We Are Starfreight!

The Templar have been vanquished, the Nephilim scattered. The final task is to ascend the Spindle and confront that which resides above. Live and drink, mevyn.

LevelAbilitiesStats
37Dismembering method + Decapitate, EMP grenade mk III20 AV

Ascending the Spindle

Technically, you start this quest before Reclamation, but you won't complete it until after. In order to ascend, you must climb the graphene ribbon found past the Life Gate at Omonporch on the opposite side of the Death Gate you entered earlier to enter the Tomb of the Eaters. You must be in the Golem in order to be able to do this, but whether Barathrum is in the Golem (or even alive) doesn't matter.

As you climb, you'll find yourself inside the Golem. In order to progress, you'll need to wait about 500 turns so if you just want to move on then do that. However, if Barathrum is in the Golem with you, you may speak with him in order to learn more about his history and the history of Qud. A cutscene will play once you're done here and you'll wind up at the top of the Spindle outside of the Golem with Barathrum.

In order to get the full context of what Barathrum has to say (and one of the endings), you need to have spoken with Yla Haj about her order or have otherwise learned of Rebekah and her role as a healer through the sultan secret, read the torn sheet of graph paper, read Crime and Punishment, spoken to Geeub and learned of a machinist and urshiib apprentice, or spoken to Mak and learned of his hatred of Resheph.

Endings

At this point, the quest We Are Starfreight! is actually complete and there are no more quests to be done. If you got to this point and felt lost, the rest of this guide is meant to explain the endings that are available here. I recommend exploring this area to sate your own curiosity, as there are some interesting things to find.

Ship Ending

If you paid attention to all of Barathrum's dialogue, he tells you that there is a ship in the Spindle that he intends to take in order to find creatures he calls the starshiib. He will beeline directly to the Starfarer's Quay (far right of the mover rail screen) and immediately start up the ship Exodus on the southernmost zone of the Starfarer's Quay, so if you wish to come along you either need to kill Barathrum (no consequences) or make sure you get to the ship before it leaves. You can follow Barathrum there; he'll guide you to it. Once the ship starts, there is a lengthy launch phase, but once it launches the game will be complete.

Rebuke or Accept Resheph

If interstellar travel isn't your thing, you can instead investigate the seraph that Barathrum mentioned. Make your way to the Northern Ark, the northmost stop on the mover rail. From there, continue north and eventually you will find a room with 2 hexacherubim next to a large container. On the opposite side of the room from the cherubim will be 3 switches, activate all 3 and you will be able to speak to the seraph Resheph. There's a lot that he has to say, but at the end of all of it you have a choice to either join in Resheph's plan or forsake it. Both end the game.

A New Covenant

If you learned from Barathrum about the covenant he entered with Resheph, you will have the opportunity to strike a new covenant with him if Barathrum is gone. The way things work out, this means you must either kill Barathrum yourself after ascending the Spindle or allow him to leave on Exodus in order to get this ending. He'll have to be gone-gone on Exodus for this to count, so make sure to see for yourself before returning to Resheph if you don't want to kill him.

If you speak to Resheph and learn what the Gemara Sophia is, you can additionally request that the knowledge of the Gemara Sophia be shared with you or your bear pals at Grit Gate.

Destroy Resheph

There is a hidden fourth option in the Northern Ark, and that is to destroy Resheph. In order to do so, you'll need to kill the two hexacherubim. They are cherubim with higher HP and stats, as well as 6 special effects instead of 1. They can be very dangerous, but by this point in the game you should have more than enough ways of destroying them. They are vulnerable to Decapitate as well, so they can potentially be one-shot with an Axe build.

If you're really having trouble or just don't care to fight them at this point but still want to destroy Resheph, go to the Starfarer's Quay before coming here. There is a second ship docked in the zone north of Exodus called vqvtl 3, and in the northwestern most cabinet of this ship is a pistol called the from shunter. When this pistol hits a target, it will randomize what that target is while maintaining its general type. For example, walls will shuffle to other walls and creatures will shuffle to other creatures. Return to the hexacherubim, toss an EMP to remove their reflective shield and shoot them with the from shunter.

Once the cherubim are gone, you can activate the nondeterministic core they were guarding and destroy Resheph. Once this is done, you can now descend the Spindle via the Golem. If your Golem gets destroyed in the fight, you will not be able to descend. At this point, either abort killing the cherubim and talk to Resheph or take the Exodus at Starfarer's Quay. Alternatively, just wish in another Golem to descend.

Culling the Nephilim

If you fought Starformed Ehalcodon during Reclamation, when you end the game in any of the above ways, there will be an alternative character to talk to in the epilogue. Additionally, there will be some new dialogue when speaking to Resheph.

What the Heck Happened

If after all of this, you are sitting there scratching your head over what these crazy people actually said, this section is here to explain.

The Eaters were a technologically advanced civilization in the past. At some point, they came into contact with an all-powerful entity known as the Great Machine aka Automata Sophia aka 72-Fold Peace aka Folk Clock and joined its posse called the coven. Later on down the line, the Eaters were ousted from the coven and disappeared for some reason and the orphaned seraphs (crazy supercomputers, which include Resheph) started to research why. The results of their research is referred to as the Gemara Sophia, and is basically just the conclusion the Eaters disappeared because they did a thoughtcrime that the Great Machine didn't like and got smote because of it.

After the Gemara Sophia was completed, some time passes and all of the seraphs except Resheph and one other unnamed seraph are gone. A master tinker and machinist named Rebekah lived with Resheph, and at some point Resheph comes to believe that the coven would return soon and that Qud needed to be prepared for this. Resheph comes to the conclusion that life on Earth is still doing the thoughtcrime thing and needs to be culled. In order to do this, Resheph creates the plagues of the Gyre and sets them upon Qud, which Barathrum mentions one of the driving forces of the plagues is a signal emitted from the Spindle.

It's unclear how soon after this occurs, but Rebekah descends to Qud's surface and eventually comes across a young urshiib named Barathrum. She teaches Barathrum the tinkering craft and tells him the truth of the world and how Resheph is going to genocide it to prepare for the coven. She tells him this in the hopes that he can help her stop Resheph. Barathrum and Rebekah go to Resheph to ask him to stop and eventually he agrees for Barathrum to be given 1,000 years to fix the thoughtcrime problem, but refuses to let Rebekah return even on her deathbed. He then builds a personality out of Rebekah, Barathrum and the seraph he once was to become a new entity; the Resheph we interact with, and before her death Rebekah and Barathrum fabricate the story of Resheph the sultan. Soon after, Rebekah dies of glotrot and Resheph sleeps for 1,000 years.

Barathrum does fuck all for 1,000 years, and eventually you come to the door with the signal Resheph is emitting from the Spindle. This is implied to be the same signal which drove the Gyre plagues 1,000 years ago, which causes Barathrum to realize he needs to leave or be destroyed with everything else. Barathrum lies to us, and a few things during the game hint at this:

This is when Barathrum starts setting up the ascent to the Spindle by securing Omonporch and building the Golem with Pax Klanq and our assistance since he knows the Exodus is ready to go at Starfarer's Quay as he's been there before. He asks us to go to Brightsheol in order to make it possible to ascend the Spindle by deactivating the magnetic field generated by the Spindle.

We do all this of course, and Barathrum breaks down with guilt in the climb to the top of the Spindle if we confront him about the past, revealing he played us good and is leaving. He runs to Exodus and we do whatever it is we do at the top of the Spindle. Resheph explains his master plan and is convinced that sapient life needs to be destroyed to try once more with feeling and hopefully less thoughtcrime, and we either agree or disagree. If we destroy the Nephilim, Resheph gets pretty doom and gloom when we tell him that his plan is screwed.