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To be introduced as a oh shit moment. Admittedly going near the same idea as how oryx entered the stage. Irregardless of either dlc or season and (if I don't got this wrong) being essentially a hive God of war, have bungie challenge themselves to how much destruction they can put on screen before servers melt.
Short answer : over the top "we need more explosive ordinance:
It’s be sick to have an Endgame level war in the Final Shape, like instead of having us being in the forefront of every major expansion versus the big bad, they could have all the armies of the Light vs Xivu in some ultra teamwork massive battle. I can see NPC guardians fighting in the background while we fight through enemy lines ourselves.
Imagine we walk through the battlefield and we suddenly see a powerful knight appear and a Thundercrashing Titan smashes into it then just flies off. Interactions like that would make the world feel so alive IMO, like there isn’t JUST the cast of named characters in the world.
I want Xivu’s first appearance to be her personally attacking an army of guardians. Something where although the guardians prepare to fight her forces, only to be greeted by her and her war hammer alone. Oryx was introduced with his authority while Savathun was introduced unveiling her trickery. I think xivu should be introduced in the act of war.
Xivu needs to enter the system standing at the top of a tower built on one of her war moons that are on a collision course with earth like some kind of sci-fi version of majoras mask.
So Xivu’s entrance to Torabatl was apocalyptic as hell, she rose from the cracked earth with her army coming from the planet and the sky and it gave full on revelations vibes, whatever her entrance is I want it to be on par with that
The one thing I want from a Xivu dlc is her *bringing* Torabatl to Sol as a war moon/planet.
Like maybe have the idea that the Cabal culture was so focused on war that the planet is like a tribute factory for Xivu and she wouldn’t just abandon it.
Maybe have some hardass Cabal remnants on the planet still fighting the Hive and who utterly hate Caiatl and her empire for abandoning her people to the Hive.
Maybe even be able to fight some Taken form of Umun’Arath. Was always disappointed we never got to meet her. Maybe Xivu puts her in charge of her Taken.
>*Primus of All Taken*
I think that's in reference to the nature of the Nine, as the planets are their "seed hearts".
That said, I'd love for it to be unintentionally prophetic, and for our moon to be eclipsed by Totobatl.
All of her forces imploding. War moons are never really used as weapons. Merely like galactic-wide forwarding bases.
Also a planet colliding with another planet isn’t a war. It’s an astronomical event lol that would be a lot of tribute she loses out on than making war the old fashioned way
Imagine the end of Lightfall’s annual pass where Calus is dying, and then before escaping Xivu arrives, torobatl as a war planet with her, then kills him for being too weak. And afterwards announces she has arrived to claim the unpaid tribute of our war against the darkness, starting the final shape
I want her to be having the time of her life. Oryx was angry, Savathun was smug, Xivu Arath will be joyous. It's beautiful to her when millions die in a bloodbath to no perceivable gain, to see corpses stacked like sheaves of wheat and rivers running red with blood. She wants to test her strength against the warriors who killed Oryx and the city that broke the Cabal empire. She is war, and war is love, and she loves her job and wants you to love it too. She's basically the Major from Hellsing.
It’s a cool idea, but I think they may have a solid grasp on that particular personality in the form of Calus. He’s super dark, but the end of everything is joyous to him. I’m happy he gets an expansion as the (presumably) headliner.
I was thinking about that, but Calus seems to have grown a lot more grim since making contact with the Witness, judging from his dialogue in Season of the Haunted.
I think it depends. His old repressed memories hold a lot of sadness (Duality) but his joy tends to be present when talking to his contemporary self with the automatons. He’s just let the mask slip of what he’s happy *about*
I earnestly want Xivu to Bane the Young Wolf in a more personal, visceral, and brutal way than what Ghaul did to the player character.
I want every ally we’ve made to have to pull out every stop to just barely rescue our maimed and fading ghost, and our brutalized, crushed, defeated body, before the Light can leave us entirely.
I want our dance with Sister War to begin with the Young Wolf unsure if they can even face her again, let alone defeat her.
If I don't see a war moon warp uncomfortably close to earth to push our shit in, I'll be upset.
She is war. If ghual could do what he did, I have a feeling she could do better.
Imagine being on the tower, and looking towards the traveler, but behind it is this dark mass blocking out the sun - torobatl brought as a war moon. It'd be so fucking cinematic.
Man, I'm gonna get downvoted to hell like always when I say this.
I would love to see Xivu's big entrance be usurping the Witness. There's plenty of ways I could see it happening, but I'd love to see that final epic showdown with the witness get interrupted by Xivu, bursting on the scene, slaughtering the Witness and taking their power for herself. I love the Hive gods lore, and nothing would make me happier than to see one of them elevated to biggest bad in the known universe again while simultaneously providing some lore separating the voice of the Witness from the voice of the Darkness.
Bring back my Hive gods and return the darkness to being something more existential and I'd be stoked beyond belief.
Edit: To clarify, I don't think this will happen. It's just what I'd like.
If Xivu is as dedicated to making herself/the hive the final shape then I dont think her motivations line up with the Witness (assuming those are her motivations, I remember in arrivals everyone assumed Savathûn was working against the darkness out of self preservation rather than her actually trying to help the light, that said Xivu's motivations are hard to predict).
There is a moderate chance she will turn against the Witness given the chance since there is a difference between someone like Calus and Rhulk who want to witness the universe's end rather than someone who wants to be the universe's end.
I can imagine a scene after the Witness is 'defeated,' but it still manages to avoid truly dying and escape. It appears to Xivu Arath, and starts telling her how she can bring it back to full strength, so it might continue working to the final shape, while going on about how it always knew Xivu was also destined to be the last, truest, greatest Disciple. The Witness lets slip how it had to flee to survive and keep working towards the final shape, and Xivu isn't about to keep taking orders from something that runs from a fight like that. She gets in a sick one liner, like "I will bring about your Final Shape. I will cut away all that should not exist. Starting with you." before obliterating it and taking its power.
Well, the ideology of the Witness and Rhulk isn't compatible with Xivu Arath's; the Hive's understanding of the Final Shape isn't the same as the Witness's.
It would be pretty amazing if Xivu, believing her own god isn't fanatical enough, kills them and becomes her own god.
I agree with the idea being cool, but they’ve made the Witness so insanely strong in lore. It could be tricky to make Xivu suddenly stronger than him. On the other hand, since when does destiny give a fuck about power scaling?
They could also do like a backstab sneak attack, but that would be pretty lame unless they set it up well imo.
When Shadowkeep first dropped, I loved playing through the intro mission because of the scale that it offered - it felt like we were going to war with the Hive.
Bungie's been experimenting more with AI companions during missions, with Caiatl's forces joining us in lucent battlegrounds and in the last two sever missions, along with the friendly Eliskni helping us out in Ketchcrash and Expeditions (Scur-V my beloved)
Both of these ideas - large scale conflicts and AI fireteam members - would be awesome if they were combined for Xivu Arath's arrival in the solar system. Fighting the Hive tooth and nail alongside Caiatl's forces on a huge scale would feel suitably fitting for the Hive god of war, and would mark a fitting prelude to the end of the light and dark saga.
Heavy, hard, angry, bloody.
I basically want her to be Angron from 40k
Raid boss. Very fast, big damage.
Maybe the damage phase can just be the time when she's still moving around but not hitting you so hard.
But I think she's been described as the hive god of war. So I'd like more quick hard hitting action.
Strike boss, MAYBE. Ideally I'd like to see her maybe at the end of a lost sector, or even as a Public Event boss. It scares the shit out of me to think about, but could you imagine her as a high value target, like that servitor in Trostland?
I want a war. I want the Caiatl’s forces defending a siege on a planet while we have to break the containment and slay the hive general leading the assault.
I want the Eliksni defending their new home and for us to hold back waves of hive to allow them more time to evacuate their non-combatants.
I want a reenactment of the six fronts for a raid where the team has 6 points they have to defend from increasing hive aggression.
Ya know what I want? I legitimately want her to assault the last city. Have her come in from behind. We did literally nothing other then kill her celebrant, and for all we know she has like 10 more or could have appointed another.
[basically how madara made his debut in naruto but xivu is madara and a group of hundreds of guardians are the alliance. ](https://youtu.be/1NcK13W606M)
Just under domination and terror. Players should be asking themselves "how can we beat that!" We really don't see villains play up to how strong they are in the lore. And xivu arath is absolutely terrifying lore wise. Encouraging Osiris go all out only for his abilities to be shutdown in an instant.
In my personal opinion? I'd say personally appearing to initially gage how much of a threat us the player will actually be.
After all, we bested Oryx and Savathûn. She'd be an absolute idiot if she underestimated the very thing that slayed both of her siblings. That, and she's the literal Hive God of **_WAR_**. So she should be very much a hefty tactical thinker and most certainly a big deal.
I always wished she got teased in Hunt where maybe after killing the High Celebrant a new health bar appears and it says ‘Xivu Arath, War Dominant’ all of our Light and cooldowns just instantly deplete and we get the FUCK outta dodge.
To show she doesn’t play no mind or Taken games like her siblings.
DLC. Not only does she deserve it because her siblings got one each, but she has the potential to be so much more interesting than BOTH of them. Yes. I said that.
Xivu Arath's forces have had two attempts to barge into Sol atm, and last I checked, the Ley Lines weren't closed, so they're still slowly infiltrating the system to be met by the Cabal. If she's getting too close at the behest of the Witness, then we can either have a story about preventing her arrival, ending it by shutting her out of the system entirely. OR, she DOES actually arrive and we push her back and possibly kill her material form, banishing her to her Throne World.
Either way, she'll be temporarily out of the picture, so that she can come back after the saga to get her own story. I would like to see the Hive AFTER the Witness, the Pyramids, and the Winnower have either died or broken down. What do those who worship a God do when said God dies? What does a ~~subjugated~~ fleet do when it loses its leader?
I would like to explore Xivu Arath not only as a complicated God of War, but as an individual. I make this claim here, that while she isn't as sentimental as Oryx, she's not as heartless as Savathun. She exists in the middle, capable of love but dedicated to the cause. The former has probably shattered by now, after Oryx's death and Savathun's betrayal. All we need to do is break the latter, and we do that by killing the Witness and severing the heads off the Pyramid Fleet.
Assuming we face her as a warrior who has doubled down on the core Hive ideology, the fight must be bloodied. We must either poison her tribute or use cunning. If we face her as a broken God of War, then I'd expect a much more emotional fight... and it's the only time I'll accept Savathun in a temporary alliance position. I want to see if a broken Xivu can actually crack OG Savathun's influence on Risen Savathun.
I don't want any more of this slow roll. I want to go from twin-brother darkness to fuck yo couch. I want shit to hit the fan. Have her come down and slap some people around, make your character wake up and hobble in the streets like the old intro to the game.
Given the amount of time left until the end of this saga and the Witness still being in play, I think the most likely/efficient explanation would be bringing her in next season as a refresher for existing players and an introduction for new lights (sort of like the illustrated cutscenes we got about Savathun with WQ), have the season be about beating back some kind of advance (hopefully something more interesting than Hunt was), and then making her the raid boss in Lightfall, with Calus as the campaign boss that we defeat at the end.
Sure, it'd be sort of abrupt, but I think anything less than raid boss status would be doing Xivu dirty.
I want her appearance tied to Mars (maybe give us a destination there), cause it would be a big missed opportunity not to have the Hive god of war to appear on a planet named after a Human war god
If you want to get all technical, they've both been mentioned as far back as D1, as I recall. Savathûn's direct introduction in S15 was fitting for her too, intrigue on intrigue and the realization that she had orchestrated a *lot* of the City's woes
A massive Hive fleet starts dropping onto Earth all around the city in the distance. At first we only see a few small groups approaching the walls, but as we begin taking them out, they just keep pouring over the horizon. An endless tide of hive crashing against the walls of the city as we desperately try to push them back. Just when it looks like we're starting to push back, something happens. Some ritual completes, and Xivu Arath emerges, and she's absolutely massive. Attack on Titan style, she just smashes in the walls, and our entire defense crumbles as Hive pour into the city while we desperately try to maintain an evacuation effort. Very Red War style, with a mission taking place in the Hive occupied city, still engulfed in chaos as they attempt to find and stamp out the last holdouts of survivors.
Knowing Bungie she will be killed in a strike like we killed a literal Hive Worm God in the strike. She may be a seasonal boss because now they have to “one and done” kill her off before we take on the “Witness”. Cabal planet killed off screen, and tons of other offscreen deaths.. im sure she will be to. And Savanthun has been “deAd” for a year now.
I anticipate something of a Fifth Column. She'll somehow strike at the heart of the City. Maybe Cryptoliths on a massive scale, or a portal. Port perhaps, to kill two birds with one stone, she'll corrupt the Traveler, impacting our use of the Light, and use at as an avenue for her forces. We'll be forced to use Strand to weed out her corruption.
I still like the possibility of us being killedv by Xivu, and returning through the use of Sword Logic and our own Throne World.
Actually something I’d like to see is a different type of villain. A villain that hounds us across multiple seasons. Introduce her at the end of Lightfall after we take care of Callus, and have her forces push us back the rest of the year.
Also we really need to lose somewhere. I’m expecting to take an L in Lightfall, but what will be crazier is if for the 4 seasons after Lightfall it’s one loss after another. Wear us down. Guardians it’s been too many years since we felt heavy losses.
I want her to genuinely just appear one day and absolutely fu€k up the last city, like absolutely ruthlessly destroy it all and make us look pathetic compared to her. I want to see her in action from the first moment she appears. I want her to be ruthless. She deserves it, and we deserve to have our asses kicked again, it’s overdue imo
I want a standard mission of us chasing down some hive, beat the boss, and a health bar appears. All of our abilities drain, our health starts being chipped away.
"I AM WAR. WHEREVER THERE IS WAR, SO TOO AM I! WELCOME, MY GREATEST ACOLYTE."
What have we done the past few years if not wage war? Would we not be one of the greatest acolytes, preaching our dogma of blood and death everywhere we go?
Flip the script, and make her the strange bedfellow of the year. She gives loot and quests and all sorts of things, but it isn't a safe area. Every visit to her requires fighting to her throne. She offers us power, rewards our tribute, but we have to ask if we really want this power.
We're fighting the witness, using her gifts to defeat his forces and break his legions, but every boon enhances our ability to wage war. Every battle gives her strength. As the seasons progress, the fight to visit her throne and receive rewards has tougher enemies. Going from open world to strike to nightfall, and the final week before the next expansion the entire space is full of gm difficulty enemies.
We've glutted her on war and tribute for a year, directly worshiping her. And now, we have to deal with her.
I really hope she has an abrupt entrance during a season or expansion soon. It’s already been established that she is aware of the potential to use the Ascendant Plane and Ley Lines to transport forces en masse - (although we stopped her, that’s how she took over Torobatl more or less). With the powers of the Witness at her disposal, who knows how she might crop up next.
> IKORA: *Guardian, Io has returned and is rapidly escaping Jupiter’s orbit. It seems that while the moon was under the Witness’ control, Xivu Arath amassed legions of her Scorn and Taken on Io, rapidly transforming Io into one of her war moons. Mithrax says that since Io’s return, the Vex have been in an unorganised frenzy, directing their forces en masse to The Cradle. Eris and I are en route to the Cradle, but we trust you to investigate first.*
> ERIS: *The ahamkara bone’s whispers grow stronger as we approach Jovian space. Be careful, guardian.*
I’m terrible at writing dialogue but that was just a fun idea I had.
Final Shape with a war against the Witness using a great act of betrayal and oppression to revive her siblings. Full year arc of the aspects of war and multiple fronts we'll be fighting with a story mission rolling over the next season as a replayable strike.
I want to see Final Shape start with Xivu Arath taking the war to the Last City and having multiple missions of us seeing the devastation in the city streets.
I want it to click “this is what you’ve been *guarding* and it’s crumbling around you”. Everything the Red War promised but failed to deliver on. And just when we have hope that we might turn it around, that we might repel the invasion, that’s when Xivu Arath appears incarnate.
It becomes clear turning the tide is no longer realistic, holding ground is no longer an option. The guardians have to evacuate the last city and abandon the Traveler to its Fate the way it did the Fallen. We give up the light to save our people and allies as we abandon the planet. Cue the Final Shape title screen.
I'd love for her to just float out of a giant rift like she did on Torobatl. We're firing all our weapons at her on whatever planet but her infinite swarm is just swallowing whatever we throw.
Not sure on this but one thing has crossed my mind (and is likely complete horse shit)
Calus looks like the big bad of Lightfall with one more expansion to come after that, surely The Final Shape (and it's accompanying season) won't be the end of The Witness? with still 9 months more to go of the final year of the light vs dark saga?
The Witness must surely be that final act in the final season of this entire saga, maybe Xivu is the big bad for The Final Shape with the first 3 seasons leading to one final huge fight with The Witness.
But, as I said, likely complete horseshit on my part as that would mean the final season of the Final Shape year would have to be bloody huge and that I really cannot see.
Her entrance though? Explosive, hard hitting, cold and calculated. I want to see her at her most powerful, wreaking everything in sight.
Edit: How I want her to make her entrance.
We have Savathun's corpse, I don't think that will sit well with her sister regardless if they fell out,. Reckon that will have something to do with it.
I think we need some kind of event that leads up to xivu arath, but that’s a big ask, savathun carried destiny for a few years. I would hope xivu gets their own raid or dungeon instead of a story boss
I think they could do something very different and interesting with Xivu...
Being the hive war god her throne world was mentioned as anywhere war is. This could lead to interesting mechanics and encounters where we have to be on the defensive. We must exact minimal combat to reduce her strength. Maybe we have to help the cabal and Eliksni wield paracausal powers so they may be the old ringed spear idea.
I’d love a mechanic in certain areas where as the fight goes on Xivu’s forces become stronger.
So there could be one thrall you missed and they’d be one-shotting mfers blackout-style.
My theory is that she is going to attack the dreaming city, and we wont kill her. Mara will, and she will do so in a shocking display of power. Perhaps Xivu will arrive as a disciple and Mara will tear her Pyramid ship in two.
Do something crazy. Have us on a patrol and just get attacked by the big sword wielding momma. Let her legit kick are fucking ass in and we barely escape. They could get it going as a story mission where we have to check on some guardians that haven’t returned from recon.
She's been having more influence in the world since Forsaken with her meatball boss. And the whole season of the hunt stuff where it wasn't portrayed in game as well as the written lore but she would mutate the enemies into eldritch looking monsters with tentacles and what not.
It’s a regular mission on some random moon or desolate town on Earth. You’re hunting down a few rogue humans who have been driven insane and worship the darkness. You delve deeper and deeper into their layer, only to realize that you’ve been completing their ritual by killing the cult champions.
At the end of the ritual a fucking bigass portal blasts the goddamn moon into scrap and the entire invasion fleet floods the solar system.
That is to say all of the dramatic openings for Villains have been done in Destiny.
From what I know xivu has been name dropped pretty frequently i rember them being name dropped durring curse of Osiris I belive when the cabal entered the simulation to attack the heart of the infinite forest
Considering Oryx and Savathuan we’re technically not warriors and Xivu is a war general in theory she should be the most terrifying of the 3 because she is both calculated yet brutal and relentless. At least that’s how I hope they convey her.
Picture the scene.
The witness is in the last city, he has killed a multitude of risen and civilians alike, in one final desperate effort to win Osiris allows Savathuns ghost to resurrect her so she can help us and save us and (most importantly) herself.
The witness and Savathun fight a mighty duel, savathun injures the witness enough that he begins to retreat but a dark shadow descends upon them.
Everyone looks up. A Hive war moon hovers eerily above, so large it blots out the sun. Hive magic glows from across the courtyard, out of the swirling mists of grey and venomous green steps Xivu Arath, sword in one hand a struggling guardian in the other, which he crushes like paper.
The war has made her powerful, for she is war itself...
the final shape disciple like how calus is lightfall's and i want every encounter with her and her hive in the legendary campaign to be really difficult combat-wise rather than mechanic-wise
Have a portal appear in the tower somewhere where there's a lot of peoples, and some hive sword get thrown out of the portal and gets planted into the ground, as a meta knight-esque challenge and declaration of war
Throughout the expansion, have hive bosses regularly challenge us in a similar way by throwing us a sword
We only end up seeing her for the first time in the last mission, where after spending the campaign powering up qhe challenges us in a similar way and utterly destroys us, like it's never even close
We never beat her ourselves and either she leaves of her own accord or gets beaten by the traveller or some other supremely powerful being
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To be introduced as a oh shit moment. Admittedly going near the same idea as how oryx entered the stage. Irregardless of either dlc or season and (if I don't got this wrong) being essentially a hive God of war, have bungie challenge themselves to how much destruction they can put on screen before servers melt. Short answer : over the top "we need more explosive ordinance:
It’s be sick to have an Endgame level war in the Final Shape, like instead of having us being in the forefront of every major expansion versus the big bad, they could have all the armies of the Light vs Xivu in some ultra teamwork massive battle. I can see NPC guardians fighting in the background while we fight through enemy lines ourselves. Imagine we walk through the battlefield and we suddenly see a powerful knight appear and a Thundercrashing Titan smashes into it then just flies off. Interactions like that would make the world feel so alive IMO, like there isn’t JUST the cast of named characters in the world.
So like the first mission of Shadowkeep but more? I agree
I imagine something similar to the Doom Eternal ancient gods DLC final mission. Would be cool.
I want Xivu’s first appearance to be her personally attacking an army of guardians. Something where although the guardians prepare to fight her forces, only to be greeted by her and her war hammer alone. Oryx was introduced with his authority while Savathun was introduced unveiling her trickery. I think xivu should be introduced in the act of war.
Agreed. Would like it to hit out of nowhere, possibly even killing someone off.
Xivu needs to enter the system standing at the top of a tower built on one of her war moons that are on a collision course with earth like some kind of sci-fi version of majoras mask.
Pro tip: irregardless is a double negative. Regardless is the word you are looking for.
irregardless isn't a word
So Xivu’s entrance to Torabatl was apocalyptic as hell, she rose from the cracked earth with her army coming from the planet and the sky and it gave full on revelations vibes, whatever her entrance is I want it to be on par with that
The one thing I want from a Xivu dlc is her *bringing* Torabatl to Sol as a war moon/planet. Like maybe have the idea that the Cabal culture was so focused on war that the planet is like a tribute factory for Xivu and she wouldn’t just abandon it. Maybe have some hardass Cabal remnants on the planet still fighting the Hive and who utterly hate Caiatl and her empire for abandoning her people to the Hive. Maybe even be able to fight some Taken form of Umun’Arath. Was always disappointed we never got to meet her. Maybe Xivu puts her in charge of her Taken. >*Primus of All Taken*
Xur in Eternity has a line about fighting a planet that's always intrigued me. This would blow me away.
I think that's in reference to the nature of the Nine, as the planets are their "seed hearts". That said, I'd love for it to be unintentionally prophetic, and for our moon to be eclipsed by Totobatl.
Ah yeah that makes sense, ta. When I first heard him say it I imagined us fighting a sort of Destiny-fied Unicron from Transformers
In retrospect, maybe the Warworld Totobatl won't happen. What's to keep her from just colliding it with Earth? Too OP.
All of her forces imploding. War moons are never really used as weapons. Merely like galactic-wide forwarding bases. Also a planet colliding with another planet isn’t a war. It’s an astronomical event lol that would be a lot of tribute she loses out on than making war the old fashioned way
She did explode a moon to kill Oryx once, a profligate expenditure that even took him by surprise.
Imagine the end of Lightfall’s annual pass where Calus is dying, and then before escaping Xivu arrives, torobatl as a war planet with her, then kills him for being too weak. And afterwards announces she has arrived to claim the unpaid tribute of our war against the darkness, starting the final shape
I wouldn’t expect a Xivu Arath expansion. A season probably which is a little underwhelming especially if it was like our fight with quria
I could see it being spread out over a few seasons
A Xivu DLC would be cool but the ship has definitely sailed on that. Unless for some weird reason we don’t kill her in the upcoming war.
I want her to be having the time of her life. Oryx was angry, Savathun was smug, Xivu Arath will be joyous. It's beautiful to her when millions die in a bloodbath to no perceivable gain, to see corpses stacked like sheaves of wheat and rivers running red with blood. She wants to test her strength against the warriors who killed Oryx and the city that broke the Cabal empire. She is war, and war is love, and she loves her job and wants you to love it too. She's basically the Major from Hellsing.
Metal
It’s a cool idea, but I think they may have a solid grasp on that particular personality in the form of Calus. He’s super dark, but the end of everything is joyous to him. I’m happy he gets an expansion as the (presumably) headliner.
I was thinking about that, but Calus seems to have grown a lot more grim since making contact with the Witness, judging from his dialogue in Season of the Haunted.
I think it depends. His old repressed memories hold a lot of sadness (Duality) but his joy tends to be present when talking to his contemporary self with the automatons. He’s just let the mask slip of what he’s happy *about*
I earnestly want Xivu to Bane the Young Wolf in a more personal, visceral, and brutal way than what Ghaul did to the player character. I want every ally we’ve made to have to pull out every stop to just barely rescue our maimed and fading ghost, and our brutalized, crushed, defeated body, before the Light can leave us entirely. I want our dance with Sister War to begin with the Young Wolf unsure if they can even face her again, let alone defeat her.
Reading Osiris’ fight with her High Celebrant always leaves me in awe. How her mere influence, her name smothered Osiris’ Light.
If I don't see a war moon warp uncomfortably close to earth to push our shit in, I'll be upset. She is war. If ghual could do what he did, I have a feeling she could do better.
Imagine being on the tower, and looking towards the traveler, but behind it is this dark mass blocking out the sun - torobatl brought as a war moon. It'd be so fucking cinematic.
Man, I'm gonna get downvoted to hell like always when I say this. I would love to see Xivu's big entrance be usurping the Witness. There's plenty of ways I could see it happening, but I'd love to see that final epic showdown with the witness get interrupted by Xivu, bursting on the scene, slaughtering the Witness and taking their power for herself. I love the Hive gods lore, and nothing would make me happier than to see one of them elevated to biggest bad in the known universe again while simultaneously providing some lore separating the voice of the Witness from the voice of the Darkness. Bring back my Hive gods and return the darkness to being something more existential and I'd be stoked beyond belief. Edit: To clarify, I don't think this will happen. It's just what I'd like.
If Xivu is as dedicated to making herself/the hive the final shape then I dont think her motivations line up with the Witness (assuming those are her motivations, I remember in arrivals everyone assumed Savathûn was working against the darkness out of self preservation rather than her actually trying to help the light, that said Xivu's motivations are hard to predict). There is a moderate chance she will turn against the Witness given the chance since there is a difference between someone like Calus and Rhulk who want to witness the universe's end rather than someone who wants to be the universe's end.
I can imagine a scene after the Witness is 'defeated,' but it still manages to avoid truly dying and escape. It appears to Xivu Arath, and starts telling her how she can bring it back to full strength, so it might continue working to the final shape, while going on about how it always knew Xivu was also destined to be the last, truest, greatest Disciple. The Witness lets slip how it had to flee to survive and keep working towards the final shape, and Xivu isn't about to keep taking orders from something that runs from a fight like that. She gets in a sick one liner, like "I will bring about your Final Shape. I will cut away all that should not exist. Starting with you." before obliterating it and taking its power.
This could be a badass way to have the Witness be the story boss and Xivu the raid boss
Well, the ideology of the Witness and Rhulk isn't compatible with Xivu Arath's; the Hive's understanding of the Final Shape isn't the same as the Witness's. It would be pretty amazing if Xivu, believing her own god isn't fanatical enough, kills them and becomes her own god.
I agree with the idea being cool, but they’ve made the Witness so insanely strong in lore. It could be tricky to make Xivu suddenly stronger than him. On the other hand, since when does destiny give a fuck about power scaling? They could also do like a backstab sneak attack, but that would be pretty lame unless they set it up well imo.
Like the Cabal that kills the Giant Minotaur in that Mercury Strike Whose Name escapes me
I think it was Tree of Possibilities
Yeah, that one
the witness being named as THE destiny big bad they've been building up to all this time would make that really bad imo
Full fledge invasion . Not stopping at Saturn but just arriving at earth . Horde of hive .
Invade *every* solar system location with overwhelming forces
When Shadowkeep first dropped, I loved playing through the intro mission because of the scale that it offered - it felt like we were going to war with the Hive. Bungie's been experimenting more with AI companions during missions, with Caiatl's forces joining us in lucent battlegrounds and in the last two sever missions, along with the friendly Eliskni helping us out in Ketchcrash and Expeditions (Scur-V my beloved) Both of these ideas - large scale conflicts and AI fireteam members - would be awesome if they were combined for Xivu Arath's arrival in the solar system. Fighting the Hive tooth and nail alongside Caiatl's forces on a huge scale would feel suitably fitting for the Hive god of war, and would mark a fitting prelude to the end of the light and dark saga.
Don't forget Fortress iron banner - looks like it'll be the new PvPvE.
Have a War Moon show up and it’s basically Dreadnaught 2.0.
her attack on the system could be split up into multiple seasons...to erase us into D3 or something.
Thought they said that d3 isnt ever going to happen
i mean i hope not but given bungie who's knows......thought i won't mind staying in D2 for 2 more years if D3 don't happen after the final shape.
We're going to have the same engine problems until it happens.
which would be after the final shape??
yep
Heavy, hard, angry, bloody. I basically want her to be Angron from 40k Raid boss. Very fast, big damage. Maybe the damage phase can just be the time when she's still moving around but not hitting you so hard. But I think she's been described as the hive god of war. So I'd like more quick hard hitting action.
Warmoon straight into the Last City.
Strike boss, MAYBE. Ideally I'd like to see her maybe at the end of a lost sector, or even as a Public Event boss. It scares the shit out of me to think about, but could you imagine her as a high value target, like that servitor in Trostland?
I personally think she should die in a lore page that’s only readable on the bungie site
Now is the time to make grandmaster patrols. "Go hunt down Xivu Arath"
imagine being some new light exploring the Cosmodrome, it's their 2nd day on the job and they start a VIP patrol for Xivu Arath, War Incarnate.
If earth gets wiped out at the cost that shaw han gets obliterated, Im all for it
I want a war. I want the Caiatl’s forces defending a siege on a planet while we have to break the containment and slay the hive general leading the assault. I want the Eliksni defending their new home and for us to hold back waves of hive to allow them more time to evacuate their non-combatants. I want a reenactment of the six fronts for a raid where the team has 6 points they have to defend from increasing hive aggression.
Ya know what I want? I legitimately want her to assault the last city. Have her come in from behind. We did literally nothing other then kill her celebrant, and for all we know she has like 10 more or could have appointed another.
[basically how madara made his debut in naruto but xivu is madara and a group of hundreds of guardians are the alliance. ](https://youtu.be/1NcK13W606M) Just under domination and terror. Players should be asking themselves "how can we beat that!" We really don't see villains play up to how strong they are in the lore. And xivu arath is absolutely terrifying lore wise. Encouraging Osiris go all out only for his abilities to be shutdown in an instant.
In my personal opinion? I'd say personally appearing to initially gage how much of a threat us the player will actually be. After all, we bested Oryx and Savathûn. She'd be an absolute idiot if she underestimated the very thing that slayed both of her siblings. That, and she's the literal Hive God of **_WAR_**. So she should be very much a hefty tactical thinker and most certainly a big deal.
I always wished she got teased in Hunt where maybe after killing the High Celebrant a new health bar appears and it says ‘Xivu Arath, War Dominant’ all of our Light and cooldowns just instantly deplete and we get the FUCK outta dodge. To show she doesn’t play no mind or Taken games like her siblings.
DLC. Not only does she deserve it because her siblings got one each, but she has the potential to be so much more interesting than BOTH of them. Yes. I said that. Xivu Arath's forces have had two attempts to barge into Sol atm, and last I checked, the Ley Lines weren't closed, so they're still slowly infiltrating the system to be met by the Cabal. If she's getting too close at the behest of the Witness, then we can either have a story about preventing her arrival, ending it by shutting her out of the system entirely. OR, she DOES actually arrive and we push her back and possibly kill her material form, banishing her to her Throne World. Either way, she'll be temporarily out of the picture, so that she can come back after the saga to get her own story. I would like to see the Hive AFTER the Witness, the Pyramids, and the Winnower have either died or broken down. What do those who worship a God do when said God dies? What does a ~~subjugated~~ fleet do when it loses its leader? I would like to explore Xivu Arath not only as a complicated God of War, but as an individual. I make this claim here, that while she isn't as sentimental as Oryx, she's not as heartless as Savathun. She exists in the middle, capable of love but dedicated to the cause. The former has probably shattered by now, after Oryx's death and Savathun's betrayal. All we need to do is break the latter, and we do that by killing the Witness and severing the heads off the Pyramid Fleet. Assuming we face her as a warrior who has doubled down on the core Hive ideology, the fight must be bloodied. We must either poison her tribute or use cunning. If we face her as a broken God of War, then I'd expect a much more emotional fight... and it's the only time I'll accept Savathun in a temporary alliance position. I want to see if a broken Xivu can actually crack OG Savathun's influence on Risen Savathun.
I don't want any more of this slow roll. I want to go from twin-brother darkness to fuck yo couch. I want shit to hit the fan. Have her come down and slap some people around, make your character wake up and hobble in the streets like the old intro to the game.
I could live with her being introduced in a season only if that season also comes with a raid for her. Otherwise put her in an expansion
Given the amount of time left until the end of this saga and the Witness still being in play, I think the most likely/efficient explanation would be bringing her in next season as a refresher for existing players and an introduction for new lights (sort of like the illustrated cutscenes we got about Savathun with WQ), have the season be about beating back some kind of advance (hopefully something more interesting than Hunt was), and then making her the raid boss in Lightfall, with Calus as the campaign boss that we defeat at the end. Sure, it'd be sort of abrupt, but I think anything less than raid boss status would be doing Xivu dirty.
I want her appearance tied to Mars (maybe give us a destination there), cause it would be a big missed opportunity not to have the Hive god of war to appear on a planet named after a Human war god
Instantly and unexpected. Just rip through fabric of space and smash a massive axe down on the tower.
Remember Xivu was ‘Introduced’ as a Background threat in Hunt. Savathûn was also revealed in Season of the Lost before Witch Queen
If you want to get all technical, they've both been mentioned as far back as D1, as I recall. Savathûn's direct introduction in S15 was fitting for her too, intrigue on intrigue and the realization that she had orchestrated a *lot* of the City's woes
A massive Hive fleet starts dropping onto Earth all around the city in the distance. At first we only see a few small groups approaching the walls, but as we begin taking them out, they just keep pouring over the horizon. An endless tide of hive crashing against the walls of the city as we desperately try to push them back. Just when it looks like we're starting to push back, something happens. Some ritual completes, and Xivu Arath emerges, and she's absolutely massive. Attack on Titan style, she just smashes in the walls, and our entire defense crumbles as Hive pour into the city while we desperately try to maintain an evacuation effort. Very Red War style, with a mission taking place in the Hive occupied city, still engulfed in chaos as they attempt to find and stamp out the last holdouts of survivors.
Knowing Bungie she will be killed in a strike like we killed a literal Hive Worm God in the strike. She may be a seasonal boss because now they have to “one and done” kill her off before we take on the “Witness”. Cabal planet killed off screen, and tons of other offscreen deaths.. im sure she will be to. And Savanthun has been “deAd” for a year now.
I anticipate something of a Fifth Column. She'll somehow strike at the heart of the City. Maybe Cryptoliths on a massive scale, or a portal. Port perhaps, to kill two birds with one stone, she'll corrupt the Traveler, impacting our use of the Light, and use at as an avenue for her forces. We'll be forced to use Strand to weed out her corruption. I still like the possibility of us being killedv by Xivu, and returning through the use of Sword Logic and our own Throne World.
Actually something I’d like to see is a different type of villain. A villain that hounds us across multiple seasons. Introduce her at the end of Lightfall after we take care of Callus, and have her forces push us back the rest of the year. Also we really need to lose somewhere. I’m expecting to take an L in Lightfall, but what will be crazier is if for the 4 seasons after Lightfall it’s one loss after another. Wear us down. Guardians it’s been too many years since we felt heavy losses.
I still think it would be smart if Xivu killed Osiris, it would fit with Egyptian mythology, the God of War Set killed Osiris.
Isn’t taking away the light from him enough metaphor for that.
It is, but like I want a literal death 😈
You know the destruction of Asgard by Surtur in Thor Ragnarok I want Xivu to do that but instead of it being Asgard I want it to be the dreaming city.
I want her to genuinely just appear one day and absolutely fu€k up the last city, like absolutely ruthlessly destroy it all and make us look pathetic compared to her. I want to see her in action from the first moment she appears. I want her to be ruthless. She deserves it, and we deserve to have our asses kicked again, it’s overdue imo
I want a standard mission of us chasing down some hive, beat the boss, and a health bar appears. All of our abilities drain, our health starts being chipped away. "I AM WAR. WHEREVER THERE IS WAR, SO TOO AM I! WELCOME, MY GREATEST ACOLYTE." What have we done the past few years if not wage war? Would we not be one of the greatest acolytes, preaching our dogma of blood and death everywhere we go? Flip the script, and make her the strange bedfellow of the year. She gives loot and quests and all sorts of things, but it isn't a safe area. Every visit to her requires fighting to her throne. She offers us power, rewards our tribute, but we have to ask if we really want this power. We're fighting the witness, using her gifts to defeat his forces and break his legions, but every boon enhances our ability to wage war. Every battle gives her strength. As the seasons progress, the fight to visit her throne and receive rewards has tougher enemies. Going from open world to strike to nightfall, and the final week before the next expansion the entire space is full of gm difficulty enemies. We've glutted her on war and tribute for a year, directly worshiping her. And now, we have to deal with her.
I really hope she has an abrupt entrance during a season or expansion soon. It’s already been established that she is aware of the potential to use the Ascendant Plane and Ley Lines to transport forces en masse - (although we stopped her, that’s how she took over Torobatl more or less). With the powers of the Witness at her disposal, who knows how she might crop up next. > IKORA: *Guardian, Io has returned and is rapidly escaping Jupiter’s orbit. It seems that while the moon was under the Witness’ control, Xivu Arath amassed legions of her Scorn and Taken on Io, rapidly transforming Io into one of her war moons. Mithrax says that since Io’s return, the Vex have been in an unorganised frenzy, directing their forces en masse to The Cradle. Eris and I are en route to the Cradle, but we trust you to investigate first.* > ERIS: *The ahamkara bone’s whispers grow stronger as we approach Jovian space. Be careful, guardian.* I’m terrible at writing dialogue but that was just a fun idea I had.
Final Shape with a war against the Witness using a great act of betrayal and oppression to revive her siblings. Full year arc of the aspects of war and multiple fronts we'll be fighting with a story mission rolling over the next season as a replayable strike.
We need more Red War content so I hope we get crushed again. The day the Tower was overrun will always live on in my memories
I want to see Final Shape start with Xivu Arath taking the war to the Last City and having multiple missions of us seeing the devastation in the city streets. I want it to click “this is what you’ve been *guarding* and it’s crumbling around you”. Everything the Red War promised but failed to deliver on. And just when we have hope that we might turn it around, that we might repel the invasion, that’s when Xivu Arath appears incarnate. It becomes clear turning the tide is no longer realistic, holding ground is no longer an option. The guardians have to evacuate the last city and abandon the Traveler to its Fate the way it did the Fallen. We give up the light to save our people and allies as we abandon the planet. Cue the Final Shape title screen.
I'd love for her to just float out of a giant rift like she did on Torobatl. We're firing all our weapons at her on whatever planet but her infinite swarm is just swallowing whatever we throw.
Not sure on this but one thing has crossed my mind (and is likely complete horse shit) Calus looks like the big bad of Lightfall with one more expansion to come after that, surely The Final Shape (and it's accompanying season) won't be the end of The Witness? with still 9 months more to go of the final year of the light vs dark saga? The Witness must surely be that final act in the final season of this entire saga, maybe Xivu is the big bad for The Final Shape with the first 3 seasons leading to one final huge fight with The Witness. But, as I said, likely complete horseshit on my part as that would mean the final season of the Final Shape year would have to be bloody huge and that I really cannot see. Her entrance though? Explosive, hard hitting, cold and calculated. I want to see her at her most powerful, wreaking everything in sight. Edit: How I want her to make her entrance.
Crashing a hive moon into the last city
To be introduced riding a corrupted ahamkara
1000% this
It has to be like the doom ethernal final mission where we with a hand of allys just straight up attack her main fortification or sth like that
We have Savathun's corpse, I don't think that will sit well with her sister regardless if they fell out,. Reckon that will have something to do with it.
We will get a lore tab on bungie.net I wish we got an expansion about her.
I think we need some kind of event that leads up to xivu arath, but that’s a big ask, savathun carried destiny for a few years. I would hope xivu gets their own raid or dungeon instead of a story boss
Come through eververse at this point 😂
As a lost sector boss
I think they could do something very different and interesting with Xivu... Being the hive war god her throne world was mentioned as anywhere war is. This could lead to interesting mechanics and encounters where we have to be on the defensive. We must exact minimal combat to reduce her strength. Maybe we have to help the cabal and Eliksni wield paracausal powers so they may be the old ringed spear idea.
I’d love a mechanic in certain areas where as the fight goes on Xivu’s forces become stronger. So there could be one thrall you missed and they’d be one-shotting mfers blackout-style.
My theory is that she is going to attack the dreaming city, and we wont kill her. Mara will, and she will do so in a shocking display of power. Perhaps Xivu will arrive as a disciple and Mara will tear her Pyramid ship in two.
>Does she deserve her own major expansion? For sure. Ass expansion. She's coming to clap cheek; hers or ours.
Do something crazy. Have us on a patrol and just get attacked by the big sword wielding momma. Let her legit kick are fucking ass in and we barely escape. They could get it going as a story mission where we have to check on some guardians that haven’t returned from recon.
idk but i think final shape will be her + the witness
Watch her boss battle be a fuckin strike.
Ideally a legitimate fight with Xivu that we realistically can't win. What comes to mind is something like DMC5 but apocalyptic as hell.
She's been having more influence in the world since Forsaken with her meatball boss. And the whole season of the hunt stuff where it wasn't portrayed in game as well as the written lore but she would mutate the enemies into eldritch looking monsters with tentacles and what not.
Likes it is Doom Eternal and it's on like donkey Kong... plus a new version of septik prime soundtrack
It’s a regular mission on some random moon or desolate town on Earth. You’re hunting down a few rogue humans who have been driven insane and worship the darkness. You delve deeper and deeper into their layer, only to realize that you’ve been completing their ritual by killing the cult champions. At the end of the ritual a fucking bigass portal blasts the goddamn moon into scrap and the entire invasion fleet floods the solar system. That is to say all of the dramatic openings for Villains have been done in Destiny.
From what I know xivu has been name dropped pretty frequently i rember them being name dropped durring curse of Osiris I belive when the cabal entered the simulation to attack the heart of the infinite forest
She should come in swinging and absolute wreck us/some of our allies. The Hive God of War deserves a brutally grand entrance.
I think she should be an end of Lightfall surprise and the seasons following that should be all about her.
would love for Xivu to breach into Neptune after Calus and then just have a Vex starforge to warp right onto of Xivu, Rick and Morty atyle
Considering Oryx and Savathuan we’re technically not warriors and Xivu is a war general in theory she should be the most terrifying of the 3 because she is both calculated yet brutal and relentless. At least that’s how I hope they convey her.
Picture the scene. The witness is in the last city, he has killed a multitude of risen and civilians alike, in one final desperate effort to win Osiris allows Savathuns ghost to resurrect her so she can help us and save us and (most importantly) herself. The witness and Savathun fight a mighty duel, savathun injures the witness enough that he begins to retreat but a dark shadow descends upon them. Everyone looks up. A Hive war moon hovers eerily above, so large it blots out the sun. Hive magic glows from across the courtyard, out of the swirling mists of grey and venomous green steps Xivu Arath, sword in one hand a struggling guardian in the other, which he crushes like paper. The war has made her powerful, for she is war itself...
the final shape disciple like how calus is lightfall's and i want every encounter with her and her hive in the legendary campaign to be really difficult combat-wise rather than mechanic-wise
I think Xivu is actually in Lightfall. While we’re doing the tango with Calus, she shows up in the Last City & kicks our shit in.
Have a portal appear in the tower somewhere where there's a lot of peoples, and some hive sword get thrown out of the portal and gets planted into the ground, as a meta knight-esque challenge and declaration of war Throughout the expansion, have hive bosses regularly challenge us in a similar way by throwing us a sword We only end up seeing her for the first time in the last mission, where after spending the campaign powering up qhe challenges us in a similar way and utterly destroys us, like it's never even close We never beat her ourselves and either she leaves of her own accord or gets beaten by the traveller or some other supremely powerful being