Destiny 2 Lore - What we stole from Rhulk, which we then had to Nuke.. The Mystery of Gouging Light! 

Your Rhulk theory makes even more sense in the context of how the Darkness works. Our Ghosts *give* us rezzes, so it makes sense that in order for a true servant of Dark to rez, they would need to Take.

I love the lore on “man literally too lazy to fight immortal beings of light”

My first thought was that the "what was left of Marco" referred to his mental state rather than a transformation of his body. My guess is that this is what the Witness used to reconstruct Rhulk after he was broken at the bottom of the abyss and granted him the physical power he had.

11:58 I don't think it was nuked from orbit, its implied that the casing to the nuclear reactor on the sparrow was damaged, and that"s what Marco shot, causing a nuclear explosion.

Honestly the rhulk theory makes sense because the caretaker is a giant scorn, so in comparison to someone like rhulk, the memory of his existence and his potency is going to be significantly smaller than Rhulk himself, whose “root system” is SIGNIFICANTLY larger than the caretaker’s.

So my thought: Its the Disciples/Minions of the Witness' equivalent to our ghosts. It's a manifestation of their power that, instead of us being rezzed from almost nothing, infects and takes over a host, using it as a puppet until whomever the host was is completely gone and replaced. The only reason it didn't try to do that to us in the raid after defeating the Caretaker and Rhulk is because it knew we were too powerful for it to infect, so it goes after easier more unsuspecting targets, like Marco

So here's something to add. The heart of darkness that is fought in the very first campaign in Destiny seems to be related to this stuff in the containers. A kind of primordial liquid if you will.

I am feeling like the light and dark have their own interpretations of immortality. The light preserves the body at the cost of eventual memory loss as in the form of the Exo's needing a reboot. I am sure the more "living" guardians probably are the same to some degree. The dark preserves the memories and and just seeks out new bodies. Either through possession/mind control or the generation of a new body as with the Hive. The hive's "hunger" is just a need to gather resources needed to create new bodies for the memories to inhabit. This idea stems from the line when you go into one of the pyramids where your ghost says something along the lines of "It's ironic that the light took your memories and the dark is giving them back.".

Just my little head canon: the black veins are the witness’s gift to its disciples. It’s how it makes a disciple, and once a disciple has been made, the veins take an original personality similar to their host and are a means, like our ghosts, to defy death. We can clearly see the Witness is made of an amalgamation of many souls, personalities, memories, or something else (the gigantic white web of faces that constantly spews from its head). I think that the Witness, in its crusade to make the final shape, takes the strongest and most aligned warriors of a species (like we see with Rhulk) and uses the slaughter to fuel itself, taking the souls or essence of those slaughtered and dominating them. After domination, the collective essence is added to the billowing plume exuded from the Witness. When the Witness desires to make a disciple, it then extracts dominated essence that is suffused with its will and implants it within the potential disciple. We can guess this may have happened to rhulk in the abyss from his lore. The reason the Caretaker does not showcase a will or personality like Rhulk is because it is a scorn, a husk that appears personality-less (except for stronger variations like the Barons or Fikrul). I don’t know the specifics of the lore behind the abominations, so this is speculation. But I’d like to believe that the Witness’s appearance, specifically the billowing fog of faces has some connection to the roots we see from rhulk’s corpse.

The idea of Rhulk trying to come back by taking over poor Marco made me realize an interesting difference between the Light and the Dark. When someone comes back through the Light, it's essentially a new person than before, just the same face. Sure, maybe there are some similarities, but this new being has no memory, and if I remember right, there have been several Guardians in lore tabs that have different names than in their first life. When someone comes back with the Darkness, they keep everything. Savathun and Xivu Arath, killed in the Ascendant plane by Oryx and suffering True Deaths, were still brought back (assuming those details of the Book of Sorrows aren't embellished or anything lol). And this sparrow lore seems to support that idea of persistence after death, and preservation of the self. Kinda makes me start to wonder about the Ahamkara with how they can speak through their bones...

My best guess is that the Black Veins is basically a representation of "the Darkness", sort of like a manifestation of Darkness power. The Caretaker & Rhulk have this spill out when they die. If you were to imagine the Darkness as a spiritual possession, when Rhulk dies, the spirit possessing him begins to leak out into the world searching for another person to inhabit. Remember all the old lore tabs of Savathun when she still had her worm and was corrupted by Darkness? There was a few lore tabs where she had to choke down "black spindly fluid" when she was posing as Osiris. I think its all connected. So basically, the fluid is the Physical manifestation of Darkness. This is why it speaks about "the deep" and also the way it speaks. That's my theory. I don't believe it's memory of Rhulk or Caretaker, but the physical embodiment of the Darkness power itself. And no, not the witness. I'd say if we kill the witness, the same fluid would leak out of him too, because the darkness can not be killed, ie. Primordial fluid from before time began.

Something that strikes me upon hearing this lore reading; the Vex in how their consciousness transcends time and space, and how we've been told the power of the Witness is that to move realities (which the Vex also seem to do on a lesser scale with all their simulations etc). I personally think we got our first glimpse of a "pure" form of the Alkahest, that which Clovis found from Clarity Control and used to make the Exo combined with vex fluid. This root system seems like a liquid but also sentient, which to me yes Siva, but sounds WAY more like the Vex. I hope they start to flesh out the story we got with DSC and Beyond Light. Now would be the perfect time for us to get some context on how the darkness has been used in our past, given we're beginning to question the nature of the light and dark.

Hey Byf, I have a small idea I want to share with you: there has been a recurring motif of 'Trees' in Destiny since the start. In D1, the main focus of the Vanilla campaign was the Black GARDEN and it's corrupted heart. In D2, specifically Shadowkeep, we are introduced to the concepts of the GARDENER and the WINNOWER, as well as the SILVER SEED and the TREE OF SILVER WINGS. It should be noted that whenever our old enemies were brought back as nightmares in Shadowkeep, they manifested out of spectral ROOTS in the fabric of space. Now, in the Witch Queen, killing servants of the Witness causes them to sprout the tangible ROOTS that you talked about. Trees, Gardens and Roots are all recurring themes in many of the world's religions and mythologies. They are transformative beings able to convert what is base (SOIL) into a higher form (LEAVES, BARK, and FRUIT). In Abrahamic religions, it is the FRUIT of the primordial TREE that grants the Sons and Daughters of Adam their insight of self, and 'free' will. In many other world religions, TREES and ROOTS symbolise both the interconnectedness of worlds and spirits, such as in the case of Norse mythology and some Kabbalistic and Gnostic sects respectively. What I'm trying to get at is that Destiny's story is a story of the sprouting of seeds, their growth, and their aftermath. When Osiris travelled to the edges of the Heliopause to find the Seed of Silver Wings, and subsequently planted it on Io, it laid the groundwork for our Guardians wielding the the natural forces governed by the 'Darkness'. We do not know where Osiris got the Seed from; only that the space around the Seed tried to keep it away from the world (a 'maw' in space; a pocket dimension isolated from current space). We saw the Seed feed from the Soil of Io that the Traveler rested on during it's journey, and sprout into a Tree capable of communicating with the Black Fleet. Now we see that Rhulk and the Caretaker also produce Roots that search for 'ground' to claim. If both of them acted as Seeds in their death, then what was the Seed of Silver Wings? Why does even it's 'Bark', the Ruinous Effigy, feed on Light? If the 'Soil' is the 'Light', and the 'Seed' and 'Roots' are the 'Dark', then what of the 'Fruit' that is produced in time? Time will tell hopefully, but I hope that you see this recurring theme as well.

I know it's completely speculative but I love Byf because he notices everything and can draw connections to things meaningful or meaningless. New fans as I and people from day 1 sheer you on to 1 million. Let your light shine like a quasar guardian.

Just a quick thought: the black branches that sprout remind me of the Cordyceps fungi. If you don’t know what that is, definitely look it up because the way Cordyceps takes over a hosts body is insane. This somehow ties back to the Glykon and Katabasis.

Hearing about the black substance here reminds me of some of the lore from Cayde’s Journal during the collapse, and some of the black armoury lore. When the darkness invaded there were some images in the journal of formless, possibly liquid looking beings that were a part of the dark forces. I believe there is also some mention of them smelling like wet earth or something to that effect, and maybe that could be linked to the branch like veins that come out of Rhulk and the Caretaker. I’m thinking along the lines of wet earth and branches being linked to nature. And then the enemies having a black liquid like look to them which could match the description made in the lore of this sparrow. Then to bring it all together the liquid like enemies being described as smelling like wet earth and that again has a link to nature. I’m aware these are very loose connections being made and are very speculative, but this is what came to mind whilst watching the video. To add some further speculation though, I was wondering if maybe this is how the darkness might create it’s dark armies perhaps. By changing beings into their minions through this fluid, altering their mind and eventually completely transforming them into their minions, devoid of any self control, completely hollowed out, without there own conscience and having their will controlled by another, similar the taken in that sense. Perhaps the darkness could have been doing this to civilians during the collapse maybe? Once again, wild speculation but I thought it was a cool idea and theory to put forward. And also if anyone has read this entire chunky comment you’re legends and I appreciate you taking the time to give my thoughts a read :)

What if the highest servants of The Witness use this as a way to escape death. Like the hive gods get throne worlds, wouldn’t people even higher on the food chain have something even better?

Entirely speculating here: My take is that the substance in question inside container 6010 is the black fluid Rhulk uses in the shattered suns lore book to relive his past, mentioned at the end of page 10. Similar to the wall of fluid that the Witness walks out of in his reveal cinematic and then separates to show the pyramid fleet. Pyramid tech, metallic black modular matter powered by the psychic energy of memory (Darkness) is a different way to achieve the same outcome as SIVA, and potentially much more powerful and dangerous. Paracausal use of memory as both a fuel source and control scheme has a huge array of applications.

During my first raid completion I thought the root like structure closely resembled the aesthetic from the Tree of Silver Wings. Seeing as the story of the gardener and winnower are closely intertwined with that of the Tree of Silver wings, it seems plausible to me

Could Siva possibly be an artificial derivative of the veins studied and adapted by braytech from the Europan pyramids. The resemblance between the two is probably not a coincidence and if they share a connection the force that controls siva may be some kind of Backdoor? Pure speculation but the connection between its description siva and Clovis brays study of the darkness may explain how Rasputin was so easily turned off by the pyramids. He was commanded, reaching massively

I have no comment particular to this video; I just want to say your stuff is great, Byf, and I enjoy the work you put into this channel.

I find it interesting how darkness is now associated with memory, and gaining light is now the loss of memory. It’s almost as if they are saying that Ignorance is bliss. Also, Clovis communed with the darkness, or at least studied it. Could he by chance have tried to replicate this black veined substance through SIVA?

If I recall correctly isn't there heart imagery for the darkness? Could be veins

Gotta love that realistically whenever we do dumb shit with our sparrows and die we're setting off a small nuke

Anyone else think Venom or symbiote during this lore tab? Especially when it talked about the goo seeping into Marco and repairing his leg. Made me think of the motorcycle scene in the movie.

It almost seems like the Darkness is a type of fungi and the root like veins that are coming out of the bosses and in the lore tab are based on Mycelium. Some types of fungi are known to have mine altering substances including feelings of euphoria. It would also track with the Darkness' stated goals of death as fungi exists to break down dead and decaying matter. The name Gouging Light may refer to how fungi works in that it finds an entrance and then it's root system digs in to break it down.

You want to know what really looks similar to the symbols on the side of the upended? Check out that glaive in the back of Rhulks room, branched out into separate pieces.

Reminds me of the black bio weapon goo from Ridley Scott's Prometheus . It infects and changes whatever it touches. In fact the canisters it's describing look very similar to the black mutagenic goo canisters from Prometheus.

This is probably either one of two things. 1. Initiating a new darkness subclass, completing the trio of stasis, poison, and (X). 2. A resurrection and/or taking process by a sentient force from Rhulk’s body.

my initial thought was that the “black veins” and “pulsing” made me think of the black heart, but i like the rhulk theory too.

We also have to look at the calcification and “root-growing process is similar to what happens to Oryx in kings fall and maybe the sanctified mind

When I first saw those root-like things grow out of the care taker, I started thinking of the Tree of Silver Wings from the Season of Arrivals. Imagine for a moment: If the Light and Darkness are two symmetrical parts of a singular whole, maybe the Light manifested as the Tree and the Roots are manifestations of the Dark. It would make sense, if you follow the analogy, that the Dark "takes" nutrients from the soil and the Light "gives" life to everything it interacts with.

Honestly my first thoughts when I hear black veins snaking into Marco, I immediately think back to that classic piece of lore from the Taken King Collectors Edition, concerning Cayde-6's experiences during The Collapse being "restrained by a shadowy creature on a destroyed world", and that feeling of being "enveloped" by "tendrils of pain" by something "primordial"

Makes me think of mycelium and parasitic fungi like Cordyceps.

Rhulk lost his status as a chad when we killed him

Happy to see my 8 year investment in the game’s darkness story finally pan out lmao. Started from grimoire cards, and now we’re here! I’m interested in why rhulk was chosen to be a disciple and what does that tell us about how the witness and their forces work? Like does every pyramid have a disciple? Is the idea that every disciple might have to fight to the death one day and then *boom* final shape? Is that what we’re preventing? Gonna go ponder my orb brb.

Man, that just goes to show how dangerous the places we go are. That stuff if the jar was probably some random goop we scraped off a wall and it was enough to completely take over a normal human.

Thanks bro.. you're my number one destiny's lore source

Thanks for sharing the lore of these items some of us will never get in the game! Love everyone of your videos! 👍

Could be related to the stuff/things that The Drifter encountered on that one frozen planet. Don't remember all the lore perfectly, so I could be remembering things wrong.

Im so glad I found this channel.

As stupid and ridiculous as it sounds this game saved my life during a REALLY hard couple of years. I isolated myself from everyone in my life because of personal challenges and destiny was my only form of escapism as a young teenager. After those couple of years passed I put down my controller for another 6 years because I felt the need to focus on real life and make up for lost time. Recently I've come back to the game after finally learning that it's alright to get to enjoy yourself sometimes and that I don't have to feel guilty about doing things besides working and maintaining relationships. Thank u byf for so eloquently explaining destiny lore for all these years. I'm so so happy to see that you're still making great videos ( : and to anyone else who's using this game as a way to escape a brutal reality, things will get better!

Big what if. The black tendrils look like the roots of trees. Trees are often used to portray the Light, like during Season of Arrivals with the big tree in Io, or the small trees of Light when we get our new supers in Forsaken. Whay if the Darkness is the root system for a tree symbolizing Light?

Amazing vid as always

Perhaps a bit of a stretch, but perhaps this is a hint to how the Veil (concept alien race directly related to the darkness/witness) are created? Or maybe it’s something much more simple, and it’s the stuff that was in the Caretaker’s backpack.

For me black veins have been consistent with the Darkness since the Black Garden story from vanilla D1. If you were to look at the Black Heart without engaging the Sol Progeny, it radiates thin black veins into the air. Thr Black Heart also pulses with an energy that looks quite similar to Taken energy. They're similar enough in appearance to when we're shrouded in Darkness (best example is during the Prophecy dungeon). Also consider all the champions too; each of those have veins of Darkness coming from them. So my theory is, that whatever the veins are is a connection to the Witness. Champions haven't/can't take the substance within them because maybe they're not strong enough. Maybe they'll have to do more killing before they can become champions as per the Sword Logic, to become Disciples. The note about SIVA caught my attention too. We know Clovis Bray was enamoured with the Darkness, so what if his own inteference with SIVA's creation is what made the nanites become somewhat sentient under Rasputin's control (at least during the fall if the Iron Lords). Maybe the entire CONSUME ENHANCE REPLICATE command for SIVA is similiar the Darkness to CONSUME other matter so it can REPLICATE itself and spread further and let's be honest, the champions are definitely ENHANCED. Side note, the Taken (according tp their Grimoire) are also put into their final shape by being consumed and enhanced. Whilst I agree with Byf that these veins are NOT SIVA, there are some similarities which at least suggest there is a design (in-canon) inspiration

Oh boy let me get my snacks and smoke in before i watch this, love every single episode/video

Hello Byf! Long time listener here. Thanks for all you do. I'll keep it short and simple, in regards to the black veins, I am immediately reminded of the "snake like" slithering entities that Drifter encountered with his fireteam when they encountered the monoliths on Europa. Just a theory, but may be worth looking into?

The dark roots have been a thing to me since Shadowkeep and the introduction of champions were a thing, even when you look at the "Champion Entrance" transmat effect (I believe that's what it's called), very dark root like structures ripple out, it's likely the effects such are similar to the moon's nightmare's as when they die or appear, there are dark red and black roots as well.

My thought is that this Root-like substance is linked to how the Witness remakes those who becomes his disciples. Like how he remade Rhulk, and how his powers might have been used to remake the Caretaker

I think you're on the right track honestly, we constantly see entities that aren't guardians creating plans for themselves to return after death, and the veins I believe is this for rhulk which would also make sense why the caretaker has the substance in his backback, he could've been instructed to infect someone or something with the substance if rhulk were to ever die

I remember that one lore tab about the Darkness The smell of wet earth And now we have what looks like roots from a tree like you said Byf This cultivation of worms, a caretaker and now roots? Is anybody else seeing a Garden kind of them here?

I mean... we've had a similar account of a black oil-like creature. Though in the other instance it just sort of drained light and killed its victims. Unless from the observer it looked as madness. I'm starting to think the actual darkness is much like radiolaria.

I can picture Rhulk bursting out of a Subjugator and being like: *_"Ah, it has been a while, little ones!"_*

The description of healing black veins reminds me of the new exotic Warlock boots that add healing onto your empowering rift

Remember how the Darkness talked Bray into creating the Vex portals? Along with teaching him how to make the fluid that makes Exos, by combining Darkness with radiolaria? Maybe more of our Golden Age Tech was similarly "inspired," and this feels like a biological equivalent to SIVA. It also feels similar to horsehair worm parasites, taking over a host and controlling their actions, and then slithering out when the host dies.

The replacing pain with pleasure bit seems to be line with the old grimoire card descriptions of something getting Taken. Taken are present in the raid. And it would line up with Savathun's remark at the Altar of Reflection of the Taken King returning. It could be that you're drawing lines where there are none.

Reminds me of the bodies in the vow raid. maybe it was somehow a piece of a worm taken from the raid. Also descriptions are reminding me of the body horror found in the Southern Reach trilogy.

I think this may be how we're able to be revived if we lose the light during lightfall. If it contains memories, and or personalities in it, we could possibly use it to record our memories and personality so we essentially have a darkness version of a ghost respawn.

the connection that immediately came to mind for me is from the raid lore books, where it mentions while rhulk is in the abyss where he is “broken”, the witness then makes him “unbroken”. there’s potential that is meant in a more literal sense and that the witness planted something in rhulk that brought him back and transformed him in some way into becoming a disciple, this something could be the tree like veins that are stretching out almost in hopes on finding something to latch onto, you could also make a case for the caretaker having it due to rhulk possibly trying to convert it into a disciple but isn’t there yet

So Marco was turning into a Rhulk copy? That would be awesome if he could do that.

I think the biggest thing you overlooked was that this substance was first encountered during the Dead Man's Tale quest. The guardian at the end of it had these "appendages" coming from it as well. Maybe there is some lore with that, that would tie into this?

I feel this may be the “excuse” to eventually add another darkness subclass. Maybe some sort of shadow power or something.

marco's description of the black veins and what it did to him reminds me of the lore card containing cayde's recollection of the collapse, maybe some kind of darkness weapon like civa but more spooky and psychological rather than techy and sciencey

Great video!!!

I thought “hope births agony births stillness” reminded me a lot of what the speaker said in his final speech. the progression of becoming a light bearer. “Bravery leads to devotion, devotion leads to death”

I think the black veins give some dark power while also being a last resort "body snatch" if rhulk were to die.

I personally think it’s the black liquid. The very same liquid we saw The Witness emerge from. When we defeat an enemy loaded with it, it reaches out sort of like how the silver tree grew as we empowered it with the light in season of arrival.

What i really want Byf, is a personal vlog on how you think you'll feel when this content gets removed from the game in the near future; barring new and old players alike from enjoying the content they've paid for, or the story they wish they could enjoy.

This lore is the best we've gotten yet. Thanks for reading, Byf!

Electro-mariachi music, now thats a genre i want to listen and i haven't heard before.

I don't know where else to place this theory so here we go: Ive been feeling like this golden, dark fractal, force we see in the raid is going to be the last dark subclass. I can see us confronting the witness against an army of this and learning to use it just as we did with Stasis. And of course I assume Corruption would be the second darkness subclass. I just think that all of this is just building momentum for when this power finally arrives

The fact he needed to say it’s not siva, “don’t even entertain that.” 😂😂

I noticed on my day 1 run, that the stuff coming out of The Caretaker/Rulk is the same texutre and animation of the Tree of Silver Wings from arivals, almost like saplings, maybe some interaction between Dark and Light causes it to grow?

the growing darkness tree roots also resembles the darkness in the first cutscenes from the speaker talking about the golden age and the darkness.

Always thought the branches/roots/veins that come out of the bosses were related to the silver tree due to their silvered coloration.

It also reminds me of the swirliness of the original D1 trailer for the darkness.

The way things branch out and suspend Rulks body reminded me of the zombie fungus that takes over ants and turns their body into a spore producing machine to attract predators

My take is this: Once the witness begins to indoctrinate someone he gives them a gift with this ooze stuff attached (ie ooze powered Rhulks glaive and inturn Rhulk) and the dark they go, the stronger/more ooze grows. When those things die they move to try to find a new host (similar to Venom from Spiderman). The thoughts marko has may have not been Rhulk but a more pro darkness voice that would have urged him to go deeper if he lived longer (kinda like how Venom urges his host to do certain actions. Maybe I'm comparing to Venom too much but that's just what I think.

Maybe it’s related to the tree of silver wings? Or a modified and dark version of the tree.

This substance that was healing Marco and providing him with relief or euphoria and taking over his leg sounds a lot like what a symbiote would do in the marvel universe, in fact it’s exactly what happened in the first venom movie, except for the visions thing

The black vein and root like structure i think maybe the animation/reference to the 2nd darkness subclass we may get in the future? a root like system which spreads and corrupts or confuses perhaps

2:59 - Mariachi music? I love that they put a "Red vs Blue" reference in lore.

I think Byf's theory about the sample being a portion of Rhulk is pretty bang-on. I believe this energy that Rhulk and The Caretaker draw their power from and use to battle us will be one of the two remaining Darkness subclasses: Resonance (the other being Corruption/Decay). If we compare Stasis to Solar, we see they are symmetrical opposites. I believe all three Darkness subclasses will possess the same symmetry with their respective Light opposites. Solar -> Renewal & Healing Stasis -> Stagnation & Death Void -> Additive consumption of energy/matter Corruption -> Subtractive decay of energy/matter Arc -> Balanced border between different energy states (High & Low) Resonance -> Dissolving borders between similar energy states (a tuning fork resonating with another of the same tone) Mark my words: Resonance and Corruption will be the final Darkness subclasses

I’d have to relate the substance from 6010 to the plant like thing from the Presage quest back in season of the chosen. From the description we’re given and from the raid how it forms from their bodies it seems, I wouldn’t say identical, but similar in how they move and infest. On the other hand I could be completely wrong and just like to make a call back to a good exotic quest with lore tied to it.

I thought i had some relation to the black streaks that appeared on uldren during forsaken, while behaving more like a fluid it does resemble tendrils

I do wonder if this is related to the "Luster" that Rhulk received from the Witness upon being "mended" after falling into the abyss on Lubrae.

Those tree style of growth when the bosses in the raid die. Reminds me of the tree from a couple of seasons ago. When we first got the orb artifact from the pyramid ship. What if the goo is the sap from the tree and it gives the darkness is power to gain strength. Just a thought. Love the vids.

Seeing you not pick up that exotic from these past few raid lore vidoes bothered the shit out of me but good video

One visual similarity that may be worth mentioning is that the resonant visual effect was also present in black armory weapons.

When the lore tab said "electro mariachi" all I can think of is "El Sonidito" NGL after visualizing it that track actually works.

The dialogue with the reverse brackets reminds me of worm dialogue

These black veins, this had me thibking i remember when we would pick up new stasis powers from the ziggurat or wven anything dealing with the darkness. Our screen would get those same black veins on it. For example when we picked up the enigma those same black shadowy veins appeared on our screen

Gouging light, sounds exactly like that of the stuff that rhulk used when you fight him, like that strange golden light thats also surrounded in darkness. If anything it seems like its connected to his spear and the caretakers coffin like structure on his back where both these lights originate from, as I feel like the connection is too close to be ignored.

The bit about euphoria and bliss reminds me of the Taken.

I haven't gotten to witch queen yet, but the black veins thing reminds me of when Crow was slowly but surely becoming Taken by that one Ahamkhara... He had veins of black on his face before he got eaten. just food for though.

The black veins do feel like some sort of Venom (simbiote) equivalent from Marvel, but Darkness. So maybe they create a personnality based on the creature they inhabit, as many have suggested, and then keep it after the death of said creature. They very much likely are created and given by the Witness too and serve not only as a way of giving powers of Darkness but also as a way to transcend death... Through memory.

When you were talking about the tree root like effects that happen after killing the raid bosses is kinda similar to what happened to the Guardian who was with Calus aboard that ship where you get DMT. It isn’t just me thinking that, right?

There was substantial corruptive growth at the end of the presage mission on the glycon too. Not sure what the connection is yes but they have to be related. The whole dark parasitic growth aspect of both of them.

Those black veins are so reminiscent of the black goo from Prometheus and Alien Covenant makes me wonder if they took inspiration for it from there