Thinking about how one might trigger additional chests/content in the VOC, and I remembered discussion here about the clues in the carnage reports.

For instance, the Templar chest spawns when there are zero templar teleports.

On the Atheon wipe screen, there is a stat of number of Times Vengeance's.

What if killing Atheon without a time's vengeance triggers something, and we just haven't found it yet, bc everyone that was cheesing him was just interested in farming? The game doesn't end right away, and you are stuck in the vault (for 9 minutes and 20 seconds, then you succumb to the darkness; MasterNoodle timed it the other day).

Someone mentioned on reddit the other day (i have yet to try this, and now i can't find the post) that if you grab the relic and ignore all the oracles you can escape the portal without a time's vengeance (since time's vengeance is tied to killing oracles. I would like to see proof of this, but if true, it would make the encounter with atheon more difficult, but keep the time's vengeance stat at 0.

Maybe bungie patched the cheese before other glaring problems b/c it triggers something.

anyone else have any good brainstorming ideas?

Someone mentioned on reddit the other day (i have yet to try this, and now i can't find the post) that if you grab the relic and ignore all the oracles you can escape the portal without a time's vengeance (since time's vengeance is tied to killing oracles. I would like to see proof of this, but if true, it would make the encounter with atheon more difficult, but keep the time's vengeance stat at 0.

This is 100% true. I know this because that's what my group was trying the first time we did the raid and nobody knew what to do. We kept dying to the oracles (it felt like they appeared way too fast to be killed), so we would just kill the Vex, grab the relic, and hightail it out of there.

That didn't work so well when we were all 26 because it was hard to do damage to Atheon, but if you get a group of 30s to do it on Normal mode? Who knows, worth a try!

This is some good thinking.

I'm intrigued by this theory. I had the same experience as Cody on my first attempt at the raid. We just grabbed the relic and ran out the gate as fast as we could. We did very little damage to Atheon, but I'm sure we could kill him eventually.

Worth a try ...

This thought had crossed my mind, but hadn't given it much thought in relation to the carnage screen specifically.

My original thinking for dismissing this is it seems like Time's Vengance is something to be taken advantage of, rather than something to be avoided like the teleportations. But that may be the reason right there, to beat it at a disadvantage and then reap the reward. It isn't like stopping the templar from teleporting is exactly easy though either, if you do it the non-cheesy way. So making it harder may be the theme.

Taking it a step further the stats for the gorgon section of the raid show kills and time. Perhaps killing a gorgon, or a specific one, is the key to unlocking an extra chest for that section; or that in conjunction with some other action as well.

Has anyone investigated the red lights (one alone one pair) in Mars (& in the Vault)? What do the red lights in the vault do? I've also noticed that there are two portals on Mars. Is there any way to open the other portal on Mars? I imagine Venus is the same with lights & a second 'dead' portal, but I could be wrong.

I am NOT talking about the red lights on the alternate path to the templar.

I've also noticed that there are two portals on Mars. Is there any way to open the other portal on Mars?

the reason there are two portals is b/c you are not on Mars, you are still in the vault of glass, either in the future or the past. The spot that you are teleported to is the spot where atheon spawns. You fight your way back to the gate. If you notice, the geometry is all the same. There is the center platform where people like to shoot atheon from, and the triangle door that you came in from is behind it.

How have I never noticed this? No wonder it's so confusing when the portal fails to send me back to the present.

So, if it's the same place, only a different time... are there working sync plates behind (in front of?) the portals?

the plates are there, i don't know if they work.

Might be worth checking out. Also interesting that Atheon isn't in the future, or past, just the present.

Wonder if there's anything special about it? I mean besides the Traveler and all that? You know, like November 5th, 1955?