#cloudark

First and foremost, what happens to initiate the quest? Well, Quinn tells us that when the Witness used the Veil to make the link, that event briefly rebooted the CloudArk. As soon as it rebooted, the Vex noticed something, broke into the Hall of Heroes and destroyed five Cloud Strider memorials. They are irreplaceable, made from each Cloud Strider's core. When interacting with them, our Strand connected with one of the Cloud Striders and rebuilt the memorial. Quinn realised that if we connect with others, we will be able to restore all of them and figure out why the Vex wanted to destroy them.

We are able to restore them all and learn about them, how they connect to each other and what they occupied themselves with.

The Strider

The Strider, real name Mikaela Julaha, was the first Cloud Strider. In her lore, which is a version told in some sort of show for kids, we're told:

Before the Strider, we did not have a special protector for the city, and that meant we all had to fight every day. We had many weapons and implants to make ourselves strong, but not the special synthesis that makes the Cloud Striders special. And many more Neomuni had to be soldiers and transform their bodies to protect the city and get hurt.

Makes sense! Before Cloud Striders, everyone had to fight, which meant more people suffering and more victims, as well as more people having to use augmentations. However, there's a difference between regular implants and what the Cloud Striders have. Cloud Striders get a "special synthesis." How? Strider made the Sidereal.

What is the Sidereal? Fret not! We know! The Sidereal was created by the first Cloud Strider:

The Strider saw us suffering. She worried that fighting so much would hurt our hearts, and she knew that one person can make all the difference. So, she took her courage and her wits and her strength and created the Sidereal.

Do you know what the Sidereal is, niños?

That's right! The Sidereal is a special place where one person gives up their normal life to become a Cloud Strider and live for us all!

The Strider gave us the Sidereal. The Cloud Strider fights so we can have peace so we could be more than just soldiers.

It's some sort of a machine that does the process of becoming a Cloud Strider. It is somewhat described in the lore tab where Nimbus becomes a Cloud Strider, Foremost Vimana:

There are no smiles to go around when drills bore into bone until they taste marrow, and metal latticework replaces the dermis of their flayed-open throat. As the cradle lowers them into the Sidereal, the droning hum of a nonillion nanites fills their ears and drowns their fear.

The Sidereal is a special machine able to integrate the nanites into Cloud Striders so fully that they merge in a way that makes Cloud Striders what they ar; big, strong and also with their lifespans cut short. Intriguing process, possibly discovered by Mikaela through her own situation; Mikaela had an unspecified accident which led to her body being heavily augmented, but then those augmentations started aggressively deteriorating her body. It's implied that the lifespan part was unknown when this was first done, though the full timeline of these events is unclear.

Needless to say, Strider also found the whole topic of the exotic quest, the friendly Vex Mind called the Occlusion. Strider was the first to find it and she protected it and kept it safe, leaving it alone in the CloudArk. It is apparently integral to the function of the CloudArk; Quinn describes it as "loadbearing." I can't help but wonder if those two things are connected; if the creation of the Sidereal is directly related to Strider's discovery of the Occlusion or the other way around.

The Bluejay

Bluejay, real name Conrad Jain, is a really interesting Cloud Strider because he became one in order to have legal access to simulation tech. He was a tech genius and a game designer. He basically turned CloudArk into what it is today; at first it was just used for storage, but his simulation research and insight into the Vex allowed him to turn it into a real virtual space where people could go, live and play. Basically without him, CloudArk would still just be storage. And he researched the Vex as well:

So Bluejay helped us expand how we use the CloudArk—he made it a place we could play or even live, if we needed to. And when he made his game in there, he also learned that the Vex used the CloudArk, too. ... Bluejay learned he could jump from the CloudArk to the Vex network, and he sabotaged their machines from the inside. The Vex were very confident and did not think he could find them, so they were careless. And so Bluejay scared them, and they ran away!

Naturally, he found the Occlusion, from Strider's files and information. He left the Occlusion alone, clearly, which means that he knew its importance. Given his drive to stop the Vex, if the Occlusion was a threat or unimportant, he could've pushed it out.

In his other lore tab, the one that features a record of a hearing of him in court (he was arrested for illegal simulation research), he is arguing with the judges about his deeds, insisting that he is helping everyone. He is not remorseful at all and mentions how important his work is. Some relevant excerpts:

JAIN: We're the last of humanity, trapped in a bubble. Simulation is an entire frontier we can explore to re-define what it means to be human. And you outlaw it just because we fear others' bad experiences from hundreds of years ago!

It's unclear which experiences he's referencing. Possibly something from before Neomuna. Ishtar Collective was aware of Vex simulations and are possibly the ones who banned research of it. Only Cloud Striders, who answer to the council, are allowed to research it, and Conrad calls them "council's lapdogs."

JAIN: The CloudArk is an nth dimensional paracausal fold, and we use it to store library books.

C. BOUDAN: We use it to support the public need. Not as some playground.

JAIN: Play?! You bastard, I lost friends shutting down the Vex Isometry! You wouldn't be sitting there i—

Conrad knew a lot about the CloudArk and its abilities and possibilities. He was also aware of how it ties into the Vex Network and how important it is to expand the knowledge of it. And, unsurprisingly, he knew something about the Veil. In his own words:

It's... it's the shadow of every story and memory and hope we brought with us. The stars are off limits, but the Veil knits an entire universe for us. We just had to embrace it!

It's unclear, again, but we do know that CloudArk is powered by the Veil. Conrad, aka Bluejay, was pivotal in turning the CloudArk into what it is today, which means he must've known more about the Veil as well. This directly ties the Veil's power with the CloudArk; it's the Veil that "knits an entire universe" for them via the CloudArk where they can upload their consciousness and live inside unimpeded. These are all breadcrumbs for us to follow.

The Stargazer

I did a write-up on Stargazer as they relate to the question of why Neomuna never helped Earth during the Dark Age. In short, Stargazer (real name Laminak Li) was a mathematician before becoming a Cloud Strider and they were able to use math to re-discover the location of Earth and scan it for signs of life. Upon finding them, they went to Earth, learned of the Lightbearers, killed one, made contact with the Warmind in the bunker and deleted all records of the exodus ship and Neomuna to protect it from violent warlords of Earth.

Stargazer was aware of the Occlusion and named it:

Yes, hmm. How to describe... "Algorithm" is inaccurate but acceptable shorthand. It's... an occlusion. In the way? Perhaps. But if we ride along the edge... hm. Accelerated processing, gravitational lensing as applied to data.

Highly unclear what it means, but their story is tied to the math and science of rediscovering Earth. It appears they may have used this "algorithm" to do it. I'll briefly mention another Cloud Strider (Siegebreaker aka Telluride Magsi), the one whose memorial we first rebuilt and who first mentioned the algorithm:

Built a data crawler app to scour Siegebreaker's database for mentions of the other four Cloud Striders targeted in that Vex attack. He references Stargazer! And some kind of secret "number-crunching algorithm".

He thought it was a "number-crunching algorithm" and Stargazer claims that "algorithm" is not accurate enough. Is Occlusion responsible for this math and "number-crunching" to pinpoint where Earth is? Here, I also want to point out that "sidereal" is not a made-up word, it's a real concept:

Sidereal time is a timekeeping system that astronomers use to locate celestial objects.

That... can't be a coincidence given that the machine that makes Cloud Striders is called the Sidereal. Like, it's too much for the Sidereal to be called that for no reason. Perhaps this machine can be used for things other than making Cloud Striders or maybe the technology it's based on is also applicable elsewhere. This also relates to Bluejay who explicitly talked about the stars being "off limit" but that the power of the Veil and CloudArk can allow them to access the world otherwise. How do the Occlusion and the Sidereal tie into this? Are all of these things connected somehow?

The Maelstrom

Maelstrom was a military leader before becoming a Cloud Strider. Her real name was Sedderik Assur. In the kid's version of her story it's explained that she was a great warrior who fought off not just the Vex, but also other people causing problems. She founded the Assur Academy which trains people into leadership and they also train Cloud Striders.

It's also explained that she ended something called the "Uplift Coven" who were a group of bad people that wanted to be Cloud Striders. They hurt people and stole from people and Maelstrom stopped their attack.

What else do we know? "She was one of the city's greatest military leaders. Ended the Cobalt Occupation before she even became a Cloud Strider." (1) She knew about the Occlusion hiding in the CloudArk and she called it a "simulation echo" (2). This is interesting in relation to Bluejay, who was doing simulation research and knew of the Occlusion as well. Maelstrom's Occlusion data comes from Bluejay and Stargazer. She also said the following herself:

This little electronic oracle may be useful, but I don't like anyone standing behind me, whether they've got a knife or not. So the question is, tear it out and let the whole network fall apart? Or leave it in... and maybe things get a whole lot worse?

The "electronic oracle" she speaks about is most likely the Occlusion. Oracle is an interesting word to use; the Occlusion is somehow tied to Soteria, the Augurmind who was half-Warmind, half-Vex and had predictive technology. Like an oracle. Another interesting connection with Soteria is that Soteria's predictive technology was used to locate other habitable systems outside the solar system and predict the best ways to map them, reach them and colonise them. Aka we're talking about math and simulations to find planets again.

Maelstrom's other lore entry, the one that's a record of a log she made herself and isn't a watered down story made for kids, is her message to her rookie Cloud Strider partner called Geist. Maelstrom explains that she's sorry for shooting Geist, but that she had to and that she hopes this apology would be enough. It's safe to assume Geist survived.

Maelstrom focuses a lot more on what she finds to be her biggest mistake; creating the whole Cloud Strider training. She thinks it's her "stupidest idea ever" to pick twenty two kids and train them all to be Cloud Striders and then only pick one. She also thinks she didn't fully explain to them just how much the process of turning into and being a Cloud Strider takes from people.

She says she's right for picking Geist because:

All of you were driven, talented. But, Geist, you were the only one who didn't need it. You were the one who'd help this city as a civvie or a Strider.

The "it" Geist didn't need is presumably the augmentations and the full power of a Cloud Strider (aka the "special synthesis" through the Sidereal) since Maelstrom explains that Geist would've helped either way, with or without becoming one. At least ten of the group she trained turned out to be "terrorists with Cloud Strider training." Aka the Uplift Coven. Possibly Cloud Strider candidates who weren't too happy about not being given the luxury to become one.

And Maelstrom names some of them. Two to be exact:

And looks like I was right to not pick Ahpoor and Laghari and their little coven.

Laghari? Hm. I noticed this back then but there were a lot of names happening so I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but we still only have one Laghari character in the game: Quinn Laghari. The Hall of Heroes archivist who gave us the quest. Was she a Cloud Strider candidate who has a problematic past? Or was this an ancestor of hers? How old is she? Did she know Maelstrom personally? It seems like we have a lot more to find out about the history of characters we interact with. Even if this is Quinn's ancestor, it would still be interesting to find out what happened here.

Maelstrom ends her account with one more peculiar piece of information:

But I'm leaving you a present. Something my mentor left me: the kill codes for the Sidereal.

Interesting. Maelstrom's mentor (unknown right now) gave her the "kill switch" for this machine. And she passed it onto Geist, saying that once the Sidereal is destroyed and there are no more Cloud Striders, things would be better and "the rest of the city would have to step up" instead of "dooming another soul to this life."

Very strong words from Maelstrom. This obviously didn't happen for whatever reason. The Sidereal is fine, though we obviously don't know where it is or how it works. Given that it was created by the first Cloud Strider who was also the first person to find the Occlusion and this whole storyline hinges on the Occlusion since it connects all the Cloud Striders mentioned, I have a feeling the Occlusion has something to do with the Sidereal.

And given everything from Bluejay, as well as the fact that the Occlusion resides within CloudArk, both CloudArk and the Veil must be involved as well. Quinn even makes a comment about it at the start of the quest, something people may have forgotten by now, when our Strand recreates a destroyed memorial. Quinn is surprised and interested and then says:

I've read some academic studies on Veil transcription of the collective unconscious. I bet if I put you in cryo, I could—

The Veil, its ties to the "collective unconscious" and its ability to power the CloudArk are clearly relevant here when it comes to Strand, the memorials and this whole story. Quinn also thinks that we would be able to find out more if we were to be placed into cryo and linked to the CloudArk. Maybe one day!

Another thing that makes the connection is the imagery and motifs of the Neomuna symbols, especially as they relate to the symbol of the Veil:

This is from the in-game badge, but it appears everywhere. You can see it on Neomuna on the panels and everywhere in the menus for Neomuna collections and lore books.

The full part, the lattice? That's on the Cloud Strider Legacies lore book art, which is where all this lore is from:

This lattice can also be seen on Cloud Striders themselves, most notably on Nimbus' neck (also referenced in the lore I copied where Nimbus is lowered into the Sidereal where it's idenfitied as "lattice"), but also as a smaller motif on all Cloud Strider memorials and, I believe, as a motif on the Cloud Strider core which can be seen in Nimbus' hand in the training montage cutscene:

It also reminds me of the view of the Veil from below, as it's shown in this concept art:

Is there a connection relevant for any future reveals or is most of this just flavour and some background on past Cloud Striders, politics of Neomuna and its history? I feel like there has to be something more going on with CloudArk and the Occlusion, which naturally involves the Veil but also possibly the Sidereal and Cloud Striders themselves. And how does it tie into the Vex, their network and Soteria, whose arrival to Neptune was the catalyst for everything to follow?

This quest was A LOT and I think it was meant to be and that it was meant to give us leads and things to think about. It took me a while and a lot of re-reading and re-organising things to figure out the whole relatively chronological order of things, as well as possible connections between them and why this quest links these specific Cloud Striders and their experiences with the Occlusion, the Sidereal, the CloudArk and indirectly with the Veil. I'm still not sure where all of this leads, but these are starting points that were made to get us to talk.