)
The Guardians interact with a beacon in the transition area between the Nursery and Velocity's Tomb.
Chioma Esi: We're reading data from these anchors you planted for us, Guardian. Signals are going everywhere.
Maya Sundaresh: The Vex are aiming them at distant parts of the VexNet. Gathering information on simulations run by other Collectives.
The Guardians face off against Agraios, Inherent, dodging it and its copies and sabotage its test, drawing it out and finally breaking it apart. The Guardians interact with a beacon found after the destruction of Agraios.
Chioma Esi: Dark matter interacts only weakly with baryonic matter in our home dimension. What about other dimensions — phases, timelines? The Vex are asking these questions. And I fear the answers they will find.
Iatros, Inward-Turned (Epic)
The Guardians interact with a beacon in the transition area between the Nursery and the Chambers.
Maya Sundaresh: This dimension, this Unknown Space, is not one friendly to the Vex. They are running constant tests on how to keep to their foothold.
Chioma Esi: They don't want just any dark matter… only that existing within III's dead body.
The fireteam engages Iatros, Inward-Turned, utilizing its defenses against it and weakening its Radiolaria, leaving it finally exposed enough to be taken down. The Guardians interact with a beacon found after the neutralization of Iatros, found by the exit.
Maya Sundaresh: The Vex have given up trying to shut down dark matter's effects on their radiolaria. They're forcing it through new processes to mutate it. To their own ends.
Koregos, Fractured in Time
The Guardians approach the Kernel.
Chioma Esi: Careful as you go. The Vex are working deeply here.
Maya Sundaresh: Now we know what the Conductor wanted with one of the Nine. The question is, what do the Vex want with its corpse?
Or, if the Guardian fireteam chooses to face Koregos immediately on subsequent runs of the Desert Perpetual:
Maya Sundaresh: As yet, there's no way to know what goal the Vex have aimed these new experiments at.
Chioma Esi: All we can do is try to shut them down.
The fireteam defeats Koregos.
Chioma Esi: The floodgates are open. The Conductor proved to the Vex that the Nine can be used. They're studying III's corpse from the inside, learning how it fits into their win condition.
Maya Sundaresh: You stopped them for now, but this is not the end.
Mission End.