The Black Garden and Vex Hypothesis

I'm moderately tired of putting "Spoilers" in my titles, so turn back now if you haven't finished the story :)

As always, feel free to feed me information I don't have or seem to have missed.

I'm going to lay out a few points that I believe are rather factual, and draw a conclusion from it.

1. "The Gardener" is a name used by Rasputin to describe a being more powerful than himself. The Gardener also has the attributes of being Rasputin's enemie's enemy, and someone that did not "shrug off billions" in the previous war between The Traveler and The Darkness. I believe The Gardener is thus another name for The Traveler. It's also a more apt name if I might add.

2. The Vex have a strong associating with a location called the Black Garden. They worship a "heart" there that has some connection or tie to the Traveler such that killing or making the heart retreat will be a boon for the Traveler.

3. Are the Vex inherently evil, or purely "logical" ? According to the Grimoire, they are likely logical.

"It is my hypothesis - a hypothesis at best - that the Vex saw the abominable presence at the heart of the Garden as a divine power. I can hear your protest already: how can machines have a god?

The answer is simple. The Vex, for all their voracious intelligence, could not understand or decipher what they found. They searched through all available reactions, and they settled on the course with the greatest payoff...to worship this power, and to remake themselves in its image."

4. Rasputin refers to meeting The Darkness in this way: "I met IT at the gate of the garden". I hypothesized that there is no reason that Rasputin would be meeting The Darkness at the gate to the "black garden", so this garden is most likely our solar system. This makes sense because The Gardner (Traveler) had already spent years transforming our dead worlds into fertile and livable places. New species were created in this processes as well. Rasputin's entire purpose was to prevent the Darkness from entering our solar system, and it's at the proverbial footsteps to our system where he would be most likely to first confront the Darkness.

5. It is said that the Darkness "hunts" the traveler across the Galaxy. This implies a series of confrontations where the Traveler either fights a little and runs, or runs before conflict.

We have an ancient place called "Black Garden". The Darkness or a darkness resides there now, though it's a rather beautiful place in contrast to the image of the heart. The Vex follow this darkness, but only because it's a power they do not comprehend and figure the odds are best if they treat it like a god. We have a newer location also called a Garden, where we reside. And then you have the vision of Pujari of the Black Garden, which states in part:

"There are gardeners now. They came into the garden in vessels of bronze and they move through the groves in rivers of thought."

This is the only time I'm aware of that "gardeners" is plural, and it also references a description that fits the Vex perfectly. The use of having "gareners now" implies there was a time when the garden existed but there were not multiple gardeners. So The Garden started with One Gardener, and then Muliple gardeners came on the scene.

Conclusion: Either The Darkness is the gardener, and things don't fit quite right, or the Traveler is the Gardener, who made little gardeners not unlike his own biological/mechanical nature, called Vex. The Darkness came, beat or chased off the Traveler/Gardener, leaving the little gardeners to logically work out their fate. They then chose to worship the more powerful being as logic and limited understanding would dictate they do. The Gardeners previous "Garden" now becomes the "Black Garden", a place that the Darkness rules, and the Vex would call home. This might also explain why the Black Garden has some sort of power over the Gardener/Traveler.

Thoughts?

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That's a good theory. I wonder how all of that ties in to the ancient ruins on Venus.

Here's one thing that's puzzling me, and I pointed it out to Sonofmacphisto last night: when you open the gate to the Black Garden, the key thingy that raises up and splits forms the Orion constellation. Is that a clue to the Vex's, and then maybe by your theory, Traveler's home?

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That's a good theory. I wonder how all of that ties in to the ancient ruins on Venus.

Here's one thing that's puzzling me, and I pointed it out to Sonofmacphisto last night: when you open the gate to the Black Garden, the key thingy that raises up and splits forms the Orion constellation. Is that a clue to the Vex's, and then maybe by your theory, Traveler's home?

Besides the Big Dipper, in the Northern Hemisphere wouldn't that be one of the best known constellations?

Also, regarding The Last City's location: when you're heading towards Earth in load screens, a huge bright object appears to be east of Africa and the Middle, on India's western coast. I'm assuming that's the Traveler, with The Last City beneath it.

Does that match what we see in the City, geography? I know nothing about West India.

EDIT: Big hyjack there lol but the talk of constellations and what we all see depending on where we are has gotten me bothered so I brought it up

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Reminds me a lot of Mendicant Bias and the terminals in Halo 3. A.I. not acting how we would expect or hope.

Also, all the machines the Vex have, are they minds the size of entire systems? Galaxies? More? What would something like that think about and do, if anything?

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Here's what I like to think:

Similar to the piece of the Traveler that the Hive were holding hostage on the Moon, the heart in The Black Garden was actually the Traveler's heart, being corrupted by the darkness. Either the Vex were facilitating this, like the Hive (perhaps to power more of themselves), or they simply happened upon it, and started worhshipping it. Not sure what The Garden itself is, then. Just imagining, maybe it's a dimension that exists within the Traveler, which would explain what the heart is doing there. Dunno, beyond thinking the heart is a piece of the Traveler, I am just pulling stuff out of my a$$.

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Conclusion: Either The Darkness is the gardener, and things don't fit quite right, or the Traveler is the Gardener, who made little gardeners not unlike his own biological/mechanical nature, called Vex. The Darkness came, beat or chased off the Traveler/Gardener, leaving the little gardeners to logically work out their fate. They then chose to worship the more powerful being as logic and limited understanding would dictate they do. The Gardeners previous "Garden" now becomes the "Black Garden", a place that the Darkness rules, and the Vex would call home. This might also explain why the Black Garden has some sort of power over the Gardener/Traveler.

Thoughts?

Yes:

Even the largest body lets itself be pushed where it needs to be, seduced into nice, warm loving orbits. Persistence is the key.

Seafloors transform and then yank themselves skyward, shattering the icy crust as new worlds awaken inside the swirling depths.

You build homes of ocean laid over stone; giant and tiny, surrounding this half-born sun ripped by storms and supersonic winds.

You deliver your last orders to an army that needs nothing anymore - not instructions, courage or even prayers - and then you hide again.

In ecstasy they search for you, finding nothing but dense quiet dropping from the stars.

These things from the Alpha Lupi mini-ARG have been showing up over and over in Grimoire cards as the dreams of Alpha Lupi. Could the Vex have originally been built by The Traveler as gardeners and later been corrupted by / started worshiping the Darkness?

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Awesome connection. This changes a lot and really makes me think.

What if the Traveler visits a race, uplifts their worlds and technology, and then goes dormant and decays, before fleeing the Darkness that it has become/left behind? Perhaps the Traveler going dormant indicates it's about to leave humanity for some other race, and we're going to be left with its remnants and join the Darkness?

Also like the idea that the Garden exists within the Traveler. The nomenclature fits, even if the theory doesn't have much else to support it.

Damn, this game has so much story potential...

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I'm moderately tired of putting "Spoilers" in my titles, so turn back now if you haven't finished the story :)

<3 Welcome.

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"There are gardeners now. They came into the garden in vessels of bronze and they move through the groves in rivers of thought."

This is the only time I'm aware of that "gardeners" is plural, and it also references a description that fits the Vex perfectly. The use of having "gareners now" implies there was a time when the garden existed but there were not multiple gardeners. So The Garden started with One Gardener, and then Muliple gardeners came on the scene.

Conclusion: Either The Darkness is the gardener, and things don't fit quite right, or the Traveler is the Gardener, who made little gardeners not unlike his own biological/mechanical nature, called Vex. The Darkness came, beat or chased off the Traveler/Gardener, leaving the little gardeners to logically work out their fate. They then chose to worship the more powerful being as logic and limited understanding would dictate they do. The Gardeners previous "Garden" now becomes the "Black Garden", a place that the Darkness rules, and the Vex would call home. This might also explain why the Black Garden has some sort of power over the Gardener/Traveler.

Thoughts?

I think the Vex are simply referred to as gardeners simply by virtue of their watching over the garden. I think it's important that in the quote from Rasputin that he refers to it as the garden and not the black garden. I think the garden has become black because of the darkness inside of it.

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I think the Vex are simply referred to as gardeners simply by virtue of their watching over the garden. I think it's important that in the quote from Rasputin that he refers to it as the garden and not the black garden. I think the garden has become black because of the darkness inside of it.

That is more or less what I was trying to say. However if the Vex were and always were enemies of the Traveler, and they beat the Traveler out of the original Garden, then who gave them the name gardeners? In order to be a gardener you have to work to grow and nurture something, protect it, care for it. You can't simply watch or destroy. More then just "watching over" I think the Vex were meant to help maintain and build the Garden by the Gardener. I think when they turned against the Gardener (with or without the help of the Darkness) that is when the Garden became "black".

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The whole end game story had me confused. I think there were a lot of dangling loose ends that hopefully Bungie will complete in further DLCs.

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The Black Garden and Vex Hypothesis (Destiny)