Literally amazing. I don't know how no other lore channels have been able to point out these bits of lore, but with your theory, I feel like it ties so many plot holes and just seems to get supported by all the new lore releasing. I'm now genuinely on board with your entire unveiling theory, and I can't wait to see how this all plays out in the final shape.
I was disappointed in what the Witness ended up being, personally. I thought it was going to be a way more complex idea, like he was some sort of focal point for the same being, spread across multiple time-lines. Not a species that got messed up and mixed themselves all together into one big bucket of self, but literally a concentration of Darkness so intense that it could link the Mind of an appropriately powerful being to ITSELF, across time. Then, perhaps, this process "got out of hand" and the Witness lost control of what it was, something like that. This interpretation would have had the Witness literally "chasing" Elizabeth Bray across time, which is also just such a cool idea on it's own. Imagine if, every time things go wrong and humanity falls to the enemy, the Witness actually recognizes Elsie. Just this haunting idea to add to the mix, that Bray is being HUNTED by a being who shares one vast mind across multitudes of time-lines. And she's trying desperately not only to figure out how to guide humanity in the fight against him, but how to keep the time-lines alive and multiplying. I even thought they were heading this way once they started fleshing out what exactly the Darkness is, how it is connected to Minds, and how it is fundamentally a power borne of consciousness. Destiny has been very subtly toying with the idea of Panpsychism for awhile now. Which is to say, that Minds are not individuated phenomena that live inside your head, but rather that there is one Great Mind that exists almost like an element of reality, like Gravity or magnetism. In this theory, your physical brain is not a production centre of thoughts, but much more of an antenna, albeit one that operates on extremely complicated mechanisms. The power of Darkness is fundamentally the power of this Omni-Mind, the Mind of all Minds, hence it's absolute power over thoughts, feelings, dreams, emotions. This is what I thought the Witness was going to end up being, some sort of creature who was more of a cosmic accident than anything else, perhaps even a creature that we learn is essentially trapped within itself, unable to change it's nature or do anything other than continue to pursue the same ends, over and over again, eliminating free will and choices along the way, WINNOWING down the time-lines and literally closing in around Bray as he imposed a single interpretation of the universe, leaving us with one, haunted, broken time-line. The Final Shape. And that WE were the philosophical answer to that winnowing question; living, striving, struggling, awoken beings with an absolute capacity to write our own destinies, to create choice and action from nothing at all, to give birth to new time-lines by making new choices that ought to be impossible. To, as the Gardener put it, make sure "Someone somewhere will be doing something new, all the time!" This would be the actual shape of the conflict, with the Witness devouring time-lines and the Guardians using human creativity and the power of paracasuality to fight back by expanding the scope of reality beyond it's previous definitions. To make new time-lines and perhaps even make the time-lines more difficult to consume. To fight back against a metaphysical cosmic predator. Also, I thought we were going to flip Xivu and convince her that her Destiny was to fight to Witness forever, and then find some way to separate them and their war from the rest of reality or to contain them within a pocket dimension, something like that. Anyways.... just some thoughts.
The theory that Ghosts were of the Pyramid race is a theory I have thought of for a long while, but the point you made at 23:01 out the nail in the coffin for me. At least in the old story the Ghosts are the souls or copies of the Pyramid race, why else would they be called "Ghosts"? Now, I'm not sure but we'll see what Bungie has in store... if anything.
I'm convinced it was true at some point. There are too many good fitting puzzle pieces for me to not think the ghosts were the ancient race. Like, can the traveler just create sentient life? I've never seen it other than these ghosts. And why are they even called ghosts? That's not a very fitting name, unless they are actually ghosts of people... Something cool that kind of backs that up, is how the ghost is used as a conduit for the darkness by the witness so many times. You'd think the witness could just do it to anyone if the ghosts are so easily taken over, but he doesn't. Why are the ghosts so easily taken by darkness? Well... I have my theories now.
So I am typing before hearing what you are going to say about the context of that D1 clip. I can tell you right now, and if you ever want to know why please lmk : ) I believe that the Hive NetherRealms we learn about called throne worlds were described next to a comparison to the Vex spaces in the lore several times. With this being the case, those realms are inside the Traveler. Continuity has never been and issue in Bungie's mind with the community scratching their head for 10 years because of what we have always been going to find out in the end of Destiny "2", while 1 is cut off because of instructions we were given by a Time Traveler in known space, telling us to go to outside of (but actually it's the opposite because we are the dragon people that have the Awoken as wishful Bishops from The Books of Sorrow) known space to see whatever The Awoken were/are now. I believe that Bungies way of explaining by proxy Master Chiefs luck (via Cortana cutscene), Humanities luck returning twice (Collapses, but we exist inside of a shield system, shield world if you speak forerunner, and now what happens when a collapse happens inside of a black hole that is a already a collapse?), Humanities luck of having the aliens come to warn them before they tried entering the pyramid and releasing the Demon King within (via Bungie, Pathways into Darkness' narrative '93), potentially Marathon's plot as well, but the 3rd title explores a series of brain melting events that would be rectified by this theory. So anyways, if LZ, or Elsie's Beyond Light voice echoing inside of us and Osiris working with us through strand because those were actually the traditional views perspectives light subclasses, with arc as the third. Solar and Void are darkness classes. Beyond Light was the last uncommon way that English can be interpreted because of the precarious way that some adjectives and verbs combine. Beyond is that example, and it is just saying that this along with the other subclas, strand, were the ones obtained outside of the lights space. while the 3 from the taken king might seem to be similar. But the Travelers space is Vex space because of the efforts of Savathun and the Guardian initially, followed by the beings we see as hive gods, and there ironic enough (not actually irony) matching worm gods, or wyrm gods, as "humanities" relatives throught the Awoken narrative. No matter how much I know this is all my opinion, I will still say this, that this evil is the same thing same pattern seen in Halo macroscopically in lore. Life becomes dominant, toppled by a Viral mutation, may time and technology is a cog in this, then Cortanas/Forerunners autobots rise, but really because we get to see it in a screen it looks like everything is connected, life, robot/human life, artificial, and fully simulant potentially as a last one. I could go on for hours, and no one might see this. I have left a college degrees worth of context to keep an already all over the place perspective from someone who have 20 years of Bungie lore love, and never any outside perspectives to talk about it. I do listen to Byf and Myelin and anyone else brave enough to make lore videos, but it's one way. oh shwell. thanks for the content
Whether you are right or not ragrding this theory, one thing is clear: somewhere along the production of these last DLC's, something completely threw off Bungie's plans for what they wanted. The biggest evidence is the final shape being the last dlc of the series, when the original plan was for lightfall to cap off the series.
I was hoping for Pyramids to be Reapers for Destiny. The Traveler and Pyramids being mere chess pieces on the cosmic board of the Gardener and Winnower that is the universe. I was hoping Nezarc to be the king piece of the Winnower as the player Guardian is for the Gardener.
I feel the chess analogy still applies. Except the pyramid role is that of the black king, and the Traveler fills the role of white queen. The Winnower merged all his pawns into a queen tier chess piece while the gardener made all of its dead pawns into loyal knights.
I think you are actually just completely correct, but wrong about your foundation. What if there is no retcon, or newer story as you put it. I keep saying it and the lore always references this idea, how do we know what we know? What is fact versus interpretation, or even downright lies? Nimbus says "what if everything we have ever been told has been a lie?" I do not take any source at face value regardless of source, and our guardian is a manipulated tool. Context to keep us in check.
IMO The Black fleet dipping out of our galaxy doesn't make sense. what I think happened is that Savathun somehow pushed the Black fleet out of our Galaxy giving the Gardener enough time to heal and get stronger to then possible eventually defeat the Witness. Possibly as a future DLC or Episode we could see some of the old elements of the Pyramid race
I mean, we still know almost nothing about the Collapse at all. So that's why it doesn't make sense. We still have no idea what the heck even happened, like, at all.
This video can be also summarized to the sentence "Savathun was the real Gardener all along." by the way of saving the humanity. Just kidding. It would never cross my mind to stand still to observe sandbox in search of Dark Fleet pattern. And another revelation after years of Eldritch Theory - I might have forgotten the video where you say it, but Nezarec being worshiped by the ANCIENT humanity instead of our "solar", simultaneously BELONGING to its race is... a certainly cool twist. And like every cool stuff, that also means we don't deserve it because raid boss was needed and so the RNG machine choose him as the victim to kill and place as offering. Also, why revealing him in Vex network!? Actually the Ghosts being leftovers of ancient race and fusion of it with the Light can still happen. That would explain why the Witness was able to hijack our Ghost twice in Lightfall, it also happened in Shadowkeep and Arrivals and on few other occasions. There's a chance for a possible conflict between Ghosts and Guardians with Vanguard, with Zavala in center of it again (flashbacks to desk slam from Witch Queen and now insignificant, I guess, rant about stasis from Beyond Light). Tower and Last City citizens surely won't miss the occasion to spill the gossips and even do the lynch, similar to Fallen during Endless Night. But who am I kidding, the experience tells me this clearly won't ever happen or will get downgraded, flattened version for dummies.
29:54 - This is the only part of the video I disagree with, the rest of the video seems dead on. But at this time you say that his origins and species aren't known but it was in fact revealed in the written lore (I believe from the raid) that he was a Proto-Psion, and that ancient Psions worshipped him. Which is so much more cringe than what you've dug up here. It would be especially interesting if they had confirmed what they had been hinting at, which is that the Guardians are seriously not the good guys. You'd have to deal with the idea that you WEREN'T the servants of the Traveler, but the confused and misbegotten disciples of the Ghosts. It almost echoes some of the deep Halo lore, where the ancient species who gave life to the galaxy transformed themselves into dust (lots of "dust" in Destiny lore too) when the Forerunners betrayed them, only to return as the Flood. Instead here in Destiny, the bodies of the Pyramid race are ripped away, so the souls and minds left behind (and this is where you could explore some enabling reasons) were somehow about to reconstitute themselves as Ghosts, and simply picked up the desiccated corpses of the people of Earth because they happened to be there at the time, or whatever reasoning you prefer. But the idea that we were left there as "Guardians" to keep the Traveler HOSTAGE instead of as a protected sleeping deity... that would have been chef's kiss. But it would have been good fun to dive deep on a real "monster in the mirror" moment as we realize that the Fallen and the Cabal actually are the heroes of the story, fighting a hopeless battle to save the Traveler from us. The Cabal have been victims of the Hive who are servants of the Pyramid Race, I'm fine with all of this stuff, but they have come here to claim the Traveler for themselves to re-take their homeworld. And then you have the Fallen who are just trying to survive and reclaim some shred of their former glory, but instead end up being hunted by us for centuries as refugees squatting on OUR alien worlds. You still get to have the Hive as these bad guys off to the side and the Vex as interstellar interlopers with their own bone to pick with the Traveler (I actually like their self-actualizing motivations, personally. The idea that in addition to this great war between Gardener and Winnower, you have this race of time-traveling robots who are rapidly transforming themselves into the equivalent of cosmic pests) but at the end of the day the core story is actually about Humanity realizing they have become monsters and then CHOOSING A NEW DESTINY for themselves, at which point you could have the Gardener awaken and bless humanity.
@@Venextron You know what? Maybe not lol. It's possible that the worship was purely cultural since the "horns" Psions have are merely helmets that appear to mimic the appearance of Nezarec's very real horns. But the basic argument goes like this: There is dialogue in the game that confirms that the Psions at one point had worshipped Nezarec. (part of some of the unintelligible whispers you hear around Neomuna, which can be heard as translated communications if you are wearing Nezarec's Sin, Nezarec's Whisper, or Delicate Tomb) Nezarec's Sin is a void based exotic Psions have always wielded void energy The Tormentors, who also seem closely tied to Nezarec, mysteriously wield void as well So there is at barely minimum a cultural connection, but enough to at least imply that Nezzy might have once been Psion, even if he ISN'T one any more. Perhaps the horns are a result of a transformation that the Psions who worship him wish to emulate?
Enjoyed the snark towards Savathun throughout the video. Other than that, as a fellow pyramid obsessor, I definitely feel you. I do wish we could've gotten this instead of what we currently got, and I still question many times why the frick they didn't go with ideas they initially had, when it was what the story needed and it was way cooler.
Man I fucking love what you do with these videos, and you do a great job piecing all the parts together It's such a shame what D2 lore has become, I don't think the original lead writers are even at Bungie anymore And I will get hate for this, but it's clear the current writers have an agenda, all main antagonists have been women, and most male characters have been either scrutinized, turned gay or just flat out forgotten D2 lore now is just a fanfiction, they messed the hype regarding the pyramids and the darkness and turned it into the most lame, generic and boring villain I've seen in my long 15 years of gaming; I don't trust them to make of the Final Shape the expansion it deserves and needs to be They need to add more enemy races, the in-game world has gotten smaller, all Hive gods are pretty much defeated, there's no more high ranking Cabal nor Fallen, the Vex are still cool I'll give them that tho, the Taken don't make sense anymore as they've had like more than 10 masters or something, and the Scorn are still just zombie Fallen Lightfall was the perfect time to introduce the 5th race we all had been waiting for 10 years
So humanity believed the Traveler defeated the black fleet, when in fact it was the Gardener making a compromise with the Winnower that she would no longer directly influence humanity. She created the ghosts from the souls of the pyramid race, and that caused the Winnower to leave, knowing that all the pieces to the flower game were now in motion. Would the Gardener finally win? It seemed like even the Winnower was intrigued by the possibility. At the end of the final shape. The game pans to a brother and sister sitting at a table. The sister has the Traveler. The brother has the pyramid ships. He congratulates her strategic playstyle and then they pack the game away and the credits roll. XD I would not be OK with this ending.
So we were alive during the great collapse under King Nezarak, wiped out by the traveler, and brought back from ghosts as guardians to fight what we were originally aligned with?
Great work! I prefer the original story as you have elaborated on, as I have felt there has been no true development with The Witness. I would rather fight Xivu in Final Shape, to be honest. A question has formed in my mind since Bungie announced the original trilogy to end the Light vs Dark saga: what is the point of Destiny without Light vs Dark? If you ask me, ever since Destiny's massive shuffle post "Supercut", this narrative seems to go linear enough to suck you in (tractor beam ------÷) but then it just...collapses. (Pun kind of intended, but sincerely). The true way for Destiny to uphold its meaning is to be universally infinite. It goes on and on without answering all questions, hence why it keeps going. For the Light vs Dark to end means no Destiny. But perhaps it'll just be Light AND Dark, where the beholder makes the choice depending on perception, but see, without a VS, there's no conflict. If there's no conflict, WTF are we Guardians for?? Anyway, great deep dive on everything. Keep it up!
This is mad speculation not like impossible that this was the intent of the story at one point but idk if I entirely buy that Nezarec was the original leader of the Pyramids
@@Venextron thank you. And thank you for these videos. Great listen at work and you're not afraid to speculate heavily. Nobody really does it like you have. Subbed.
If you are right,and you made a very good argument . Then the story is an even bigger downgrade than I speculated. My biggest theory was that Rhulk was orgianlaly going to be Nezarak reborn.
This sounds to me like half and hour of you whining that your fan fiction didn’t come true like this is such an egotistical and narcissistic sounding attitude bros gotta stop doing the “I’m right I’m right” shit it’s so annoying
