Auryx had done it! He had managed to get himself, his sisters, and a large number of his people off of their inhospitable, unforgiving world. They had traded the Stormjoys, and burning seas, and lightning storms, and the ever enveloping pitch black they’d been forced to live in for the serene beauty of space. As a navigator and astronomer, one would think Auryx would be ecstatic, but he was anything but.

Instead, Auryx knew he was only where he was because he had lead a war that started with the slaughter of people from his own country. A war that had expanded across continents and across races and had laid waste to everything he had ever know. And then there were the worms… his gods. Not only had they urged and insisted upon the war. Not only were they now demanding he and his sisters attack the Ammonites who lived on Fundament’s moons. All the while the philosophy they espoused time and time again went against almost everything he believed…

Over and over the worms tried to explain how the Sky built civilizations and safe places, but those rules and right actions that prevented war and lead to harmony were, in reality, a great lie. How life was nothing more than a wasteful engine that burns up energy and produces rot and decay. And that the only rule that actually is right and good is that the worth of a thing can be determined only by that thing’s ability to exist and go on existing at the expense of everything and everyone else around it.

Is it any surprise, then, that Auryx now shirked away from war with the Ammonites? After all, he was the royal sibling who had hesitated to swear an oath of revenge against Taox. He was the sibling who had, at times, sat frozen in fear in the cabin of his ship as his sisters sailed away from their overthrown kingdom. And he was the one who needed his sisters to read him stories in new languages to keep his mind off of everything that had happened in the years since their exile.

Without Auryx’s leadership and strength, his people were driven back by the Ammonites and were forced to burrow deep into some of Fundament’s moons in order to survive. Even though his sisters were doing their best, they were slowly losing their new war all while their brother remained detached and, at times, catatonic because of everything he had done.

Then something new happened. As his sisters spread and grew their forces among the interiors Fundament’s moons, the Ammonites began deploying paracausal weapons. That is, they began using weapons that did not make sense with regards to the ordinary flow of time or rules of physics. It probably means they began using weapons based on the concepts of Light, since the worms tell Auryx that these new weapons were given to the Ammonites by the Traveler.

Auryx in his curiosity and his need to explore and understand is drawn back by the novelty of these new weapons deployed first by the Ammonites and then by his sisters as the worm gods teach them to arm themselves in a similar fashion. But he is also forced by the hunger of his worm as it begins to eat away at him. His pact with his gods was, after all, that he either explore and understand or be consumed…

But then, two completely unexpected things occurred:

1. Auryx betrays his sisters and meets with the Ammonites on neutral ground to try to broker a peace between them and his people.
2. Savathûn, always one step ahead, somehow manages to breach the Ammonite’s defenses and strike at the peace conference.

By the time the dust settles and Savathûn’s forces make their escape, both the Ammonite Satellite Congress and her own beloved brother are very very intentionally dead!

Sources:
III: The Oath
IV: Syzygy
VI: Sisters
XIII: Into the Sky
XIV: 52 and One
XV: Born As Prey
XVI: The Sword Logic
XVII: The Weakness Verse

Previous: 8: The Conquest of Fundament
Next: 10: The Birth of the Hive

When I read through the Books of Sorrow, I completely missed these events with the Ammonites and Auryx's reticence.

Yeah, I totally missed this part originally. I think I glossed over it thinking it was just another conquest. It was only a few months ago, I think, that I even noticed the part about the failed attempt at peace. It's also super neat to be able to track Aurash's compassion and reluctance and fear in the earlier parts of her life.

Being able to shine light on these smaller, more character focused parts of the backstory has been the favorite parts of this series so far.