Destiny 2 Lore - To understand the Witness's plan, look at its minions. The Taken. 

Can’t wait for the final shape to be a big taken ogre.

My honest headcanon is that the Witness was orginally to the darkness what the Traveler was to the Light, but because of their differing natures the Witness realizes this and acts with a separate goal. The Gardner and Winnower's game was always to create and destroy, a never ending cycle. The Witness wants to end all of this because it knows that it's just a cog in the cycle it wants to break. I truly think the Final Shape is going to be whatever form Guardian's take when they learn to form the dark and light into one singular paracausal ability

Luv how the taken shake and convulse like they're fighting back for control of they're very own being.

"The Witness seeks the Final Shape . . . and the Final Shape is . . . *nothing* " "The Universe makes us all . . . both Victim and Perpetrator . . . in it's infinite cruelty" These two lines came back up in my head, and i think it actually very clearly states the intent of the Witness. The Witness wants to not only *take* the ability to move time, but also to utterly destroy it. It wants to remove ALL life, to go back to the start of it all. Where it would render a final solution to the puzzle of life and death. And that solution in its' mind is that both should be destroyed. No more life, no more death, just a blank void of nothingness where time no longer has a meaning. It doesn't want to simply *kill* whatever the entity known as the Gardener is. It wants to erase it, and the winnower. To stop a war before a war even happens.

From the words of the Witness at the end of the Lightfall campaign, it is convinced that the Traveler is trapped in an existence where it can't be what it is supposed to be. That the universe forces the Traveler into a course of action that causes it grief and that it is the purpose of the Witness to enact the Final Shape to free the Traveler so it is able to do what it was alwas supposed to do.

"Beyond. It is a place, a place casting shadows and emotion. It's a real place, I know. ... The point is that the residents of this hidden realm live inside a bottle so perfectly hidden that they can't see beyond their own borders. Which shapes a mind in very specific ways."

Perfect timing. Just before I was about to go to sleep.

I feel like this is connected to that one Altar of Reflection where Savathun was talking about reading between the lines of the Tablets of Ruin. Oryx's understanding only went so far as to create an army of Taken. Savathun probably got close to deciphering the extent of the Witness' power if she was able to delve deeper than her brother.

I like this speculation, plus it kind of makes you think about the game itself, "Destiny", and what it means

Maybe the witness itself is the final shape. At the lightfall ending cutscene, we see a clearly defined witness. A black, sharp bottom half, and a white/light grey, cloudy head

Holy crap, taking the traveler??? I never even considered that as a possibility, man I love these videos, so thought provoking and interesting.

The Witness seeks the Final Shape, I suspect it's more likely the Witness want's to DETERMINE the nature of the Final Shape in it's image, according to his desire, his world view.

I keep telling people that Oryx did not create the power to take because he's The Taken King and they kept arguing with me about it. Now instead of searching for the lore cards, i can link them your video.

I've been thinking for a while that the Final Shape may essentially be factory-resetting the universe and the Witness replacing (or Taking) the Gardener in order to remake all life that ever was or will be according to its own design... and given that Byf has been doing this for a long time and is right more often than he's wrong I'm feeling even more confident in that now. Also, imagine how rad a boss fight against a Taken Traveller would be?

I was watching your video from Forsaken dealing with Mara and the Nine's relationship and I feel like there's a chance we dive more into them by the final shape if not during.

9:36, Woah its absolutely crazy that Byf mentioned the word destiny. I am shocked, and amazed

First off, I think it's important to understand that eschatology is the study of finality, judgement, death, and the end of the world in theology. With the Eschaton Mind, I believe that perhaps it's focused on the finality of the universe, not the future in general, which is our current understanding of the Final Shape, which would also be why they're so focused on achieving control over time. Secondly, I believe that the Final Shape to the Witness is the prevention of life ever beginning. In the Garden metaphor, the Winnower sees the Gardener/ Traveler as a source of needless suffering, as regardless of what the Traveler does, the universe will still end and the sentient life it helped will still suffer. If taking changes the past, present, and future of a being to follow the will of the taker, I believe that the Witness may be attempting to take control of all things before suffering by preventing the Light from ever existing, as Light is the paracausal force of creation, life, and rebirth. The Witness also exploits Eramis' and Rhulk's experiences with the Traveler to control them and regularly refers to the Traveler and the Light as forces that create suffering. I also think its name of "The Witness" might imply that it has experienced or seen all of the universe's suffering which stems from sentience.

I concur that the Witness probably does desire ultimate control. A tell that I noticed for that was when he talked to Calus, and Calus dared to talk back. You could see how upsetting that was to the Witness. He completely lost it, quite a human emotion I'd say for someone playing as a God

Asking again to please do a video or at least look into the "pollution" present in the pyramids that the captives had to deal with. I can't remember if it was Misraaks or Devrim, but one of them said that Amanda had told them that the captives were treated humanely except for a "pollution" in the air. The bottom left of the hud also states that a "dark fetor" enters the boss room before you place down your Balefire, and the dark fetor is what causes damage over time when you're outside of the balefire for too long. I feel like this "pollution" is the crux of the Witness' plan with the captives, as it knows that we will rescue them and bring them back to their homes, and I feel like the "pollution" could somehow be infecting the civilians and that the Witness is waiting for the perfect moment to do something to those who were infected. Could you see if there's any reference to this in the lore?

I think the Witness is actually not seeking control but rather liberation and control may simply be a nessesity to achieve this. Its dialogue seems to indicate that it wants to be free of the universe, perhaps even escape it. In Witch Queen we learn that Savathun sought to escape the Destiny universe by jumping into ours (4th wall break) however her process seemed to involve Mantling (In that acting exactly like an individual you actually become them) and/or possesion, where the Witness may seek to physically enter our universe as it is and not rely on others to bring it forth. In doing so it escapes and predetermined fate because the creators of destiny decide what happens in it, thus allowing the Witness to finally make its own destiny.

That just answers one of my biggest questions, if we have defined the Witness, victim, and perpetrator, who is the judge? the log answers that, it's at least tied to the taken

Am going to love seeing the explanation for why Taniks is in the raid for the final shape.

I wish I could understand the Skrank Gang, but someone still hasn't fulfilled his promise on that yet.

I do wonder if Strand is ultimately closely connected to the function of the Taken and the Ascendant Plane. Same with egregore and Throne Worlds. Since they all involve consciousness and the Darkness. Maybe not directly plucking at them like our Guardians but through a more indirect means.

I think our ability to wield both light and dark without serving either, shows that we are the final shape, we will prove stronger than the witness , he will try to take us, and he will meet his end

If the Witness wants total control, why are the Shadow Legion still Cabal and not Taken?

Hey, it's almost like our ghost "Takes" us whenever we, as lightbearers, die. Or whatever the light version of "Taking" is.

The final shape is inevitable as is its collapse

This will help me slow down before bed. Thank you Byf!

before I speculated about a correlated entity to stasis like how we have the veil for strand, and while there is still a small possibility that may be the case, I suppose the idea doesn't make too much sense off topic, the D1 materials drop gave me psychic damage

What if our last darkness subclass has to do with the power of the taken? Like some power to use your "Taken Super" on Ex. An Ogre to have it fight FOR you.

Man I just picked up Destiny 2 this weekend and you're basically my VaatiVidya for this game, love your lore vids.

Seems like the power to take is among the strongest of the darkness abilities in terms of scale of application.

Man I’m still holding out for us to get Taking as our third darkness power, the more we learn about it the more unnerving it gets.

Another hint toward the Veil being a wormole, is a mural that is in Strider's Gate, on the way to the street leading to the concourse, there's a mural on the wall showing a tunnel leading to space, with Viking-inspired boats traveling in it. I don't know if the Bifrost was compared to a wormhole before Marvel made the comparison, but this could be a clue.

This has me thinking, is the Witness's "Final shape" could be referring to resetting the whole universe. Our hunch is that the Witness is "The first blade". The tool for a possible reset to undo what the Gardener has done and in a sense reset the board/playing field.

Yessss I live for more witness videos!!

What if the traveler is just a paracausal prediction engine? It could explain its inactivity predicting what the witness could or would do and taking steps so the guardians could stop it. A sort of ultra infinite forest.

Glen Cook, author of the Black Company series, had characters called The Ten Who Were Taken and describes the process of Taking like being ripped apart and rebuilt over and over until you are completely subservient or have no will left to disobey.

This gives me even more of a reason to think that the next subclass is taken and not resonance since taking is the power given by the deep and can be used as a very powerful tool in our arsenal.

I'm gonna witness this lore byf

I think the Traveler was disembodied and the Veil ripped out from itself by Savathun. The shard of the Traveler is also the biggest mystery

I love me a Byf video 1st thing in the morning

What if that's what happened to Cayde-6 in the new Final Shape trailer?? The lore of the gloves perfectly explains how Cayde is alive

Even the disciples reflect this even still they are champions of it. Through Rhulks interaction with the witness he became aligned to the idea that his fate was deterministic because of how the witness took control of Rhulks story shaping his memories into an identity, a tool for the witness to use

Great choice for background music 5:00

seeing d1 gameplay is unimaginably nostalgic for me

The witness looks like the veil, with his smoke head and long robes.

finally. lore on the taken!!!

I really hope the final shape is literal. Like we have a sphere, a bunch of pyramids, I want a massive cube to fight.

Escaton's name could be pulled from Escatology which is the study of end-times. So maybe its not just the future in general but perhaps the specific end The Witness is looking and working towards?

I hope we get a third subclass for the final shape, if it's the one after understandable but I'd love it to be similar to how guardians got their third subclass

"And what if you saw a different future? One in which you could defeat all that stood before you and become as a lord of all existence, a necessary feature of the universe? Would you not also pursue the desirable path? And not only earn your salvation, but your exaltation? Would you not dedicate your life, your form, your intellect, and strength to such a cause?"

NGL the idea of a Final Shape raid being a race to stop the Witness before it Takes the Traveller sounds like an amazing concept

I wanna get into lore but don’t know where to start when I know the basic plot but this is a good one

I love the paradoxical nature of the Witness and how it uses the darkness. The visual language and philosophical ideals seem not to even acknowledge that form and formlessness, shape and shapelessness are contradictions in our very materialistic conception of the universe. Forgive me for saying so but there is beauty in the sword logic even if it’s myopic and misguided.

Perfect timing just got out of school

Man byf you and your team have been carrying all of light falls story and making it cool and interesting for Bungie. They better give you some kind of thank you man. If not for you and a few others not one person would have a clue on what's happening with the story. So thank you from a fan.

Just played final shape, can't believe after the witness tried to take the guardian, the guardian said "I can make my own Destiny Too" and then guardianed on him

Fantastic video. I'd contend that the primeval, imminent, and eschaton minds translate better to "beginning, present, and end" rather than "past, present, and future." Eschaton in particular is the (often divine) final, unchangeable shape of the universe in whatever philosophy is utilizing the concept - essentially the manifestation of heaven on earth. Even more granularly, I'd argue that those three concepts represent temporal actions and not the concepts of beginning, present and end: the first possible action, the current one, and the last, tying back into the Witness trying to "take" the will of the universe and enforce its own preferred eschaton not just in the present (the imminent) but going back to the very first (the primeval). Tangentially, it's also interesting to me that they used the "imminent" mind (present or soon to be) as opposed to "immanent" (constant, ever-pervading) since immanence is another divine/spiritual concept that's more often paired with the eschaton/eschatology compared to the imminent/imminence.

I think the portal might lead somewhere "other" - at first I thought it lead physically inside the Traveler, but now I'm thinking its more symbolic - The Witness needed components of Light and Dark to create the portal, and its speech about "Enough Life and Death" tells me it seeks to re-write the rules if the flower game itself. I do not think the Witness is the Winnower, nor to I think the Traveler is the Gardener. They are both physical aspects of their respective concepts, acting in accordance with the greater wills of both.

Reminds me of the Green lantern story where the Ai Aya came to believe that sentient beings with emotion were ultimately a mistake, and tried to traveled back in time to the creation of the universe to alter it to prevent that life from ever forming, only artificial life she could control...

"After we've learned of the Veil" I dont know, Byf....Have we? XD

Thanks again Byf for amazing lore Still what bothers me is the mess lore about black heart in the game says that it vex copycat of the veil which is weird when we know vex can’t simulate paracausalty I will rather have you opinion as the witness planted because it makes more sense

Iirc there’s this tiny alcove on the Dreadnaught that drains your health over time if you stand in it. A message above your Super meter says something about Oryx trying to Take you while this happens. This probably means that it’s possible for the process of Taking to be at least started on a Guardian, although I have no clue what the result of that would be.

so the game is called Destiny because its about preserving free will and ultimately define yourself through your own actions? i guess Joe Staten thought, "how to make a good story about heroes and villains? oh yeah let's make it a battle for the greater force of will" just a random thought ofc but it's what i believe right now

I don't know if it's intentional but it's funny how almost every time he goes "take a listen/look at this" it immediately goes to an ad. Lmao

I get the implication that the Witness had been able to control Ghost ever since we first went to Nezarec's pyramid and cemented it's control when we took Stasis for ourselves. Why, then, did it try to get Calus to capture the veil and use the Radial Mast at all? It wasn't necessary since we already had a Ghost on Neptune that was touched by Darkness. It didn't step in to assist until Calus lost control of the situation. Was it some weird, "I have this minion under my control, I will demonstrate by having it succeed for me?" IT could easily have just had Calus rush the Veil and we would have ran headlong to stop him. If we failed, it could still have subverted control over Ghost and used him to make the connection. But it continued to let Calus dick around and lose control of things.

To me, from where im sitting and hearing, it sounds as if the witness may be trying to go back to before the rule change in the garden game.

One intressting thought is that one of the things Oryx used his tablets of ruin for was turning his throneworld inside out and projecting it into real space from the ascendant plane, thus making the dreadnought. And if the macrocosm encounter in root of nightmares is looked at closer we se the stolen planets shrunken down in the middle trio. Something very peculiar about pyramid structues is that they look the same both in realspace and in the ascendant plane unlike everything else that lack "uninportant" sections. I speculate that pyramids aren't originally "real" things but mental projections built by the witness in the ascendant plane like throneworlds and then transported into our reality.

God I love these lore videos

Everything paracausal runs on video-game logic. The final shape is "what's left when everything that *can* be removed *has* been removed. The Witness has taken (ha) efforts to limit the possible actions of the denizens of the universe. Following this thread, the Witness likely intends to "100%" reality, but first needs to undo the Gardener's final rule in the flower game so new items stop being added.

So maybe it's trying to *take* all of us guardians or perhaps the gardener

OK, so I've said this before, but what if the Witness is trying to go to the garden before time (as I call it) to prevent the Gardener from changing the rules of the flower game

You have me thinking about how Elsie kept finding herself in a loop, is she soon to be finding herself going back again? This is all starting to feel LOST 👀

I see threads here. Another “game” they’re working on is codenamed Matter, but this could actually just be the next saga. We haven’t explored more of the IX, and they’re existence is dark matter and paracausal. With this idea of Taking redefining the will of matter, it could very well be where we go after Light/Darkness. The Veil’s theme is even called Tenebrium, some fictional matter that I guess it and the Pyramid tech is made of. The Witness wants to fast forward to a final shape, and how you redefine that starts with changing wills.

I never considered the Witness traveling back in time to exercise control over the cosmos by Taking everything. Goodness.

Enjoyed the video thanks again Byf my thoughts are the witness is a Arch Necromancer like a God Lich a kind of super strong Necromancer literally everything it controls is just like you say mindless ultimately already dead 🤷 stay awesome man

Akashic record is nice reference. but I immediately think of the Dreaming. as in the Aboriginal concepts of Everywhen, i see Cade on the other side of that portal and im like is this some eternal realm? The Dreaming? Valhalla?

The veil being described as some window into the heart and mind of the universe may confirm what's been in our faces all along. The veil is an eyeball. Now if it's an eye, who's eye is it? Someone huge for sure. 😂

Lol. It’s Hellraiser basically. Like, this all sounds like how the Cynobytes get made, shuffled around in a higher dimension then popped back out ‘more real’. Plus they move slow since they live in 4d space, like the witness maybe? I personally posit that we’re talking about 4d creatures on Light and Dark ‘poles’ like Osiris said who can’t actually touch each other normally (check out quaternion planes visualized, but basically in 4d the equivalent of a sphere with two ‘pole’s in 3d would be two infinite planes that never touch), and the Witness used a creature that naturally bridges that hyper-dimensional gap to make a wormhole allowing passage from one to the other for a 4d creature but not a 3d one (famously the Einstein-Rosen prediction said nothing in our dimension could pass the threshold just be destroyed). I think it’s a ‘where’ not a ‘when’ or things would have already changed from our perspective. I also think darkness is probably quantum field shenannigans and relates to 4d being a whole interconnected imprint able to ignore 3d distance thingy, it’s essentially string theory manifest and again involves dimensional bullshit

A scary thought could be that this has happened each and every time the Gardener and the Winnower, and now the Winnower is doing its normal finishing blow, but since we as guardians could be part of the new rule the gardener implemented, he could pull his metaphorical "trap card" being us?

The control thing makes a lot of sense, it finds strong beings across the universe to have power over being the disciples, and it only talks to us through our ghost, after taking control of it. I have always wondered why it bothered with the disciples in the first place especially if it clearly has the power to do everything they did. But seeing that they are just powerful things he can exert his will over makes sense. Heck even with calus he didn't even need him, he was just waiting for us to get close to the vail. All Calus was just a strong entity that he could take control over l. And it also explains why he got so incredibly mad after calus started questioning him and his motives.

The final shape is tanicks holding telesto. The destiny 2 villains had a discord video told me so

Imagine that the ascended plane is the thtone world of the wittness which is why the ascended plane connects all throne worlds (in some way) of the hive.

Small theory based on what is learned through this video. What if the guardians are the light version of Taken because we serve the Traveler as best we can and our being is entirely shaped to turn out that way.

"[The Power of Taking] could perhaps be used to alter a moon's orbit, devastating the planet below..." No fucking way.

I cant wait for the confusing cliffhanger we’ll get in final shape.

The final shape is a slightly buffed barrier colossus

I really hope that this exotic was sort of teasing the possibility of getting a taken subclass

Maybe it wants to take (controlling past/present/future) because if the witness controls everything, then there can be no para causal guardians to stand in the way?

The Witness’s plan is that he has no plan, just making it up as he goes.

Taken for the third darkness subclass in final shape.

You should do a list ranking all major campaign and raid bosses by their powers both in game and lore! Oryx, Ghaul, Calus, eramis, nezarec, etc. that would be super entertaining! 🤯

The final shape is gonna be Taniks final form, Obsessed Taken Kell

You know... the scary thing is I came to this conclusion after a while thinking about it. I mean, you don't even need to look that far into Destiny in order to come to that conclusion. Just like our world, so many people have suffered needlessly throughout the Destiny universe, sometimes meaninglessly. The Warlords make that incredibly clear. Many people were born into that situation with no recourse and no way to remedy it. They were dealt a bad hand, and the hand kept getting worse. The one thing they all have in common is a lack of control. We celebrate those who manage to lift themselves out of such situation, but spare no thought for those who aren't, same as the universe. Sure, the "winners" put in the effort and exercised their power... but in the end, no one has total control of their lives. Pain of growth is one thing, but constant bad luck leads to suffering all the same. While this "luck" might be the random factor that helps sprout new possibilities, it goes both ways. I think the Witness recognizes that and wishes to exert total control over the universe as a way to solve that exact problem. If everything has a clearly-defined purpose in the grand scheme, then no one truly needs to suffer - they can relish in having had purpose in something greater than themselves. If this sounds incredibly nihilistic, its because it is. For one person to exercise control, another must lose it. No person can have total control, for that requires a lack of control on everyone else's part. If there can only be 1 "final shape", one singlular endpoint and universe, then it stands to reason there can only be one person in total control in the Witness' universe. That might also be why the Witness strips control from the Taken but gives them power in turn, it follows that exact philosophy I laid out. The Taken are defined by the Witness through the Taken King grimoire cards to have been given power and purpose anew, albeit with their will stripped. It's one thing for everyone to have their own personal "heaven", but ultimately you'll be alone in that heaven by accordance of the laws of our universe. Everything must be finite for a final shape to occur. The cost of achieving that heaven is too high for almost everyone... unless you care little for other life to flourish. The Witness doesn't really want to end "pain", it just wants to end what it deems "pointless" pain. An admirable goal, if such a thing were even possible in our universe without killing almost everything. Its easy to see why Eramis, Calus, Rhulk, and Nezarec sided with the Witness; they all want their own personal heaven, in their own minds. The only way to truly counteract the Witness' philosophy, then, is to stand together and push towards a better future. That overpowering will, intellect, and empathy is something that, if put together, can overcome the Witness. Control can come from taking, yes, but it can also come from uniting together. Its something that not only can be, but has been shown time and time again by the Guardians. Of course, it can go both ways, like I said the Warlords showed that in spades. But we have a choice, not only to stop the Witness, but to be better than who we were yesterday, and that alone is worth fighting to defend.

Through Deep Sight or Vault of Glass, or a combination of the two, we learn how to take, but we take in the Light. Thus the return of Cayde. I am throwing my prediction in the ring.

"Your Destiny ends now." -The Witness in Final Shape, probably

Someone else and I have theory. In order to avoid the next Collapse and stop this war the Traveler and the Witness started, the Guardian will have to use the power of Light and Dark fused together to destroy the Traveler and the Witness. The Light and the Dark cannot die, since they're essences that keep the balance in the universe, but the Traveler and the Witness are like a bridge that provide that power to it's followers. And since both of them learned to hate each other, they used these followers as soldiers to fight against each other, causing many deaths in both sides. None of the sides (Traveler's followers and Witness's disciples) are neither good or evil, but are just following orders from their masters, the ones who provide this power. So, I believe that in order to end this war and stop an intergalactic genocide, the Guardian must fuse the power of Light and Dark that they have to destroy the Traveler and the Witness. And this moment, would mean the end of the endless fight against these two, and the ultimate sacrifice from the Guardian. Because is like one wise man said: Devotion inspires bravery. Bravery inspires sacrifice. Sacrifice leads to death.

So a little late on this one but quick question. When you refer to past, present, future, it seems as a linear path through time. But Elsie has been through multiple timelines where we always lose. Would the veil contain history on all timelines? Can the witness influence not just this one time he left from but all times back to the flower game?