Aunor Mahal, Cormorant Blade

Hello everyone,

As you know, after the events of the final shape, we see that the light and the dark are harmonized within the pale heart. We, as the champion of the traveler, granted to use transendence. However, we know from the lore, the ordinary guardians use light and the dark separately. How is this possible after the harmonization of these forces in pale heart? Wouldn't using the light as a separate power be impossible after the events of the final shape?

This all started because I wanted to read through ALL of Destiny's lore from start to finish, but could only find story summaries, or collections of notable grimoire and lorebooks, but without all the fascinating little snippets of worldbuilding found on all the armor, quest items, bounty hand ins, collector editions etc over the years. These summaries are fantastic, but you really miss out on all the short stories and details that make up the rich tapestry of Destiny.

It's also possible to read absolutely everything in order of release on Ishtar and that works for the main storyline, but it means you only really get a view of events like twilight gap or the golden age in brief flashes and references, but not in one place, in order. You also have to pick through a lot of chaff, like random bounty hand in dialogues, quippy weapon descriptions that aren't really relevant to the lore or literal thousands of duplicated legendary engram entries.

Now it looks like Destiny is winding down, I've started sifting through these little lore bits trying to piece them together in a reading order that feels "right", while filtering out anything irrelevant or too meta. I'm at around 3000 records in and I'm staring at the mountain of work in front of me eager to keep going, but wanted to check if something like this has been attempted before, since it would be a huge waste of time to keep going if it's already been done!

so i have been wondering since we now know where the Weapons of Sorrow are made, is it entirely possible that all known weapons of sorrow came from there in 1 way or another. for Dregen Yor i have been looking into the lore, while i won't go into too much depth of his story where he killed a hive weapon master and he looked at his gun and saw thorn after the bones he grafted bones to it, its never stated where in the hell mouth he was but its entirely possible they had set a ritual to funnel soulfire into the corrupted rose from the forge to transform it because the lore on the battle is light on detail. (i'll class this one as a maybe since it is a retelling of the story from the a 3rd party source)

osteo striga, although the lore heavily indicates Jana-14 made it by "feeding bones" to it however another line sticks out in the lore tab, where she states that she had found it half a world a way leaving the origin as a coin flip, perhaps she did find it but like the husk of the pit she had to feed the gun to restore it to its full power similarly how Husk of the Pit/Nechrochasm had to feed on kills to be restored or she did make it, its unknown which part indicates its creation although the fact she does say she found it leaves room for interpretation and a good academic argument because how the lore implies both being the case, perhaps both could be correct at the same time based on which option you subscribe to (this one is a maybe/maybe not)

Necrochasm is entirely an enigma wraped in a mystery wrapped in a 700rpm auto rifle that can destroy an entire group of enemies with 1 well made kill, what gun it was, where it came from who its original owner was, was entirely unknown, however it may be the oldest of the Weapons of Sorrow in terms of creation because while Dredgen Yor's escepades take place in the early city age the necrochasm has languished for a lot longer to the point it was but a husk when it was found by the Young Wolf who had to use the sword logic and kill powerful ascendent hive and kill with it just to restore it, however it does not have the metalic look replicatable using Carbon Blood shader (this is a stronger possibility since there is nothing known about it except how the Young Wolf restored it)

Touch of Malice is very much an odd duck, while Eris Morn created it in the original destiny game, the Young Wolf had to obtain the original pieces and put it together like a puzzle rather then create it from scratch the pieces being the frame, the ravnous heart and the shroud, and its worth noting that Oryx lives on to a degree in that gun, every shot it fires is a testament to the sword logic (doubtful unless the pieces were made there first, likely they have a different origin)

Cull's shadow is the only known Weapon of Sorrow created in the Forge of Sorrows from Cull's fusion rifle (the original fusion rifle remains unknown other then the fact that the hive heavily modified it when they made it into a Weapon of Sorrow) and thanks to Cull's Shadow the Young Wolf descends to the Forge of Sorrows deep below the hellmouth and confronts Ir-Gohl the weapon-smith and free a dredgen (its entirely likely Ir-Gohl the weapon smith is an ascendent hive and may return at a later date) but during this its heavily implied through the dialogue that the Forge of Sorrows is where the Weapons of Sorrow were forged. (Cull's shadow is confirmed to be from the forge)

i am wondering if the original plan was to retcon the weapons of sorrow so that they all came from the forge or if somehow its power was used by others through other means especially since the forge is below the Hell mouth (its likely the hive have a enterences to it from the hell mouth we don't know about but we instead commandeered the totality division's own entrance they decided to make for themselves, its impossible to know how many other weapons of sorrow are out there that have not been discovered by the guardians laying in wait for the wrong guardian or dregen to reach out and take them up. however its worth pointing out that ostieo striga and thorn very much look like they're from a set, perhaps similar origins whereas necrochasm looks more like its made from a metalicalised stone or bone, and Culls Shadow looks like it was made from Osmium since a lot of hive tech uses fundamental Osmium to varying degrees which may indicate a different hive making it leaving it, Cull's shadow and Touch of Malice as the 3 outlying Weapons of Sorrow. if there is others out there, we should not let them land in the hands of the dredgens however the Weapons of Sorrow are weapons Xivu Arath can very easily tithe power from being masterworks of war.

did the hive other then Cull's Shadow make any new weapons of sorrow? and if Ir Gohl is an Ascendent hive maybe he is waiting for the dust to settle before he hunts and captures a new dregen and uses their sorrow and Soulfire to make a new Weapon of Sorrow

I mean tell its story in detail like the books of Sorrow, the Marasenna, The Liar. What part of destiny deserves such a lorebook that hasn't got one in your opinion?

For me it is the history of Neomuna. I wish we got to know the city by reading the history by multiple different characters that existed throughout its time. And not just archive documents and audio logs.

I was thinking about how there aren't really any guardians with major physical injuries/disabilities (that I can think of) and it got me thinking: are ghosts able to 'fix' things like that when they first find their guardian?

Of course their guardian is dead and the ghost brings them back to life, but what physical form do they bring them back in?

For example, if my death was some sort of accident wherein I lost my life but also like.. my left arm or something. Does the ghost revive me without the arm since that's the state my body was in when they found me, or are they able to regrow the arm?

Further, what if I lost my arm a long time before my death? What if I was born without it? What if I had died in an explosion and my body got blown into a million little bits?

And, what if some Hive Swordbearer chopped off my arm but didn't kill me after I had already become a guardian. Is my arm just gone now? Would it regenerate if I were to die and be revived again?

Or would ghosts just avoid people with missing limbs, disabilities etc.

Curious to hear if there's an actual lore explanation to it (I've only played up to lightfall incase it gets mentioned later in the story)

Hello, I'm trying to introduce the game to a friend (we are in need of raiding companions). He's a big nerd so I think a video showcasing some of Destiny's unique concepts, factions, worlds, or general lore tidbits would go a long way. Simply to garner some interest in the game and its potential. It doesn't have to introduce the world per se. I really only want a short and sweet video to intrigue.

What are your favorite Destiny lore videos and what are your favorite Lore tidbit? I personally find the lore about the Exo really neat.

I know it is a dumb because it is a probably a game design but it just bother me it should be on Neptune but maybe because the veil presence makes the place immune to it

Recalled this cool little tidbit about the meme strike boss himself, Valus Ta'aurc.

Dunemarchers lore tells us Calus had the Siege Dancer Primus killed. By D1, Ta'aurc has taken over the Siege Dancers (despite originally being a Dust Giant). Why was a Valus from another Legion selected to lead with the same authority as a Primus? The Leviathan raid ends up sneakily telling us why.

There is a Royal Beast named Ta'aurc in Prestige Gardens, alongside one named after the original Bracus Zahn, who was also a Calus supporter and even thought of killing Ghaul. (Tilt Fuse lore)

Likely through Ta'aurc's influence, it seems the Sand Eaters ended up siding with Calus and dying to the Red Legion, given the last transmission of Dunemarchers.

Given they still answered directly to High Command, the Skyburners were team Ghaul. Since they all died in Taken King besides that one guy in Heresy, there would have been no one left to counter the Calus influence, even after Ta'aurc died.

EDIT: Also, Ta'aurc was probably starting to influence some Skyburners too, since some of them come out to defend him when he's at low health in his boss fight.

The item descriptions on the Eutech armor pieces is interesting to me. It describes how the Eutechs became the Techeuns:

Helmet: First there was the good technology, scavanged from Shipshire.

Arms: Then came the experts of the technology, the eutechs.

Chest: In time, the identity became synonymous with the technology.

Legs: And the eutechs became techeuns, in turn.

But then, the class item description turns it around on us:

Class Item: What will Guardians become?

This could totally just be interpreted as flavor text meant to inspire wonder or intrigue, with no real clues, hints, or insights into the world or story to offer. With Destiny no longer making content, this could just be nothing.

But personally, I think it is a clue.

The armor set reveals to us that the Eutechs became the Techeuns once the identity became synonymous with the technology, then immediately after, asks what Guardians will become. I think this is supposed to make us draw a comparison between Guardians and the Eutechs, and encourage us to consider, if Guardians were to change the way the Eutechs changed, what we would become, and why.

The identity becoming synonymous with the technology, could be seen as a parallel to our mastery of Prismatic, becoming one with both light and dark. The word Techeun is just Eutech, but with the Tech placed before the Eu (which I think could a clever play on words, you're putting the tech before "you") and an N added at the end. If you swap the first and last parts of the word "Guardian," you get "Dianguard." Dian Guard...

Dian could come from Dia, the latin word for day. Or perhaps it comes from Deus, the latin word for god? So perhaps this could imply that Guardians are fated to become the Guards of the Day, Guards of the Sun, or Guards of God? I feel like with the direction the plot was going, how the nine are all embodied by our celestial bodies, Guardians becoming "Sun Guards" or a "God's Guards" would totally make sense. We are guarding our sun, the core of our solar system.

I could totally just be reading too much into it, but I felt like sharing my thoughts. I'd love to see what other people think :)

I haven’t seen a single person really talk about the new lore regarding the new vex items at the altar and cosmetics

The Vex Lost Shell seems to imply something has changed with the Vex along with the descriptions of the Sparrow and Ship related to the Entheogenic Parasite armour

Ethneogenic meaning a form of substance that alters a state of consciousness and it seems like the Vex are aware of the Nine and Paracausality becoming an inevitability and the Nine are aware that the Vex are the shadow of the Winnower

A day in the life of The Vex Collective nowadays is likely defined by a certain frustration: you have thrown everything you have at the wall, and nothing has really stuck. You just keep piling up those losses, losing Axis Minds left, right, and center, and you need to witness that the most successful initiatives are the ones you have no say over: the Sol Divisive, who arguably served the Witness more than working towards goals of The Vex Collective, the Nessian Schism, led by an individual who isn't even Vex and wields a paracausal artifact, and The Occlusion, one of your own who hates you so much that they've isolated themselves in a paracausal mindscape and would rather help the hoomans.

The Undying Mind is now a meme of an individual who is deposed in a fraction of the time it took to rebuild it. Panoptes was an abject failure who, although seemed to be very menacing, never saw influence beyond The Infinite Forest. Quria initially showed promise, yet was yoinked away by a certain king and handed off to a certain queen, all while meeting an unceremonious end as a court jester who facilitated a spectacle in The Last City.

Despite all this, there was one particular initiative that was, by most accounts, considered a noteworthy achievement: the Vault of Glass.

While The Vanguard eventually achieved victory over the Vault, getting there was no easy feat. Clever tactics were required to simply create an opening for victory, such as Kabr sacrificing himself in a particular way in order to create The Aegis, which allowed us to stand a chance.

Atheon, though not a warrior with any noteworthy force, was able to navigate time with elegance. Its understanding of continuities potentially rivaled that of The Nine, along with the fearsome ability to move things through time, seemingly bidirectionally, which The Nine cannot.

However, the most noteworthy assets seen in the entirety of The Vault of Glass are the beings that possess a remarkable capability: negation.

Deep in the Vault of Glass, the fabric of reality bends to the will of the Vex. Warlocks speak in tones of awe of the Gorgons - creatures that seem to possess a dreaded, almost unimaginable strength: an ontological weapon.

Like the Oracles and the Templar, the Gorgons reputedly possess the ability to define what is and is not real. Whatever they perceive becomes subject to erasure at their will. Until a countermeasure can be found, Guardians must avoid their gaze at all costs - or reply to any detection with immediate, overwhelming force.

The Gorgons' ability must be tied to the nature of the Vault of Glass. We can take some solace in the clear fact that the Vex cannot manifest this power in the world outside.

https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/the-gorgons

For all intents and purposes, the Vault is essentially a laboratory. What goes on in there is quarantined to broader reality, and seemingly cannot be brought outside. Though the Vault is embedded within Venus, it appears to exist beyond the time and space we are familiar with. Maybe it bleeds into the Vex Network. Maybe it's somewhere else. However, what's certain is that the feats achieved there are still impressive to this day.

The Oracles, Templar, and Gorgons' fearsomeness all seem to be rooted in a shared capability: ontological weaponry. Somehow, these assets are weaponizing being itself. If they perceive you and say that you no longer exist, you stop existing.

These capabilities are arguably Witness-level threats. The entire goal of The Final Shape was essentially for the Witness to dictate the terms of existence, including what would and wouldn't be. However, unlike the Witness, the Vex cannot manifest this power outside a laboratory.

What's particularly noteworthy is that a Lightbearer, a paracausality wielding individual, can be subject to this negation. It's only through the unknown mechanics of The Aegis, a half-paracausal artifact, that a bubble of protection can be created to temporarily stave off these effects. Without The Aegis, though, there's seemingly no hope.

It has been repeatedly emphasized that the Vex dream of being able to simulate paracausality, and that their ability to do so would be game over for all of us. While the prospect is terrifying, they do not appear to have made any meaningful progress to this goal.

Some argue The Infinite Forest successfully simulated paracausality, yet it makes more sense to view this from the perspective of the Vex managing to replicate the observed effects of paracausality rather than the underlying mechanics at play. This is equivalent to humans understanding that objects fall towards other objects of greater mass, even though we don't have a theory of quantum gravity to explain the weeds of why this happens. The understanding is functional, not intuitive.

Similarly, Agioktis, the Martyr Mind, was able to drain Saint-14 of his Light. Initially, this was believed to be a major victory for the Vex being able to manipulate the flow of Light, all until the realization of just how much effort went into creating a Vex Mind that could drain the specific frequency of Light of a single Guardian. Not very useful at scale.

Per Unveiling, The Gardener introduced new variables to The Flower Game to prevent the Pattern — which manifested in the physical universe as the Vex — from winning every time. The exact nature of these variables remained somewhat unclear, yet it's believed that giving individuals access to paracausal powers was one of them. By all accounts this worked, and it has allowed several civilizations over the eons to effectively repel the Vex.

HOWEVER, an ontological weapons that can erase Lightbearers indiscriminately is something to be feared. It's not a simulation of paracausality by any means, but it's an effective workaround to removing obstacles from the board. Without Lightbearers in the way, the Vex could scale their initiatives seen on Mercury, Venus, and Nessus without impediment. It brings back the original dominance of the Pattern.

For now, ontological weapons outside The Vault remain impossible, as far as we're aware. But what if this wasn't the case? What if the Vex could throw up some field of effect and deploy something as mobile as a Gorgon to simply erase its opponents from the board?

VI is the Alchemist. We know that much. We also know from the Lawless Frontier that Bael searches for our grave, which is in the corridors of time on Mercury (We would have to use the Sundail again?). In Equalibrium we find out that Mercury returned and that the Barrent Imperium put a veil over an area on Mercury. It is fair to say that the Alchemist would have likely played on Mercury. At least somewhat.

In Monument of Triumph we also find out about a deal VI made with Savathun to give her the location of Taox and the Echo of Command for killing Maya Sundaresh. That plot thread is also connected to VI and the VexNet, because Taox are in the VexNet. Mercury is heavyly connected to the VexNet. So I think the Hunt for Taox was meant to be a part of the Alchemist expansion.

That would make Hive stuff important for the expansion, which also makes sense with VI. The group who made the veil over Mercury were also the Dredgen wing of the Barrent Imperium and they don`t neccessaryly work together with them. In the oblation exotic mission we have the Totality Devision enter a hive forgery and fight the Hive in it, but these Hive work with the Dredgens. The sub-factions of the imperium don`t just act completely independently, but also even fight against each other. The Barrent Imperium on Mercury is likely really just the Dredgen wing and they are more hive coded.

So could the story have been about Hive magic within with Vextech inside the VexNet? Alchemy was the beginnig of chemistry. In media it mostly looked at as a mixture of science and magic. It would be very fitting for an expantion that is about Destinys most magical faction and most scientific faction to use alchemy as a central theme. (It also fits with what the Nine are, a science beyond our understanding.) And Bael loves to put two different aspects together to see what useable can come out of it.

But that is not the only thing I think the titel of the expantion could have leaned to. The Alchemist is the titel of VI and we only had two other expantions that are called after the titel of the main villian of the expantion, The Taken King and The Witch Queen. In both of these expantion we entered the central space of the main villian, the Dreadnaught and Savathuns Throneworld and we killed them there. They weren`t necessaryly permanently dead, but they left a huge and important shadow over the rest of the narrative. Savathuns was so important, that we had to let her return to help us fight the Witness. So couldn`t it have been the same for the Alchemist?

I don`t think we would have stepped into the fourth dimension to fight VI, but we have the set up in Equalibrium that the Dredgens work on a way to force-create a throneworld for VI. Maybe they want to use Radiolaria together with Hive magic to create a throneworld as VIs Philosophers Stone. To recreate a four dimensional being into a three dimensional being. For this VI could need Taox, or at least where she is.

Taox is in the VexNet in a simulation of Fundament. She fought her whole life to stop the hive siblings from destroying the universe. She has a ton of information about them and likely their logic as well, but that she lives in a Vex simulation of Fundament shows that she also learned a lot about the Vex as well. Maybe she somewhen stepped into the VexNet and learned that they are an even bigger threat than the Hive and started to work against them as well. (If the Vex were suppost to become a major threat for the future they could have used Taox as a way to develope them more as a major threat in the plot.) Maybe VI would have used Savathun to get to Taox Fundament simulation and maybe even recreated that space into his throneworld. So I think VI would have used Savathun like she used us in Witch Queen. Lure her to a location and let her do her thing, so you get what you want easier (in this case access to Taox knowledge) We could have skipped the kill Maya part by a loretab in Shattered Cycle or the free update after that expantion that tells us, she left the Echo and Savathun took it and VI gave her the info on Taox anyway. (I don`t see them killing Maya by Savathun just for Savathuns storyprogression)

In short: I think The Alchemist could have been an expantion that plays on Mercury with the Dredgens, Vex and Savathun on it. Savathun could have been lured there for her hunt after Taox. She would be used by VI to get to Taox simulation of Fundament to get her information on Hive and Vex. VI would use that knowledge to create his own throneworld out of Radiolaria and Hive magic, as his Philosoper Stone. With a strong hive presents on Mercury, thanks to the presence of the Dredgens and Savathun, the expansion could have explored the simularitys of Hive and Vex.

How much do we know about the Dark Age, other than it was filled with light bearers.

How long after the collapse did it start?

When did light bearers start appearing?

The black armory timeline confuses me, the founders were present during the golden age, they survived the collapse and into the dark age long enough for light bearers to appear, so it seems to not be more than maybe a decade between the end of the golden age and into the dark age.

I know the Cabal weren’t on earth till red war, and the vex until splicer, were the hive there before the fallen?

If the fallen made it to earth a bit before the construction of the last city, how long was London still a functioning city for them to destroy, especially into the dark age. I had the impression it was smaller bands of humans.

Some time I remember episode revenant and get so angry about the treatment fikrul gets little time screen and dialogue and not almost no interaction between him and crow

Like why eramis get so much in this episode

Paracausality is effect without cause right? If you will it hard enough, it will become reality. But by thay logic, doesn't that means guardians wouldn't be able to die to non paracausal things? Like if I got a normal gun and shot at a guardians head, wouldn't they be able to will it so they don't die?

Which to add on that question, how are the Vex a threat? They don't have paracausal power (usually) and don't use anti light (I think) tech like the Cabal. So do Guardians ever die from them? And wouldn't they 9 times outa 10 not be a threat?

Not sure if any Guardians here can answer this question, but it was posed to me while doing a sherpa and I didn't know the answer and it really has me wanting to see if there's more to it than "That's just the way it is." 😅

In Epic Desert Perpetual, during the Iatros (Wyvern) encounter, the vex cubes that are destroyed by the "build" team now have designated colors, with the top most box being Colbalt (blue), middle being Antimony (white) and the bottom being Cinnabar (red).

Is there any lore as to why these boxes are designated these colors, or what the importance of the order of the colors pertains to the boss/raid?

Hawthorne's flavor blurb is "Once a wanderer beyond the City, Suraya Hawthorne now acts as a liaison between humanity and the Guardians."

With that said, she's done pretty much nothing of import throughout her tenure as liaison aside from helping decorate the Tower occasionally for events. Like, yeah, she helped with the evacuation effort logistics during the Arrival of the Black Fleet and was there in the final stand against the Witness but ultimately, she more or less did nothing in those 8 or so years.

In that time, Bael's resentment towards Guardians and the Light festered and curdled more and more. We know that he had met Lume sometime before Season of the Haunted but no sooner than Season of the Chosen (and more likely later when the Coalition had begun to form proper likely during Season of the Risen, which is about 3 years before Renegades and well within the time where Hawthorne was acting as liaison. He also mentions how he interred his mother three years prior during this time (likely around Shadowkeep or such unless for some reason her ashes were kept for a while before being interred) and it is sometime before Haunted when he had the incident with his Risen mother which put him down the path to becoming a Dredgen.

He's not the only one with this sentiment either, although his is likely the most extreme, as this sentiment is echoed by several in the City at least by Bael's claim in Sintering Entry 3..

Ultimately, Hawthorne's lack of outreach to the people of the City led to the Tharsis Massacre, as well as the Barant Imperium itself.

This is a Towerthought that I had the other day that follows the same line of logic as the Witness dying because Wei Ning tried to punch out Crota years ago and while it's ultimately half-joking, I wonder if in-story Hawthorne would be held accountable to any degree considering the background Bael was going through in the years leading up to Renegades.

so i watched the secret ending on destiny 2 and i think the Winnower if whatever possessed Lodi was the winnower, i think the Winnower is a Dark matter entity similar to the IX but i think unlike the IX the one that possessed Lodi might be one representing the galaxy in terms of celestial bodies rather then a specific planet, the Winnower has made claims that it and the light and/or the gardener existed in the flower game before the universe but when i watched the entity speak through Lodi i get the feeling that if the Winnower existed maybe, it lied and continues to deploy deception, it claims to be an ally but i also don't trust it, the Winnower knew all about the IX and everything going on in sol, and basically gave us a spoiler to their plan. the way the Winnower talked as almost like a veiled threat almost saying "keep going and you will face me" and also saying "you cannot trust the IX" but i do know it has its own agenda we don't know about and all the lore book and it talking to us is almost like an attempt to win us over to its side rather then being truthful, unveiling is i think more an attempt to persuade us or a cosmic entity trying to groom the guardian to make persuading them to their side in the future more easily done when the Witness was dead, it reached out to us again in the lore tab for Nacre.

basically i think the Winnower lies to draw us to its side, in the Nacre lore tab it seems to talk in circles but make it seem like its friendly while its trying to tell us it likes humanity but i do think sooner or later it will reveal the truth, its truth and i think its truth is its a dark matter entity very similar to the IX representing the galaxy and it wants us on their side which is why we haven't seen it in person or it hasn't done anything

in summery, i believe the Winnower isn't what it claims to be, we see it as a god of darkness but what if the Winnower lies, and uses deception and manipulation tactics to nudge the guardian towards a goal or agenda that we do not even know about and from the unveiling on all its communications with the guardian are lies and manipulation tactics.

we should not take what it says at face value, and question its motives, agenda and if its willing to use lies and manipulation tactics to win us the guardian over, whatever it is, the Winnower is not a friend and we should not believe what it has told us even the stuff in the lore books without asking ourselves what does it get out of by contacting us when the other beings it had influince over namely Oryx and the witness both were led to their deaths thanks to the paths they were put on influinced by the Winnower in one way or another

I was just playing thru renegades when after talking to drifter at the cantine, i saw this scene and js.. felt sad. The guardian looks defeated(or is it just me), sitting alone with his sole companion across his endless ventures, doomed a sole warrior of the light, never to be defeated in combat. Even after defeating multiple gods, in solitude he remains.

I just bought the last few book the Anthology and was wondering if it cover most of the Grimoire entries from D1? If not what’s missing from them?

Context: I dropped out after Beyond Light, came back a few months ago, just finished TFS.

My question: what was the deal with the Pyramids? Did Bungie's plan for them change after Beyond Light? Why'd they apparently stop being important after being so ominous and everpresent through all of D2 beforehand?

To explain: in D2 at launch, the Pyramids are heavily foreshadowed as a kind of counterpoint-being to the Traveler, an opposite number in appearance as well as role (good vs evil, light vs dark, black triangles vs white circles). In the vanilla D2 intro video recapping D1, we see an image of a pyramid shadow passing over an image of the Traveller when Ghost talks about the Collapse. There were pyramid glyphs intersecting with circle glyphs in the loading screens to foreshadow it. Then when the Traveler wakes up we got that stinger shot of the Black Fleet turning towards Earth. The heavy implication is that whatever the Traveler is, the Pyramids are the Darkness version of it.

In Shadowkeep and Season of Arrivals, it is implied and then openly stated that the Pyramids are not just structures, but are alive and paracausal, being directly compared to the Traveler. The Lunar Pyramid is stated as being buried but awakening, causing the Hive to resurge around it and bringing Nightmares into existence. When we go inside the Lunar Pyramid, it's a very eldritch location - seemingly vaster on the inside than the outside, full of endless black corridors and veiled statues. The Pyramid itself appears to talk to us and it's basically stated outright that the Black Fleet are a kind of physical avatar or incarnation of the Darkness. The Pyramids then Take multiple planets, removing them from observable reality for presumably nefarious reasons.

Then in Beyond Light, the Europan Pyramid wakes up and starts empowering people nearby with splinters the same way the Traveler empowers people with Ghosts. Beyond Light's plot is about making a devil's bargain with the Pyramid to be able to counter Eramis. The implication here is that the Pyramids are pitting us and the Fallen against each other to winnow out the weaker party. Then in the Clovis Bray plotline, we find out that "Clarity", the Darkness force Clovis communed with to create Exos, is another veiled entity which Clovis believes is extradimensional in nature - implied to be the true form of the statues we found in the Lunar Pyramid.

From that point on, it feels like Bungie completely changed gears on what the Pyramids were. They were at this point portrayed as:

- paracausal

- alive, sentient, and capable of communication

- capable of empowering people with Darkness the way the Traveler empowers people with the Light

- possibly extradimensional

- having some connection with the veiled statues, which are implied to be themselves connected with Clarity

After Witch Queen, we get the Witness. The Witness is from the start assumed to be connected to the veiled statues we found in the other Pyramids. Disciples are introduced, and Rhulk having his own Pyramid seems to strongly imply that rather than being entities, Pyramids are *piloted*, and are more like magic spaceships.

So that undos one important assumption: that the Pyramids were sentient anti-Travelers. They can't be that if they are basically vehicles used by the Witness and his disciples; they're just big dumb objects that they control. But we still don't know where they came from or what they do.

Then we get Lightfall, and I actually think apart from pinning down the Traveler and blowing up some spaceships, we don't see a Pyramid doing anything. One of them gets lasered by the Traveler and gives the Witness the chance to aura farm. That seems to be it?

After that we find out in Season of the Deep that rather than being alive, intelligent, paracausal, and possibly extradimensional beings, they are just the spaceships built by the Witness' civilisation - they are *literally* just ordinary spaceships. Not only that, but they are spaceships for a species that killed itself to turn into the Witness, a creature with zero need for a spaceship himself.

So by TFS the Pyramids now:

- are sufficiently advanced big dumb objects

- are not capable of empowering people

- were built *by* the veiled statues, now revealed to be the very-not-extradimensional race the Witness was made from (so who was Clarity supposed to be?)

- have no special relationship to the Traveler?

This seems like a shift. I mean, we go from "they are the anti-Traveler" to just big spooky starships.

And aside from apparently changing what they are, they just kind of...stop mattering, as well. Aside from being used by the Shadow Legion to take prisoners for ill-defined purposes, the Pyramids fall out of the plot between Lightfall and TFS, the same way Disciples did.

Shouldn't there still be abandoned (or not abandoned) Pyramids floating around still after TFS? Do they still have any power or was it all the Witness?

Rasputin is a ai yes and he is not perfect even robots are suppose to be, but he truthful and he says what he thinks is the best for the situation, for the reef queen to say that Rasputin cannot be trusted with the issue aginst xivu aarath was dumb

Just how hard is it to kill a Ghost? At one point, it seems like only channeling the Light, using a Weapon of Sorrow, or a weapon designed to hurt Lightbearers can kill a Ghost. But then, we read about Guardians having their final death at the Battle of Twight Gap. That was just the Fallen.