#eclipse energy

Text with + is VII (Uranus) speaking and text in brackets are what we assume to be visions delivered directly to the recipient of the information. It's how it was in all of the other lore tabs where the Nine speak to us. The only other lore tab where VII was directly talking to us alone before Renegades was from Epochs&Orbits.

Right away, it talks about something relating to the Eclipse energy. I'm unsure what it's trying to say with the first sentence; my assumption is that it's about the Nine in general and how their nature, coming from the power of being a higher dimensional being, is to both nurture and negate. Does this explain or confirm that Eclipse energy is from the Nine? And that's why it can negate all paracausal powers?

Obviously the Nine are somehow involved with Eclipse energy, or at least VI is, but the question is how this thing is and can be utilised by them and for what purpose. Is this something they just have naturally? But if they do, that brings a lot of questions about their relationship to us and paracausality, especially if they can just shut it down. Maybe they can't do anything with it directly like that without being in our dimension, aka without being bound. Or maybe Eclipse energy is some sort of misappropriation of some innate power of the Nine that can then be focused into a weapon (or into something to nurture).

The first vision seems to be showing us how Eclipse energy got here, perhaps. It was a gift to "a compliant tool." My initial reading is that this is about Bael, who is a tool for VI, who bends the knee for VI and "kisses his rings," in a sort of a double metaphor, because Saturn's rings. Also Bael was given Eclipse energy to use against Guardians. VII has previously already referred to VI as a "brother in rings," and this also seems to repeat again in the next sentence where it calls VI an arrogant, beringed brother.

The situation changes here though. There's a new memory which I don't understand. "A higher place" being referred to as a home... Does that refer to the "home" of the Nine? But what would that be? Where "rays and shadows" are extinguished by the weight of being is also strange to me. No idea what this means. The only idea I have is that "rays and shadows" might refer to Light and Darkness, aka paracausality. Since this is going on about Eclipse energy which does have the power to extinguish paracausality, and it seems to be coming from the Nine. But what would this "home" be is completely strange to me. A time before the Nine existed? Or simply this higher dimension where they "are," technically?

The next sentence is about IV, Mars, who is a "brother in red" and then it sends a vision about what it was like before the Traveler and after the Traveler (terraformed and inhabited by humans). VII once again mentions the Nine nurturing, even though Light is now here. I'm not sure what it's trying to say.

The next one is very interesting because it's the first actual insight into what I've wondered about before many times: what did the Nine think about the planets being stolen by the Witness.

a witness + veils siblings + in the heavens [Dust and auroras become a vacuum. Only orbits remain. Suffering! As liquid souls and armored morphs are dissolved by a reality of nothing.]

It's unfortunately not very understandable, other than clearly being unpleasant. The next and final bit is even more intriguing but also even more confusing:

death of a witness + queen of lies + eclipse + red brother returns [Red sands reform, dark matter in its bones. Its soul reflects: Paracausality, while beyond reach, must obey elemental laws. And those laws are the soul's very foundation - always within reach. The ontology of the vanishing has been rejected, and thus, the red valleys re-instantiate. The soul of Mars speaks to the Inner Orbits.]

First of all, "death of a witness" being listed first is peculiar. Mars returned years before we killed the Witness; I wonder if this is some shenanigans of how the Nine view time, or if it's something else entirely. But even more mysterious is mentioning Savathun here alongside "eclipse" which I assume is the same meaning as in the rest of the lore tab so it would refer to Eclipse energy. Obviously, Mars returned when Savathun showed up as a Lightbearer; they're really tightly linked. Savathun even had several riddles about how Mars truly returned, claiming multiple different scenarios between saying that she took it back or that the Witness simply returned it when it no longer needed the planet. And uh, yeah. She also mentioned the Nine. This connection obviously wasn't consciously planned 3 years ago, but it does bring questions now, as this old stuff could've been used to make new threads.

And not only that, but the mention of "eclipse" and the rest of the vision makes me wonder if the Nine truly had a hand in this. Maybe in their usual way of manipulating various pawns and pieces to make it happen, but there is no reason to mention Eclipse here otherwise. Furthermore, it also mentions that Mars was somehow reformed to feature dark matter in its bones, which is something I also noticed being written in-game on dark matter ingots:

The rest of it further implies that the Nine had some involvement, maybe not direct, but that the nature of their connection to the planets is important somehow. It's almost like it shows a rejection of the paracausal power exerted on the planet to take it away. The Nine, by being in a higher dimension and having access to more power (especially if that power is capable of negating paracausality), were able to... do something to make the planet re-appear. I'm genuinely unsure if I'm reading this correctly, but phrases like "the ontology of the vanishing has been rejected" and "red valleys re-instantiate" are kinda leading me to believe that the Nine at the very least put some sort of direct effort into returning the planet.

Perhaps this is how Eclipse energy was used at the time; maybe it's how the Nine can use it in their higher dimension. And what does Savathun have to do with it? Was she used as a pawn in the scheme to return Mars? Did she even actively participate?

What does it all mean? Remember, the Nine knew what would happen to the planets and moons. They told us in the Prophecy dungeon, back in Arrivals. They knew what would happen. Was it all part of the plan? Are they the ones that put Mars and Titan back, when we needed them? (Could they even affect Titan, since it's not a planet?) Why not the other two? Is it not the right time yet? Does that even matter? Does this tell us more about Eclipse and how this energy has been around for longer than we knew about it?

Girl help.

Also strange that this was given to VII to say, the Nine and planet we know the least about. It is also the Nine that gave visions to the Drifter (or to us?), and also VII seems to be more inclined towards IV and repeatedly notes that it doesn't like VI, despite VI and VII being part of the Outer Orbits together.

Speaking of this lore tab about the Drifter, something I noticed in hindsight is this:

The king lives in hate. Of himself, of his crown, the power it bestows, and the ochre god who gave it to him. That god, now bound to a compliant tool, is thus allowed to step into the paracausal sky, free.

The king in this vision is the Drifter, if he were to accept leading the Barant Imperium and decimating the Lightbearers. The vision is about how he rules the City. The strange thing I just noticed is that it describes the entity that gave him this position as an "ochre god." Ochre is to me intrinsically linked to red (although there's other colours of ochre like yellow or brown) so this would imply a "red god" which in this case I can't say it would be anyone other than IV. Mars that is. Who is also described as "bound to a compliant tool." VII describes, what I assume is, Bael also as a compliant tool. So I'm not sure if this is also referring to Bael and VI or to someone else and IV (Mars) after it's been bound. I originally assumed it was talking about Bael and VI, but VII constantly describes VI as "ringed" so I don't know. It could still be talking about VI, Saturn could be described as yellow. I'm starting to overthink things, but VII is such a mysterious Nine and also a complete unknown as a planet so I have no clue why it's speaking in multiple lore tabs here.

I even went to check the old stuff from Rite of the Nine where they originally gave us identities for each of the speech patterns for every Nine, but VII only had a social media post. Which, to be fair, is interesting to read now:

seven mighty souls + seven mighty hosts they exist outside + architects of the game tighten the binding + free the bound

What does it all mean. The only thing I can get from this is that VII seems to be referring to the fellow Nine as "souls" so seven souls would be the Nine and seven hosts would be the people we bind them to. Why just seven? We can debate the rest for all time tbh, like, what does it all mean.

As a complete aside, because I remembered it when I went to look for this information, but the social media post for IV (Mars) from back during Rite of the Nine was:

FOUR SLAIN GUARDIANS UNDER AN ECLIPSED SUN, INVADED FROM WITHIN, LIKE PREY

And the writer said "Sounds like a prophecy." I'm so mad like. Yeah. Yeah that sure is a prophecy about the Eclipse energy killing Guardians on Mars in Renegades. What the hell.

Naturally, this made me start overthinking the other Rite of the Nine posts they did and we'll be here until the end of the world if I continue overthinking them, but they're all listed in the link I put above so feel free.