The Illuminate have been terrorising the galaxy and, for the most part, have sort of been sucking at it so far. At the time of writing, Super Earth's finest have won their first major order against the squid scum, and are on track to win the second, punting them out of the Galaxy whenever they rear their tentacled heads.
However, there's a problem: Each time they pop up again, they move a little bit further space east (like east, but in space. Don't ask me how that works). In fact, here's a little mock-up I made of them doing just that—their warpath taking them from Calypso, to Genesis Prime, to Mog, and now to the planets of Skaash and Bashyr.
This is concerning because, well, uh, that's where the black hole players left back in June is. To recap, players were instructed to inject "dark fluid" into the ex-planet in the summer of 2024 in order to combat the Terminid threat, which had a nasty side effect of doing, well, this.
Nearly three minutes listening to the void, these sounds don't sound very democratic to me from r/Helldivers
Many at the time, myself included, thought this was heralding the arrival of the Illuminate. But they didn't show up, so the whole 'horrifying torment nexus of darkness that makes whale noises' has been in the back of our minds. Like forgotten homework, or a wonky ankle you need to get looked at by a doctor.
Well, the Illuminate's slow nudging towards Meridia has been somewhat of a concern, especially since the black hole's looking quite a bit spookier than it once was, with lots of extra psychedelic particle effects dancing along its rim. Here's a handy before and after picture, courtesy of Reddit user KohJL.
A Super Earth dispatch, however, delivered to players in-game, is telling us not to worry about it: "Some Helldivers may have noticed novel electromagnetic phenomena in the vicinity of the Meridian Black Hole. High Command is aware of the situation, which is being closely monitored by experts in the field. Helldivers are advised to avoid distractions and focus their full attention on repelling the Illuminate threat."
Well, I'm not ignoring my distractions. As a matter of fact, I'm parked outside of the thing right now, listening to its calming (note: existentially horrifying) deep sea noises. While it's a little hard to tell—and it could just be placebo—it does sound a little louder. There's a bassy gurgling sound I'm not sure was there before, either.
Anyway, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. After all, we've been given free Killzone goodies for the holidays, and two new targets on Skaash and Bashyr to test them out on. Goodbye, anti-democratic hole in spacetime. I'm sure you won't be coming up again.
