What does it mean to be "Locked out of time" (Destiny)

by Durandal, Saturday, April 11, 2015, 01:38 (3321 days ago)

The Vex "Locked the Black Garden out of time". The Gatelords purpose is to manage the Vex teleportation network and guard the realms the Vex "lock out" of time.

But what does that really mean? When you free the Black Garden from the grip of the Vex and the Heart of Darkness all that seems to happen is that the lights turn on and Ghost can communicate again with the tower. It doesn't seem very special.

Likewise Golden Age humanity built a college practically on top of the entrance to the Vault of Glass and the Endless Steps, two major Vex installations. Why didn't they ever enter either? Surely the Vault Door is easy enough to break open given sufficient fire power. If the normal Vex computronium can be shattered by geologic events then some heavy explosives should do in a pinch. Is the Vault also locked out of time?

If you imagine a 2D graph, with the x axis as position, and the y axis as time, a 45 degree cone contains all the possible locations an object can have and not exceed the speed of light.

However, as you enter regions of increased gravity, the cone starts to tilt due to the distortion in the shape of space. With enough distortions it is possible to have a cone tilted such that an object can move down the y axis, and thus backwards in time.

You could also manipulate things such that a point in space could not be reached, because every attempt would land you back where you started. imagine instead of a series of cones looping back to move in time, they form an S curve. Thus no matter how fast an object moved, it could never reach the point concealed in the S, instead always under or over shooting it.

Thus without the Gatelord's codes, you could never reach the Black Garden because you could not physically move to it. It is the ultimate security. The Vex can then access the locked region via a wormhole/portal without worrying about someone else happening along.

The only issue is from the fluff we know the Golden Age Humans knew about the Black Garden, and that Rasputin fought the Darkness there. It is possible then, the Darkness attempted to use the Garden as a fortress. A place to launch attacks from and then retire behind a nearly insurmountable defense. We know the Darkness can teleport, also from Rasputin's cards. it is possible he found a way to replicate that feat and bring his own doomsday weapons to bear. It also makes sense then why the Darkness would return there after the final battle and not some conventional location like the Traveler and the city.

Bonus question:

In Destiny, is it a many worlds interpretation or a singular universe? The vault likes to use many phrases like "times ocean" and tapestry, that indicate that there are multiple universes like the Sliders TV show. The Future War Cult also has a machine that allows people to view multiple different futures.

Yet the Exo Stranger cards seem to indicate that there is one time line that she keeps looping through. One set of events over and over and over again. How can the Vex Oracles and Medusa "edit" you out of existence if they just keep making an alternate timeline?