Vanguard Orbital Command, H.E.L.M.
The Guardian interacts with the holoprojector.
Osiris: Guardian, I'm afraid progress is slow. The Veil is a clever tangle in and of itself. It reforms as the consciousnesses connected to it ebb and flow. They rush in, awash with dreams and wonder, and then drain away. I believed that once I understood the Veil — mechanically — once I understood Strand, that I would see its patterns with new clarity. That has not happened. This is not like charting a course through the currents of a sea or the depths of space. It is an architecture defined by how we intend to imagine it. Not dissimilar to the Ascendant Plane… but if more like its opposite. The Ascendant Plane mirrors aspects of our world, aspects of will and import to those who traverse it. Those aspects are decided upon through our actions. The Veil, conversely, weaves not with our will, not our decisions, but with intent, unfiltered by logic. What we feel, not what we decide. Mapping such a thing would be like… rebuilding a creature from the calcified remains we’ve found aboard the Pyramid ships. They are an image of a dissection. A deadened echo of existence. But to look at them as they are, to see their disparate parts… even understanding their anatomy does not give us the knowledge to make them as they were. I will continue to seek the path the Witness forged into the Traveler, but I am… no longer confident that it could ever be walked again. Riven may be our only option.