Destiny 2 Lore - The Nature and Origin of Strand. It's secrets and Links to The Veil. 

I don't know if you have made these, but I'd love a video for each elemental type. Osiris had those containers with each element in them and gave a simple description. I'd love a deep dive into all 5 elements.

I’ve always felt Savathūn’s darkness powers being related to strand would’ve made a lot of sense. Especially given the whole web theme she specifically has, and her emphasis on seeing the unseen.

I guess each of our Strand Supers could be considered a representation of each of the Greek Fates: Warlocks create the threads Hunters pull and extend them And Titans Cut them

Whilst it is still debated on what ability Savathun used on Nezarec when she killed him, I think it’s important to remember that it was also Savathun whom taught Oryx’s daughters “ The Weaver and The Unraveler “. This suggests that she may indeed have made her betrayal long before we even realized it. That she had already killed Nezarec, whisked away and hidden the veil all the while learning strand and teaching it to Iruk and Anur but in a hive magic copycat/mimicry fashion. If it is not mimicry and is indeed strand then the lore from Bad Ju Ju stands true about them already knowing our past present and future or at least Savathun does at least. This all falls in line in The Book of Sorrows lore which in a particular segment gives way to “ Savathun having learned a great secret and then deciding to part ways so that they might grow different. “ There is alot to think about the implications here 🤔 Folks you best keep your thoughts and feelings on guard at all times💀

I really enjoy how Bungie is developing the concepts of the "Darkness". It's a very interesting path and not one I would have expected, given how this whole story started back in D1 with good guy light bearers and evil guy darkness worshipers.

I love the idea of Strand being a way for us to "pluck" or "play" the strings of the universe like an instrument. It very much is an element of flow, of letting go of oneself to join the harmony of the universe... and to turn that harmony into a chord of outward force, something that resonates with all around us. Hmmm, resonate...

Parts of how you describe strand and "flowing with the river" to wield it reminded me of the Stormdancer's Brace lore entry. Which describes wielding the Stormtrance as noting that the "storm is so much bigger than you. So much more than you can control".

The talk of fate reminds me of the old phrase "Guardians make their own fate". In the concept of strand and the veil and Greek mythos regarding fate, what if the veil is the loom. The witness manipulated the loom to control their own fate to allow them to take the traveller.

Stand being all about connections reminds me of some old hive lore (maybe books of sorrow, or the oryx part of marasenna, idk) that describes the hive reverence for the concept of a sword, and how a sword is a bridge between the weilder and the victim. Maybe the hive, as adherents of darkness, were beginning to grasp or at least describe the basics of strand here, in unsurprising the most violent way possible

Mastery over strand has a lot in common with Taoism. In taoism enlightenment is achieved by understanding one’s place in the universe and by living in harmony with all of it. In this sense it is just like flowing with the river. Also the thought of threadlings giving you mental presence in multiple places is wild.

Before I knew the specific lore about Strand, I thought it looked like Hive magic. Not only due to the hue, but also to the specific ability of threadlings, as they look like worms. Usually one doesn't hear about worms in Destiny, and when one does, it's connected to the Hive. It makes me wonder even more what having Hive Guardians might be like. Could we learn their magics? And how would their culture and technology impact humanity.

I love how destiny can ease people into some very psychedelic topics

Byf, I'm quite surprised in your "Did Savathun kill Nezarec with Strand" video, you never seemed to explore the most interesting option. You kept saying "Maybe she used Strand" and "Maybe it was just Soulfire" but never explored the following: *What if Strand IS pure, uncontrolled, undiluted Hive Soulfire?* (Soulfire is the Lore-Accurate name for Poison) We know that the Witness uses its will to twist, warp, and mutate Paracausal energies to its will. We saw this with the Pyramid Ships giving Stasis to us, it was so dangerous because Stasis was a power that had been subjugated by the Witness's control. Strand, however, had not been. Strand is a free-flowing, Universal Power. I think the Witness could not successfully grasp Strand, so it had the Worm Gods harness and reshape it into Hive Soulfire, granting it to the hive in a trickle-down effect. This is how the Worm Gods granted power to the Hive. Always is a corrupted, diluted manor, never directly at the source. This is why Oryx had to kill Akka to fully gain the power of Taking. So thats my theory. Soulfire is a Worm God-Corrupted version of Strand because the forces of the Witness can not weild it at its most powerful form, because they cant learn to flow with the river!

Love the focus on some of the more basic aspects of destiny, I would also like to see a video for the other elements too. Some thing I feel that has been lost in the transition to Destiny 2 is the lore about the light and dark itself, also how each class interprets each power. I always thought it was cool that the void was seen as a sort of "place" that if you stay in too long can corrupt people, like how they talk about Nightstalkers going rogue in the class mission in D1. I hope bungie focuses more on giving each class more lore and explaining how they see their powers.

You know, watching this, it came to me; I feel like a simple way of introducing strand the first time, and howbwe could see it, should of had us use Deepsight.

Byf please do this for all elements. Would love to get a better understanding of how we use each element

The cutscene with Osiris and Nimbus discussing the Light and Dark, and the river of souls, is really important and provides a lot of valuable insight. That's probably a huge part of why the Lightfall campaign left a bad taste in my mouth, since that cutscene bugged out and didn't play at all for me and my friends I was playing it with the day Lightfall dropped.

I kinda feel like Strand is "good" Darkness, while Void is "bad" Light. Stasis and Solar are more "pure" examples of Dark and Light respectively, and Arc and the unnamed "third" Darkness subclass/energy are adjacent to Strand and Void respectively.

One correction, the game talks about "Weave", not "Web". Doesnt change much, just wanted to point it out for correctness sake.

I have an thoughts about Darkness. Stasis is like we're freezing Time around our enemies. Strand is like we're weaving Space to tangle & sever our enemies. If we ever get a third darkness subclass then i assume it would make us wield something that is all about Dimension.

This, specifically, is why I think the Veil is the Traveler's "brain". If it's the source or physical medium of something like the Traveler's consciousness, then it would explain why Ghost has the same feeling from the two, and why Rasputin said it was deeply tied to the Traveler WHILE ALSO being an incredibly powerful Darkness artifact. It would also explain why being near it would reveal Strand as a byproduct (a consciousness as powerful as the Traveler's would be an obvious hotspot, and Strand being compared to a paracausal magnetic superposition byproduct being like brain waves and electrical signals in our own brains), how it could be used to create a digital universe for the CloudArk (using a godlike brain for processing power, not just as a power supply), and why the Witness needs it to access the Traveler (the Darkness is the domain of the immaterial, emotions, memories. If it's tapping into its mind and able to then create the link between the mind and body of the Traveler, which is the major source of Light in the universe, which is also connected across space and time, then the portal the Witness made being compared to a wormhole makes perfect sense.)

As someone who's been on a recent Cosmere tear, that whole scene with Nimbus and Osiris was giving me big "Realmatic Theory" vibes... For the uninformed, in Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere series, Realmatic Theory is the in-universe study of the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual Realms and how they interact and intersect with each other. As a rule of thumb all forms of Magic tend to be more rooted in one Realm over the other two, but anything that affects one Realm will have trickle down effects in the others. Going by that, Light mainly acts in the Physical, Darkness in the Cognitive, and both are able to act in a lesser degree on the Spiritual.

I think it's because I was a Fate fan. But I immediately realized what they meant after that conversation between Osiris and Nimbus. At least, right now, I think of darkness as the collective unconscious of all beings, in a way. All things are connected to this place and controlling it IS impossible because that collective will fight back against anything that it deems a threat.

This sound and feels like Savathun's memories from Witchqueen.

What a marvelous piece of content, the deeper meaning behind the story of Destiny is really taking shape nicely. Thank you Byf

What if the Veil acts as a giant eyeball? The black part is the 'eye' while the strands in the back act as the 'optical nerves'?

I think for Stasis it specifically can manipulate time with regards to slow and freeze... Not necessarily cold but stopped in place like crystals.

The more & more of these lore videos and theories come out, the more I am CONVINCED that I was right when I said that Bungie was VERY intentional with making aspects of Lightfall a mystery. A LARGE percent of the player base problem, was they wanted ALL the answers within the 1st 72 hours of the Lightfall launch.... and when they didn't get it, suddenly the story is "bad". No, the story is over their heads until it becomes more clear. I LOVE the direction that the story is taking, it COMPLETELY removes the predictability factor, and the "know-it-alls" can't stand it. 😂😂😂

If I remember correctly, there was some lore that stated stasis isn't ice, that the crystals aren't physically cold, but more a physical manifestation of something along the lines of stagnation

Whenever I think of strand I can’t help but think “the elixni” they used to be weavers and I’d love a hidden mission where mythrax or eramis (turned good) or mythrax’s daughter learns to weave and activates strand unknowingly. Have it be that the traveler never abandoned them but they abandoned themselves by forgetting how to weave.

I think it’s really interesting that we are just now defining the nature of the light and dark. This is confirmation of some really old ideas because despite our confusion surrounding this, I was rewatching the book of sorrow lore vids and realised that we were literally given the answer back then. The Leviathan states that the krill are on the edge of a war between form and formless, and that they need to go back up instead of going further down to the deep where the worm gods rest. But the fact that it states that the light and dark are form and formless all the way back during the taken king is crazy to me.

I dont know how much this applies. but the surface of the Veil that we see in game, as well as the concept art, reminds me a lot of some of the objects and platforms in the Dreaming City and Last Wish raid

Strand is indeed one of the powers of all time

I always used to think of our abilities in The Light kinda like Bending (from ATLA), in that The Light is a force that allows us to interact with fundamental forces and I guess that was kinda confirmed as correct. I guess along those lines our abilities in the darkness would be more like The Force (Star wars) in that it involves more connections between things and a need to flow with said forces. I really like how they explain it in game

Looking at the different subclasses I do think it’s probably different ways to master Strand at its individual parts: ie the Titan Berserker is to let go of restraint, cut and sever the strings like Atropos. Hunters Threadrunners are the ones that see the strings and travel and flow with them, not necessarily altering but flowing with it, weaving and spinning the wheels like Clotho. And Warlock Broodweavers being the patternmakers, able to use the threads to create new forms and let those flow on their own, extend themselves and guide their new creations like Lachesis. Also ngl it also feels to me (with a vague understanding of the concept) that Strand could have a connection to the idea of String Theory

Fresh coffee, a nice loaf of bread and a new byf vídeo. That's nice

this is catastrophically badass.

I would be very interested in a video were u discusse the lore of the other 4 elements with the recent lore from osiris canisters ,maybe also speculate on why the power of the taken and resonance are so different in form but similar in their concept

Tricking the witness into attempting to control strand and getting a big old game over is how the final shape ends, I'm calling it here

I’m really enjoying the shift from perspective going from light powers and dark powers to natural element powers. It’s pretty cool

Wow....thanks for the hard work!

I think I like Strand that little bit more now :O Thank you!

Really into the slowly developing philosophy of Destiny from dualistic viewpoints into the non-duality of strand and the veil. Art follows life, follows art.

Out-stranding work!

10:51 is my fav part of the campaign cause it threw so many people for a loop

So strand is the equivalent of beating people with Jungian psychology. A mighty slap with the collective unconscious

I really did come for that lore!

Strand in lore: Cannot be controlled, free, see the weft and weave Strand in game: Literally more control than stasis in every way.

Bit of spinfoil here. If Stasis is memory, and Strand is connection, then the third Darkness power would be something like will, morality, or personality. That hints toward Resonance being the next element - adopting The Witness’ power as our own, and using it to defeat them.

Great video as always. Yes I haven't watched it yet, but that doesn't matter. It's byf. The video is great.

I wonder what would happen if someone was under the effect of Egrigor and used strand to pull themselves through the connectivity Egrigor seems to posses. Would they travel through space and time using Egrigor as a catalyst.

Stasis @1:10 isn’t just cosmic ice. It’s time crystals , ice, and the power of self control, and discipline all wrapped into one.

"Stand is what gives a Guardian his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together." Ben Kenobi

being a web of memorys and emotions would really have fitted into witch queen so much more

new byf vid let’s gooo

Byf: stasis is cosmic ice, solar is cosmic fire, arc is cosmic lightning Me: strand is cosmic bondage

Solar: heat Void: free flowing chaotic energy Arc: positive electrical charge Stasis: heat death/cosmic expansion Strand: string theory, super position, cosmic tunneling. Like how atoms can exist it multiple places at once Seems like the light is physical and darkness is fundamental/theoretical physics. Im not an expert but this is how it feels. Deep site seems like time.

Stasis and Strand are kind of opposite in line of thinking, though they are both abilities in darkness. Strand focuses on one’s place and relinquish of control, yet the Witness seems to be fighting those ideals. It is this mindset that may explain why stasis is what was given to us by the Witness, as it is the assertion of one’s will onto others or the universe. It’s not my best interpretation I admit.

This actually tells us alot about the veil. Its something that controls fate or is fate itself, the witness is trying to change fate for the darkness. Maybe thats what the final shape is

9:25 Actually learned about the Fates thanks to Persona, was wondering what those big strings they were holding were.

Kinda reminds me of The Paths in Attack on Titan. If Strand exist everywhere, The Veil is just a Trigger to "see it" more easily.

Can we get a deep dive on each Subclass element, their quirks, interesting uses by guardians through history, and their nature? I remember stasis being something like will given form through Negentropy and it even being aware enough to try and propegate by making itself seem more appealing. But what about void, solar, and arc? I've seen hunters in lore infusing their weapons for GG and others making one from the light, there's all kinds of stuff to talk about with the 'elements' of destiny.

I like the term Weave of Strand over web.

The river nimbus talks about sounds a lot like rhulk talking about drowning in the deep or rising from it

One could say that strand surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the universe together.

Hell yeah byf!

I think good way to think about it is similar to The Weave in D&D. Or The Force in Star Wars. An invisible field/web that connects all physical reality. Strand allows us to see the web and manipulate it to our will.

i have to mine around 10,000 cobblestone in minecraft skyblock. Your videos are great to listen to in the background!

Stasis isn’t ice it’s literally what it says it is it’s stasis. Frozen but not cold. Kinetically locked. Stasis is the lack of energy causing molecules to become uniform.

The way u described strand makes me think of psionic power

For all of Lightfall's shortcomings, they definitely dropped a lot of hints of what is to come and what is to be explained.

Off topic but I would totally listen to a full dissertation on light and dark from Osiris

When Osiris spoke about para causal super-positions, I mostly assumed that strand reaches out to estructures and energies from other dimensions or timelines that are similar to ours and super imposed in the same physical space that we occupy Then, strand is able to pull whatever we can for a moment to OUR physical reality, to be manipulated and used in our physical environment via force of will

This further gets into the mushroom theory of the Veil. IF consciousness gives rise to strand, and the Veil makes it more perceptible, then the Veil being a cosmic mushroom (the most visible part of mycelium networks) is even more bolstered as a theory. The question that comes next is why strand is spawned of consciousness? Or if strand is consciousness, can the Veil only be created by a mass consciousness? Can it be created by any mass consciousness? Does forcing control over being like the Witness render beings unable to form a Veil due to their collective conscious being turned into the conscious of a singular being? An Additional term that is associated with mushrooms is: Universal Veil. Might want to look into connection with that, I don't think Bungie writers in their research for talking about egregore and Fungi wouldn't have written that term down for later use given that it is in Morphology section on the Wkikipedia article for Mushroom.

id like to see some talk about the lore that could have been. how we could have found strand in the throne world and how that would impact that campaign

There are some moments I hear Byf and I think, “Is that Osiris?”

Im still curious if there's a connection between the Witnesses Resonace and Strand. They share the same visual language, just different colors

One thing I never thought much about until now is that with darkness being the realm of the metaphysical/mental and light being the realm of physical - it's interesting that all light elemental weapons are classed as energy weapons ie metaphysical where as all darknness elemental weapons are considered kinetic ie physical. Just a funky thing to consider.

When Nimbus said “We either sink in the water, or we learn to swim” not too concerning how a certain disciple said “Drown in the deep, or rise from it.” Right?

This kinda remind me of string theory and electron spin constant being that electrons are positioned in a linear string like manor on the atomic level and these electrons would all move in a precise spin/rotational like movement

It's interesting that the darkness power that's all about control is the one the witness guided us to, by possessing our ghost and telling us to seek power on europa in season of arrivals. I can't help but notice that we have yet to hear any accounts of guardians being corrupted by using strand, when this was a seemingly common occurrence when stasis was first introduced to the guardian population. It implies that stasis, as a power that the guardian must exert control over, works both ways and makes it easier for the witness to exert control over the wielder, whereas strand, which rewards "going with the flow", is seemingly immune to the influence of the witness.

Strand tells us a lot about the darkness, including stasis. While strand is the element of “connection” (both physical and psychological), perhaps stasis is the element of “time.” This can be seen in several icons in the fragments. One fragment depicts an hour glass. A lot of the aspects reference an object being “frozen” in an era. This makes sense of the verbs “slow” and “freeze.” You don’t slow and enemy with cold temperatures, but instead you slow time around them. Likewise in “freezing” them in time. Thoughts?

By your breakdown of strand and consciousness, it sounds like mastery of strand is the basis of the taken or the ability to take that oryx learned. The broodweaver lore sounds like taken. To pluck a subordinate from the web of consciousness sounds like removing one's will and puppetering them.

I feel like I completely missed that inkblot on my playthroughs.

This reminds me of the Weave from dnd

When Nimbus said: “river of souls”, all I could envision, was the river Styx, and the many other rivers that connect to the underworld. To pass over, and give Charon coins for passage into the afterlife, the unknown. Or to sink and be crushed by the current. I suppose Osiris, until recently, as we’ve seen he has let go of his anger towards Savathun, is now finally ready to take the leap in learning more about Strand. Funny, Graviton Lance is described as, “the needle on reality’s loom”. I can’t help but feel an exotic strand bow would be appropriate: an arrow, as the needle. That connects all lives, to weave all fates. And sever them from the Weave’s threads when possible. It’s a subtle thing. More subtle than the Void or Stasis. I can’t help but wonder.. what the final darkness element will be.

Another thing you could do is look at how each class of Guardian uses the powers of Light and Dark, and how they understand each individual power. Titans employ those powers with blunt force, whether coating themselves in it or forging bludgeoning weapons. Warlocks wield those powers in their rawest state, only rarely forming weapons to direct and guide their attacks. And Hunters shape those powers into precision weapons, often maintaining a specific distance from their opponents.

It’d be cool if we got secondary supers for strand and stasis alongside new lore for both. Personally I’d like titans to get a super for strand the made like a mini gun making me feel like Master Chief after he rips a turret off it’s mount, and give warlocks like a summon where in an area it makes like a strand kraken that whips around suspending enemies and spawning threadlings. Dunno about hunter though

Fun fact about Spider-Man. The term Spider-Totem refers to a class of multiversal supernatural entities created by the elder goddess Neith, linked to a mystical force called the Web of Life and Destiny.

I think a apt desciption for the threadlings are "allies". They manifest in response to the user, rather than being created by the user. Another perspective is that the Threadlings exist in the weave of Strand or collective consciousness. "Our" thoughts collectively allows them to become physical, rather than solely the user.

i know its not the video topic at all, but something hit me like a fastball when i was replaying the Malfeasance mission version of the Corrupted strike. At the end we get a audio recording of (if i recall) Shin Malphur saying something along the lines of "spoken like a true disciple" before killing the guardian we were looking for. I am not too familiar with the lore surrounding the shin malphur and that entire area of the lore, i was wondering if there are any ties to what has been going lately at all, especially with us having actual Disciples of the Witness in the way now. I was just wondering if there is a thread to pull and things to look in regarding that

So, this video really helped me to solidify a theory that’s been kicking around in my head for a while regarding Darkness and its subclasses. So far, we haven’t really been able to predict what the subclasses will be. With the Light, we didn’t need to infer. But with the Darkness, at least to me, the subclasses seem to be representing a pattern, but in reverse. Starting with Stasis, we can control the states of objects. Or, Control. With Strand, we can connect ourselves to objects around us. Or, Connection. And with what.. I hope will be our last Darkness subclass.. we reach the start of this chain. I’ll call this “Contact” for now. So, Darkness has a very simple pattern. Contact leads to Connection which leads to Control. This can be seen with a lot of Darkness artifacts and people, such as the Witness quite literally touching the Traveler, discovering and making a connection with it through our Ghost, and controlling the state of it by creating that strange door on it. The Crown of Sorrow, at one point during its time on the Glykon, made contact with the Scorn, connected their minds once again, and controlled and willed them to do the Crown (and the Witness)‘s bidding.

Please look into Hopf Fibrations, every time I watch a video explaining them, they use 3d models that look like tangles. Also they use terminology and verbs pertaining to Stand explaining them.

I just kinda want Osiris to explain the destiny universe to me, he should make a audio book

Have you delved into the old Gardener-Winnower lore in light of the current season? Would love to see a reevaluation of that.

The thread lings are part of the understanding which is why we witness their pain, we witness them.

It's cool how each darkness subclass either parallels or opposes one of the light. Strand isn't dissimilar to arc, instead of control you channel it. Become part of it. This may be a bit odd but I see stasis as the antithesis of void, not solar. Where one is a power birth from nothingness, the other is power granted through rigid absolution. Makes me curious if they'll continue this theme with a third subclass for solar. Though I have no clue how it would function on a philosophical standpoint seeing as solar seems to be the most free form element.

There's something that bothers me. Nightmares, the Taken, and Strand all line up pretty well with the idea of the Darkness being tied to the mind. But could someone explain how Stasis fits into that?

One thing I will say is the hive probably already used strand as a way for their magic as they were already connected it's their instinct to use it which is why the traveler wanted to raise them up initially but the darkness was there to twist the connection they would have gotten

If you want a visual think of the mycelial network from Discovery Startrek. Its basiclly the lay lines of the universe that holds the physical plane together likely from some version of the astral plane which in destiny I think the ascendant plane is. So in destiny terms this universe is held together by laylines in the ascendant plane and likely the experiments istar was doing on the veil created micro tears in the universe so we could see it as para-causal entities.