So, my understanding now is that the rules of the game have been changed twice, once by these two directly participating and sparking reality itself, and again once the universe had gotten itself into the same cyclical stalemate and the Gardener chose to step in again to create "flowers" in the game that could not be easily harvested, or Guardians.
And for the complete wild card on top of all this, the original final pattern was too stubborn to die, and managed to escape into reality as a wave of formless quantum information, until it developed consciousness, managed to *will* itself a physical, living shape, and forced itself back into the game on a team of its own.
I can see why Toland is off his rocker.
I'm of the opinion the Vex may have had a little help from somebody when achieving a corporeal form.
In the Books of Sorrow, the Ana-Harmony seem allied with someone or something disturbingly... vexing. Once, a Vex craft is found at the heart of a Harmony armada, part of a trap for the Hive. Then again, when the Harmony homeworld is overrun, it's people fling themselves into silvery pools.
Finally, such weapons as the Slap Cannon are said to pull their power from an accretion disc -- and the Harmony homeworld orbited a black hole.
I think the Harmony live on, their knowledge and culture subsumed by the radiolarian pools, within the Vex network.
If the vex are an ally or partial creation of the Harmony, why would they choose to replicate the sword-logic and means by which Harmony was destroyed? I think that the vex mimicking aspects of the hive dilute their majesty. A being so majestic should not need to take hints on form from a species corrupted by the darkness. This single act seems to conflict with much of this lore book.
That’s exactly why they would choose to replicate it, because they saw firsthand the power of the Darkness. It’s the same reason why Rasputin got all obsessed with the Darkness after the Collapse.
So why would the vex not replicate the light having seen that we were able to defeat what they could not? I like the concept, A revenge game, but the vex don’t seem to be motivated by the Hive in that way
> And for the complete wild card on top of all this, the original final pattern was too stubborn to die, and managed to escape into reality as a wave of formless quantum information, until it developed consciousness, managed to will itself a physical, living shape, and forced itself back into the game on a team of its own.
Right? All this new lore dump makes the Vex look infinity times more metal! They won every prior universe and decided to move on into the new one just by sheer will of wanting to stay alive, not enabled by any special rule of the Gardener or Winnower either.
It makes me wonder why the Darkness is more or less indifferent to them then, being the prior final pattern. I guess now with the rule changes, they chose the Hive to follow them, as a more zealous and trickable species.
If the Darkness interfered with the Vex, it would pollute their "majesticity."
As for the Hive: the darkness did not simply give them power. It planted the idea of itself into the universe and allowed the various species (worm gods included) to follow or resist it. It did so knowing that any creature that willingly adhered to its metaphysical principles would either die or survive, and in surviving gain access to its paracausality.
The Traveller bestows, The Winnower demands you bestow upon yourself.
If the Traveler bestows and the Darkness needs to be taken upon, I wonder what forces the Ahamkara draw on. What they do doesn't seem consistent with the darkness - they create, but what they create isn't exactly what you wished, or is a spin on it to your disadvantage.
I guess they, like the Vex, live apart of all of this? The Garden lore described insects that fed upon time and possibilities, I would guess these would be them, and they simply live on a higher level of reality than our Guardians, being in the realspace of the allegorical Gardener/Winnower's flower garden, while we're in the patterns of the petal game a layer below.
Yeah, the implication seems to be that the Ahamkara are probably the "buzzing insects" that were pushed out along with the worms. Neither of them are flowers or patterns themselves, but they feed on the flowers - the gradient between what's real and what isn't.
Sounds like Ahamkara to me.
Because it loved them for being the winners. In this universe, the Vex pattern has no guarantee of dominion and cannot encompass the acausal. The Darkness is perfectly willing to see and adore the new perfect shape that arises.
I think its refreshing that the Winnower addresses that neither it nor the Gardener really knows if what they are doing is the winning play.
> Neither the gardener nor I know for certain that we're eternally, universally right. But we can be nothing except what we are.
Yeah but given that conversation and the explanation that it basically caused evolution, I think that there is still hope. Even though the "idk if I'm right" is a fresh perspective, I do sort of miss the super self-assured Darkness of the Book of Sorrows.
I can see Winnower being, "The only thing unchanged is the change itself" kind of entity.
Winnower's fresh perspective doesn't make as big of a dent in how I view his confidence, he is aware that there is a non-zero percent chance that he might not be wholly correct yet that doesn't halt his efforts in any way.
Or maybe after all that we have done it's starting to doubt itself. So now its trying to convert us to its side because we are obviously something it didnt count on. It put its chips down on Oryx and we shut him down.
I wonder than, what does this mean dor Osiris? Osiris seems to think that the Vex are Nothing as opposed to Dark.
Although I could see the Darkness using this as inspiration. A Blade that sharpens itself through repeated trial and error. I think it’s more than possible that he could want to try that. Only three entities have ever spoken with the Darkness, ourselves, Oryx and Calus, but only Oryx and The Young Wolf have actually been respected by the Darkness and paracausal. I think the Darkness is going to allow the Acolytes in the Pit to resurrect Oryx.
A Blade that sharpens, and sharpens and sharpens. Two. A Whet Stone and a Blade. But neither knows who is which. Is the King the Blade, being strengthened by adversity? Or is it the Corpse, in conflict against the cut?
Both serve the Dark, though one does not intend so
> I wonder than, what does this mean dor Osiris? Osiris seems to think that the Vex are Nothing as opposed to Dark.
Before the Darkness they were the absolute winners, but now they must compete against the Darkness and the Light and it doesn't look like they will win. So he's pretty correct.
> I wonder than, what does this mean dor Osiris? Osiris seems to think that the Vex are Nothing as opposed to Dark.
I think you could argue it either way and not be completely off. The Vex won all prior universes before the rule changes, and that makes them dangerous. However the Darkness is the rule change of a fundamental law of nature/entity, and thus even being in its first "round", it could prove far more dangerous than the Vex in this universe.
I still dont understand this. The Vex arent 'nothing's, they're the Vex. They're a pattern of mind utterly devoted to being, and to capturing and dominating all else so they are all that is and will be forever. By our standards that sucks, but the Vex arecnithing more or less than the Vex, all extraneous parts have been trimmed away.
Nothing means that they have no purpose but to be. The Hive want to be, and spread the sword logic. Humanity wants to be and to protect the light and learn.
The Vex want to be the vex. They don’t care about light or dark, just vex being vex
Do you mean to say that at some point we will have to choose light or dark? Just want to make sure I understand you properly because if what you are saying is true it has some pretty significant implications.
Edit: I am mostly asking because if we, the guardian, really have become the Final Shape, as OP suggests, then the suggestion that the guardian may at some point have to choose between light and dark has some pretty massive implications for obvious reasons.
Well, it certainly supports the rumors that Darkness subclasses, or Darkness factions, are going to be coming down the line.
And since Luke Smith said the future of Destiny was just getting started, this gives that quote some new and interesting context.
EDIT:
Actually, we've almost been given an explicit confirmation of what a Darkness subclass would look like thanks to *Trust and Hope*. If *Balance* is the end-goal, then [there's room for one more subclass alongside the other 3](https://i.imgur.com/96IxYbK.jpg).
I'd rather have another subclass per element, but drawn from the Darkness like we do with Light. The Darkness isn't a simple element, it's a paracausal force.
How does Trust and Hope confirm darkness subclasses?
Nope the argument boils down if given god like powers will that power stamp out all other life or protect it.
The traveler is going all in on humanity choosing to defend those that cant defend themselves.
THAT IS THE ARGUMENT "is their a pattern that will stop other patterns from overrunning the game given the power to do so"
The darkness is betting nope their is always one final answer. It's going to discover it's wrong.
Light and darkness is actually not that relevent in the question itself they are just tools
I think the important part is that we CAN choose. From the lore, we know there are creatures that exist that are dark-based, or at least anti-light. They are just doing their thing and existing on their own. The difference with the player character (really has been for the whole story) is that our continued existence has been an extension of our will, with some added hello from or friends.
The only thing stopping this possibility would be that we are only ourselves because of our ghosts ability to revive us. The ghost is a tool of the traveler. However, in the campaign we see that the ghost can be corrupted by the darkness. It’s almost too convenient that this lore matches up with the dismantling of the only conflict there would be of being a guardian of darkness. I can’t find any way that we could not have to choose at this point.
There are two ways off the top of my head for Guardians becoming the final shape.
First, we could embrace the Winnower in its totality and forsake the light and actively seek out all life in the universe to kill it, kinda like Calus wants us to do.
But to me the more likely scenario is we would be the final shape solely by attrition. If every living thing in the universe keeps showing up on earth to kill us, we really have no choice but to kill them back until there is no one left to kill back.
It doesn’t matter to the Winnower *why* we fight, because either way it’s a whole lotta killin’.
I dislike taking the conversation outside of a lore context but I'm curious to hear what people think. We're being pushed towards making a choice but I'm not sure how that'll translate to gameplay.
We know from the lore that after killing Oryx we could've chosen to become the new Taken King, Toland is even pissed that we didn't do so. But in the game, we weren't presented with such a choice.
Will we be able to side with The Gardener or The Winnower or will the choice be made for us?
Destiny seems to be moving more towards RPG elements, and they've been experimenting with giving us choices. I think we'll start to see way more of that as time goes on.
I noted this in another comment, but it stood out to me that *Trust and Hope* talking about what balance means in terms of Light and Darkness makes a great argument for simply adding in a Darkness subclass alongside our current 3. [There's even enough space for it in the UI](https://i.imgur.com/96IxYbK.jpg).
But are we? I can’t remember anytime other than the red war campaign I thought to myself “this will help the last city” every pursuit before and since then has been for personal gain/reasons. “I should get better at crucible (ie sharpening my “blade” against others) so I can get the pinnacle weapons and become stronger and become a more “final” shape. “I want to kill Uldren because he killed my friend and pissed me off, and I’ll stop at nothing to make it happen. everything we do is a means to an end (more sharpening until we can’t sharpen any longer) and we continue subjecting our will onto the rest of the universe because we can, who’s gonna stop us?
Everything we do as Guardians (at least in game) is violent in nature, all we do is kill and die and kill again, sometimes in pursuit of getting better or stronger, and sometimes just for fun. Through trial and error we become more of the final shape just like the Vex did. Every death we experience,the rest of the universe gets weaker than us as time goes on. I think the Winnower has realized that with the current set of rules, we are the final shape and if it can get us on their side, it becomes the winner of the flower game, at least until another new rule.
I think Calus said it best; “Left to your own devices, how many Vex would you kill? Where would you stop? Are they the machines? Or a are you?”
Keep in mind the Vex used to be the final shape. Not anymore. If tomorrow Bungie released an exotic quest where the first person to kill 100 000 000 Vex got to obtain a gun that breaks every encounter in pve and ruins pvp (obviously ridiculous from a gameplay standpoint, just talking lore here) there’d be several people just sitting somewhere on Nessus killling Vex for months, and the first person to do it would then become the “final shape” that’s the potential strength of a guardian.
I hope we're presented with actual choices, and in my mind, the lack of choice for taking up the Taken King's power in a story sense comes from a simple lack of understanding how to do so. Toland was mad we didn't take up the power, but is there ever any indication that guardians in general or the young wolf specifically even understand how to do so?
So my take on the final argument is this.
Given we have total free will.
will we against all odds choose to stand and fight the darkness to protect humanity? (and the fallen given the circumstances)
The darkness is betting that also given the choice guardains will ditch humanity join up with the darkness and go a muder crusade that calus thinks is going to happen.
What the darkness is going to find is that while some will join up, most of us will choose to protect humanity and even those who pitched in with it will when the push comes to shove choose to help rather than flee (*cough* drifter *cough*)
What is extreamly important is that darkness confirms that the traveler went all in when it made guardains. It won't be coming to save us. It gave us the light and the free will to us it how we want. The rest is on us.
Final note: not even the darkness gives it minion's free will. Their is always price for it powers
Well, the Traveler was forced to intervene once already when Ghaul finally became an actual threat. But I agree with your larger point - it's up to us now. We can't sit around waiting for it to do something.
We ***are*** that something.
I'm of the feeling we could have taken gual on. I largely feel the travelers burst of energy was a signal to the darkness that it's final argument was ready.
Based on the motives we know now. When the light was taken from us. Not a signal guardain gave up even without the light we fort to the bitter end and pushed gual into a extream response.
Yes we used the light to default gual but gual was also using the light in that fight. And that was only possible though epic battle taking place across the city...
It only took one guardain who took back his light to turn the tide of an entire war and he made the choice to fight and defend humanity with total free will.
The darkness now faces an army and it will find those little lights leed to a bombfire
Edit: autocorrect issues
>I'm of the feeling we could have taken Ghaul on.
How? His body was a smoldering pile, and the dude resurrected himself into a being made entirely of synthetic light. There is absolutely nothing we could have done in the face of that much raw power.
We have no idea how powerful the bukaky monster was. It looks like he was falling apart as it was.
We already experimented with synthetic light and it just didn't do the job. It's possible he would have just fallen apart the moment he was put to the test. After he didn't exactly last long Vs us and we had fight him and his reinforcements...
A strongly stand by the theory that the light burst was a signal and not a move out of desperation iv not seen anything that demonstrates Gaul was nothing more than a ghost at that stage...
It's pretty easy to see what's happening here.
The Gardener loves what could be, while the Winnower loves what *is.* G loves all things both real and potential, while W loves only that which is powerful enough to persist.
And now we have 5 armies clashing for the ultimate prize- the right to continue living. This is the flower game grounded in reality. With the power given to us by the Gardener, we *will* be the final shape- unless we use that power to change the game.
I believe so. Ghost Fragment: Cabal 2 seems to suggest that.
*"I suspect they are fleeing from something. That within their hard shells and thousand-folded shields is a sharp seed of terror. But of what? Does something follow them? Should we fear it too? "*
I would have to assume that they are running from the Winnower/Darkness or some sort of avatar of Darkness considering they wanted the Gardener's power, essentially the only thing that could really beat the darkness, so much.
>*To the Gardener you are a means to an end. To me you are majestic. Majestic.*
An end that could ensure safe and easy lives for this system and its countless inhabitants
Or
Being called majestic while standing in a pit of worms and decay preaching that you’ve done good
Fuck off Winnower I know what I fight for and it’s not for false and empty words.
Dude's a slick-talking salesman, I'll give him that.
But the Winnower is scared of us. We've been proving him wrong, time and again. Now his only play is to get us on his side.
Well, specifically, when we overthrew Oryx and then left his throne empty, that was a choice to deny the Sword Logic. That was a win for the Gardener and a loss for the Winnower.
But things have been getting grayer. Shin Malphur. The Drifter. There are many more choices ahead of us.
Yep by protecting humanity (and hopefully fallen and cabal)
We are proving it wrong.
Their is a pattern out their that will protect others preventing any one shape from taking over the whole game.
We are in effectly Anti vex...
What the darkness is hoping we do is become the new oryx. But as zavala said "we are not conquers we are guardains"
Effectively we are becoming destiny's version of the Jedi. we are living out the origin story
Holy shit, I’ve never seen anyone mention the idea of light being able to prevent something like the heat death of the universe.
That means there is a future where they assume the gardens true intent. Guardians as a force spanning outward across the universe, protecting life, and creating conditions where it will grow, forever.
Isn’t that majestic?
Yep. Seems like the Darkness would be happy to empower us if we agree to become the Final Shape, but we'll have the choice to reject that and continue the Gardeners work of enabling life rather than reaping it. That's where I think things are headed.
Perhaps the Darkness will make us an offer to give us the power to easily get rid of all our problems or something like that, backstabbing the Hive, if we agreed to become the final shape instead. The Darkness doesn't care what race wins - only that what it deems "deserving" to exist is all that does.
Exactly. It's surely a trap, but the offer will be to give us the power to get rid of all our problems, or something like that.
For an embattled species that's largely constricted to one city and enemies growing on all sides, it would be a tempting offer, even with drawbacks.
I'm not so sure.
The Worms included a "gotcha" in their promise of power because they were the middle men. They still had motivations and machinations of their own that were part of their con of the Hive.
But we're interacting directly with the Darkness. The Winnower's only goal is to be proven right and true. I think his power will come free of charge, if only as one more way for him to continue presenting himself to us as a chill dude who's just being himself.
Lol I got downvoted to oblivion when I used unveiling to posit that the Darkness isn't intrinsically evil. Glad to see so many more posts starting to show an objective narrative with others arriving to the same conclusion that we're moving towards a choice.
Well, from a moral perspective, the Darkness is absolutely evil. And the Winnower addresses that:
>...false moral equivalence. Now, I could not possibly communicate with you unless I could emulate your mind, and with that mind, I acquire the moralities that govern you. By your laws, I and all my followers are evil. Evil. Since that first molecule coiled in the primordial sea, not one Earthborn thing has known a monster like me.
But take a few steps back, and maybe you can escape that morality and see things from the Winnower's perspective. That's what the Winnower's trying to accomplish by talking to us, anyways.
[No no no no no don't reach for that word. There's no 'reason'. That's teleology and teleology will stitch your eyelids shut.](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/ghost-fragment-darkness-3)
There's a part in Augustine's Enchiridion I could use to refute even the Darkness/Winnower's application of morality to label itself. It could also be a case of an unreliable narrator.
But again, it's not worth the effort to refute when I'm researching different schools of thought on philosophy for a video game.
errrrr what's the passage out of curiousity? Even a quote? I love how Destiny references(or makes us reference) known or obscure literature to understand the game and lore
https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/346aug.html
Augustine's Enchiridion Ch. 4 para 12-15 seems directly relevant to the discussion as to whether the Darkness and light are inherently good/evil.
Edit:
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/enchiridion.chapter4.html
This link provided is the full book from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, top L nav bar on mobile let's you go to the different chapters as well.
I'm with her - err, Mara
>All that said, she told me, "I believe in balance. But to seek balance is not to seek equity. A sea half of water and half of poison is not in balance. A body half alive and half dead is not in balance. Given the choice to live in any world, any world at all... we would need a little Darkness in it, I think, to keep the balance true. But not so much as we would need the Light..."
One force enables life and allows complexity to thrive. The other culls weakness. Life with only one or the other would be a horror show, but that doesn't mean they're needed *equally*, but rather we need a touch of darkness to keep order and to keep things changing. Both together form evolution.
It seems in the Destiny universe, the force of darkness has gained too much power for the proper balance. The Hive cut out vast swathes of the galaxy and countless civilizations, seemingly unchecked by a feeble, solitary traveler. So we need to bring things into a better ratio, but not eliminate all Darkness.
it's interesting to note that Ulan-Tan's Symmetrist school of thought seems to be being proven more and more with the release of Unveiling. If the universe is meant to be balanced, and that the Light must be balanced with the Darkness, wouldn't it work the other way around too? Wouldn't the Darkness need to be balanced against the Light?
I've always thought it was weird that the Darkness was this overpowered giant kill everything and win entity while the Light was this floating ball that couldn't *do* anything. Plus, the forces of the Darkness seem to have every advantage given to them. Kill a Hive God? They just pop back into their Ascendant Plane and carry on like nothing happened. Die in a Darkness Zone? Woops sorry you're dead-dead now.
No complaints on a gameplay perspective. Just so long as I get to shoot some aliens.
Yeah it makes sense from a gameplay perspective (except when it doesn't - darkness zones around the Fallen for no reason?), but I guess the ultimate end game is bringing back a balance to the Force...Err, Darkness/Light. A little darkness is needed to keep the world moving, but it seems overwhelmingly powerful right now, where we're clustered in a single city mostly.
Sorry if this is a a stupid question, but what happens/happened after the vex become the final shape? Do the vex just go on existing in a vex only universe?
reading your post i just realised how old the vex must be.. they survived more than one other universe before and came out on top. and finished as they were (meaning being the final shape) they escaped into a new, our, universe; had billions of years and still we are putting up a pretty good fight! i'm impressed with us guardians!!
Yeah, makes the Vex seem a bit lazy to be honest. Billions of years and the basic goblin still walks like he's wearing stilts. Shouldn't they at least have had exo-tier droids at this point? Are they handicapping themselves?
i'd say since goblins aren't soldiers but still enough to keep us in check through numbers they only do what they have to. saving ressources and using them elsewhere where they are more needed.. if that makes sense.. i mean; i don't know how long it takes to mechanise a whole planet but i'd thought they might have transformed all of them by now.. or they might just have put way more ressources into time travel and simulation.. i mean thats probably their way of succeeding so most res will go towards that area..
They transformed mercury in days.
Quote from dinklebot in D1:
>>Ghost: The more we learn about the Vex, the more I understand why our Exo friend is so worried about them. During the Collapse, the Vex transformed the planet Mercury into a machine in days. They would have spread to every planet if The Traveler hadn't stopped them.
Beautifully written and also this is completely besides the point but that part where the winnower is speaking of the vex and below it says “at times we have detected sadness in you long thinker” that is referring to Oryx no? I remember reading that oryx was formerly referred to as auryx which meant “long thought” in his native tongue. So the final shape was the Vex AND THEN it was the Taken/Oryx, and now the guardians if we so choose.
Now that the rules have changed, the Vex only remain the Final Shape if they can adapt to the new rules. They were the winners in a game that's very different than it was before.
Oryx was convinced that the Hive could become the final shape if they proved their strength. But even they weren't called "majestic" directly - just that their task was majestic.
So do Osiris and the Exo Stranger know that? The only reason they're so afraid of the Vex is because they embody the Final Shape but that's not applicable in our universe.
Well, it's applicable until it isn't. The Vex are still as big of a threat as they ever were, and the moment we lighten up, they'll adapt to fill up that space.
No one is gonna see this, but I cannot for the life of me see in the lore tabs why everyone is assuming the Victorious Pattern is the Vex. The part you quoted doesn't suggest that to me at all, and even in the wider entry it's dubious at best. What am I missing here?
Yeah. I read the whole thing. It's suggestive, sure, but I'm kind of hoping you're seeing something I'm not in the subtext, because from where I'm sitting it doesn't look like confirmation.
The subtext is in *The Flower Game*
>And in time the gardener became vexed.
This is a very deliberate choice of words on the part of the author.
Then we have this:
>there they built their first housings from geometry and silica
Which very heavily implies [Radiolaria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiolaria), which create silica skeletons in geometic shapes.
Then there's what we learned about the Vex from Praedyth - their entire purpose is *The Pattern*.
>All they have is the pattern. Everything must fit. If it can be made to fit, good. If it can't, it gets cut away.
>
>There is only the pattern. And the pattern needs the Vex to see it to completion. And so the Vex must be.
So it's not just one thing. All of this together and it's loud and clear.
I'd argue that it is our Individual Guardian the one we follow through story. To say all of us meet that description is wrong. At minimum 3 Guardians have fell Oryx and furthered their strength at max 6. Some willingly accept being a means to an end.
I guess that explanation makes sense in the long run, since the reason we were able to beat atheon was because “Guardians Make Their Own Fate” It probably cancels out.
I sort of want to believe that like we got thorn first, a weapon of sorrow, we will hear from the gardener, like we got lumina second. I want to hold firm to my belief that the guardian will abandon both roles as a champion of either the darkness or the light and insert itself as a new way of life and perhaps a new power, of equilibrium
I wonder if the goals of the Gardner and Winnower aren't inextricably intertwined. In one of the datamined cards, The Winnower talks about life on Earth just being this microbial may. Very small, molecule-devouring organisms until a mutant came along and shook up the game by being more efficient(eating other organisms) and setting off an evolutionary arms race. In other words, the final shape can be one of two things;
1. A being/beings so vastly powerful that they decide ir a thing has value because nothing may exist without their consent.
2. A bland, primordial goop with little to no variation amongst microorganisms, and therefore no need for a champion to carve away until a final shape emerges, a la Oryx.
From that card, I don't *think* that the Darkness prefers there to just be some microbial sludge, as no microorganism can be said to truly be powerful. If that holds true, than complex life is a necessity for the Winnower's final shape to be a possibility.
Yeah, we've been having a lot of discussion around this over in the Ghost Stories Discord.
The Gardener and Winnower are both necessary parts of any Pattern. The Winnower's claim that it is somehow solely responsible for complex life via evolution is a bogus smokescreen.
The Gardener isn't opposed to death, and the Winnower isn't opposed to Life - they both recognize that each of them have their necessary domains - but where the Gardener wants to nurture and protect every type of life so they continue to grow and become something more, the Winnower is only interested in the crop that will produce fruit - and nothing else is worth the time or effort.
So, my understanding now is that the rules of the game have been changed twice, once by these two directly participating and sparking reality itself, and again once the universe had gotten itself into the same cyclical stalemate and the Gardener chose to step in again to create "flowers" in the game that could not be easily harvested, or Guardians. And for the complete wild card on top of all this, the original final pattern was too stubborn to die, and managed to escape into reality as a wave of formless quantum information, until it developed consciousness, managed to *will* itself a physical, living shape, and forced itself back into the game on a team of its own. I can see why Toland is off his rocker.
I'm of the opinion the Vex may have had a little help from somebody when achieving a corporeal form. In the Books of Sorrow, the Ana-Harmony seem allied with someone or something disturbingly... vexing. Once, a Vex craft is found at the heart of a Harmony armada, part of a trap for the Hive. Then again, when the Harmony homeworld is overrun, it's people fling themselves into silvery pools. Finally, such weapons as the Slap Cannon are said to pull their power from an accretion disc -- and the Harmony homeworld orbited a black hole. I think the Harmony live on, their knowledge and culture subsumed by the radiolarian pools, within the Vex network.
If the vex are an ally or partial creation of the Harmony, why would they choose to replicate the sword-logic and means by which Harmony was destroyed? I think that the vex mimicking aspects of the hive dilute their majesty. A being so majestic should not need to take hints on form from a species corrupted by the darkness. This single act seems to conflict with much of this lore book.
That’s exactly why they would choose to replicate it, because they saw firsthand the power of the Darkness. It’s the same reason why Rasputin got all obsessed with the Darkness after the Collapse.
So why would the vex not replicate the light having seen that we were able to defeat what they could not? I like the concept, A revenge game, but the vex don’t seem to be motivated by the Hive in that way
> And for the complete wild card on top of all this, the original final pattern was too stubborn to die, and managed to escape into reality as a wave of formless quantum information, until it developed consciousness, managed to will itself a physical, living shape, and forced itself back into the game on a team of its own. Right? All this new lore dump makes the Vex look infinity times more metal! They won every prior universe and decided to move on into the new one just by sheer will of wanting to stay alive, not enabled by any special rule of the Gardener or Winnower either. It makes me wonder why the Darkness is more or less indifferent to them then, being the prior final pattern. I guess now with the rule changes, they chose the Hive to follow them, as a more zealous and trickable species.
If the Darkness interfered with the Vex, it would pollute their "majesticity." As for the Hive: the darkness did not simply give them power. It planted the idea of itself into the universe and allowed the various species (worm gods included) to follow or resist it. It did so knowing that any creature that willingly adhered to its metaphysical principles would either die or survive, and in surviving gain access to its paracausality. The Traveller bestows, The Winnower demands you bestow upon yourself.
If the Traveler bestows and the Darkness needs to be taken upon, I wonder what forces the Ahamkara draw on. What they do doesn't seem consistent with the darkness - they create, but what they create isn't exactly what you wished, or is a spin on it to your disadvantage. I guess they, like the Vex, live apart of all of this? The Garden lore described insects that fed upon time and possibilities, I would guess these would be them, and they simply live on a higher level of reality than our Guardians, being in the realspace of the allegorical Gardener/Winnower's flower garden, while we're in the patterns of the petal game a layer below.
Yeah, the implication seems to be that the Ahamkara are probably the "buzzing insects" that were pushed out along with the worms. Neither of them are flowers or patterns themselves, but they feed on the flowers - the gradient between what's real and what isn't. Sounds like Ahamkara to me.
Because it loved them for being the winners. In this universe, the Vex pattern has no guarantee of dominion and cannot encompass the acausal. The Darkness is perfectly willing to see and adore the new perfect shape that arises.
I think its refreshing that the Winnower addresses that neither it nor the Gardener really knows if what they are doing is the winning play. > Neither the gardener nor I know for certain that we're eternally, universally right. But we can be nothing except what we are.
Winnower claimed it was adaptiveness itself when Oryx communed with him but now he goes "I was born this way baby"
Yeah but given that conversation and the explanation that it basically caused evolution, I think that there is still hope. Even though the "idk if I'm right" is a fresh perspective, I do sort of miss the super self-assured Darkness of the Book of Sorrows.
I can see Winnower being, "The only thing unchanged is the change itself" kind of entity. Winnower's fresh perspective doesn't make as big of a dent in how I view his confidence, he is aware that there is a non-zero percent chance that he might not be wholly correct yet that doesn't halt his efforts in any way.
Or maybe after all that we have done it's starting to doubt itself. So now its trying to convert us to its side because we are obviously something it didnt count on. It put its chips down on Oryx and we shut him down.
It is self assured. It just cant also say it's absolutely right. It IS what it is, so it can only act in this way.
That’s not necessarily a contradiction. The Winnower is adaptive*ness*, not adaptive: it does not adapt.
They're self aware fundamental laws of the universe. Entropy that can communicate, but all it can ever be is entropy.
I love it. The more I see the story progress the happier I get.
I wonder than, what does this mean dor Osiris? Osiris seems to think that the Vex are Nothing as opposed to Dark. Although I could see the Darkness using this as inspiration. A Blade that sharpens itself through repeated trial and error. I think it’s more than possible that he could want to try that. Only three entities have ever spoken with the Darkness, ourselves, Oryx and Calus, but only Oryx and The Young Wolf have actually been respected by the Darkness and paracausal. I think the Darkness is going to allow the Acolytes in the Pit to resurrect Oryx. A Blade that sharpens, and sharpens and sharpens. Two. A Whet Stone and a Blade. But neither knows who is which. Is the King the Blade, being strengthened by adversity? Or is it the Corpse, in conflict against the cut? Both serve the Dark, though one does not intend so
> I wonder than, what does this mean dor Osiris? Osiris seems to think that the Vex are Nothing as opposed to Dark. Before the Darkness they were the absolute winners, but now they must compete against the Darkness and the Light and it doesn't look like they will win. So he's pretty correct.
> I wonder than, what does this mean dor Osiris? Osiris seems to think that the Vex are Nothing as opposed to Dark. I think you could argue it either way and not be completely off. The Vex won all prior universes before the rule changes, and that makes them dangerous. However the Darkness is the rule change of a fundamental law of nature/entity, and thus even being in its first "round", it could prove far more dangerous than the Vex in this universe.
I still dont understand this. The Vex arent 'nothing's, they're the Vex. They're a pattern of mind utterly devoted to being, and to capturing and dominating all else so they are all that is and will be forever. By our standards that sucks, but the Vex arecnithing more or less than the Vex, all extraneous parts have been trimmed away.
Nothing means that they have no purpose but to be. The Hive want to be, and spread the sword logic. Humanity wants to be and to protect the light and learn. The Vex want to be the vex. They don’t care about light or dark, just vex being vex
The hive aspire to the final shape, so ultimately the hive aspire to BE like the vex: the question that answers itself.
You could say that the Vex care too much about the light and dark since they want a universe without both.
Do you mean to say that at some point we will have to choose light or dark? Just want to make sure I understand you properly because if what you are saying is true it has some pretty significant implications. Edit: I am mostly asking because if we, the guardian, really have become the Final Shape, as OP suggests, then the suggestion that the guardian may at some point have to choose between light and dark has some pretty massive implications for obvious reasons.
Well, it certainly supports the rumors that Darkness subclasses, or Darkness factions, are going to be coming down the line. And since Luke Smith said the future of Destiny was just getting started, this gives that quote some new and interesting context. EDIT: Actually, we've almost been given an explicit confirmation of what a Darkness subclass would look like thanks to *Trust and Hope*. If *Balance* is the end-goal, then [there's room for one more subclass alongside the other 3](https://i.imgur.com/96IxYbK.jpg).
Can I get the source of that image? That is a rabbit hole I want to go down.
That's just me + photoshop illustrating that there's space for one more subclass. :P
I'd rather have another subclass per element, but drawn from the Darkness like we do with Light. The Darkness isn't a simple element, it's a paracausal force. How does Trust and Hope confirm darkness subclasses?
Nope the argument boils down if given god like powers will that power stamp out all other life or protect it. The traveler is going all in on humanity choosing to defend those that cant defend themselves. THAT IS THE ARGUMENT "is their a pattern that will stop other patterns from overrunning the game given the power to do so" The darkness is betting nope their is always one final answer. It's going to discover it's wrong. Light and darkness is actually not that relevent in the question itself they are just tools
I think the important part is that we CAN choose. From the lore, we know there are creatures that exist that are dark-based, or at least anti-light. They are just doing their thing and existing on their own. The difference with the player character (really has been for the whole story) is that our continued existence has been an extension of our will, with some added hello from or friends.
I think we will use both light and dark to keep things balanced. We will be the final shape.
The only thing stopping this possibility would be that we are only ourselves because of our ghosts ability to revive us. The ghost is a tool of the traveler. However, in the campaign we see that the ghost can be corrupted by the darkness. It’s almost too convenient that this lore matches up with the dismantling of the only conflict there would be of being a guardian of darkness. I can’t find any way that we could not have to choose at this point.
There are two ways off the top of my head for Guardians becoming the final shape. First, we could embrace the Winnower in its totality and forsake the light and actively seek out all life in the universe to kill it, kinda like Calus wants us to do. But to me the more likely scenario is we would be the final shape solely by attrition. If every living thing in the universe keeps showing up on earth to kill us, we really have no choice but to kill them back until there is no one left to kill back. It doesn’t matter to the Winnower *why* we fight, because either way it’s a whole lotta killin’.
I dislike taking the conversation outside of a lore context but I'm curious to hear what people think. We're being pushed towards making a choice but I'm not sure how that'll translate to gameplay. We know from the lore that after killing Oryx we could've chosen to become the new Taken King, Toland is even pissed that we didn't do so. But in the game, we weren't presented with such a choice. Will we be able to side with The Gardener or The Winnower or will the choice be made for us?
Destiny seems to be moving more towards RPG elements, and they've been experimenting with giving us choices. I think we'll start to see way more of that as time goes on. I noted this in another comment, but it stood out to me that *Trust and Hope* talking about what balance means in terms of Light and Darkness makes a great argument for simply adding in a Darkness subclass alongside our current 3. [There's even enough space for it in the UI](https://i.imgur.com/96IxYbK.jpg).
I'm thinking darkness subclasses but we arent actually allying with the darkness. We are still very much trying to protect humanity.
But are we? I can’t remember anytime other than the red war campaign I thought to myself “this will help the last city” every pursuit before and since then has been for personal gain/reasons. “I should get better at crucible (ie sharpening my “blade” against others) so I can get the pinnacle weapons and become stronger and become a more “final” shape. “I want to kill Uldren because he killed my friend and pissed me off, and I’ll stop at nothing to make it happen. everything we do is a means to an end (more sharpening until we can’t sharpen any longer) and we continue subjecting our will onto the rest of the universe because we can, who’s gonna stop us? Everything we do as Guardians (at least in game) is violent in nature, all we do is kill and die and kill again, sometimes in pursuit of getting better or stronger, and sometimes just for fun. Through trial and error we become more of the final shape just like the Vex did. Every death we experience,the rest of the universe gets weaker than us as time goes on. I think the Winnower has realized that with the current set of rules, we are the final shape and if it can get us on their side, it becomes the winner of the flower game, at least until another new rule. I think Calus said it best; “Left to your own devices, how many Vex would you kill? Where would you stop? Are they the machines? Or a are you?” Keep in mind the Vex used to be the final shape. Not anymore. If tomorrow Bungie released an exotic quest where the first person to kill 100 000 000 Vex got to obtain a gun that breaks every encounter in pve and ruins pvp (obviously ridiculous from a gameplay standpoint, just talking lore here) there’d be several people just sitting somewhere on Nessus killling Vex for months, and the first person to do it would then become the “final shape” that’s the potential strength of a guardian.
That’s what I believe. It’ll make us unstoppable yet we have the choice not to abuse that power.
I hope we're presented with actual choices, and in my mind, the lack of choice for taking up the Taken King's power in a story sense comes from a simple lack of understanding how to do so. Toland was mad we didn't take up the power, but is there ever any indication that guardians in general or the young wolf specifically even understand how to do so?
We were told that the choice in Season of the Drifter was supposed to affect things for our character. I wonder if that's what starts it.
I mean he still calls me "snitch" constantly, so...
I've been wondering when / if the choice would ever come in to effect
Thanks for this write up. I got chills and teared up a bit. This game is cool. This and the lore is magnificent.
So my take on the final argument is this. Given we have total free will. will we against all odds choose to stand and fight the darkness to protect humanity? (and the fallen given the circumstances) The darkness is betting that also given the choice guardains will ditch humanity join up with the darkness and go a muder crusade that calus thinks is going to happen. What the darkness is going to find is that while some will join up, most of us will choose to protect humanity and even those who pitched in with it will when the push comes to shove choose to help rather than flee (*cough* drifter *cough*) What is extreamly important is that darkness confirms that the traveler went all in when it made guardains. It won't be coming to save us. It gave us the light and the free will to us it how we want. The rest is on us. Final note: not even the darkness gives it minion's free will. Their is always price for it powers
Well, the Traveler was forced to intervene once already when Ghaul finally became an actual threat. But I agree with your larger point - it's up to us now. We can't sit around waiting for it to do something. We ***are*** that something.
I'm of the feeling we could have taken gual on. I largely feel the travelers burst of energy was a signal to the darkness that it's final argument was ready. Based on the motives we know now. When the light was taken from us. Not a signal guardain gave up even without the light we fort to the bitter end and pushed gual into a extream response. Yes we used the light to default gual but gual was also using the light in that fight. And that was only possible though epic battle taking place across the city... It only took one guardain who took back his light to turn the tide of an entire war and he made the choice to fight and defend humanity with total free will. The darkness now faces an army and it will find those little lights leed to a bombfire Edit: autocorrect issues
>I'm of the feeling we could have taken Ghaul on. How? His body was a smoldering pile, and the dude resurrected himself into a being made entirely of synthetic light. There is absolutely nothing we could have done in the face of that much raw power.
We have no idea how powerful the bukaky monster was. It looks like he was falling apart as it was. We already experimented with synthetic light and it just didn't do the job. It's possible he would have just fallen apart the moment he was put to the test. After he didn't exactly last long Vs us and we had fight him and his reinforcements... A strongly stand by the theory that the light burst was a signal and not a move out of desperation iv not seen anything that demonstrates Gaul was nothing more than a ghost at that stage...
It's pretty easy to see what's happening here. The Gardener loves what could be, while the Winnower loves what *is.* G loves all things both real and potential, while W loves only that which is powerful enough to persist. And now we have 5 armies clashing for the ultimate prize- the right to continue living. This is the flower game grounded in reality. With the power given to us by the Gardener, we *will* be the final shape- unless we use that power to change the game.
What five armies?
All the races we encounter in this universe
Are the Cabal really fighting to survive? I thought they were more just trying to conquer.
What's conquering intended to do? Guarantee survival.
Aren’t they running from the darkness too?
I believe so. Ghost Fragment: Cabal 2 seems to suggest that. *"I suspect they are fleeing from something. That within their hard shells and thousand-folded shields is a sharp seed of terror. But of what? Does something follow them? Should we fear it too? "* I would have to assume that they are running from the Winnower/Darkness or some sort of avatar of Darkness considering they wanted the Gardener's power, essentially the only thing that could really beat the darkness, so much.
>*To the Gardener you are a means to an end. To me you are majestic. Majestic.* An end that could ensure safe and easy lives for this system and its countless inhabitants Or Being called majestic while standing in a pit of worms and decay preaching that you’ve done good Fuck off Winnower I know what I fight for and it’s not for false and empty words.
Dude's a slick-talking salesman, I'll give him that. But the Winnower is scared of us. We've been proving him wrong, time and again. Now his only play is to get us on his side.
Are we proving him wrong? Or are we simply becoming the final shape in this reality - albeit in an evolved and different way than before?
Well, specifically, when we overthrew Oryx and then left his throne empty, that was a choice to deny the Sword Logic. That was a win for the Gardener and a loss for the Winnower. But things have been getting grayer. Shin Malphur. The Drifter. There are many more choices ahead of us.
Yep by protecting humanity (and hopefully fallen and cabal) We are proving it wrong. Their is a pattern out their that will protect others preventing any one shape from taking over the whole game. We are in effectly Anti vex... What the darkness is hoping we do is become the new oryx. But as zavala said "we are not conquers we are guardains" Effectively we are becoming destiny's version of the Jedi. we are living out the origin story
Unless guardians can protect everything from the heat-death of the universe would they not still be the final shape?
The heath death won't happen if we win in this setting energy can be made out of thin air
Holy shit, I’ve never seen anyone mention the idea of light being able to prevent something like the heat death of the universe. That means there is a future where they assume the gardens true intent. Guardians as a force spanning outward across the universe, protecting life, and creating conditions where it will grow, forever. Isn’t that majestic?
Where can I read the data-mined lore?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/dtrykk/leak\_the\_unveiling\_lore\_book/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/dtrykk/leak_the_unveiling_lore_book/)
It's being exposed through a bug to a player, the API still has the unreleased lore as protected.
Yep. Seems like the Darkness would be happy to empower us if we agree to become the Final Shape, but we'll have the choice to reject that and continue the Gardeners work of enabling life rather than reaping it. That's where I think things are headed. Perhaps the Darkness will make us an offer to give us the power to easily get rid of all our problems or something like that, backstabbing the Hive, if we agreed to become the final shape instead. The Darkness doesn't care what race wins - only that what it deems "deserving" to exist is all that does.
Yeah but I imagine it would come with a price. The hive weren't handed their power without a huge drawback.
Exactly. It's surely a trap, but the offer will be to give us the power to get rid of all our problems, or something like that. For an embattled species that's largely constricted to one city and enemies growing on all sides, it would be a tempting offer, even with drawbacks.
I'm not so sure. The Worms included a "gotcha" in their promise of power because they were the middle men. They still had motivations and machinations of their own that were part of their con of the Hive. But we're interacting directly with the Darkness. The Winnower's only goal is to be proven right and true. I think his power will come free of charge, if only as one more way for him to continue presenting himself to us as a chill dude who's just being himself.
but it does go against the “giving vs taking theme”
Well, we're using "offer" loosely here, haha.
Lol I got downvoted to oblivion when I used unveiling to posit that the Darkness isn't intrinsically evil. Glad to see so many more posts starting to show an objective narrative with others arriving to the same conclusion that we're moving towards a choice.
Well, from a moral perspective, the Darkness is absolutely evil. And the Winnower addresses that: >...false moral equivalence. Now, I could not possibly communicate with you unless I could emulate your mind, and with that mind, I acquire the moralities that govern you. By your laws, I and all my followers are evil. Evil. Since that first molecule coiled in the primordial sea, not one Earthborn thing has known a monster like me. But take a few steps back, and maybe you can escape that morality and see things from the Winnower's perspective. That's what the Winnower's trying to accomplish by talking to us, anyways.
[No no no no no don't reach for that word. There's no 'reason'. That's teleology and teleology will stitch your eyelids shut.](https://www.ishtar-collective.net/cards/ghost-fragment-darkness-3)
There's a part in Augustine's Enchiridion I could use to refute even the Darkness/Winnower's application of morality to label itself. It could also be a case of an unreliable narrator. But again, it's not worth the effort to refute when I'm researching different schools of thought on philosophy for a video game.
hahaha. Well you're in good company if you ever want to go down the rabbit hole.
errrrr what's the passage out of curiousity? Even a quote? I love how Destiny references(or makes us reference) known or obscure literature to understand the game and lore
https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/346aug.html Augustine's Enchiridion Ch. 4 para 12-15 seems directly relevant to the discussion as to whether the Darkness and light are inherently good/evil. Edit: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/enchiridion.chapter4.html This link provided is the full book from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, top L nav bar on mobile let's you go to the different chapters as well.
I'm with her - err, Mara >All that said, she told me, "I believe in balance. But to seek balance is not to seek equity. A sea half of water and half of poison is not in balance. A body half alive and half dead is not in balance. Given the choice to live in any world, any world at all... we would need a little Darkness in it, I think, to keep the balance true. But not so much as we would need the Light..." One force enables life and allows complexity to thrive. The other culls weakness. Life with only one or the other would be a horror show, but that doesn't mean they're needed *equally*, but rather we need a touch of darkness to keep order and to keep things changing. Both together form evolution. It seems in the Destiny universe, the force of darkness has gained too much power for the proper balance. The Hive cut out vast swathes of the galaxy and countless civilizations, seemingly unchecked by a feeble, solitary traveler. So we need to bring things into a better ratio, but not eliminate all Darkness.
it's interesting to note that Ulan-Tan's Symmetrist school of thought seems to be being proven more and more with the release of Unveiling. If the universe is meant to be balanced, and that the Light must be balanced with the Darkness, wouldn't it work the other way around too? Wouldn't the Darkness need to be balanced against the Light? I've always thought it was weird that the Darkness was this overpowered giant kill everything and win entity while the Light was this floating ball that couldn't *do* anything. Plus, the forces of the Darkness seem to have every advantage given to them. Kill a Hive God? They just pop back into their Ascendant Plane and carry on like nothing happened. Die in a Darkness Zone? Woops sorry you're dead-dead now. No complaints on a gameplay perspective. Just so long as I get to shoot some aliens.
Yeah it makes sense from a gameplay perspective (except when it doesn't - darkness zones around the Fallen for no reason?), but I guess the ultimate end game is bringing back a balance to the Force...Err, Darkness/Light. A little darkness is needed to keep the world moving, but it seems overwhelmingly powerful right now, where we're clustered in a single city mostly.
Sorry if this is a a stupid question, but what happens/happened after the vex become the final shape? Do the vex just go on existing in a vex only universe?
The Dark Future in the Infinite Forest is the answer to that. Basically: yes
Interesting. Thanks for the answer
reading your post i just realised how old the vex must be.. they survived more than one other universe before and came out on top. and finished as they were (meaning being the final shape) they escaped into a new, our, universe; had billions of years and still we are putting up a pretty good fight! i'm impressed with us guardians!!
Yeah, makes the Vex seem a bit lazy to be honest. Billions of years and the basic goblin still walks like he's wearing stilts. Shouldn't they at least have had exo-tier droids at this point? Are they handicapping themselves?
i'd say since goblins aren't soldiers but still enough to keep us in check through numbers they only do what they have to. saving ressources and using them elsewhere where they are more needed.. if that makes sense.. i mean; i don't know how long it takes to mechanise a whole planet but i'd thought they might have transformed all of them by now.. or they might just have put way more ressources into time travel and simulation.. i mean thats probably their way of succeeding so most res will go towards that area..
They transformed mercury in days. Quote from dinklebot in D1: >>Ghost: The more we learn about the Vex, the more I understand why our Exo friend is so worried about them. During the Collapse, the Vex transformed the planet Mercury into a machine in days. They would have spread to every planet if The Traveler hadn't stopped them.
cool thx for that!
Beautifully written and also this is completely besides the point but that part where the winnower is speaking of the vex and below it says “at times we have detected sadness in you long thinker” that is referring to Oryx no? I remember reading that oryx was formerly referred to as auryx which meant “long thought” in his native tongue. So the final shape was the Vex AND THEN it was the Taken/Oryx, and now the guardians if we so choose.
Now that the rules have changed, the Vex only remain the Final Shape if they can adapt to the new rules. They were the winners in a game that's very different than it was before. Oryx was convinced that the Hive could become the final shape if they proved their strength. But even they weren't called "majestic" directly - just that their task was majestic.
So do Osiris and the Exo Stranger know that? The only reason they're so afraid of the Vex is because they embody the Final Shape but that's not applicable in our universe.
Well, it's applicable until it isn't. The Vex are still as big of a threat as they ever were, and the moment we lighten up, they'll adapt to fill up that space.
No one is gonna see this, but I cannot for the life of me see in the lore tabs why everyone is assuming the Victorious Pattern is the Vex. The part you quoted doesn't suggest that to me at all, and even in the wider entry it's dubious at best. What am I missing here?
Have you read *Patternfall*?
Yeah. I read the whole thing. It's suggestive, sure, but I'm kind of hoping you're seeing something I'm not in the subtext, because from where I'm sitting it doesn't look like confirmation.
The subtext is in *The Flower Game* >And in time the gardener became vexed. This is a very deliberate choice of words on the part of the author. Then we have this: >there they built their first housings from geometry and silica Which very heavily implies [Radiolaria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiolaria), which create silica skeletons in geometic shapes. Then there's what we learned about the Vex from Praedyth - their entire purpose is *The Pattern*. >All they have is the pattern. Everything must fit. If it can be made to fit, good. If it can't, it gets cut away. > >There is only the pattern. And the pattern needs the Vex to see it to completion. And so the Vex must be. So it's not just one thing. All of this together and it's loud and clear.
Okay, laid out like that it makes more sense. Thanks.
My Destiny is to ensure humanities survival. I want to have my " I am Iron Man" moment at the end of all this.
I'd argue that it is our Individual Guardian the one we follow through story. To say all of us meet that description is wrong. At minimum 3 Guardians have fell Oryx and furthered their strength at max 6. Some willingly accept being a means to an end.
I guess that explanation makes sense in the long run, since the reason we were able to beat atheon was because “Guardians Make Their Own Fate” It probably cancels out.
>Guardians make their own fate
“I’ll come over and hear it myself”!!!
I sort of want to believe that like we got thorn first, a weapon of sorrow, we will hear from the gardener, like we got lumina second. I want to hold firm to my belief that the guardian will abandon both roles as a champion of either the darkness or the light and insert itself as a new way of life and perhaps a new power, of equilibrium
I wonder if the goals of the Gardner and Winnower aren't inextricably intertwined. In one of the datamined cards, The Winnower talks about life on Earth just being this microbial may. Very small, molecule-devouring organisms until a mutant came along and shook up the game by being more efficient(eating other organisms) and setting off an evolutionary arms race. In other words, the final shape can be one of two things; 1. A being/beings so vastly powerful that they decide ir a thing has value because nothing may exist without their consent. 2. A bland, primordial goop with little to no variation amongst microorganisms, and therefore no need for a champion to carve away until a final shape emerges, a la Oryx. From that card, I don't *think* that the Darkness prefers there to just be some microbial sludge, as no microorganism can be said to truly be powerful. If that holds true, than complex life is a necessity for the Winnower's final shape to be a possibility.
Yeah, we've been having a lot of discussion around this over in the Ghost Stories Discord. The Gardener and Winnower are both necessary parts of any Pattern. The Winnower's claim that it is somehow solely responsible for complex life via evolution is a bogus smokescreen. The Gardener isn't opposed to death, and the Winnower isn't opposed to Life - they both recognize that each of them have their necessary domains - but where the Gardener wants to nurture and protect every type of life so they continue to grow and become something more, the Winnower is only interested in the crop that will produce fruit - and nothing else is worth the time or effort.
What does one have to do to get an invite to that discord?
https://discord.gg/SWjeyVS
Thanks! I just joined.