For several weeks, Guardians in Destiny 2 have been battling the nightmares of NPCs and gaining emotional insights into their past. But it has all been for nothing. Instead, you have probably fallen into the trap again. Once again a perfect distraction, obscuring the important events. MeinMMO has a theory about what is going on in Season 17 and beyond, and invites you to come along.
Season 17 of Destiny 2 is superficially not impressive for the Guardians. Content-wise, they have helped Crow, Zavala, and Caiatl leave behind their old, painful memories over the past weeks.
But beneath the surface of the haunted season and the nightmare story, something is crawling around that is continuing to spread uncontrollably.
This developing “contamination” has been brought by Calus, the former emperor of the Cabal and father of Caiatl. He is the returned antagonist from the Content Vault that some players already know from past content. He has also brought his ship, the turned and abandoned Leviathan, along with a parasitic gift called “Egregore“.
If you do not yet know him, we have a brief story context about him here:
The Egregore spore plant is now everywhere – you can hardly escape it. Even the containment measures installed at the H.E.L.M., the mobile operations center of the Vanguard, have failed and the fungus is spreading ever further. This is also evident in the story of Destiny 2.
That we will not be able to stop it in this Season 17 has been revealed by an image released by Bungie. The control panels of the H.E.L.M. and the floor are completely overgrown with the Egregore plant. No windmills can help to get rid of the spores anymore.
What is this strange plant? Egregore seems to be a kind of fungal system that has likely existed in the Destiny universe for quite some time.
- The Wanderer knows the plant and has long possessed a sample that is thriving on his ship. You can see it while waiting for the round to start in Gambit. In her investigations during Season 17, Eris Morn has already tried to extract all the details from it, but without much success.
- We Guardians first came into contact with the Egregore spores during Season 13. There, the plant had spread in the Exo mission “Foreboding” on the Cabal ship “Glykon Volatus”, where Calus conducted cruel ritual experiments using mockery.
- Ikora Rey also personally inspected the Glykon at the time and reported on it in her notes, which can be found in the Collector’s Edition of Witch Queen. There she notes that one must directly connect with the plant to pass through the energy barriers created by the fungus.
During a patrol in the Lust Gardens of the Abandoned Leviathan, one learns about it precisely.
The Egregore fungi apparently do not, as some Guardians suspect, come from the anomaly, nor are they an impure product of Calus’s experiments with the Darkness. Rather, they originate from a distant planet that the opulent Cabal Emperor discovered during his exile travels with the Leviathan.
So he reports in a patrol message on the Abandoned Leviathan:
I have been quite fond of this fungus since I discovered it on a world far away from yours. It thrived in great forests across the planet. Even infinitely far away from the place where the first spore was harvested, it remained connected. The Darkness is many things, Guardians. Many things.
Calus, in a patrol message at the Lust Gardens on the Leviathan
Basically, we have a huge swarm organism that consolidates Calus’s thoughts and perhaps even his self into a unique “singularity”.
That these sarkophilic Egregore spores are not harmless has also been proven. Katabasis, the chosen lightbearer by Calus, was apparently impaled by the spores. Once they have entered a Guardian, this infestation continues to spread. It almost seems as if it whispers evil things that cloud perception, ultimately to reach its fungal prey.
It is apparently not just a fungus: Calus himself has revealed to us that the fungus is “attracted by the unique psychological phenomenon of death” and that “the death of sentient beings” promotes its growth. A strong-willed individual like Calus could therefore nurture the fungus through many deaths and allow it to grow further. Deaths that he finds among loyal Cabals, who are repeatedly destroyed by the Guardians.
You wonder if I am a ghost, if I have become something that lies beyond the Cabal, if I have ascended like Acrius when he held the sun in his hands. Allow me to quell your curiosity: Yes, I have become all that you imagined, and much more. […] I do not promise that every Cabal standing on the Leviathan will survive this journey, but under my care, you will live and die with nothing less than greatness.
Calus in the lore book “Voices of the Haunted” entry #7, Season 17
Is the Darkness an organism made up of many beings? Somehow, the spores “open” the mind to the darkness. Perhaps it is even possible for the Witness or another entity to observe and even influence the actions of the infected. It was noticeable in this context: Regardless of when, the Witness and the Darkness never speak to us Guardians with only one voice. It always sounds like a multitude of beings merging into one voice.
Additionally, Calus once allowed his physical form to wither and break apart because it was “an inefficient vessel” for his purposes.
At that time, it was his first encounter with the Darkness, during the exile on the Leviathan, that left him in a semi-dead state and as a jelly-like mass in a precarious physical condition. The only way out: technical avatar automatons
The Egregore fungus could have been an escape for Calus’s collective presence. This would mean that Calus’s new form is now a kind of parasitic consciousness that lives and spreads through the abilities of the Egregore spores.
This is once again confirmed by a voice line found numerous times in Season 17:
- In this patrol mission on the Abandoned Leviathan, he says: He can feel how we Guardians move around the ship, every fired bullet, every fought battle he would feel.
The “Calus Spore” has implemented its plan unimpeded
What happens next in Season 17? Let’s take another look at the current Season 17 and its story, and it quickly becomes clear: There will probably not be another separation mission or nightmares.
- On one hand, we have completed all separation triumphs.
- On the other hand, all robot automatons of Calus have been found, and his bobbleheads have been collected.
- The final triumphs must therefore have a different story base, which we might find out about next Tuesday.
If we now continue to follow our theory, then everything up to this point has essentially been a distraction for the Guardians. A kind of occupational therapy. Something that Calus masters superbly, as only for him did the Guardians once play in his raid and menagerie circus, being the entertaining lightbearers jumping through his fire hoops for loot.
Similar to how Savathun kept us occupied with skillful deceptions for years, Calus has also used the nightmares to distract our attention from the essential. Keeping you occupied and using you to get to his true goal, the pyramid on the moon.
The Guardians believe they have victory in their grasp, but soon they will recognize the truth they have so resolutely ignored. […] They served to firmly anchor my plans in the foundation of the universe. […]
Calus in the lore book “Voices of the Haunted” entry #7, Season 17
That this is the case has also been confirmed by Eris Morn last week when she mentioned that Calus is trying to merge with the Moon Pyramid.
He has evidently been pursuing this plan for quite some time, and in Season 17 has officially referred to himself as “The End,” as shown in the story trailer for the dungeon “Duality”:
In the worst case, we have even helped him with this infiltration. Due to his spores, which Guardians have most likely absorbed and transported during this Season 17, his altered existence may now already reside in the Moon Pyramid.
Perhaps the goal was always to infect the Moon Pyramid from the inside out through us and emptied Cabal shells filled with Egregore spores.
Now, in the last story beats of Season 17, he is slowly allowing his mycelium to grow to ultimately break the Pyramid’s defenses to take control of it. A new harbinger of Darkness.
That this has been his goal is also presumed by other Destiny authors. We know, the Moon Pyramid seems extremely important. Precisely because it is the only one that lies in direct proximity to the Traveler, as Paul Tassi has already speculated:
Therefore, I wonder if the plan is to “reactivate” the pyramid within the “security zone” of the Traveler, considering how close the moon is to Earth, and if there is some kind of invisible defense perimeter, it would already be within that zone.
Paul Tassi also speculates on Forbes
The former Cabal Emperor also wants to prove himself to the Witness and the Darkness. If he succeeds in extending his mind or in this case his consciousness to the Moon Pyramid, it might make him worthy in the eyes of the Witness.
Optionally, it could also be a direct command from the Darkness before it takes him in as a disciple or harbinger. He may have to do something unspeakably evil, like Rhulk.
Calus prepares for the arrival of the Witness in Season 17
No matter what Calus plans: It seems logical that the current Season 17 and the following 18 and 19 must prepare for the arrival of the Black Fleet. In the new expansion of Destiny 2, the Light will likely fall and war will begin.
This outlook brings me back to my theory about the lore of the exotic mission “Vox Obscura”.
There, the Psion prophecies in the voice lines at the end have already provided us with some interesting insights that have since proven to be true. What if they are also right about the remaining predictions?
- Then Guardians should expect a “besieged city” and “a Darkness-infected Traveler” after the “reborn Leviathan” in “Lightfall”.
If Calus, as we suspect, no longer holds a physical form but instead spreads his mind and will only through the spores of the Egregore, he may have become the perfect key for the Witness to infect the Traveler and thus the Light. To combat this, players in Destiny 2 will need to set the world on fire!
Whether this also means that we Guardians may no longer be able to use the Light in the new expansion “Lightfall” due to this intentional infection is something that could very well become possible in our theoretical scenario.
And after Lightfall? The ultimate “Final Form”, the last DLC of Destiny 2 planned for early 2024, could then bring us to the so-called Gardener. Here, it is particularly interesting that this one has been referred to several times in the history of Destiny as “The Formless”.
What do you think? Do you believe Calus could indeed have mutated into a spore and aim for the Traveler with his newly acquired Moon Pyramid as a target? Or will the spores of the Darkness simply spread until the Traveler is also affected and we lose our Light due to its “deactivation”? We look forward to your story interpretations and opinions in the comments.
