The Flaw in the Evil Traveller Hypothesis

I've been forced to watch the Speaker's cutscene a lot in my Queens Bounty chase, and I've noticed that a lot of this cutscene is geared to making you love your Dinklebot - "Chose wisely", "We're in this together now", and the Ghosts are completely loyal to the Traveller. They even seem to have inside knowledge.

Now Cortana was a lot less likeable (in my opinion anyway) and certainly a lot more complex a character than the Ghost is. She was her own person with her own agency, which matched yours. The Ghosts are your servants, likeable, but still bound to you in a way Cortana is not.

If the Traveller is in fact responsible for the Darkness, or in some way allied with it, it would need to separate the Ghosts from that part of itself - the Ghosts are too subservient to be a satisfying shock if they suddenly turned out to all be evil masterminds.

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The other flaw is how predictable a plot twist that would be. The only way the 'traveler is evil' story would work is if it was it was the endgame to the whole shebang, 10 years down the road, and you'd spent much of your previous time building a positive ally relationship with the traveler and it's minions. Paradigm shifts are much more effective if you're really locked in to the original paradigm.

If they had included it in the shipped game right off the bat it would have fallen pretty flat I fear.

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The other flaw is how predictable a plot twist that would be.

This IS Destiny's story we're talking about ;)

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Touché.

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like actual factions like horde vs alliance

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I've been forced to watch the Speaker's cutscene a lot in my Queens Bounty chase, and I've noticed that a lot of this cutscene is geared to making you love your Dinklebot - "Chose wisely", "We're in this together now", and the Ghosts are completely loyal to the Traveller. They even seem to have inside knowledge.

Now Cortana was a lot less likeable (in my opinion anyway) and certainly a lot more complex a character than the Ghost is. She was her own person with her own agency, which matched yours. The Ghosts are your servants, likeable, but still bound to you in a way Cortana is not.

If the Traveller is in fact responsible for the Darkness, or in some way allied with it, it would need to separate the Ghosts from that part of itself - the Ghosts are too subservient to be a satisfying shock if they suddenly turned out to all be evil masterminds.

The thing is, even if the Traveler is the source of the Darkness, that doesn't necessarily make it evil, in the traditional sense. Things could be more complicated than that. And yes, I doubt the Ghosts would turn out to be lying and sinister, that would be silly.

I'm not sure that the Ghosts are our servants, considering that I spent the entire story basically taking orders from mine.

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The thing is, even if the Traveler is the source of the Darkness, that doesn't necessarily make it evil, in the traditional sense. Things could be more complicated than that. And yes, I doubt the Ghosts would turn out to be lying and sinister, that would be silly.

I'm not sure that the Ghosts are our servants, considering that I spent the entire story basically taking orders from mine.

I try to maintain the perspective that I am simply an agent of light, where light != good and darkness != evil. There are so many similarities between factions on both sides that I see no justification for light as right. We're shown so little about the world that I am not certain my motivations are appropriate beyond my own context.

Sure, I am fighting for the Traveller because (as presented) the Traveller is our salvation, and is therefore good in that limited sense.

Playing the Black Garden brings the Garden of Eden to mind, which offers a few lessons on duality; Adam vs Eve or Cane vs Abel.

Alternate possibilities spring to mind: what if the Traveller simply moves from system to system, looking for species to elevate for some purpose, to eventually harvest (via darkness) what it has sown. In this scenario, the Traveller has something to gain from each species it elevates and it takes what it needs with the darkness. Humanity reaches some milestone and the Traveller reaps (via darkness). We fight back and blow it up - leading to the current state of affairs.

All of this has been already discussed, but one possible excuse for the story being so thin is that our Ghost was purposefully keeping us in the dark (no pun intended).

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This is sounding too much like Mass Effect, with the reaping and the harvesting. I hope they don't go that route. I was willing to buy it once in that game, but it's kind of a silly explanation.

The thing is, even if the Traveler is the source of the Darkness, that doesn't necessarily make it evil, in the traditional sense. Things could be more complicated than that. And yes, I doubt the Ghosts would turn out to be lying and sinister, that would be silly.

I'm not sure that the Ghosts are our servants, considering that I spent the entire story basically taking orders from mine.

I try to maintain the perspective that I am simply an agent of light, where light != good and darkness != evil. There are so many similarities between factions on both sides that I see no justification for light as right. We're shown so little about the world that I am not certain my motivations are appropriate beyond my own context.

Sure, I am fighting for the Traveller because (as presented) the Traveller is our salvation, and is therefore good in that limited sense.

Playing the Black Garden brings the Garden of Eden to mind, which offers a few lessons on duality; Adam vs Eve or Cane vs Abel.

Alternate possibilities spring to mind: what if the Traveller simply moves from system to system, looking for species to elevate for some purpose, to eventually harvest (via darkness) what it has sown. In this scenario, the Traveller has something to gain from each species it elevates and it takes what it needs with the darkness. Humanity reaches some milestone and the Traveller reaps (via darkness). We fight back and blow it up - leading to the current state of affairs.

All of this has been already discussed, but one possible excuse for the story being so thin is that our Ghost was purposefully keeping us in the dark (no pun intended).

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