Work Text:
Voice Log: Sent
ALOY: Sylens? You there? It worked - your lance worked. Hades got out one signal though...I hope...I hope you weren't near too many machines for that. Okay, I'm just going to fix up my armor and head back out. Need to find those Gaia backups. I...[laugh]...I can't believe Hades is finally gone.
Voice Log: Unsent
SYLENS: I am unsure why you believed the absence of machines converting the entire planet into fuel was insufficient evidence of your success and thus required your verbal confirmation. Congratulations, I suppose, are in order. As for Hades...I also find it difficult to believe he is truly gone. Happy hunting, Aloy.
Voice Log: Sent
ALOY: Hey Sylens, Aloy again. Obviously. Anyway, I haven't heard from you and...it's been a few weeks. Just wanted to make sure you were all right. The Nora, the Carja, everyone was deciding what really happened at the Spire. You should have seen them trying to figure out where All-Mother ends and the Sun takes over [laugh]. You would have hated it [laugh]. Everyone knows what happened, but only you and I understand it. I could [breath] really use someone who understands this right now. The Gaia leads are pretty weak but it's all I have. All we have. [sigh] Time is running out.
Voice Log: Unsent
SYLENS: Aloy, I have some information on Gaia that may be of use. I'm working through a...stubborn data source at the moment. Time is too precious for you to waste it fruitlessly traipsing around the world poking at dusty consoles. I will send you coordinates when I have more information.
Voice Log: Sent
ALOY: Well, this could have gone better. Born in a mountain, maybe I'll die in one too. Sorry, Sylens. It's been a shitty day. Saved some kids from a cave-in, got stuck in the cave-in. At least I won't starve or die of thirst down here [laugh]. They were sneaking away to have a party, so I am all set on food and scrappersnap. Snapperscrap? What is this stuff...sapperscrap? Doesn't matter. Shnapper- you know what, it doesn't matter. I already said that, I think.
You know, between you, me, and Olin Snapperson, we are quite the group of focus finders. Everyone with a focus helping the Eclipse... except me [laugh]. He sent me a picture of him and the family back at the Claim [yawn]. Welcome back, Schnappersons! You made it back to the place that hates women but everyone wears metal and talks really loud [yawn]. You escaped the place that hates women but everyone wears makeup and talks really soft. Or maybe Avad is just a soft [yawn] talker. And Marad. [hiccup] WELCOME BACK TO THE CLAIM! [audio feedback]
Where is that coming from? Are you nearby? [laugh] No, you never are, are you? I think you're dead. Deader than Isaac's daddy. Deader than Isaac. Wasn't fast enough with Hades and he got you. Got ya [sigh]. Now, where did that feedback come from? If I can find the source...louder over here. Now, it's softer. That should put the source right...here! Hah! You're mine, little guy! 'Demolition Dudes Drones of Death, Buy One and Get Droned.' Well, that slogan should have stayed in the workshop a little longer but thank you, [hiccup] dudes, I will get droned. A little adhesive, a little drone, a little fire arrow and shit, shit, shit!
Voice Log: Sent
ALOY: I'm out! I don't [retching]. Ew. I'm alive and gross and you're still dead. What am I supposed to do with the quantum processing stuff I found for you? It's not like...[ping]..what the hell is this, your focus is on?
Voice Log: Sent
SYLENS: Hello, Aloy.
Voice Log: Sent
ALOY: ARE YOU SHITTING ME?! I thought you were dead, I still have to save the world, and quantum processing is what does it?! You know what? I'm glad you're alive, because that means I can kill you!
Voice Log: Draft
SYLENS: The Far Zeniths. Abandoning the world, then sowing its destruction. Aloy, in a choice between certain death in a matter of months, and possible death in the stars in a matter of years, we must take the latter. To approach them directly would be useless...even with the de-cloaking device....
Voice Log: Draft
SYLENS: Aloy, a threat approaches that we will not be able to defeat. Elisabet Sobeck knew that she couldn't, that no one could save this planet and the people on it. She saved the promise of life and knowledge instead. In a choice between certain death in a matter of months, and possible death in the stars in a matter of years, we must take the latter.
There is a ship in the Forbidden West that will accomplish this. It comes with a copy of the Apollo database, given by Sobeck herself. The ship is occupied by members of Far Zenith, returned to strip this planet of resources and run. We will lure them away from the ship, kill them, and depart.
Voice Log: Draft
SYLENS: Project Zero Dawn sacrificed billions of lives. We will sacrifice mere thousands, lives trapped in an endless cycle of war and violence, in order to save humanity and save the knowledge of the Old Ones. The strength to stand alone, Aloy, is the strength to make a stand. You must make your stand and join me on the ship. You cannot fail Sobeck now.
Voice Log: Draft
SYLENS: You will never do this, will you, Aloy? Too short-sighted. Too sentimental in your own unsentimental way. You will not stand aside, you will not allow me to do what must be done. System threat detected, indeed.
Voice Log: Sent
SYLENS: When you are quite finished with your drunken theatrics, I will take that quantum processing data. And before you condemn me with your predictable anger, let's make one thing clear: you and I acquire knowledge in the exact same way. Through people. We use people. They have data, rights of passage, gear, things we need to further our own goals. You and I are not partners, Aloy, we are not friends. We have always been tools to one another. Which is all people ever are, inextricably linked to one another by a series of transactions that the ignorant call 'relationships.'
After the Spire, you ceased being a useful tool and thus our transactions are finished. Your creator understood this, Aloy. Elisabet Sobeck choose the tools she would need to save the world. You, in turn, do the same. Blundering into political machinations and tracking down wayward supplies, two of thousands of tasks you have done for one purpose alone: knowledge.
The people you help, the people you use, understand this. They give you their shards, their knowledge, and as is appropriate in a transaction, send you on you way. They know they need you, but they also know they need you to leave when you are done. You are too dangerous, too strong, too impatient with their superstitions and misinterpretations of history and scientific facts. They cannot let you stay. To stop by again and engage in another transaction? Perhaps. To settle among them? Never.
Think of those who want you to 'stay,' Aloy. The Sun-King and his delusions of a lover to go camping with under the stars to replace his Oseram pet. And speaking of pet-Oserams...your Vanguardsman, who wants you to be a pretty face that lives to support his non-existent self esteem. Your Carja-killer, who wanted his death at your hands, who believed you would kill him. The Nora, to whom you are Anointed. To ask you, Aloy, you as you truly are, to stay...this would be to accept all of you, to understand all of you. This, they cannot do and this too, Sobeck knew. She never truly stayed anywhere. She couldn't. I hope it is clear to you now, as it has always been to me, that our transactions are done. Goodbye, Aloy.