Destiny 2 – Asher Mir Observation, Prediction, Conclusion (Book of Duress and Egress)

Io is going into the Destiny Content Vault in November. Asher Mir has been the Guardian caretaker of Io since Destiny 2’s release, and during the evacuation quests this season some lore was released related to Asher Mir and what becomes of him. The following is a reading of that lore from the Book of Duress and Egress including Observation, Prediction and Conclusion.

First of all, let’s remind ourselves who Asher Mir is.

Asher Mir

Asher Mir is a Warlock and a member of the Gensym Scribes. Much of his research is centered around the Vex and the Taken.

Prior to the Red War, Mir’s arm was transformed by Brakion, Genesis Mind, while within the Pyramidion. An “old friend,” Eris Morn, visited him while he was still in the hospital, informing him of her departure from the City in order to seek out and destroy the Hive. After Mir left for Io, the two kept up some degree of communication, with Morn requesting Mir to search for mentions of Nokris within his library.

Mir seemingly has some connection to the Vex through his arm, describing changes in feeling in accordance to what is happening to the Vex on Io. While writing to Eris, he describes the “craven admiration” he sometimes feels when looking at the Pyramidion, as well as his ability to sense the goals of the Vex Minds working to transform Echo Mesa.2 Additionally, when the Taken are attempting to transform the Vex, Asher reports feeling something attempt to rip the essence from his body.

While on Io, Mir has conducted several experiments, including his attempt to convert the Traveler’s energy into synthetic Light. He has also done work for Ikora Rey as a translator of the Cabal language.

Asher Mir: Observation

Man of science though he was, the first thing Asher Mir did was shoot the damned thing.

The Pyramid hovered inside Io’s atmosphere, close enough to be impacted by a projectile flung at sufficient speed. In the time it took Asher to blink twice, he knew the angle of attack and the mass of the projectile.

Asher finished building the mounted railgun before his coffee had cooled.

He charged the magnetic coils, waited for the wind to die down, and broadsided the ship. He had expected the projectile to hit a Kinetic barrier, or best-case scenario, impact the Pyramid and cause utterly infinitesimal damage.

Instead, at the moment of impact, the projectile stopped existing.

Asher’s brow furrowed while an irrepressible smile crept over his face. His metal arm clicked and hummed gently of its own accord. This Pyramid had the audacity to park in front of his laboratory and pull such a cheap trick?

Clearly, it had not thought it would meet Asher Mir.

He assembled another missile, one with a detectable radiation signature and a radio signal. He fired it at the Pyramid. It similarly disappeared on impact, its signals snuffed out, no longer detectable from Io’s surface.

Another payload followed, this one a miniature relay station. He routed it through his console and fired. At the moment it touched the Pyramid, it transmitted a spike of radiation and radio broadcast.

Asher smirked. They were still there, held in the field of the Pyramid. Visually undetectable, signals squelched, but still physically there.

How the Pyramid was accomplishing this feat was unimportant at the moment, though his mind flooded with fantasies of zero-point energy. The question that gave him pause was the what: What was the ship doing to the projectiles as they sat suspended in space in the periphery of its loathsome shape?

And why?

Asher Mir: Prediction

Asher Mir cursed his way across Io.

As he picked his way across the rocky outcrops, he cursed the loose soil underfoot, cursed his oversized pack, cursed the roving Taken, cursed the kick of his Silicon Neuroma Rifle against his shoulder.

He looked up at the Pyramid funneling its foul energies down into the Cradle and sneered. Well-read as he was, he didn’t have the energy to arrange the required words.

It was late during what passed for night on Io, and while Asher was tired, he hiked on diligently. He stopped only once, briefly, to study a snail whose shell was growing tiny clusters of crystalline black obelisks.

He crept down through the cavernous spaces beneath the Cradle. Unfamiliar roots protruded from the earthen walls. He calmly observed the pattern of a twitching Shrieker, and his calculated ricochet sent a band of Taken roaring down the wrong pathway. He passed unmolested.

Eris was in her meager camp near the twisted roots of the enormous Tree. She knelt near a beam of light coming from far above, which filtered through the pith of the Tree to strike an unnatural splash of cambium petals. Asher noticed the smells of sap and burned cooking oil.

She said she was pleased to see him, though when she sought to clarify the cadence of his supply drops, he felt she might be put off by the unexpected visit.

As he unpacked what he had brought her, she explained the Tree, the messages, the whispers. The thrilling struggle to glimpse the face of the unknown, even if that unknown may be trying to kill you. She was smiling as she spoke. Asher understood exactly what she meant.

He rested by the fire. Nearby was a small table that held samples of Hive chitin, clippings from the Tree, ashy soil, and an open notebook that Asher saw was a personal journal, which he quickly flipped shut with distaste.

He reached again into his pack. He brought forth a bottle of fine golden spirits (from when some towering ignoramus misunderstood his request for isopropyl alcohol) and placed it on the table. He had brought two clean glasses, nestled ridiculously in the boxy shipping case of a large graduated cylinder. He removed one and placed it gently next to the bottle.

Asher coughed, relaced his boots, then stood and shouldered his pack.

“You have things taken care of, yes?” he said to Eris.

“Certainly,” she said, intent on the beam of swirling light.

He shifted and made a little noise in his throat. “I need to know that things will be taken care of,” he said clearly.

Eris looked over and considered the man standing across from her. “To the best of my ability,” she finally said.

Asher nodded and began his long walk back.

Asher Mir: Conclusion

As Asher Mir watched his assistant’s ship tear into orbit for the last time, it occurred to him that he had not expressed how truly satisfactory he had found some of their work.

He briefly entertained the thought of leaving a letter, but there were others more deserving of his thoughts. And if he worked in descending priority, he might never make it to his assistant, which would defeat the purpose of the exercise completely. Instead, he went to the Pyramidion.

The Vex are not born, yet not created. Desire to understand this conundrum brought Asher to Io. He reasoned that the Pyramid, with its alien resources and unknowable power, had likely come for the same purpose. The dark ship sought to take the secrets of the Vex for itself.

But Asher Mir had already staked his claim, and he was prepared to defend it.

He soon stood at the gate of the Pyramidion. The Vex security responded as he knew they would, and he was prepared. He piled their broken corpses on the plates and continued inside.

He destroyed the first hundred Vex, then the second. A Minotaur roared into being before him and he crushed its radiolarian core in his metal fist. He climbed forward over their clawing limbs. He slipped in the cooling roux of their dead fluid.

Asher swallowed a mouthful of blood and kept moving.

He paused by a whirling gate and watched the aperiodic waves, then stepped through at the only possible moment. He walked steadily through laser grids that seemed to bend around him. He hung calmly in a gravitational tourbillon as the ground beneath him flickered and shifted madly.

And the Vex began to observe.

The corridors of the Pyramidion were lined with glowing red eyes. The metal mannequins stood dumbly, twitching, shuddering as Asher passed.

A familiar area unfolded before him: a cubist sinkhole reeking with the flat, base stench of slate mud and bleach.

He looked where the sky should be and found another impossible shape; another fractal contradiction. Far above him, placid in its Penrose vortex, the vast radiolarian lake lapped gently at the metallic shores.

The man reached up to the lake with his metal arm. He then reached with his arm of flesh.

He reached with both, and he brought the lake down.

Let me know what you think of the lore down in the comments. I think Destiny has some of the richest story telling in games – there’s so much to explore in the lore which fleshes out the narrative of the game.

That’s it for this look at Asher Mir’s Lore from the Book of Duress and Egress. For more Destiny 2 content like this check out the Shadowkeep Guide or check out the YouTube Channel.