The Rupture, Io

Ghost: Hey Asher? Are you picking up anything strange on channel J-1869? Sounds kind of like music.

Asher Mir: Channel J what? No! No, I hear nothing of consequence on any of my scanners, including this one.

Ghost: That's weird. I bet I can track it back to the source.

Guardian approaches floating music box and entranced Vex

Ghost: Are they scanning that thing, or is it scanning them?

Guardian examines floating music box

Ghost: There's a message encrypted in this music. Got it. Some kind of quotation, "Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams." Asher! Can you run an archive query for us? …Asher? …Channel's down. I'll run the query myself. So, it turns out, both the music and the quotation predate the Traveler's arrival in this solar system. They're old. Maybe we activated some sort of high-tech time capsule.

Quotations reference The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu, 1008 AD

Guardian follows music to another floating music box

Guardian examines floating music box

Ghost: There's another old quotation encoded here: "Misdirected by accident or intent, intelligence can foster its own ecstasies of growth and decay." The weird thing is, this audio file was just updated. So… this cant be a time capsule. Someone's trying to talk to us. No, no. Some thing. This has to be an AI, right? An old Golden Age AI. Like Failsafe…

Subtitles say "An old Golden Age AI, here on Eden."

Quotations reference Parable of the Sower Octavia Butler, 1993

Guardian follows music to another floating music box, surrounded by sleeping Vex

Ghost: They're asleep. The music must have hypnotized them.

Guardian examines the floating music box

The floating music box activates and the sleeping Vex are destroyed

Ghost: This one says, "Once war has been undertaken, no peace is made by pretending there is no war." What does that mean, "by pretending there is no war." I'm not sure I like the new guy.

Quotations reference Mahabharata circa 400 BC-200 AD

Warmind Vault JYS-2, Io

Guardian follows music

Vault doors open upon Guardian's approach

Ghost: Someone must be expecting us. Is anyone here? Rasputin?

Guardian follows music

Ghost: You know, I'm going to be really disappointed if this is all just an elaborate trap to kill us.

Guardian secures Warmind Vault

Ghost: Weaponized music… Creepy quotations… All signs point to Rasputin, but. I don't understand how he could be here.

Guardian follows music

Guardian examines door

Door opens to reveal another floating music box

Ghost: Ah, that music… it hurts… just… give me a second… it says…

Ghost: Never ask for anything! Never for anything, and especially from those who are stronger than you. They'll make the offer themselves, and give everything themselves.