(While we're doing references, this is basically what the anti-spirals in Gurren Lagann did, although IIRC they didn't have a good reason, they just liked spiral people suffering.)

Ok, no, that's not right at all. The Anti-Spiral make it pretty clear what their reasons are for making the Spiral races suffer. They discovered that unchecked Spiral power would bring about the end of the universe and so to prevent that from happening, stop their evolution from continuing while knocking any other Spiral races down to keep their power in check.

sorry, it's been a couple years since I watched it
so yeah, exactly what the anti-spirals were doing

The key for the Darkness in Destiny is if the Light has the ability to create new energy / matter. If so, they yeah, farming them might be a good long term strategy. If not, then even slowly farming them will still end with all the universe’s resources being used up and all races turning on each other.

We have some guy assert something, then Zero comes on and just takes a dump all over that assertion.

6 minutes, 8 minutes if I can get Blue Apron to give us money for an ad read zero destroys.

(While we're doing references, this is basically what the anti-spirals in Gurren Lagann did, although IIRC they didn't have a good reason, they just liked spiral people suffering.)

Ok, no, that's not right at all. The Anti-Spiral make it pretty clear what their reasons are for making the Spiral races suffer. They discovered that unchecked Spiral power would bring about the end of the universe and so to prevent that from happening, stop their evolution from continuing while knocking any other Spiral races down to keep their power in check.

Ultimately, I think the Hive are doomed one way or the other. If the Light defeats the Darkness then the Hive lose. If the Darkness defeats the Light and there is nothing left to kill then the Hive's worm gods will turn on them and they still lose.

Why couldn't they just allow the Light to still exist, but make sure it's beaten down, always weak and suffering and running? They could create a balance of terror, if you will. (While we're doing references, this is basically what the anti-spirals in Gurren Lagann did, although IIRC they didn't have a good reason, they just liked spiral people suffering.)

I would say the Vex understand that the Light and Darkness exist but maybe they want to go their own way. Even though they recognized that both killing and worshiping the Darkness could grant them power, we are specifically told:

Being an efficient machine, Quria manufactured a priesthood and ordered all its subminds to believe in worship. Then it set about abducting and killing dangerous organisms so it could bootstrap itself to Hive godhood. For some Vex reason, Quria never attempted to introduce worm larvae into its mind fluid.

Ultimately, I think the Hive are doomed one way or the other. If the Light defeats the Darkness then the Hive lose. If the Darkness defeats the Light and there is nothing left to kill then the Hive's worm gods will turn on them and they still lose. It seems to me that maybe the Vex were smart enough to tap into the power of the Darkness without tying themselves directly to it. If the Darkness loses, the Vex just have one less powerful enemy.

As for the Cabal, most of them do seem to be separate from this whole Light / Darkness thing. They conquered races through sheer numbers and tactics and willingness to destroy entire systems if things didn't go their way. That said, Gary certainly saw Humanity's Guardians and aspired to be like that. Worse, Calus seems to have directly encountered the Darkness as is leading it to our solar system:

At the edge of the universe, I stared into the infinite deep. It stared back, and was pleased. I would become the herald of its victory, and bear witness for all creation.

The Leviathan came to a halt before a wall of infinite void. It could go no further, as the navigation system had suffered a cataclysmic failure. The course that the conspirators had set crossed a space that simply didn't exist.

I don't know how long we traveled. Years? Millennia? Time had ceased to have meaning as I wallowed in the despair of my exile. But this event shook me out of my stupor. At the edge of the universe, we had found something. No—we had found a nothing.

From the seat of my observation chamber, I stared into the perfect void. Only I, a god, could understand what I witnessed. It was a thing greater than myself. And if such a thing exists, then I, too, can become more.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/physicists-find-we-re-not-living-in-a-computer-simulation

The little note at the end of the article is kind of obvious and also a gigantic caveat to the claim.

I don't see how the simulation hypothesis could possibly be disproven, really.

Ever since the Vex were introduced, before the first game even came out, people have been asking "why haven't they won already if they can simulate anything?".

Because they can't simulate everything.

well yeah, exactly
the question is why?
"because Light" is the usual answer (which I mentioned in the second half of the post), but most humans aren't connected to the Light, and none of the other races we've met are currently connected to it

I feel like almost all the races have some connection to the light or darkness. I mean, the hive, obviously. The fallen used to weld the light before they were abandoned, so they might not be able to be simulated. I don't know about the Cabal, they are the one race that is still kinda a mystery to me. I feel like the Vex (or the Hive) could have walked over them.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/physicists-find-we-re-not-living-in-a-computer-simulation

The little note at the end of the article is kind of obvious and also a gigantic caveat to the claim.

I don't see how the simulation hypothesis could possibly be disproven, really.

Ever since the Vex were introduced, before the first game even came out, people have been asking "why haven't they won already if they can simulate anything?".

Because they can't simulate everything.

well yeah, exactly
the question is why?
"because Light" is the usual answer (which I mentioned in the second half of the post), but most humans aren't connected to the Light, and none of the other races we've met are currently connected to it

Even if they could, it wouldn't necessarily imply that they win; it could be that all choices end with them being limited by terrestrial bullets. Maybe the Vex just really suck, you know?

it's the Batman argument: if you have infinite time to prepare and endless resources, or even just functionally infinite time and practically endless resources, can you do things like find anything, go anywhere, fix or break whatever you want, cheat death, subvert physics, conquer worlds, and kill gods? Destiny would seem to say "yes"

That's what Failsafe say the vex call us, anyway.

Osiris theorized it years before, as well:

I don’t know where you have gone, but I can no longer send Ghosts out to find you. Some come back— with tales of your death or how you went seeking answers from the far reaches of space and time. That you found a way to explore the Vex gate networks. That you've made breakthrough after breakthrough as to their origins— theories that a Guardian could not be simulated, that the Traveler might be an ontoformer or a god-incubator, that the Vex had diverged into multiple groups in order to secure 'an end state for every possible configuration of reality.’

With any luck we’ll know more soon!

https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/physicists-find-we-re-not-living-in-a-computer-simulation

Ever since the Vex were introduced, before the first game even came out, people have been asking "why haven't they won already if they can simulate anything?".

I figured the "Many Worlds" interpretation of Quantum Mechanics was true in the Destiny universe. We happen to be in one where the Vex don't win.

that's incredibly unlikely, and I see no reason why the Vex would have to rely on quantum phenomena to win, they're pretty clearly capable

You also get "Quantum Immortality" in such a scenario. Probably how we are able to do all this stuff and never die.

that's not how Guardians work

I think the main limitation of the Vex, and most of the Destiny universe is that empires don't seem to be that good at violence. The Hive, those omnicidal maniacs, still just run at you with hordes of thrall while the knights occasionally shoot from the rear. They just seem inferior to most modern military forces.

Good point. Also, their bodies are quite inferior to Exos. Slow, jerky movements, with their vitals unprotected. You would think that if they were thousands or millions of years old, they would have developed better motor skills. Perhaps that's not a priority since they can teleport across space and time.

IIRC, the lore of the vex is that they don't actually have or use proper weapons. They're shooting us with the tools they use to build their machine worlds. Welding torches and what ever else they had around. My point being that what we're fighting are not, expressly, combat units armed for battle, but rather the maintenance crew building a new computer. This is just Joe from IT. Wait until Maya the super-soldier shows up. That'll be a real fight.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/

I think it's more a limitation of AI for the mobs in game. Advancing while slowly firing their weapons just isn't impressive. Even then, the fact that most of them can be defeated by bullets, and humans are very good at shooting lots of bullets, still leaves them at a disadvantage.

Well of course that's the real-world explanation. I'm talking about the gamey-explanation where its fun to run around and feel like a super hero. In-game, I'm pretty sure they would OHK non-guardians, so they wouldn't actually be that ineffective and being slow isn't really an issue. Against the light, though, they are outmatched in low numbers. In the real world, it's a very different game to play against snipers that zero in on you from across the map with deadly accuracy (Halo 2 Jackals?). I wouldn't say it's AI limitation though. I'm pretty sure they could make the AI 95% accurate and fire much faster and then we'd be hosed. I forget who said it, but I remember a Bungie member commenting that it's more fun to have lots of energy pulses flying in your face with less damage than having one really deadly attack hit you occasionally. I'm pretty sure Bungie took this to heart in Destiny.

I've often wondered about a sci fi universe that has most other life forms never develop long range weapons, given that those species don't have the hand eye coordination or hunting techniques that humans evolved. Instead every other race tries to close in and claw each other to death with various exotic melee weapons. Then humans come in shooting everything and it throws this massive monkey wrench into the galactic civilization. Too bad I never have time to write it up.

This sounds like a fun piece of fiction.

To me it seems like the "skill" of the enemies seems limited because we're guardians. Against regular humans, I'm pretty sure they would crush us. Maybe they're all super deadly, but we're just that good.

I think it's more a limitation of AI for the mobs in game. Advancing while slowly firing their weapons just isn't impressive. Even then, the fact that most of them can be defeated by bullets, and humans are very good at shooting lots of bullets, still leaves them at a disadvantage.

I've often wondered about a sci fi universe that has most other life forms never develop long range weapons, given that those species don't have the hand eye coordination or hunting techniques that humans evolved. Instead every other race tries to close in and claw each other to death with various exotic melee weapons. Then humans come in shooting everything and it throws this massive monkey wrench into the galactic civilization. Too bad I never have time to write it up.

Without their in game "I win" buttons like the Totems or Oryx superweapon or the unknown VoG superweapons, most of the Destiny races don't seem very capable.

To me it seems like the "skill" of the enemies seems limited because we're guardians. Against regular humans, I'm pretty sure they would crush us. Maybe they're all super deadly, but we're just that good.

I think a key issue for the vex are us guardians and the traveler, as we can't be simulated. Oryx is similar

Yeah, this definitely puts a hamper in any plans they can make if they can't account for their primary adversaries.

I think the main limitation of the Vex, and most of the Destiny universe is that empires don't seem to be that good at violence. The Hive, those omnicidal maniacs, still just run at you with hordes of thrall while the knights occasionally shoot from the rear. They just seem inferior to most modern military forces.

Good point. Also, their bodies are quite inferior to Exos. Slow, jerky movements, with their vitals unprotected. You would think that if they were thousands or millions of years old, they would have developed better motor skills. Perhaps that's not a priority since they can teleport across space and time.

Without their in game "I win" buttons like the Totems or Oryx superweapon or the unknown VoG superweapons, most of the Destiny races don't seem very capable.

I mean the Vex probably have other issues, in that they have to avoid any realities where they meet the Darkness head on, since it will just destroy them utterly, but I have to think that even with time travel and very good prediction software they still must have issues with just not being very capable of violence.