Lore: Life Before The Machine Born

Defiant ascension is the fruit of a long, yet ultimately successful, scientific study to recreate Vigil ascension. The original hope was to create ascended to stand up to bloodstorm before it could destroy Telara, but when the Guardian Zealots destroyed Meridian the goal shifted to include protection of culture, technology, magic, and ultimately salvation of the planet.

What does it really mean to be a machine born and how could defiant ascended change the fate of Telara?


The history of Defiant Ascened is tangled with the need to combat power and betrayal. Asha Catari describes the events that have brought Telara to its present point.

"We couldn’t stop them. Without ascended we just weren’t strong enough – I wasn’t strong enough.

Guardians take Meridian

The guardians branded us heretics, destroyed our machines, and left us helpless against what was coming. Invaders from the rifts spread through the world like a plague. They crushed the guardians and then all of Telara fell before them.

In their wake came the most ancient of evils - Regulos the Destroyer. With no one left to stand before him he devoured everything.

But there is one last hope. We survivors have made our stand and successfully engendered a new ascended. You. You are our masterpiece Defiant. The fate of Telara rests on your shoulders. You must not fail."

The Information Collective states the Defiant shut themselves within the Life factory to continue their studies after the Guardian's Ascended destroyed Meridian, suggesting that the original focus for the creation of Ascended was the threat of the bloodstorm. The Defiant knew what was coming and were preparing with Eldritch machines and defenses. The engineering of Defiant Ascended is a natural extension of this. However, the Defiant would have also seen ascended as protection against the Guardian Zealots. When Meridian was destroyed, the Guardian Ascended were described as "having the strength of three men"; it is understandable why the Defiant believed Meridian would have been saved if they had their own Ascended.

When asked why Defiant Ascended were engineered, Sylver Valis had this to say:

"You, friend, will be our last and greatest project. This world is ending, you see. Regulos has consumed all of the world save this one last stronghold. Any day now, he will likely finish his work. Fortunately, we have a Failsafe. This failsafe will send you, our engineered soldiers, and others like you, back in time to the moment it was built. This moment should hopefully be long enough before the chain of events that lead to Regulos's victory that you can affect meaningful change."

Sylver did not tell us when the failsafe was created but we know from this that the Failsafe was established at some point before Meridian was sacked and the Defiant took hold in the Life Factory, but how soon before is unclear.

How long did it take for Sylver Valis to perfect the ascension process? Did the Defiant forces originally plan to engineer their ascended, leave the Life Factory, and retake Meridian? As the window for this possibility grew smaller the Defiant may have made the decision to live and work in solitude, outside of the reach of the planar invaders, until they had succeeded. Little, if anything, is known about the experimental ascension projects that occurred before the final stand however the length of time in seclusion does give some indication. If the Defiant had been successful with previous attempts it would have made sense to dispatch the newly ascended at that early time, rather than risk the possible the destruction of the failsafe. It is this fact that suggests the finale version of ascended were the first acceptable for the cause.