After Destiny 2 announced its last two expansions, the end of its great Light and Darkness saga has also been foretold. The current DLC “The Witch Queen” offered a retrospective story, and the upcoming DLC “Lightfall” is supposed to be the beginning of the end. So it is time to talk about a few still unresolved mysteries.
What is Destiny 2 preparing right now? The focus is currently on the impending end in the space shooter, as Bungie has already decided on the dramatic finale of its Light and Darkness saga. With the current DLC “The Witch Queen”, the Guardians are sent on a supposedly final journey to discover the great mystery of the ominous Traveler and the Darkness.
Even though Destiny 2 is not over, this still means the end of a very long and grand shooting saga that many Guardians have been accompanied by and influenced for years.
Today, we are bringing you up to date on the unresolved mysteries so that you are definitely prepared for what is to come.
Mystery No. 1: Light and Darkness
Since Destiny exists, the struggle between Light and Darkness has accompanied Guardians. Without it, there probably would never have been the Light-filled Guardians, and humanity might never have met the Traveler, under whose protection it still stands.
But what these powers, Light and Darkness, actually are and what secret motives their actions have, no one knows after 8 years of Destiny, except for Bungie, of course.
To this day, the Guardians have only received fragmented insights into this symbiosis of the two powers.
- So far, it is only known that the Light promotes the creation of life forms and civilizations and increases their independence and complexity to create a harmonious universe.
- In contrast, Darkness sows discord, as it sees existence as a struggle for survival and thus must defeat all other life to survive.
While the Light remains silent, the Darkness often takes the opportunity to reveal a few secrets.
Even the first hints at the existence of Light come only from a collection of Hive texts called “Books of Sorrows”, in which the creation of the Hive by the Darkness was already described before the Witch Queen DLC.
In a trailer for the DLC “The Witch Queen”, Bungie expanded on this story:
Two sides of the same coin: The Traveler remains silent and keeps its mysteries to itself.
But it seems at least to be true, because the accounts say that the saga of Light and Darkness is about the “endgame” of existence. Everything has arisen from these forces, and the leading intelligences of these forces are, as far as we know, the deities of existence.
Both Light and Darkness have existed before the universe or time, and therefore both have “no beginning.” Instead, they were born from mathematical structures that then shaped reality. Both Darkness and Light only “play” with this reality to form and influence developing, complex patterns. Essentially, the Guardians in Destiny 2 are dealing with entities that are greater than the universe or that might even be the reason why the universe exists at all.
Whoever thinks about this for a longer time quickly realizes that this story sounds not only complex. It contains real science and plays with both entropy and fictional forces like “Paracausality”. A term that only exists in Destiny, by the way.
Exactly this incomprehensible play with the cosmos brings us to Mystery Number 2.
Mystery No. 2: Destiny is a Cosmic Game with Flowers
It is currently generally accepted that the game in which Light and Darkness are played in Destiny 2 is the universe. The original rules are the laws of physics, and the new rules are precisely the mentioned Paracausality in the Destiny universe.
You are playing a game within a game: This “game within a game” began when there was no time. It is played by two unimaginably powerful beings, Light and Darkness, in a garden. One player is “the Gardener”, who probably represents the Traveler, and the other player is “the Winnower”, who represents the Veil. Right now, Destiny 2 players are right in the middle of this secret “Flower Game”. However, many Guardians do not even know that it exists.
What is the Flower Game? The name “Flower Game” sounds simple. However, it is a complex game from which viable universes emerge.
- The garden, as Darkness calls it, is merely a metaphor for the probability space, something that existed before time, space, and existence in general.
- The Gardener (the Traveler) presses the flower seeds into the clay of the garden to see what becomes of them.
- In the evening, the Winnower (the Witness), that is, Darkness, harvests the seeds of the day and separates what would thrive from what is corrupt.
The game is undecidable. For no one can predict exactly how it will end except by playing it. This statement also applies to the players of Destiny 2.
However, the game with the cosmos has a problem: While a vast number of universes are simulated in the patterns of the Flower Game, one and the same always inevitably happen. A “final form” (the “final form”) endlessly repeats itself and gradually dominates all other patterns. The Witness has always admired this dominant pattern. It frustrated the Traveler.
As the lore states, at some point the Traveler became so irritated about this that it decided to do something about it. The nature of this final form must be prevented because otherwise it restricts all other possibilities. To achieve this, the Traveler made itself a rule within the Flower Game. The Witness, its greatest enemy, was not at all happy with this rule change and was even angry to the point of panic over this plan. So it warned the Traveler back then. Everything the Light would intend to do with this new rule would merely delay the dominant pattern. It would come one way or another because it is inevitable. Since then, the Witness has done everything to undermine the actions of the Traveler or alter them to its own advantage.
This 4-dimensional chess game also has secret players, such as the Witch Queen Savathun or the ominous entity.
Mystery No. 3: The Ominous Entity
Sometimes the term “Entity” is mentioned in Destiny 2. The pyramids themselves or the “Fleet of Darkness” could even serve this higher power. Because Light and Darkness are actually not enemies, but merely cosmic, paracausal abilities.
- The Traveler has the ability to grant others the powers of Light, though only indirectly through its ghosts.
- And Darkness can also pass on its abilities, such as Stasis or the Deep Sight Resonance, through the pyramids. Here another ability might come into play.
What actually created Light and Darkness? Some story details suggest that neither Light nor Darkness are omniscient and that there might actually be something greater behind both. Perhaps what has been referred to in the last already announced Destiny 2 expansion as the “Final Form”.
It is therefore not so unlikely that an entity or “The Final Form” has repeatedly ensured that the Flower Game eventually ends, thus bringing the struggle of opposing cosmic abilities to a close.
This is also supported by the fact that Darkness claims to have existed before time. Thus, the Witness could simply be an envoy to influence individuals and civilizations with their help.
If the Witness is merely a “child of the gods” formed from many that speak through him with one voice, then this could also apply to the Traveler. That is why it is still a mystery whether the Witness is this entity, the architect, or whether Bungie might still have something hidden in the Destiny cosmos that will soon be revealed. Maybe on August 23, 2022.
The path to the end is not far away: After all, the Guardians are now nearing the solution of these three mysteries. The saga of Light and Darkness will reach a dramatic climax in Destiny 2 with the “Final Form”, as Bungie wants to “not tell a story forever”.
But don’t be fooled. Destiny itself will continue afterwards. That will be another story, with more secrets.
What do you think about the mysteries of the Destiny story? Do you know any others that should be mentioned, or are you not interested in the story at all? We look forward to every comment from the MeinMMO community.
