How many Sirens does Jack know of?

Borderlands 2 Gameplay Discussion (Spoilers!)
#1

So, after coming down with Wikipedia syndrome, I just read that SPOILER ALERT, Commandant Steele was actually a Siren. Actually, this entire post is full of spoilers, you’ve been warned.

When doing the “Assassinate the Assassins” mission, Jack remarks to his lackies that of the six Sirens in the universe, he knows who 3 of them are.

Given that I’ve never played the first game and only know who Steele is via the wiki, by the time I had beaten the game and was playing on TVHM I thought he was referring to Lilith, Maya, and Angel. Did Jack just never know about Steele? Script error? Or since only 6 Sirens can exist at once, does that mean once Steele died that another Siren was then born, like the Avatar?

#2

Those are the three I assumed he was referring to. Steele was totally dead at that point, so it makes sense. Who knows how they’re limited to only 6 though.

#3

Didn’t Jack also think Lilith was dead at the point you can initially accept the mission?

#4

Maybe Jack wasn’t sure if Lilith was dead, because he couldn’t find a body.

#5

Commandant Steele was never confirmed to be a siren, just the likeliness of her being one is pretty high.

The Borderlands wikia just says that “her tattoos and the demonstration of her ability to piece the Vault Key fragments together hint at her being a Siren.”

So you could argue that Jack wasn’t sure / didn’t know about Steele, but knew about Lilith, Maya and Angel.

#6

Yes she was. She was confirmed to be a Siren in one of the comics released, as well as confirmed by Mr. Pitchford himself.

#7

Sorry didn’t know he said that. You have a written source for that?

Off Topic: And where do the comics fit in the time line?

#8

No, but I read it personally. Someome else with 9/5 search fu though may be able to find it.

Before Borderlands 1.

#9

Here’s Mr. Pitchford’s Tweet

1 Like
#10

Thanks!

#11

You’re welcome :slight_smile:

#12

It’s probably a very good chance that Jack knew Steele was a Siren, if not during the first game, but definitely by TPS.

As for the origins of the Sirens, there’s only mere speculation, with just a few clues that Jack tosses out during BL2. It’s probably safe to assume that the Sirens are somehow connected to the Eridians, though that connection is still unrevealed. When Jack first learns about Maya, there seemed to be no known connection between her and Pandora, which is why Jack is so eager to “recruit” her. Knowing where half of the Sirens are in the entire universe was probably making him giddy like a school girl, let alone having three of them on the same planet that he is currently occupying.

Side note speculation: It is possible that Jack knew of a fourth Siren and might have made some notes on it, but died before implementing anything on it. After playing through Tales from the Borderlands, I noticed some tattoos(?) on Rhys’ neck and upper chest, particularly during scenes where he’s telling his side of the story. I tried looking on the cosplay guide for Rhys, but I found nothing that I haven’t already seen before. As far as I know, Sirens were exclusively female, or rather, that seemed to be the general assumption by most of the community. These small visual details on Rhys are probably not by accident.

Also, at the end of Episode 2, Vasquez makes a remark about some Hyperion scientists wanting Rhys’ body right before Vasquez also mentioned that he’ll make a wallet out of Rhys’ skin/save samples of Rhys’ hair. I’m sure Hyperion would definitely want Rhys’ head since he has Nakayama’s Handsome A.I. installed on his cyber-eye. However, there’s no way they could know about that (at least none that I can see).

So why would Hyperion want Rhys’ body? If they knew a possible connection between him and the Sirens, then that would explain it. But nothing has been confirmed yet, so this is all mere speculation.

#13

Assuming that there can be only 6 at a time, it would make sense that a new one is born when one of them dies. That being the case, the other 3 sirens Jack refers to are Maya, Angel, and an unidentified 5 years old girl that is completely irrelevant to him.

#14

But not Lilith? If we can assume the audio logs picked up during the “Assassinate the Assassins” mission are in chronological order, save for Tannis’ as it’s just for the lols, I believe the first one you get says “The report says Lilith died in New Haven, but I’m positive she’s hiding out near Sanctuary.” Sure, he may not be 100% positive she’s alive, but this is Handsome Jack we’re talking about. If he thinks he knows she’s alive, it seems reasonable to me he would include her in the count.

But this 5 year old Siren makes sense. Doesn’t BL2 take place 5 years after BL1? When Steele died?

#15

His phrase was something like “there are only 6 sirens (…) And I already know of 3. You’re not gonna convince me you found one of the remaining 3 by drawing blue tattooes on some random chick’s corpse”

Meaning that Jack doesn’t considers Lilith one of the 3.

And yes, I meant the 5 years old kid to be the new siren after Steel died… She could be younger than that, but not older. BL2 is indeed 5 years after BL1. :slight_smile:

#16

I think he means that he won’t believe they just found another new Siren randomly on their pursue of Lilith. The purpose of the Assassins was to infiltrate Sanctuary to confirm if Lilith really is dead as he isn’t convinced of her supposed death. It seems strange he wouldn’t consider Lil to be one of the three if he considers her alive.

From the first assassin’s ECHO:

Alright, you mindless gun-hands: you’re looking for a really hot chick with blue tattoos and mystical powers. A Siren. Specifically one named Lilith. The official reports say she died in New Haven, but I’m positive she’s hiding out near Sanctuary. If you catch wind of her, tell me […]

This is clearly the first ECHO chronologically as he gives the assassins their mission with this one. As such, the fourth ECHO is the last one based on the context of the others and Jack complaining about the idiocy of the assassins as we can see in this part of the fourth ECHO:

[…]you’re not gonna convince me you happened to find one of the remaining three just by drawing blue tattoos on some random chick’s corpse. I will admit, it was mildly amusing the first dozen times[…]

This shows they’ve done it several times in their attempts to pursue Lilith which means at least some time has passed but he’s still not convinced of Lilith’s demise meaning he should still consider her one of the three.
ECHO 2 and 3 are Jack giving additional info to them so they are set between the two which to me shows they go from 1 to 4 in chronological order although 2 and 3 are interchangeable.

Apparently Jack didn’t even send a pic of Lilith or something as he went out of his way to give them some very generalized descriptions about her. It’s somewhat understandable considering you don’t see many women with strange tattoos and anime hair but the assassins tried to take the lazy way out (which they probably thought to be smart). Jack knows how she looks like, they don’t and they probably just dumped the dead women’s bodies in his office. So he knows they’re no Sirens at all and definitely not the one he’s looking for.

#17

I think that:

Is a reference to Lilith: Jack isn’t looking for ANY siren, he’s looking for Lilith. And if he says he already knows of 3, that probably means he knows their whereabouts. I’m pretty sure Lilith is one of the remaining 3.

#18

I still don’t understand why he’d not consider Lilith to be one the three he knows. If she really is one of the remaining three, why’d he say he already knows about three when he still considers Lilith to be alive? That’d mean he’d lie here and actually knows of 4. Lilith, Maya, Angel and ??? and there’d be only two (other) Sirens left. He doesn’t really have much reason to lie in this situation.

#19

Not that he knows… but that he knows of. As in their whereabouts, and if they’re alive or dead.

That’s because he’s looking for her. He doesn’t know where she is or if she’s alive or not, so he can’t count her just yet. When he finds her, that will make 4.

The “mindless gunhands” are trying to find “one of the remaining 3”

If Lilith was one of the 3 he knows of, he could also add to the list the one that’s 5 years old or less, as she would be totally irrelevant for his goals.

#20

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree here as this will endlessly repeat itself.

However, why would a young girl be “one of the three”? At this point that girl would be just another Siren to him that just recently came to life in a completely unknown location, no different than the remaining Sirens. If a new Siren really is born when an older dies, this girl is most likely far beyond his reach as the the galaxy is massive and it is highly unlikely that that baby girl just so happens to be born on Pandora, a very family unfriendly planet. It’s not impossible but it is extremely improbable because millions of girls are born every minute in the Borderlands universe (considering humans have conquered several other planets too). Only if she is close by would he consider her to be a potential object to use and he’s been obsessively searching Pandora for the second Vault and trying to get rid of that bandit scum.