It's a live game with strong MMO-leanings. (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Sunday, September 16, 2018, 15:19 (2041 days ago) @ Harmanimus

A theory derived from Lore. Nothing explicitly within the Lore states that every player Guardian is actually the same Guardian. But it is a conclusion that derives from Lore pretty easily and has yet to be contradicted in Lore (pending if there is anything counter to it within Forsaken) so take that as you will. It also supports all the in game storytelling better than other explanations (excluding this chnage to storytelling with LW)

No. As much as I love a good theory, there's just absolutely no support for this one. There are no references or even implications that your Guardian and other Guardians are somehow the same Guardian.

All this is, is a minor storytelling failure where Bungie wants to both acknowledge each player's accomplishments and make them the most important player similar to how they were the Master Chief in Halo while also having Destiny be an always on MMO style game where you routinely encounter other players out in the wild.

If we're going to derive anything, we should start at the far more easily explained. For a bunch of Guardians showing up in the Reef after Cayde-6's death... it would make far more sense and fit far better with the Lore for our Guardian to perhaps go first but for a bunch more Guardians to hear about Cayde's murder and to quickly follow. (From Rezyl Azzir, to Osiris, to Ana Bray, we've seen Guardians go where they please often despite direct orders telling them not to. That makes far more sense than trying to say all Guardians are paracausally linked and merged and whatever...)

My favorite little moment in Destiny that opposes this theory is back in D1 around the time of The Taken King, you could walk by Lord Shaxx and he'd ask you something like "were you one of the ones who managed to kill Oryx?!" That's how I think things should always be. I'd like to see the story always written to leave the possibility open either way that you were or weren't one of the Guardians to do X. Bungie would have to alter the more personal revenge tale of Cayde-6's death... but just sticking a few other random Guardian models in the same room would have been enough to give the impression that this upset more Guardians than just yours.