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The Darkness. (Bring Reading Glasses) (Destiny)

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Sunday, January 25, 2015, 14:15 (3382 days ago)

Looking at my Grimore cards (which I never do) to check to see what +5 glimmer bonuses I have unlocked, and I happened upon the cards for the Darkness. WOW.

WOW.WOW.WOW.WOW.

This... this is really good. Why are they hiding this stuff? Whatever. Bungie I love ya - but you are dumb. Really really dumb. I don't even care if a deadline Eff'ed ya over.

I'm going to start quoting stuff verbatim now because "no one" will read it otherwise - which is a travesty. After that - maybe we will discuss it. Whoa. Discussing about Story? ... in Destiny?!
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The Darkness

Something hit us. Killed our Golden Age. Nearly wiped us out. Only the Traveler saved us, and at a shattering cost.

The Speaker tells of a cosmic force that swept over us and caused the Collapse. Legend calls it the Darkness, the Traveler's ancient enemy, which hunted it across space.

All we have left are questions. Centuries of debate gave birth to competing arguments on the nature of the Darkness and the Collapse.

The Pujari Position describes the Darkness as a force with both physical and moral presence, an actualization of evil. Pujari art depicts the Darkness as a great storm, or as a change in conduct, a corruption that emerged from within and poisoned the Golden Age.

Saint-14's Position argues that the Darkness was an invading armada, an alien force of incredible - but tangible - power. Some adherents believe that this armada sprang from species rejected or discarded by the Traveler for their sins.

Ulan-Tan's Thesis considers the Darkness a necessary symmetry to the Traveler in a cosmic balance. In this view, the Traveler's goodness led it to sacrifice for others, and it is up to us to return this goodness by healing the Traveler.

The Monist Position, or the Deflationary Position, considers the Darkness as a technologically sophisticated force, perhaps a post-Singularity intelligence. Adherents invoke information theory or contend that the universe is a simulation, allowing advanced intelligence to gain weakly acausal powers by bending the rules.

The Acataleptic Clause claims that we are intrinsically unable to understand the Darkness. In many respects this belief parallels the Praxic Creed, which suggests that we should stop worrying about the nature of the Darkness and focus on resisting and defeating it.

Certain positions - often labeled heretical - imply that the Traveler itself triggered the Collapse, or that it knew the Darkness was coming for it and hoped to use the Solar System as a sacrifice or a proxy army. The Binary Star cult is one notable example.

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GHOST FRAGMENT: DARKNESS 2
Dreams of Alpha Lupi
The universe is a beast.

The body is made from tiny stuff, from near-nothings. From atoms swimming through a blood of crackling sparks. Simple, eternal Laws shape the beast. The largest galaxy is ruled by principles of mass and motion. Electrons are slaves to charge and to chance. And this is why the universe feels inexhaustible, eternal.

No sun complains about its death. Life is the problem. Life can be woven from flesh or circuit or thoughtful light. Origins don't matter. But small, half-smart creatures have a fierce talent for denying the inevitable, for balking and complaining about injustices that don't exist and consequences that should be borne in silence.

----

GHOST FRAGMENT: DARKNESS 3
From the Journals of Toland, the Shattered
I drive myself to the edge of madness trying to explain the truth.

It's so simple. Elegant like a knife point. It explains - this is not hyperbole, this is the farthest thing from exaggeration - EVERYTHING.

But you lay it out and they stare at you like you've just been exhaling dust. Maybe they're missing some underlying scaffold of truth. Maybe they are all propped on a bed of lies that must be burned away.

Why does anything exist?

No no no no no don't reach for that word. There's no 'reason'. That's teleology and teleology will stitch your eyelids shut.

Why do we have atoms? Because atomic matter is more stable than the primordial broth. Atoms defeated the broth. That was the first war. There were two ways to be and one of them won. And everything that came next was made of atoms.

Atoms made stars. Stars made galaxies. Worlds simmered down to rock and acid and in those smoking primal seas the first living molecule learned to copy itself. All of this happened by the one law, the blind law, which exists without mind or meaning. It's the simplest law but it has no worshippers here (out there, though, out there - !)

HOW DO I EXPLAIN IT it's so simple WHY DON'T YOU SEE

Imagine three great nations under three great queens. The first queen writes a great book of law and her rule is just. The second queen builds a high tower and her people climb it to see the stars. The third queen raises an army and conquers everything.

The future belongs to one of these queens. Her rule is harshest and her people are unhappy. But she rules.

This explains everything, understand? This is why the universe is the way it is, and not some other way. Existence is a game that everything plays, and some strategies are winners: the ability to exist, to shape existence, to remake it so that your descendants - molecules or stars or people or ideas - will flourish, and others will find no ground to grow.

And as the universe ticks on towards the close, the great players will face each other. In the next round there will be three queens and all of them will have armies, and now it will be a battle of swords - until one discovers the cannon, or the plague, or the killing word.

Everything is becoming more ruthless and in the end only the most ruthless will remain (LOOK UP AT THE SKY) and they will hunt the territories of the night and extinguish the first glint of competition before it can even understand what it faces or why it has transgressed. This is the shape of victory: to rule the universe so absolutely that nothing will ever exist except by your consent. This is the queen at the end of time, whose sovereignty is eternal because no other sovereign can defeat it. And there is no reason for it, no more than there was reason for the victory of the atom. It is simply the winning play.

Of course, it might be that there was another country, with other queens, and in this country they sat down together and made one law and one tower and one army to guard their borders. This is the dream of small minds: a gentle place ringed in spears.

But I do not think those spears will hold against the queen of the country of armies. And that is all that will matter in the end.

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GHOST FRAGMENT: DARKNESS 4

This war is all there is for you.

What else do you have? You walk among mortals and immortals, a creature lost in time. Your only purpose is the struggle.

Does it seem unfair? To be brought back into this, the end of days, the long dwindling exhalation of an ancient corpse? You were at peace. Now you are a dead husk charged with war. Do you remember anything of freedom?

Fight on, then. The war IS everything.

But consider the choices before you.

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[image]

To whoever wrote this.

[image]

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The Darkness. (Bring Reading Glasses)

by RaichuKFM @, Northeastern Ohio, Sunday, January 25, 2015, 14:45 (3382 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

Yeah, those cards and those about The Traveler are some of the best.

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'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Sunday, January 25, 2015, 14:47 (3382 days ago) @ RaichuKFM

- No text -

The Darkness. (Bring Reading Glasses)

by Monochron, Sunday, January 25, 2015, 15:03 (3382 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

Maybe, if we're lucky, someone will make a video game out of this :P

we have not lived nor fought in vain

by General Battuta, Sunday, January 25, 2015, 15:46 (3381 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

Knowing that people appreciated the work in these cards means a lot.

Surprised you didn't include Ghost Fragment: Darkness 1, but I guess everyone's seen that one.

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I hope ye shall have a new birth of freedom, should it come.

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Sunday, January 25, 2015, 15:59 (3381 days ago) @ General Battuta

Knowing that people appreciated the work in these cards means a lot.

Surprised you didn't include Ghost Fragment: Darkness 1, but I guess everyone's seen that one.

Affirmative.

Not just the work - the potential. The potential energy of these mass of words (a system made to the configuration of its parts) for which nothing has yet acted on for the minds eye to see blatantly, but for now only imagine.

...Or something like that. ;)

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The cards are so good. I hope we get more

by Spec ops Grunt @, Broklahoma, Sunday, January 25, 2015, 16:00 (3381 days ago) @ General Battuta

like for exotic armor wink wink nudge nudge

Future effort better spent on campaign story

by scarab @, Monday, January 26, 2015, 09:43 (3381 days ago) @ Spec ops Grunt
edited by scarab, Monday, January 26, 2015, 09:47

didn't mean that past effort was a waste or not appreciated.

It's not just the Darkness ones

by Dagoonite, Somewhere in Iowa, lost in a cornfield., Sunday, January 25, 2015, 16:14 (3381 days ago) @ General Battuta

There's so many cards that are well-written that I can't help but love them. The Vex ones are just bone chilling to me.

It's not just the Darkness ones

by TheGhostBrigade, Sunday, January 25, 2015, 16:45 (3381 days ago) @ Dagoonite

The Vex Precursors and Descendants especially intrigue me. More specifically because they suggest a very dark future for the world of Destiny. I hate that so much of this story is left untold.

I've scrolled through the grimoire many times but I've never really seen anything that connects the various enemies in the game directly to the darkness, save for the black garden. What is their purpose? Are they just scavengers following in its wake? Could any of them be swayed to our side?

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It's not just the Darkness ones

by Durandal, Monday, January 26, 2015, 05:46 (3381 days ago) @ TheGhostBrigade

Ikora wonders about the Vex being able to use their gates to enter Crota's realm, or that of the other hive deities.

I've often wondered about the hive. They worship these higher deities, but Crota and his ilk don't seem as powerful as the titular Darkness. Also, the hive have been following the darkness and seen thousands of worlds destroyed by it, yet there is no indication that they have been ravaged by it as the forsaken and cabal seem to have been.

In the fluff, darkness and light are both the names for forces, and forces in and of themselves. The hive uses darkness, but it may or may not be allied with THE DARKNESS.

Are the hive like remora, parasites feeding off the scraps left by The Darkness? If so, will they react violently to the Vex attempting to integrate themselves with their host?

Have other "queens" hidden themselves from the Darkness in a closed pocket universe?

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It's not just the Darkness ones

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, January 26, 2015, 06:30 (3381 days ago) @ Durandal

The Exo Stranger said the Vex are an evil so dark they hate other evil. I would guess that the Hive would not take kindly to their planets or other realms being Vexified. One might even wonder if the Vex's worship of The Darkness is real or just a cover for their Vault of Glass universe rewrite project.

It's not just the Darkness ones

by yakaman, Monday, January 26, 2015, 06:37 (3381 days ago) @ Ragashingo

The Exo Stranger said the Vex are an evil so dark they hate other evil.

I've always wondered if this was a veiled reference to guardians (i.e. beings of light) as being evil. Meaning, the Vex hate us, who are evil of a different sort. It goes along with something the Stranger says later in that scene, something like...

...a side should always be chosen, even if it's the wrong one...

Obviously, very subjective.

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It's not just the Darkness ones

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, January 26, 2015, 07:02 (3381 days ago) @ yakaman

Watch her eyes when she says that too. She looks away as if she is troubled and uncertain. As if she perhaps thinks she (at one time?) choose a wrong side. She is pretty clearly a time traveler based on that one Grimoire card... So maybe she choose a wrong side (which? The Darkness?!) but later realized her error and has come back to try and correct her mistake?

A lot of people dislike that cutscene because very little is explained but I love it because so much is hinted at without using words. :)

It's not just the Darkness ones

by yakaman, Monday, January 26, 2015, 14:22 (3381 days ago) @ Ragashingo

She is pretty clearly a time traveler based on that one Grimoire card...

Wait, what?

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Ghost Fragment: The Exo Stranger

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, January 26, 2015, 16:15 (3380 days ago) @ yakaman

- No text -

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It's not just the Darkness ones

by Durandal, Monday, January 26, 2015, 08:33 (3381 days ago) @ Ragashingo

I think the VEX are non-native to the Sol system, but knew this day was coming. They knew the darkness would be here, be weakened here, and that would be the opportunity for them to integrate with it.

If they had spawned here, and left millennia ago, why not Vexform the whole system? Why wait until now? They needed the Traveler to come and work her magic. She was the bait. Add in a surprise attack just as the Darkness breaches the system to ensure humanity's forces are weakened enough to stop but not destroy the Darkness and then they could make their move.

We assume this is the Vex and darkness first encounter, but it isn't. They have iterated just like the Exo Stranger until they found a way to influence the darkness. What the players experience now is an informed Vex mind implementing a long term plan with future knowledge.

If only the Exo Stranger would stop interfering!

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It's not just the Darkness ones

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, January 26, 2015, 10:29 (3381 days ago) @ Durandal

There's got to be at least some truth to that. We know, for instance, that the Vex mysteriously have some of their machines or tech within all our planets. We know that the Ishtar Collective on Venus were studying nearby Vex ruins, had somehow mapped the Vault of Glass, and even had a Vex unit which they were running test on... or was running test on them...That means the Vex were here at some point before our Golden Age.

Also recall the Mercury Grimoire card... It's part of the Dreams of Alpha Lupi series, with Alpha Lupi almost certainly being The Traveler:

One face blistered, the other plunged into a brutal chill. Is this how it's always been?

You remember hot oceans, nourishing atmosphere. But something transpired, kicked what was wet and fertile into space, stealing away everything of value. Or perhaps what thrived here for a day or for ten million years decided to leave, peeling its wet organics off the bones.

In one of the mission opens our Ghost even mentions that the Vex had begun to take over Venus (around the time The Darkness attacked?) but The Traveler stopped them. Of course we aren't told how it did so... One question that should come up is: If the Vex have some time travel capabilities, and if Humanity (being the heroes of the story) will eventually succeed and survive and thrive, might the Vex eventually switch to our side and help us defeat The Darkness? What about the Fallen or Cabal who both seem more in it for themselves and their own survival instead of being allied with a force of evil?

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It's not just the Darkness ones

by Durandal, Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 04:23 (3380 days ago) @ Ragashingo

Curious, I had forgotten that part. If my recollection is correct, mercury never was in a position to have a habitable atmosphere or liquid water. Early in the solar systems formation the sun would be hotter, further blistering Mercury and preventing any accumulation of water, plus lots of bombardment from stellar debris.

Unless it is an extra solar capture? It seems tough to assume it had a further orbit and migrated inward, even though Jupiter did that at one point due to resonance with Saturn.

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It's not just the Darkness ones

by Vortech @, A Fourth Wheel, Monday, January 26, 2015, 11:35 (3381 days ago) @ Durandal

Are the hive like remora, parasites feeding off the scraps left by The Darkness? If so, will they react violently to the Vex attempting to integrate themselves with their host?

That's the fallen as far as I read it. Scavengers that follow around the forces of darkness picking the bones.

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