Destiny 2 Lore - Does this Coded Secret Message Reveal The Witness's Plan in Final Shape! 

Get 4 months extra on a 2 year plan here: nordvpn.com/byfvpn. It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!

I'm still calling it: the Witness is made of souls forced into it's current shape and not all of them went with consent. This is similar to lore found on neomuna where citizens did not go into the cloud ark willingly. The end of scatter signal lore can imply that: "Though not all agree on all,all agree on this". If my theory is correct then just like in Full Metal Alchemist, we will wear the Witness down by communing with the dissenting souls using our powers, pull them out of the Witness via standing on a plate, dunking a ball, getting a buff, getting rid of a debuff, matching symbols, and a DPS phase with rockets.

The Guardian: so you’re saying we’re some kind of Final Shape? Ghost: No, this is our Destiny The Witness, witnessing all of this: I guess you could say this is my Destiny Too

Hey Byf, Two-Way Radio Technician here. Your explanation of signals and radio wave propagation was actually a pretty good and accurate explanation. An interesting thing about NM-O though in radio, an NMO style connector is used to mount the antenna of a mobile radio to the exterior of a vehicle. Do with that what you will.

My first thought was the 9 talking about the final shape and themselves understanding and agreeing.

Probably the most creative ad read I’ve seen

15:20 I don't think the Witness needs the Black Heart to accomplish its goals when the Witness itself is the being of Darkness, & someone from Bungie said in the reveal "the Witness has the Darkness & has always had a connection to it, the Pale Heart is what it's trying to use to gain access to the Light so with both it can enact its Final Shape". I think the Veil was only required to open the portal

One thing I really hope for in TFS is that we encounter that one lady from the earliest concept of Destiny, the one that's just seems like one big trip

Hey has anyone ever questioned why the Traveler was Buriwd on the Witnesses planet in the first place? Like what happened for it to be put in that position in the first place

Expecting a Witness manscape read for next video.

I read the line “turn parallel into entanglement” as a shift in the quantum superposition of The Traveler and The Veil, a different way that the Witness is figuring how to merge them. Anyway there is definitely some weird cosmic fate destined to the Sol System, hence the Sol Divisive faction name for such 4th dimensional entities as The Vex, and of course, The Witness catchphrase.

scatter signal is also really really really good

I'm not 100% on NM-O being Osiris. NM-O01 was, but that's a specific designation, and not even necessarily for Osiris himself. It could literally just be the terminal he was using at the time. NM-O could just be a general designation for NeoMuna-Outgoing or something.

I feel the Witness is recreating the black heart inside the traveler. Thinking back to Destiny Vanilla when we defeated the black heart there was dialogue stating that our Traveler would now begin to heal. Recreating the black heart near the pale heart would in turn harm the traveler since prior evidence kind of points to that fact.

I like to imagine that Bungie devs watch Byf’s speculation videos and go “Holy shit he got it right”

Asher Mir is like reverse Siri, he downloads himself onto my phone and then tries to make his “assistant” do things for him THIS IS REAL LIFE STOP ASKING FOR PRECISION KILLS

One theory I think could use some thought, what if the message came from the "freed" vex mind that's the base of the cloud-ark? Realistically we fought the vex throughout the neomuna campaign/post-campaign who were trying to reach that mind, what if this is it communicating back to tell us how what the vex are doing, or talking about in relation to the traveler?

What about Ashir Mir? Or M-Sund-12? Or the original Maya Sundaresh? With the Ishtar clue at the end of the Exotic quest, seems like there may be some alignment.

At first, I was skeptical of your take on the source of the signal being the Veil/Traveler. However, as you explained, further things began to click into place for me. The Traveler doesn't generally communicate in direct terminology. In vanilla D2, we received a vision after Gaul kicked us off of his flagship. That was the Traveler telling us what was coming and what we needed to do. It communicates through symbology and metaphor. The scatter signal is basic alphanumeric code, which any intelligent being able to receive it could decipher. Yet, it is a code within a code. A poem, metaphor. I doubt the Vex would use such a simple method of communication to talk to other Vex. However, Osiris has been setting up sensors around the Veil and monitors them constantly. This is a fact within the lore. There's a possibility that it is the Nine. After all, the last line seems to indicate that there is a group that is struggling to reach a consensus, which is also something we know about the Nine. Not all of them agree that they should support humanity and its allies, but they all agree that there is no them without us. They also love their damn mysterious riddles. Personally, I hope it's the Traveler. After 10 years, I want to finally meet this being that has been an enigma to us. Perhaps once the Witness is stopped, we'll get to meet this being at the Galaxy Pools.

This is a rare piece of lore nowadays that ignites the mystery and "I want to discover more of that" feel that Destiny felt like it really hasn't displayed in a long time. There's bits there for speculation that add up, but nothing enough to be certain. But it does make you intrigued to find out more. I hopre Bungie takes this signal thread somewhere.

Plot twist: We finish Final Shape and wake up out of a Vex simulation. We’re greeted by the vanguard saying it’s only just begun. Destiny 3 wipes everything for everyone muahahaha

Byf, NordVPN had better be paying you guys TRIPLE for that creativity!!!

(Sorry for length. Just thorough with ideas and thoughts.) Considering the Vex interacted with Sol billions of years before humanity arrived, the manipulation of Sol system by their presence in the past opened the doors to what humanity became. They played a role that would lead to humanity and current events. My random theory of the day is that an early group of Vex encountered the Veil. They understood it enough, choice or were "disconnected" from the Vex network but still continued. They recognized their inability to combat what was to come. They experienced a shift. They were the first to conceptualize the "Black Garden". Something the rest of the Vex couldn't and would likely see as fodder for change. The mitochondria within Earth life cells are from Vex, ARE Vex or seeded Vex, but evolved within life for billions of years to create an organic machine across the entire planet. Sol is the original Black Garden, but the other Vex we encounter today aren't from the group that created it and don't understand its true purpose. When they encountered Sol systems rogue Vex ruins, the current Vex didn't/couldn't understand what the purpose was or what it was all about. They calculate, they study, they test, and simulated what the rogue Vex did to pursuit more data but it just doesn't work the same way. Their artificial Black Garden pocket is a poor facsimile, and the Darkness/Witness stepped in to take advantage of that pursuit which created the Sol Divisive who determined (wrongfully) that the Darkness was the Black Garden's prize. But the true prize is the life that exploded in Sol, connection with humanity to monitor through Vex cells working within humans (in secret to us), giving the Rogue Vex (Sol Gardeners) the ability to see humanity in other timelines. Osiris, Elsie, being able to see all the different actions the different versions of themselves and others timelines is because of the Vex cells (mitochondria) within us. Okay done. Have a good one.

Sounds like the Witness is trying to create something like a Triforce from Zelda. The Final Shape in question being like a Sacred Realm.

I think there's actually two distinct halves to this. I think the first half is the Vex attempting it recreate the Black Heart in order to commune with the Witness- but I think the "dark core" part is separate. I think in their attempts to commune with the Witness, the Vex glimpse ("dream") of whatever is in that structure the Witness creates in the Pale Heart which seems to be our end goal. Whatever that is, which is key to that "return to the primordial."

Cabal got light power, some Cabal work with us. Fallen got stasis, some Fallen work with us. Hive got light power, some Hive work with us. We have, time after time, fought against insurmountable odds and won. My theory is the vex, although they don’t understand our power, have calculated it against the outcome of the witness and some (Sol Divisive) have now sided with us. Vex-calibur mission showed Asher in the middle of it.

Isn't there a baby vex in Neomuna? The one strider(I believe) brought and the vex went banana trying to capture it back or something similar.

The message being written to the Voice while also detailing minds trying to send messages to the voice is strange

I think the timeless structure line could potentially be a reference to the tower like structure the witness is building in the pale heart

That was THE BEST transition into an advertisement I've ever seen. Usually skip most people's ads, but I stayed because how good that was.

You’re Tropospheric scatter is close but a little wrong. I’m in the USMC and I’m a radio operator so I now a little bit about this. So in terms of radio frequency we mostly use HF, VHF, and UHF. On the military side, we have our own definition of ranges on frequencies bands so I don’t know what the civilian range is of these 3. HF (High Frequency) is our lowest range and that is what we actually use for Tropospheric Scatter. How you had explained it was flipped. The reason it’s HF that is able to do this is because it’s such a low frequency rate, it’s not strong enough to penetrate the ionosphere (The layer of the atmosphere that allows for this) and therefore reflects it, allowing us to bounce it at angles that would allow us to make RF shots even as far as Europe from the US. Thing is however, anything above our HF range is actually too high of a frequency and it ends up just going right through the ionosphere. With that being said, not even 1 GHz is allowed to bounce off our ionosphere, that is wayyy to high of a frequency and will pass right through it. You have the concept correct though, just the wrong frequency range

If the report is coming from the Veil itself, and details the inner happenings of the Pale Heart, then maybe it's Crow/Cayde trying to update us on what's going on in there.

I would be really really hype if we started to get more actual interactions with the vex similar to what we have with Caital or Misraks

Soooo… The statue of the cloaked woman in the pyramid ships is the winnower??

The witness wants to enstate instrumentality.

Been waiting for this lore video

I mean... Asher Mir was supposed to decend and merge into the vex network, what if he has learnt stuff he didn't know before and this is him sending out information to who he believes could use it. We have already seen pixelated images of him in the vex net that we access threw Neomuna, atleast before the merge. All in all i think this messege does make sense if you assume its from him.

Byf, you are the hero the Destiny Community needs, but not the one it deserves. Seriously. I've got almost 4,000 hours in the game, and I would not have done half of that were it not for your lore videos. The lore is what keeps me interested in Destiny. It's what makes all the toxicity of the community bearable. My hat is off to you.

I really loved the ad placement this time, got me to watch the whole thing good job.

This might sound crazy, but what about maya sunderesh? She linked herself to the veil which could give her a link to the traveler. It feels like she has been talked on a lot. What if maya is trying to unite the vex? Just a theory

Ashir Mir putting in work, he was assimilated but im betting hes still making a move for us 😂 but seriously he was studying as vex at the end of Avalon. Some link maybe

I just want to note that this was the best Ad Spot I have ever seen on YT. I am sure a fair amount of work went into it, and it was well received.

The original D1 story had you go into the Traveler which was the Black Garden. I'm not surprised that this story beat may return

I'm watching this now, catching up on the past year or so's lore in preparation, after the season of wish conclusion. Obviously this prediction of the heart was correct. Unbelievable

That was genuinely nice and smooth ad section, tip of the hat to you sir.

Love seeing the Season of the Undying gameplay. Wish the Edgewise MG would be brought forward as a Nightfall weapon.

smooth, smooth like butta Also, as an expert on radio comms, you did really well in explaining this. Although I will note that this likely not how radio waves behave in a place like neomuna. You have the right idea (short range comms) and I doubt that Bungo would go to the trouble of seeing how radio waves would behave in a place that isn't earth

Imagine if the effort put into the lore was put into the rest of the game

By far the best Segway into an ad I've ever seen. That was the 1st ad I've ever actually watched. Very creative,good job!

It's probably the Ishtar collective, we already know they have been monitoring the black garden, which also has entrances to neomuna, so they sending messages from the garden to neomuna is not farfetched

I have a interesting little bit of a thought here that might have been mentioned before but I say it again. What if this was a message from Cayde to update us on the Pale heart but the Vex caught it first. And what if but for a moment there where some among the Vex who disagreed with the idea of Darkness being thier Salvation? What if one mind made the calulation that Sol itself could be thier Salvation. What if they could unite tbe Vex under the purpose to presvere Sol as it currently is? Just something to think about.

OMG that ad transition makes me want to watch that part of the video over again. Sooooo good.

Not sure if you’ve covered this yet but when I read “timeless structure” … my mind immediately goes to the sudden appearance of the vex citadel from Venus in D1 now being in the black garden.

It never occurred to me till now how similar the Vex are to Durendal from marathon

Amazing video as always. My speculation Is with the Neomuni though, aren’t all of them essentially Vex? This “scatter signal” could possibly be from anyone or anything inside the CloudArk. Right?

Just came back to this after the Season of the Wish finale. Byf predicted the finals mission lol

The only time i’ll ever be happy to see an ad read

Coming back here after the final mission of the season, you’re a prophet man hahaha

Idk what you were doing with your time off my guy, but your coming with fire for 2024 great add i love the creative feature into the video

Learned a bit of radio in college, old prof was an engineer for a major radio communication company. Good catch on tropospheric scatter, but keep in mind that scatter signaling isn't technically limited to the troposphere. There are a number of ways to send scatter signals, depending on what you bounce it off of, so the geographic aspect may not be relevant. But, it still means the sender and receiver view the same medium to scatter the signal off of.

That ad read was so good I thought it was a surprise in game event announcement sponsoring the video 😂

that was a really smooth transfer into the ad read

fully had me with the ad read 10/10

Oh wow it was talking about the final mission of the season! It was a heads up that the Sol Divisive were making the black heart again to disrupt us from making it into the pale heart!

Very smooth integration for the sponsor.

Possibly the best segue way for an ad I've ever seen to the point I was actually willing to hear the whole ad. Also, great vid, as always.

I think recreating the heart of the Black Garden, or reintroducing a Speaker somehow could be interesting story-wise. Brings things back full circle.

Bust out that board Byf and Martin, it'll be good to hear the theories!

Not something i have seen mentioned online before, unless i have missed a video on youtube, but, the "Pyramidion Emblem" from years back in Destiny 2, has a top down view of the veil. This is from way before the veil was even mentioned in game. The fact that this is linked to the vex via the pyramidion name is very interesting.

Literally a genius way to start a video. You fully had me.

Maybe I am misremembering but I believe in the Lightfall campaign Osiris referred to the powers of light and dark as fundamental forces of the universe that operate “in parallel”

It could also be the Occlusion.

I could sense the segway to the ad as soon as it started 😂

Am I understanding this correctly: The Traveler = Body The Veil = Mind The Black Garden = Heart /Soul, or is it just a copy of the Veil?

26:53 so what you’re saying is that the new Speaker is the Veil 😂😂😂

Nice video, your channel is what keep me in this game even when these no new lore

I think the lore card talking about us rebuilding the black heart (the synthesised veil) and trying to use it to open a way into the traveller. The logs are most likely the vex detecting the reactivation of the black heart.

Hey Byf! So I watched the video, GREAT as like anything else you do, when you went over the lines, and came to the timeless structure, I thought about the Infinite Forest that Osiris explored and searched…

Only challenge to the signal being local is a phenomenon called atmospheric ducting where in certain situations a signal that would, normally, be expected to refract or reflect winds up getting “caught” bouncing between different atmospheric densities resulting in the signal following the curve of the planet for longer than intended and finally reflecting back to the surface well past its intended location. In the context of lore it could be interesting if Osiris caught a ducted signal, but that’s such a niche thing to know happens I doubt it would be that way.

The first clue to me in regards to the clues that pointed at the Black Garden was actually the mention of "Shadow and Mimicry" specifically *because* it was a failed copy of the Veil.

Spinfoil Hat time! Now I need to find a way to look into this. The link has been made but could the witness be a link similar to crow charging through the portal for us?

I didn't hear u mention it but what if that is the sleeping vex mind that is within the cloudark? It's spoken once saying enemy of the witness is on titan. What if it's trying to communicate that the other vex factions may help us against the sol devisive given they need to survive the hezen lords have previously turned to us during the taken invasion and willingly allowed us into the vault to deal with the issue

Using our light together and a sort of "binding" mechanic someone else on here said they think maybe we can "tear" the species apart little by little. Much like Boolausus in Luigi's Mansion. Super hard to beat together, but not separated

That ad was legendary by the way lol very creative

Byf just doubled his LEGEND status with that promotion! Nice work!

I’m willing to bet the signal is from the veil. EM signals are sort of the veil’s thing. It was able to cause a jamming bubble on Neomuna. Maya has done several experiments on it that have involved a lot of EM talk. Even Maya’s diaries and Osiris’s explanation to Nimbus, all involve stuff about electromagnetism. Waves which can be sent on a 1 to 20 GHz frequency.

If it’s local to Neomuna and with Vex presence, then a Easter egg (admittedly in the yard and not hidden), I have a theory: the copies of the Ishtar Collective in the Vex network are reporting back to the “original(s?)” on Neomuna through the network and they’re consolidating the information into a something but because attenuation and maybe translation is a thing it’s less…decisive and more flowery language. If we have Osiris as NMO-01 why would he be just NMO here? Maybe the original or what remains of the original Maya Sundaresh/Collective are discussing this and they reside in a network on NM that isn’t necessarily the Vex network or maybe they even reside there? Pure spinfoil but I haven’t talked myself out of it quite yet.

Great story, thanks

Perhaps it's a message from Crow updating us on the interior of the Traveler

It’s probably not backed up by lore but I do like the narrative idea that The Veil is the one sending the message specifically to Osiris (in a way where he thinks he intercepted it when it was actually sent to him) because The Veil actually favors us over The Witness, which might in turn explain why The Witness needed the Light (via our Ghost) to forge a link

HAHA that was a pretty smooth sponsor transition

hahaha. very smooth sponsor transition. that was fun

My WiFi cut out right at 1:19 and I thought it was part of the video for a solid 20 seconds.

One thing I didn't notice until now was the nomads in the Witness origin cutscene had one their kind with glowing eyes like a shining star. We usually see this as an indicator that someone has performed wish-magic. Perhaps the wish (assuming that the light wasn't coming from the traveler itself) was for their people to all come together as one species and work to build a place where there would be no more suffering, for everyone. I can see how a wish-dragon would love to twist that hope into a far-reaching plot and create ahamkara-related shenanigans along the way for the nourishment something like that brings.

Do you think you could do an destiny full timeline from destiny 1 to final shape? I wonder how long that would be.

Right off the bat, so many numbers

Well you were right about the black heart, which we blew up again.

Don't forget the traveler has also directly communicated through ghosts, screaming at rhulk to stop trying to claim the light before detonating a ghost

this sounds insane, but playing Destiny 1 i was wondering if The Speaker was of The Witness’ original civilisation. he seems like what i’d imagine “the scholars who studied The Veil” to be like … just for The Traveler!

@MynameisByf Is this the many copies of the Ishtar Collective inside the Vex Network trying to make contact with us?