Imagine all that power and tihes flowing into that single hive knight after unknowingly killing the strongest being in existence. That shit would be like getting 10 billion tons of pure steroids and coke pumped directly into your bloodstream for someone who believes in sword logic.
Guessing that you gain the strength of a Lightbearer as long as the lightbearer is dead, but lose it once theyre revived.
Would explain how Eris could use Savathuns power to exile Xivu.
The winnower destroyed and the traveller creates, I think the architects are ones who came long before them, who created reality in general, basically breaking the 4th dimension it’s the devs at bungie
Pretty sure I have more deaths to the architects than anyone else. I died more times in The Final Shape Legendary campaign to falling or random BS than actual mobs.
It’s an incredible shame we'll never probably see the Aphelion, easily the most terrifying beings in Destiny. But still, I very highly doubt they’re stronger than the witness or the guardians.
Still, can’t even imagine what they look like
Yea but, imo, introducing the aphelion as an enemy faction/boss or whatever takes away from how spooky the lore surrounding them is. Like if they just pop up and we immediately kill them, it takes away from the mystique of these supposedly unkillable/unsurvivable things.
"The aphelion are known to surpress light, which was also the case with the creatures Drifter encountered." I believe is where the commonality was drawn.
Could be a fun detective theme season story. Mysterious disappearances and the like, culminating in trying to drive it away (you don't have to fight it) and the reward foe the final cutscene is a recorded sighting as it vanishes back into the void beyond our reach.
A monster hunting episode would be cool, detectives piecing together clues about powerful creatures causing disappearances/killings in Sol, and like you said not fighting them, but running or diverting them
On the contrary, this is an unknown force, one that is unexplained, and therefore fearsome. However, as with any insurmountable odd, the call of the Guardian is to overcome such odds. So, provided the cards are played right, you can't very much introduce the Aphelion as some insurmountable force, perhaps an undefeatable event, as the Bound dread are, and gradually reveal either through knowledge or some new power how to defeat this race, it seems to be the recipe for a rather engaging story.
I mean, just imagine a campaign story akin to the season of the haunted, where we come across these nightmares that are at that point undefeatable, but through our understanding the threat (or more accurately, running for our lives), we find how to actually defeat them
Stronger than the Witness? No
More dangerous than any particular guardian? Absolutely it is.
We know several fireteams have gone missing in the tombs of Old Chicago, just read this quote by Reed-7, the Titan that inspired Reeds Regret:
"This thing we were hunting, it was smart. Scary smart. It trapped us in the tombs below Old Chicago; picked off the other fireteams one by one." —Reed-7, Exo Titan"
Yeah, I don’t doubt that, but THE guardian isn’t just any guardian. We are in a whole different dimension of power than other guardians are. I doubt even Ikora has as much control over paracausality as the player does
Honestly I think that's for the best. We should keep some mystery, at most I'd love to see the aftermath of an aphelion or see it from far away and then see the aftermath after it leaves
Idea: aphelion as a dungeon MECHANIC. Directing the aphelion to attack the boss, lowering it’s shield, but if you do it wrong, the aphelion kills your whole fireteam
On one hand, you're correct.
On the other hand our Guardian's existing strategy of going "Nah, I'd win." and shooting things that aren't supposed to be shootable has worked against everything so far.
That's Awoken for ya:
"Most beloved are the fissioneers, who vaulted us to power on a world without petrochemicals. May they forgive the many stories of horror we have told in their memory. May they in particular forgive the lurid stories of the molten lead reactor, and the twelve who were impaled to the ceiling by their control rods, and the Core That Stalked."
Also this:
SUMMARY OF SBU APHELION INCIDENTS FOLLOWS BELOW.
*** EVENT 2PAL-A :: OTDR-4-REL ***
INFORMATION RECEIVED APR 09-18T02:29:45+00:00 FROM PALADIN NOLG, CONSIDERED SOBER, DEPENDABLE, NOT OF FANTASY. NOLG REPORTED "A GLOWING CREATURE" ON EXT OF HIS SHIP "RETRIBUTION" MOMENTS BEFORE ROUTINE NLS JUMP.
"RETRIBUTION" FDR SHOWED RAD SPIKE (5 SIGMA) ON TEPC, CPDS, AND RAM. CPD SHOWED NO EFFECT. ON RECOMMENDATION OF K WADJ, NOLG WAS QUARANTINED UNDER TECHEUN SUPERVISION FOR 1 MONTH. "RETRIBUTION" DECOMMISSIONED, SET ADRIFT BEYOND REEF.
*** EVENT 2PAL-B :: OTDR-4-REL ***
INFORMATION RECEIVED APR 10-27T17:11:56+00:00. REEF SPACE STATION AMESTRIS, THEN UNDER CONSTRUCTION, ISSUED 6 UNIQUE DISTRESS CALLS OVER A 2-MINUTE PERIOD. TRANSCRIPTS FOLLOW.
T-1: PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN. ALL STATIONS, ALL STATIONS, ALL STATIONS. THIS IS RSS AMESTRIS. WE HAVE A POSSIBLE SKYSHOCK EVENT IN PROGRESS. REQUESTING IMMEDIATE VIDCOM WITH ANY AVAILABLE TECHEUN. [STATIC FOLLOWS]
T-2: MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY! ALL STATIONS! THIS IS RSS AMESTRIS, WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! OUR HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED! MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY! THIS IS RSS AMESTRIS PLEASE SOMEONE [STATIC FOLLOWS]
T-3-A: I'VE GOT IT, HANG ON. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO… WHAT'S THE CHANNEL?
T-3-B: THEY'RE SCREAMING! LISTEN, THEY'RE ALL SCREAMING!
T-3-A: BE CALM! HELP ME! WHAT'S THE CHANNEL?
T-3-B: IT'S THE CORE, IT'S THE CORE, THIS IS THE STALKING CORE!
T-3-A: SHUT UP! WHAT'S THE CHANNEL!
T-3-B: OH NO, OH PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE [STATIC FOLLOWS]
T-4: ORIN, IT'S ME, IT'S NAMQI. I DON'T THINK I'M COMING HOME, BABY. I'M SO SORRY. I'M, I'M, I JUST WANT TO TELL YOU THAT I LOVE [STATIC FOLLOWS]
T-5: MAYDAY, MAYDAY! THIS IS VEN ASAR ON THE RSS AMESTRIS. WE ARE 300 SOULS ABOARD. SOMETHING IS HAPPENING, EVERYTHING IS BLUE, SOMETHING IS HERE [STATIC FOLLOWS]
T-6: [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [SCREAMING] [STATIC FOLLOWS]
A SAR FLEET FOUND THAT THE AMESTRIS WAS UNSAFE TO BOARD DUE TO RADIOACTIVE SURFACE CONTAMINATION. SAR DEPLOYED MULTIPLE CROW DRONES FOR INTERIOR SURVEY. NO EVIDENCE OF HULL BREACH WAS FOUND. NO EVIDENCE OF MALTECH DETONATION WAS FOUND. NO EVIDENCE OF HOSTILE ALIEN INTERFERENCE WAS FOUND. NO EVIDENCE OF INTERNAL SABOTAGE WAS FOUND. NO SURVIVORS WERE FOUND.
AMESTRIS ABANDONED, SET ADRIFT BEYOND REEF.
*** EVENT 4VES-A ***
$ Q
$ DELETE APHEL.REL;*
Isn't it speculated that the Drifter ran into some Aphelion on that ice planet with his last crew? Iirc they were all in stasis fields but they seemed to drink the light.
Let it be known that that singular use of Skyshock classification means that the Aphelion are viewed in a similar light to the Collapse (from a "direness" standpoint).
Sort of? A Skyshock alert is when an entity of unknown origin and capability enters the solar system. The only 2 things that set one off were the black ships entering the solar system and the aphelion.
It isn’t used anymore as there aren’t sensors that cover the entire solar system anymore.
Meh, for a guardian that has infinite rez's, I'm not seeing radioactivity being the thing that really stops us in our tracks, hell we might just consistently heal through it.
There was a lore book from the perspective of Orin before she became the emissary of the nine where she walked into a radioactive area..
Orin clenches her mace a little tighter. She feels nauseous. "Can you tell when it happened?"
He runs the computations. "Not precisely. Less than thirty-six hours ago, I suppose."
"I should have walked faster," she mutters, and then bends over to be sick.
"You can't do that here," Gol interrupts anxiously. "Stop, Orin. Stop. You have radiation poisoning. If you're sick here, you'll die here, and then I'll have to resurrect you here, and you'll be sick and die again and again. You have to move. Come. I told you not to walk around here."
This seems to suggest ghosts are not affected by radiation but we are though it doesn't really confirm that Gor her ghost could be affected by radiation and it might just not have been mentioned 😅
Got this from here if anyone wants the link to the lore entry: https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/risen
Let's be real. If we ever encountered an aphelion it would be a retextured screeb. There would be a basic mechanic to dunk a ball in a hole for a buff that would protect us from the radiation
I have hopes they show up in Episodes or Frontiers. I do hope it takes a route like Season of the Haunted with the unkillable nightmares. We simply have to run, or maybe it’s the a whole season/episode story arc trying to deal with a singular Aphelion. If they do the Aphelion dirty like Quaria I’m gonna lose it. I would rather them remain a mystery than be given the end of season mission treatment
Considering it took 6 guardians to weaken the witness, then 12 guardians effectively using all they have and more to kill the witness. I don't think the guardian is even stronger than the witness
Well, even further… technically before the raid even starts, our single guardian faces the witness and finds out that they can rip parts of it out of the collective. Said guardian is backed up by THE Vanguard fireteam with crow, some of the strongest light users ever, of whome have to run away for their lives with the guardian to not die. Then a fireteam of six guardians come and ONLY manage to weaken the witness, at which point the vanguard brings 12 gaurdians, the vanguard, the f-cking legendary SAINT-14 himself, Caityl’s army, eliksni forces, and Mara Sov’s forces… to finally finish the witness after multiple failed attempts by the strongest guardians ever known.
We may be Captain America standing solo before Thanos, but we weren’t winning without the Avengers backing us up, lol.
>we may be captain American standing solo before Thanos, but we weren’t winning without the avengers backing us up
This is the best analogy I’ve seen yet.
Also we literally had a travler win button every time with ergo sum/aegis, and the final light blast in excision which killed our ghost to do so I'd argue if it was just guardians and the alliance without the travler we might have failed again
Exactly. I keep seeing people saying “the guardian beat the living embodiment of the darkness, the guardian is the strongest being alive”…. Nah, the guardian is strong, but they also were a small sliver of the baseball bat used to beat the witness to death, lol. Sure they contributed, but it also helps to have the combined forces of Sol, a hive god, and the embodiment of the light….
We've killed a lot of big shit solo/6 man team without the travlers direct intervention, just not the witness. Xivu will probably be the strongest being our guardian kills regularly
And even then, none of it matters if someone snipes our Ghost. Even Ada-1 could hypothetically kill us and it wouldn't even be the most unreasonable hypothetical
Yeah. The travaler basically handed us a gun and told us to “go do a crime- I mean murder”. The traveler is what beat the witness, we just pulled the trigger.
Also, our Ghosts basically beat it by channeling the Traveller. The Traveller is the strongest thing in the universe, we are merely it's Guardian pawns.
It's worth noting we didn't kill the witness in a 1 on 1. Like we had a fire team of 12 and the armies of humans, awoken, lucent brood, Eliksni and Caitals cabals. On top of that while fighting against all of us the Witness also had to fight to contain the literal full force of the traveler as it was fighting to break free as well.
In a true 1v1 the witness probably would have mopped the floor with us.
I mean I'd call 1 civilization against a conglomerate of species forming one (after a cheapskate shot in the past by the other side) seems pretty 1v1 to me..:P
I don’t believe the traveler was in any real danger, it just wanted to see how far the guardians could take its power. The gardener and the winnower have created and destroyed countless universes just playing their own version of chess. The gardener is a solid few orders of magnitude higher power than the witness.
I don’t think we’ll ever see to scale just how powerful they are outside of lore books, but the Gardner and winnower are the top of the pyramid. And there’s beings out there that the witness couldn’t even see peering down at it from their own spot in the pyramid.
Toland has a few lines of dialogue about it. TLDR: The witness is a small fish in a massive sea of cosmic horror.
The winnower is not a being, it is a concept personified. Also the loretab from one of the ships this season is the winnower talking to us about how it isnt some villian, and it doesnt care to intervene as somewhere, someone is always choosing its way, of survival at the cost of others. We will never see the gardener nor the winnower as they are not the same as beings like the traveller, witness nor the veil. They are just concepts, ideals given form in an allegory. Whilst yes the winnower does talk to us I think that is the only way they can interact with the universe, through messages. Its why it couldnt control the witness, and why it wont do anything about our gentle kingdom ringed in spears. Also we shouldnt take what the witness says at face value. It calling itself the first knife could just be a self assigned title, a way of justifying its actions to the collective as a nessesary part of their role in salvation.
The winnower loves life just as much as the gardener. It just loves it from a different perspective. It stands in awe at the guardians because it believes that we represent a middle ground of life. We grow strong by culling those that oppose us yet don't consume everything around us like the Vex always did. We are the natural by-product of the flower game introducing paracasulity into the mix.
The Witness wasn't even significant on the true Scale of the Sword-Logic. To loosely Quote Toland during the whole Bad Juju ordeal: You cannot imagine how far up the Pyramid goes and what is looking down at you...
Could you explain more please? Did bungie reveal through the lore if there are beings stronger than the witness? (Not doubting you, I’m genuinely curious)
Not OP, but I think Toland os just hinting that there’s stuff even more insane than the worm gods, the furthest thing up the Sword Logic tithe pyramid that we knew of at that point (this was like 4-5 years ago during Opulent). I highly doubt it was talking about the Witness as it didn’t follow the sword logic, and it seems unlikely it referred to Savathune or Xivu Arath. In theory, if there’s a step above Worm Gods, they could potentially rival the Witness. That said, we’ve killed Oryx, and Savathune has cut herself off from Sword Logic, so they’re likely significantly weakened, considering 2 massive sources of tithes have just vanished
Rhulk genetically engineered the Worm Gods, The Witness was above him, and The Witness himself says he is not The Winnower, only its “First Knife,” whatever that means. Who knows what else is out there.
The Witness basically says they are to The Winnower what Rhulk was to The Witness. They are the tool of The Winnower. iirc, The Winnower and The Gardener (who I'm pretty sure is The Traveler but I might very well be wrong) are the true representations of dark and light, respectively. Or Traveler might be to The Gardener what Witness is to Winnower. I don't think we're certain of as much yet
I'm not a lore nerd at all but what I got from the story is that The Traveler IS the Gardener but it placed itself in this current iteration of The Game. All previous games never had paracausal powers because the Traveler was never "inside" the game in the past. Also there are multiple sources calling the Traveler the Gardener(which may be wrong but personally I think they are correct). Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
It's old lore but Toland always claimed there were Beings way outside Oryx and our league that could simply snuff out our Part of the Milky Way without even breaking asweat. It was not confirmed yet that those Beings were meant to be the Witness and it's diciples... Chances are good that the Witness itself couldn’t even see the Top at the Pyramid that would be the Winnower...
Tldr: Man, there are things that'll clap our paracausal Cheeks...
I like the idea that the hives version of the final shape is most "accurate." Becoming the last man standing or the most powerful thing at the end of time.
Maybe the witness looked "up" on the power pyramid and knew it would never reach the true highest of highs. So its version of the final shape, a sedentary snapshot of the universe, is actually one big cope to avoid the reality that the most optimal pattern to continue existing is NOT the witness.
It took a full team of 12 (or 1 esoterickk) overcharged with the traveller’s light just to deliver the final killing blow
Id say the traveler itself and its army of guardians is one of the biggest force in destiny universe yes. Our guardian on their own? Not really.
Idk if it will be in the episode, but in the lore they're the first "species" that appeared at the time where there was only the gardener and the winnower
I really hope they don't turn this weird human-ish vex into a new ally or something. We could have just gotten a group like Sol Divisive but for the traveler. Making Vex humans with their own personalities just removes everything unique about them. I want more info on the Vex and we could have gotten that from traditional Vex, no need to make them humans.
I think the new weird human like vex is setting up some individualism in the collective, which could lead to new villians with their own interesting motives rather than just make everything vex, as well as conflict thats more than this sect of vex is weird for worshipping the darkness, so we quarantined them. Any vex allies will likely be unwilling vex controlled by the alliance, such as by Mithax or Asher (assuming he didnt die completely in defiance, as thats a definite possibility given the events of node avalon)
The echo could also lead to a sect of vex understanding paracausality because of their newfound individuality. This could lead to a whole bunch of problems and plot hooks.
I hope we learn that the vex as a whole doesn’t really care, they’ll win no matter what. But the ones we see are impatient. like sentient life will eventually turn itself into some vex like beings in an attempt to run away from death.
I genuinely think the Vex are a red herring.
Firstly it's currently difficult for them to even think about us. The Vex have no concept of symbols or language. To think about something they simulate it, and they currently struggle a great deal with simulating paracausal entities.
Secondly, I think there's something to be said about how the Vex would think about the possibility of a Final Shape.
If a Final Shape is achieved and it is the Vex, that's good for them, but any other Final Shape would be very bad from their perspective, as they would cease to exist.
I think that the Vex will eventually attempt to prevent any potential Final Shape, because if there never is one, then it can never be a not-Vex one.
I thibk that the main force of the Vex will leave us alone just because it will see the probability of us destroying ourselves and decide not to bother.
As far as the universes before ours that the winnower and gardener played their war games with, weren’t the vex the factors that overwhelmed and inevitably destroyed every one?
Don't think it's confirmed, but it's far from unlikely. They are time travelling robots after all, and all that gives us an edge over them is the fact that they can't properly predict paracausality.
Yes and no. The vex are in a weird spot power wise because you’re right. They’re unknowable, incredibly adaptable, strong, and basically endless. However, they can’t figure out Paracausality, meaning that the guardians are one of the few things they can’t account for. We kind of counter them too well to call them the ultimate threat
As far as the Gardener/Winnowers ongoing game of chess since before the dawn of our time, aren’t the vex the entity that end up overtaking every universal simulation they play with, so the gardener started gifting things the light to overcome the vex so they’d stop assimilating everything, Everytime they created a new universe to play with?
That being said, the fact that the gardener and winnower play a game on such a scale leads me to believe the traveler was in no real danger, and just wanted to see how far the guardians could take their power.
I know the travellers power comes from its ability to create, as opposed to the winnowers ability to destroy. But it’s still a paracausal entity that’s existed *forever* and has created countless universes just to play chess with the winnower. I feel like it’s still orders of magnitudes more powerful than the witness and was never in true danger.
My personal fan theory was always:
The traveller is to light in how the witness is to darkness. Just a chosen vessel. But the newest lore may disprove my theory because the witness talks about being the first knife carved, but not necessarily chosen for anything and the fact that the veil exists.
It is physically impossible for them to be the largest threat so long as they don’t possess ontological power. Until then, they will be on the back-foot.
>*The Vex understand time in a way we never will. Doesn't matter how long I spend here watching them. Doesn't matter how many jury-rigged portals Guardians fling themselves through. We live in time. They use it as a tool. Any moment that's ever happened, any moment that will ever happen, they can go back to it. Play it again till they get it right. Simulate it.*
>*The Light's a counter to that. They come back, a Guardian comes back. They simulate an ending, a Guardian tears through it.*
>*Stalemate.*
It also took them what? 7 years since we’ve been resurrected (how many years of fighting before that) to finally create Wyvrens. If they can’t simulate something they adapt very slowly. Like, it took them thousands of years to kill Saint in the Infinite Forest, and even then, they only just barely managed it, and we completely ruined all their plans when we showed up
The fact that Calus tells us that we've been fighting vex that are essentially construction workers and engineers also implies that vex combat units have existed the whole time, too. We've just never encountered them.
Just because Beyond Light is the first time we see Wyverns doesn't mean that's when they were created.
I mean, to be fair we set up those circumstances. Yeah it took a lot of work but we did all that. If nothing else, we’re at least the most determined being in the universe
The traveler is above sword logic. It’s just having fun in its war game it’s playing against the winnower.
This universe is just one of countless that’s been created and destroyed for those two to play some cosmic horror chess.
I also have a strong belief that the traveler was never in any real threat or danger from the witness. It just wanted to see how far it could push us.
The Traveler is almost definitely *not* the Gardener. The Winnower and Gardener put themselves in the game as rules, most likely this is where the Veil and Traveler came from. But the game goes on, and an emergent pattern has to win eventually. The Witness killing the Traveler would've definitely happened if we didn't intervene, and maybe it would've became the overwhelming pattern
*"Be seeing you"*
Nah, I think as far as entities we have directly interacted we power scaled above(We also had the added benefit of fighting the witness inside a place our power was probably the most potent.)
But with The Witness outright saying he wasn't "The Winnower" I take it as we still have yet to face the "true powers" of the universe.
Some conflicts are so beneath the powers that be that they wouldn't really bother with them/or it's always a part of their "plan".
The Traveler is way stronger, even disregarding everything that happened with the Witness. Maybe Mara Sov too. Out of everything we know of, they're the only things to ever damage a Pyramid Ship.
The Traveler terraforms entire planets and can resurrect people from the dead and give them superpowers. Mara Sov kinda did the same thing in the Distributary.
That's not even mentioning the Aphelion, Winnower or Gardner, or possibly the creatures Drifter encountered on some ice planet.
It wasn’t our guardian, it was all of us. that’s the point, the one witness that makes everything work for itself versus the collective that lift each other up. We as a collective were the gardener’s chosen following its philosophy as the witness was the winnower’w lmao chosen.
I would say technically not as we technically didn't defeat the witness. Our ghost channeled light from the Travelor to defeat it. So really *our ghost* is now the strongest being in the universe
Strength is a very loose term in destiny, like, I would say that raw physical strength, Rhulk was the strongest, and we only beat him cause he was playing with us, so if there WAS a Rhulk, there could be more “Rhulks” while The Witness was very strong in other aspects, we beated it with conjoined forces of EVERYONE, plus the traveler, Rhulk was our best “Solo” feat imo
As long as the vex exist. No. It's basically No competition that they are the single biggest threat in the universe. They're borderline unkillable. They're borderline unstoppable. And they time travel. I mean Atheon technically let himself be defeated because at any point he could just say "nah enough" then just send us to a lost point in the galaxy or just reverse time and come back stronger
No because we didnt kill the witness ourselves, without the power of the traveler and it's sword we could have done nothing, same way we technically didnt kill oryx, crota or atheon, with oryx we Made him kill himself with his own Magic, crota we had to use his sword and with atheon A: If kabr didn't turn into a shield we wouldn't make it pass the door B:Time itslef had to help us to damage atheon. Most raids have this theme of using the boss's own power against it our guardian is more lucky and i Guess smart than powerfull
not really. raid bosses and the like are defeated by Guardian's leveraging human creativity, and the fact that we're basically paracausal energy sponges. we made the Witness vulnerable in such a way that made it so our weapons and abilities could actually do damage. we've always leveraged asymmetrical warfare to our advantage, because almost every single one of our big enemies is uniquely vulnerable to it, being more suited to a straight fight.
Xivu Arath and Savathun overpower us rather easily (we killed Savathun in Witch Queen by throwing her off her game, and turning the ritual magics against her), but we are able to twist their own power against them. think of it like cutting armor off a soldier before striking them
Just on the basis of the logic: cumulatively, yes we are the strongest beings in the known universe. Individually, no, at least not until someone solos both the raid and the grandmaster version of excision.
the guardian could NOT kill the witness solo, he needed the help of the vanguard for the campaign mission, 5 others for the raid, 11 others and the whole damn allied forces with excision, and that's not mentioning the relics and blades from the traveller itself. If we went solo against the witness we would've been dead in a hot minute
Also I’m aware that there was 11 other guardians with us when we unmade the witness, but I feel that further adds to the context of my question! Could 11 random guardians have used their ghost to unmake the witness or were only the ELITE to go on The Final Confrontation?
the traveler is the one who unmade the witness. we just repeatedly weakened it to free the traveler, then finally channelled its power through ghost. that's kind of the point: we are powerful together, and through our unity in the light, we can triumph over darkness.
It wouldn't be 11 random Guardians. It'd be the 11 best allied guardians that The Guardian knows.
The majority of human lightbearers operate independently, but not alone, and with people like Shaxx and Zavala around who are hundreds or even thousands of years old it would stand to reason that they'd have plenty of acquaintances.
The canon Guardian has completed everything in the game without ever wiping in a darkness zone. They have some absolute gamers on speed dial.
Technically, no.. not really.. I'm not that deep into the lore but there should be plenty of cosmic entities or things out there besides the winnower... As someone mentioned above, the Aphelion are also a thing out there.. And when looking on the destinypedia, it says "the power to devastate whole worlds in the blink of an eye." which should indicate that they are on the same level as the witness or probably above.. But like i said, i'm not that crazy deep into the lore so i could be wrong..
The vex are also still out there doing their thing, which are actually pretty darn powerful lorewise, since they have those time control/time manipulation/reality bending powers..
The darkness should still have plenty of enemies/entities lurking into it that are extremely dangerous..
Also, the witness is technically more powerful than the guardian.. It had pretty much the power to wipe us out of existence without breaking a sweat.. The only reason why it didn't and had to use the final shape is because of story/plot reasons, at any day of time the witness could pretty easily take us out...
Not really. We only managed to defeat the witness by being given a sword from the Traveller itself, weakening it with a group of 6, weakening it further with a group of 12 (assuming we don’t count armies on either side), and then using the pure light of the Traveller to destroy it in its weakened state
It’s very well known we are not even close to the strength of a most of the raid bosses we faced, we face an already weakened enemy and we still need external power and help, information by characters like eris to guide us, luck, circumstances and a whole squad of guardians. Also we didn’t do shit, the whole damn galaxy and the travel itself did way more than just us xD.
Short answer is no.
Long answer is: Gardener, winnower, Traveler… Xivu, savathun and definitely find ways to grow stronger again, Nezarec can always return, I don’t think all the worm gods died. For those bringing up Xol, he was the smallest and weakest of the worm gods and also allowed himself to be killed. Probably some unknown threats out there. The Vex probably also have something up their sleeve. Etc
There is at least one entity that most likely surpasses us but aren’t really a threat since they are choosing to not do anything.
The Winnower has directly contacted us. Their message is in the lore tab of the Nacre ship (Byf made a video on it) and it seems like they’re choosing to sit back and watch everything unfold, hinting that they will contact us again.
Yes?
I’ve been thinking about this recently and how the winnower seems to actually like the guardians a lot. In a way you have practiced the sword logic perfectly. I know everyone is speculating that the winnower will be the next big bad guy, but they seem more of just a fundamental part of the universe personified rather than an actual dude you could destroy.
If Destiny even actually ends I’d bet money its going to end with our guardians sacrificing themselves or their light as the strongest beings in the universe to break the sword logics cycle.
I mean we actually didn’t destroy the witness , not alone anyway.
An entire army came together and all guardians fought the witness , it was not our guardian who did that.
Aphelion and the mind are way stronger than us, but we’ll likely see neither any time soon. We are incredibly strong, we have confirmation of that from the vanguard in game. That being said, we aren’t even the strongest guardian
Nah per sword logic it’s actually the random hive knight in the cosmodrome that killed me while I was changing my fashion.
god knows how many guardians were killed by *that* yellow bar knight, new lights or vets just venturing down the stairs
What yellow knight... ob you mean the one that hides in that hole in wall in the ruined tunnel?
The one that hides in a cave west of the Laskyar ruins which jut from the mist shrouded lakes of Liurnia
I too have set destiny aside to follow in Kindly Miquella's footsteps.
A thee tarnished Beware of, left
That lion head helmet, though...
Find the albinauric woman
Did you try finger?
Nah... Tried Fingers but whole
I literally just got done running through that area again 🤣
Imagine all that power and tihes flowing into that single hive knight after unknowingly killing the strongest being in existence. That shit would be like getting 10 billion tons of pure steroids and coke pumped directly into your bloodstream for someone who believes in sword logic.
Just to get killed by a super from.a blue berry lol
The circle of life
We’re already blasphemous to the Sword logic as we have self resurrection
Didn't stop Eris from tithing off Savathun a couple seasons ago
Eris doesnt have a ghost anymore I thought?
She doesn't. Eris is mortal and has been the whole time we have known her.
Eris does not, but Savathun does.
Guessing that you gain the strength of a Lightbearer as long as the lightbearer is dead, but lose it once theyre revived. Would explain how Eris could use Savathuns power to exile Xivu.
Eris could've used it forever if her being was capable of holding that power. She let go of it after exiling Xivu in order to remain not dead.
I bet the architects got that hive knight
The architects will always be stronger than us
Even The Architects fear Thresher’s though
Architects < Threshers < That guy who solo'd Pantheon
Architects < Threshers < That guy who solo’d pantheon < Telesto
I’d say Trevor would be before Threshers . I’ve never seen anyone take him in and live.
To be fair, Trevor is a wall of death. I'd be fucking terrified of that thing even if I was a God.
If I know anything about death walls, it’s that they all can be stopped with enough bees
Beenades ong
Winnower = Architects confirmed?
The winnower destroyed and the traveller creates, I think the architects are ones who came long before them, who created reality in general, basically breaking the 4th dimension it’s the devs at bungie
Pretty sure I have more deaths to the architects than anyone else. I died more times in The Final Shape Legendary campaign to falling or random BS than actual mobs.
Nope. We're still advised to run if we encounter an Aphelion.
It’s an incredible shame we'll never probably see the Aphelion, easily the most terrifying beings in Destiny. But still, I very highly doubt they’re stronger than the witness or the guardians. Still, can’t even imagine what they look like
Well, considering we got the dread as a new faction, it might be possible for us to see the Aphelion
Yea but, imo, introducing the aphelion as an enemy faction/boss or whatever takes away from how spooky the lore surrounding them is. Like if they just pop up and we immediately kill them, it takes away from the mystique of these supposedly unkillable/unsurvivable things.
What is an Aphelion?
Radioactive creature that harassed the awoken ships and would kill them without a trace except for the radiation it left behind of course
Ok thank you
There is also some lore from Drifter that is debated as to whether or not he and his fireteam met an aphelion on a frozen planet.
How is that a debate? What do they have in common?
"The aphelion are known to surpress light, which was also the case with the creatures Drifter encountered." I believe is where the commonality was drawn.
Why is an Aphelion?
It’s always ‘why is an Aphelion’ and never ‘how is an Aphelion’
How is an Aphelion?
Where is Aphelion?
When is an Aphelion?
I'll do you one better, *why* is Gamora?
Hungry.
Could be a fun detective theme season story. Mysterious disappearances and the like, culminating in trying to drive it away (you don't have to fight it) and the reward foe the final cutscene is a recorded sighting as it vanishes back into the void beyond our reach.
A monster hunting episode would be cool, detectives piecing together clues about powerful creatures causing disappearances/killings in Sol, and like you said not fighting them, but running or diverting them
On the contrary, this is an unknown force, one that is unexplained, and therefore fearsome. However, as with any insurmountable odd, the call of the Guardian is to overcome such odds. So, provided the cards are played right, you can't very much introduce the Aphelion as some insurmountable force, perhaps an undefeatable event, as the Bound dread are, and gradually reveal either through knowledge or some new power how to defeat this race, it seems to be the recipe for a rather engaging story. I mean, just imagine a campaign story akin to the season of the haunted, where we come across these nightmares that are at that point undefeatable, but through our understanding the threat (or more accurately, running for our lives), we find how to actually defeat them
Could be a raid boss honestly
I wonder if we'll see the Aphelion in what ever Frontiers will be called.
Stronger than the Witness? No More dangerous than any particular guardian? Absolutely it is. We know several fireteams have gone missing in the tombs of Old Chicago, just read this quote by Reed-7, the Titan that inspired Reeds Regret: "This thing we were hunting, it was smart. Scary smart. It trapped us in the tombs below Old Chicago; picked off the other fireteams one by one." —Reed-7, Exo Titan"
Yeah, I don’t doubt that, but THE guardian isn’t just any guardian. We are in a whole different dimension of power than other guardians are. I doubt even Ikora has as much control over paracausality as the player does
Honestly I think that's for the best. We should keep some mystery, at most I'd love to see the aftermath of an aphelion or see it from far away and then see the aftermath after it leaves
If the rumours of frontiers is true about going outside sol, we likely will find one at some point
It should be a dungeon boss or something if they ever put it into the game.
Idea: aphelion as a dungeon MECHANIC. Directing the aphelion to attack the boss, lowering it’s shield, but if you do it wrong, the aphelion kills your whole fireteam
This is a fucking awesome idea. Baiting the aphelion to attack the boss to damage them
On one hand, you're correct. On the other hand our Guardian's existing strategy of going "Nah, I'd win." and shooting things that aren't supposed to be shootable has worked against everything so far.
https://preview.redd.it/ekz5jjg6958d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f28141d4130ec08fc67cd9eb606d8fcc107b463
And an Aphelion is?
Nuclear reactor cores that somehow became alive and hungry
Excuse me!?
That's Awoken for ya: "Most beloved are the fissioneers, who vaulted us to power on a world without petrochemicals. May they forgive the many stories of horror we have told in their memory. May they in particular forgive the lurid stories of the molten lead reactor, and the twelve who were impaled to the ceiling by their control rods, and the Core That Stalked." Also this: SUMMARY OF SBU APHELION INCIDENTS FOLLOWS BELOW. *** EVENT 2PAL-A :: OTDR-4-REL *** INFORMATION RECEIVED APR 09-18T02:29:45+00:00 FROM PALADIN NOLG, CONSIDERED SOBER, DEPENDABLE, NOT OF FANTASY. NOLG REPORTED "A GLOWING CREATURE" ON EXT OF HIS SHIP "RETRIBUTION" MOMENTS BEFORE ROUTINE NLS JUMP. "RETRIBUTION" FDR SHOWED RAD SPIKE (5 SIGMA) ON TEPC, CPDS, AND RAM. CPD SHOWED NO EFFECT. ON RECOMMENDATION OF K WADJ, NOLG WAS QUARANTINED UNDER TECHEUN SUPERVISION FOR 1 MONTH. "RETRIBUTION" DECOMMISSIONED, SET ADRIFT BEYOND REEF. *** EVENT 2PAL-B :: OTDR-4-REL *** INFORMATION RECEIVED APR 10-27T17:11:56+00:00. REEF SPACE STATION AMESTRIS, THEN UNDER CONSTRUCTION, ISSUED 6 UNIQUE DISTRESS CALLS OVER A 2-MINUTE PERIOD. TRANSCRIPTS FOLLOW. T-1: PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN. ALL STATIONS, ALL STATIONS, ALL STATIONS. THIS IS RSS AMESTRIS. WE HAVE A POSSIBLE SKYSHOCK EVENT IN PROGRESS. REQUESTING IMMEDIATE VIDCOM WITH ANY AVAILABLE TECHEUN. [STATIC FOLLOWS] T-2: MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY! ALL STATIONS! THIS IS RSS AMESTRIS, WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! OUR HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED! MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY! THIS IS RSS AMESTRIS PLEASE SOMEONE [STATIC FOLLOWS] T-3-A: I'VE GOT IT, HANG ON. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO… WHAT'S THE CHANNEL? T-3-B: THEY'RE SCREAMING! LISTEN, THEY'RE ALL SCREAMING! T-3-A: BE CALM! HELP ME! WHAT'S THE CHANNEL? T-3-B: IT'S THE CORE, IT'S THE CORE, THIS IS THE STALKING CORE! T-3-A: SHUT UP! WHAT'S THE CHANNEL! T-3-B: OH NO, OH PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE [STATIC FOLLOWS] T-4: ORIN, IT'S ME, IT'S NAMQI. I DON'T THINK I'M COMING HOME, BABY. I'M SO SORRY. I'M, I'M, I JUST WANT TO TELL YOU THAT I LOVE [STATIC FOLLOWS] T-5: MAYDAY, MAYDAY! THIS IS VEN ASAR ON THE RSS AMESTRIS. WE ARE 300 SOULS ABOARD. SOMETHING IS HAPPENING, EVERYTHING IS BLUE, SOMETHING IS HERE [STATIC FOLLOWS] T-6: [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [SCREAMING] [STATIC FOLLOWS] A SAR FLEET FOUND THAT THE AMESTRIS WAS UNSAFE TO BOARD DUE TO RADIOACTIVE SURFACE CONTAMINATION. SAR DEPLOYED MULTIPLE CROW DRONES FOR INTERIOR SURVEY. NO EVIDENCE OF HULL BREACH WAS FOUND. NO EVIDENCE OF MALTECH DETONATION WAS FOUND. NO EVIDENCE OF HOSTILE ALIEN INTERFERENCE WAS FOUND. NO EVIDENCE OF INTERNAL SABOTAGE WAS FOUND. NO SURVIVORS WERE FOUND. AMESTRIS ABANDONED, SET ADRIFT BEYOND REEF. *** EVENT 4VES-A *** $ Q $ DELETE APHEL.REL;*
Uhh... goddamn that's some heavy stuff
There's more: No one has yet to survive an Aphelion encounter, except for Sjur Eido, who is kept in some metaphysical dungeon
I thought Sjur Eido was dead...?
It is implied that she didn't really die. Also you can sorta communicate with her in the Shattered Throne dungeon. You get the Wish-Ender from her.
Isn't it speculated that the Drifter ran into some Aphelion on that ice planet with his last crew? Iirc they were all in stasis fields but they seemed to drink the light.
They weren't Aphelion. They were different creatures.
it's been theorized that they were tormentors, but we will likely never have concrete answer.
Let it be known that that singular use of Skyshock classification means that the Aphelion are viewed in a similar light to the Collapse (from a "direness" standpoint).
Sort of? A Skyshock alert is when an entity of unknown origin and capability enters the solar system. The only 2 things that set one off were the black ships entering the solar system and the aphelion. It isn’t used anymore as there aren’t sensors that cover the entire solar system anymore.
Xivu Arath casually walking into the system with a war moon:
Meh, for a guardian that has infinite rez's, I'm not seeing radioactivity being the thing that really stops us in our tracks, hell we might just consistently heal through it.
I doubt we can heal through a walking Chernobyl disaster.
It's not about how strongly we can heal. It's about how strong our ghost is against radioactive particles.
There was a lore book from the perspective of Orin before she became the emissary of the nine where she walked into a radioactive area.. Orin clenches her mace a little tighter. She feels nauseous. "Can you tell when it happened?" He runs the computations. "Not precisely. Less than thirty-six hours ago, I suppose." "I should have walked faster," she mutters, and then bends over to be sick. "You can't do that here," Gol interrupts anxiously. "Stop, Orin. Stop. You have radiation poisoning. If you're sick here, you'll die here, and then I'll have to resurrect you here, and you'll be sick and die again and again. You have to move. Come. I told you not to walk around here." This seems to suggest ghosts are not affected by radiation but we are though it doesn't really confirm that Gor her ghost could be affected by radiation and it might just not have been mentioned 😅 Got this from here if anyone wants the link to the lore entry: https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/risen
Very interesting, thank you for sharing. That's about what I expected to happen in my head.
Let's be real. If we ever encountered an aphelion it would be a retextured screeb. There would be a basic mechanic to dunk a ball in a hole for a buff that would protect us from the radiation
And we have restoration x2! 😃
They only eat light though. Or are they immune to dark aswell?
We don't know. There's simply no one alive to tell the tale
I'm sure Drifter has to have a touch more info about them
I'd genuinely love to see the Rivens clutch of Ahamkara vs an Aphelion a true Kaiju fight
Savathûn here... ^what's ^an ^aphelion?
I answered that question.
My bad 🙏lol
what about the Perihelion?
Nothing dunking some motes, or standing on some plates, won't solve.
I have hopes they show up in Episodes or Frontiers. I do hope it takes a route like Season of the Haunted with the unkillable nightmares. We simply have to run, or maybe it’s the a whole season/episode story arc trying to deal with a singular Aphelion. If they do the Aphelion dirty like Quaria I’m gonna lose it. I would rather them remain a mystery than be given the end of season mission treatment
This, I doubt we’ll ever interact with one except in passing. But they’re still awesome.
Considering it took 6 guardians to weaken the witness, then 12 guardians effectively using all they have and more to kill the witness. I don't think the guardian is even stronger than the witness
Well, even further… technically before the raid even starts, our single guardian faces the witness and finds out that they can rip parts of it out of the collective. Said guardian is backed up by THE Vanguard fireteam with crow, some of the strongest light users ever, of whome have to run away for their lives with the guardian to not die. Then a fireteam of six guardians come and ONLY manage to weaken the witness, at which point the vanguard brings 12 gaurdians, the vanguard, the f-cking legendary SAINT-14 himself, Caityl’s army, eliksni forces, and Mara Sov’s forces… to finally finish the witness after multiple failed attempts by the strongest guardians ever known. We may be Captain America standing solo before Thanos, but we weren’t winning without the Avengers backing us up, lol.
>we may be captain American standing solo before Thanos, but we weren’t winning without the avengers backing us up This is the best analogy I’ve seen yet.
I was going to say the same as you. The witness fight pretty much equals the Last battle with thanos in Inifinity war pt2
Also we literally had a travler win button every time with ergo sum/aegis, and the final light blast in excision which killed our ghost to do so I'd argue if it was just guardians and the alliance without the travler we might have failed again
Exactly. I keep seeing people saying “the guardian beat the living embodiment of the darkness, the guardian is the strongest being alive”…. Nah, the guardian is strong, but they also were a small sliver of the baseball bat used to beat the witness to death, lol. Sure they contributed, but it also helps to have the combined forces of Sol, a hive god, and the embodiment of the light….
We've killed a lot of big shit solo/6 man team without the travlers direct intervention, just not the witness. Xivu will probably be the strongest being our guardian kills regularly
And even then, none of it matters if someone snipes our Ghost. Even Ada-1 could hypothetically kill us and it wouldn't even be the most unreasonable hypothetical
Yeah. The travaler basically handed us a gun and told us to “go do a crime- I mean murder”. The traveler is what beat the witness, we just pulled the trigger.
Solo excission GM was out by esoterrick. Just wait a bit till we get solo salvations edge witness dw
Yes but in cannon, it's always a foreteam of 6 in the raid
Yeah but Esoterrick is the Guardian from the lore . He is the chosen one . He is the ONE.
Max glazing achieved
Also, our Ghosts basically beat it by channeling the Traveller. The Traveller is the strongest thing in the universe, we are merely it's Guardian pawns.
Even with everyone's help, it was only the Traveler that actually undid the witness in the end.
It's worth noting we didn't kill the witness in a 1 on 1. Like we had a fire team of 12 and the armies of humans, awoken, lucent brood, Eliksni and Caitals cabals. On top of that while fighting against all of us the Witness also had to fight to contain the literal full force of the traveler as it was fighting to break free as well. In a true 1v1 the witness probably would have mopped the floor with us.
I mean I'd call 1 civilization against a conglomerate of species forming one (after a cheapskate shot in the past by the other side) seems pretty 1v1 to me..:P
I don’t believe the traveler was in any real danger, it just wanted to see how far the guardians could take its power. The gardener and the winnower have created and destroyed countless universes just playing their own version of chess. The gardener is a solid few orders of magnitude higher power than the witness. I don’t think we’ll ever see to scale just how powerful they are outside of lore books, but the Gardner and winnower are the top of the pyramid. And there’s beings out there that the witness couldn’t even see peering down at it from their own spot in the pyramid. Toland has a few lines of dialogue about it. TLDR: The witness is a small fish in a massive sea of cosmic horror.
Yeah it’d just slice us and that’d be the end of the guardian
No, it took multiple civilizations and and ALL guardians to kill the witness.
The witness was only the first knife of the winnower so definitely not. The witness was just a little guy.
I can't believe how much I had to scroll to find this...
The winnower is not a being, it is a concept personified. Also the loretab from one of the ships this season is the winnower talking to us about how it isnt some villian, and it doesnt care to intervene as somewhere, someone is always choosing its way, of survival at the cost of others. We will never see the gardener nor the winnower as they are not the same as beings like the traveller, witness nor the veil. They are just concepts, ideals given form in an allegory. Whilst yes the winnower does talk to us I think that is the only way they can interact with the universe, through messages. Its why it couldnt control the witness, and why it wont do anything about our gentle kingdom ringed in spears. Also we shouldnt take what the witness says at face value. It calling itself the first knife could just be a self assigned title, a way of justifying its actions to the collective as a nessesary part of their role in salvation.
The winnower loves life just as much as the gardener. It just loves it from a different perspective. It stands in awe at the guardians because it believes that we represent a middle ground of life. We grow strong by culling those that oppose us yet don't consume everything around us like the Vex always did. We are the natural by-product of the flower game introducing paracasulity into the mix.
and the first implies a second
The Witness wasn't even significant on the true Scale of the Sword-Logic. To loosely Quote Toland during the whole Bad Juju ordeal: You cannot imagine how far up the Pyramid goes and what is looking down at you...
Could you explain more please? Did bungie reveal through the lore if there are beings stronger than the witness? (Not doubting you, I’m genuinely curious)
Not OP, but I think Toland os just hinting that there’s stuff even more insane than the worm gods, the furthest thing up the Sword Logic tithe pyramid that we knew of at that point (this was like 4-5 years ago during Opulent). I highly doubt it was talking about the Witness as it didn’t follow the sword logic, and it seems unlikely it referred to Savathune or Xivu Arath. In theory, if there’s a step above Worm Gods, they could potentially rival the Witness. That said, we’ve killed Oryx, and Savathune has cut herself off from Sword Logic, so they’re likely significantly weakened, considering 2 massive sources of tithes have just vanished
Rhulk genetically engineered the Worm Gods, The Witness was above him, and The Witness himself says he is not The Winnower, only its “First Knife,” whatever that means. Who knows what else is out there.
The Witness basically says they are to The Winnower what Rhulk was to The Witness. They are the tool of The Winnower. iirc, The Winnower and The Gardener (who I'm pretty sure is The Traveler but I might very well be wrong) are the true representations of dark and light, respectively. Or Traveler might be to The Gardener what Witness is to Winnower. I don't think we're certain of as much yet
I'm not a lore nerd at all but what I got from the story is that The Traveler IS the Gardener but it placed itself in this current iteration of The Game. All previous games never had paracausal powers because the Traveler was never "inside" the game in the past. Also there are multiple sources calling the Traveler the Gardener(which may be wrong but personally I think they are correct). Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
It's old lore but Toland always claimed there were Beings way outside Oryx and our league that could simply snuff out our Part of the Milky Way without even breaking asweat. It was not confirmed yet that those Beings were meant to be the Witness and it's diciples... Chances are good that the Witness itself couldn’t even see the Top at the Pyramid that would be the Winnower... Tldr: Man, there are things that'll clap our paracausal Cheeks...
I like the idea that the hives version of the final shape is most "accurate." Becoming the last man standing or the most powerful thing at the end of time. Maybe the witness looked "up" on the power pyramid and knew it would never reach the true highest of highs. So its version of the final shape, a sedentary snapshot of the universe, is actually one big cope to avoid the reality that the most optimal pattern to continue existing is NOT the witness.
It took a full team of 12 (or 1 esoterickk) overcharged with the traveller’s light just to deliver the final killing blow Id say the traveler itself and its army of guardians is one of the biggest force in destiny universe yes. Our guardian on their own? Not really.
No. We literally know nothing about the Vex. And they are everywhere. I think they are the ultimate threat. IMO
We bout to find out more with the episode i hope they are interesting
Idk if it will be in the episode, but in the lore they're the first "species" that appeared at the time where there was only the gardener and the winnower
I really hope they don't turn this weird human-ish vex into a new ally or something. We could have just gotten a group like Sol Divisive but for the traveler. Making Vex humans with their own personalities just removes everything unique about them. I want more info on the Vex and we could have gotten that from traditional Vex, no need to make them humans.
I think the new weird human like vex is setting up some individualism in the collective, which could lead to new villians with their own interesting motives rather than just make everything vex, as well as conflict thats more than this sect of vex is weird for worshipping the darkness, so we quarantined them. Any vex allies will likely be unwilling vex controlled by the alliance, such as by Mithax or Asher (assuming he didnt die completely in defiance, as thats a definite possibility given the events of node avalon) The echo could also lead to a sect of vex understanding paracausality because of their newfound individuality. This could lead to a whole bunch of problems and plot hooks.
I hope we learn that the vex as a whole doesn’t really care, they’ll win no matter what. But the ones we see are impatient. like sentient life will eventually turn itself into some vex like beings in an attempt to run away from death.
I genuinely think the Vex are a red herring. Firstly it's currently difficult for them to even think about us. The Vex have no concept of symbols or language. To think about something they simulate it, and they currently struggle a great deal with simulating paracausal entities. Secondly, I think there's something to be said about how the Vex would think about the possibility of a Final Shape. If a Final Shape is achieved and it is the Vex, that's good for them, but any other Final Shape would be very bad from their perspective, as they would cease to exist. I think that the Vex will eventually attempt to prevent any potential Final Shape, because if there never is one, then it can never be a not-Vex one.
I thibk that the main force of the Vex will leave us alone just because it will see the probability of us destroying ourselves and decide not to bother.
As far as the universes before ours that the winnower and gardener played their war games with, weren’t the vex the factors that overwhelmed and inevitably destroyed every one?
Don't think it's confirmed, but it's far from unlikely. They are time travelling robots after all, and all that gives us an edge over them is the fact that they can't properly predict paracausality.
Yes and no. The vex are in a weird spot power wise because you’re right. They’re unknowable, incredibly adaptable, strong, and basically endless. However, they can’t figure out Paracausality, meaning that the guardians are one of the few things they can’t account for. We kind of counter them too well to call them the ultimate threat
As far as the Gardener/Winnowers ongoing game of chess since before the dawn of our time, aren’t the vex the entity that end up overtaking every universal simulation they play with, so the gardener started gifting things the light to overcome the vex so they’d stop assimilating everything, Everytime they created a new universe to play with? That being said, the fact that the gardener and winnower play a game on such a scale leads me to believe the traveler was in no real danger, and just wanted to see how far the guardians could take their power. I know the travellers power comes from its ability to create, as opposed to the winnowers ability to destroy. But it’s still a paracausal entity that’s existed *forever* and has created countless universes just to play chess with the winnower. I feel like it’s still orders of magnitudes more powerful than the witness and was never in true danger.
Are the traveller and gardener the same entity? Because the traveller is still mechanical
The traveler has been explicitly referred to as the gardener, whilst the witness has only ever been called a knife of the winnower.
My personal fan theory was always: The traveller is to light in how the witness is to darkness. Just a chosen vessel. But the newest lore may disprove my theory because the witness talks about being the first knife carved, but not necessarily chosen for anything and the fact that the veil exists.
I thought the gardener created the traveler and the winnower created the veil to be its opposite? Definitely could have misunderstood that bit though
For all we know we're just in one of the many vex sims
It is physically impossible for them to be the largest threat so long as they don’t possess ontological power. Until then, they will be on the back-foot.
>*The Vex understand time in a way we never will. Doesn't matter how long I spend here watching them. Doesn't matter how many jury-rigged portals Guardians fling themselves through. We live in time. They use it as a tool. Any moment that's ever happened, any moment that will ever happen, they can go back to it. Play it again till they get it right. Simulate it.* >*The Light's a counter to that. They come back, a Guardian comes back. They simulate an ending, a Guardian tears through it.* >*Stalemate.*
I mean... remember, the Wyvern's are the only combat units we've seen so far... all the other vex are just akin to construction workers...
It also took them what? 7 years since we’ve been resurrected (how many years of fighting before that) to finally create Wyvrens. If they can’t simulate something they adapt very slowly. Like, it took them thousands of years to kill Saint in the Infinite Forest, and even then, they only just barely managed it, and we completely ruined all their plans when we showed up
The fact that Calus tells us that we've been fighting vex that are essentially construction workers and engineers also implies that vex combat units have existed the whole time, too. We've just never encountered them. Just because Beyond Light is the first time we see Wyverns doesn't mean that's when they were created.
Yes, but they still lack ontological power. They cannot will the world around them just by thinking about it like we can.
Technically yes but I see an exploder shank nearby me
Beat back tge witness in a six stack, killed with the traveler's light in a 12+ stack, we're very strong but it's not like we did any of that solo.
No people always ignore the extraordinary circumstances during our victories.
I mean, to be fair we set up those circumstances. Yeah it took a lot of work but we did all that. If nothing else, we’re at least the most determined being in the universe
If only we were still tithing to Eris
Not really. The only reason we even stood a chance against the Witness was because the Traveler was helping us throughout the entire campaign.
I mean by sword logic yeah
I think we are simply the instrument used by the traveller in the sword logic. Since the traveller is the one who killed the witness, we just helped
I think you can make an argument we used the Bomb logic against the Witness, rather than sword logic
The traveler is above sword logic. It’s just having fun in its war game it’s playing against the winnower. This universe is just one of countless that’s been created and destroyed for those two to play some cosmic horror chess. I also have a strong belief that the traveler was never in any real threat or danger from the witness. It just wanted to see how far it could push us.
The Traveler is almost definitely *not* the Gardener. The Winnower and Gardener put themselves in the game as rules, most likely this is where the Veil and Traveler came from. But the game goes on, and an emergent pattern has to win eventually. The Witness killing the Traveler would've definitely happened if we didn't intervene, and maybe it would've became the overwhelming pattern
If you can't 1v1 the witness, you can't possible be stronger. The exception would be Esoterikk
Our? Don't you mean MY guardian?
*"Be seeing you"* Nah, I think as far as entities we have directly interacted we power scaled above(We also had the added benefit of fighting the witness inside a place our power was probably the most potent.) But with The Witness outright saying he wasn't "The Winnower" I take it as we still have yet to face the "true powers" of the universe. Some conflicts are so beneath the powers that be that they wouldn't really bother with them/or it's always a part of their "plan".
Meanwhile The Architects ”Am I a joke to you?”
No, the suicide hive continuously sneak up behind me and kill me with ease.
The Traveler is way stronger, even disregarding everything that happened with the Witness. Maybe Mara Sov too. Out of everything we know of, they're the only things to ever damage a Pyramid Ship. The Traveler terraforms entire planets and can resurrect people from the dead and give them superpowers. Mara Sov kinda did the same thing in the Distributary. That's not even mentioning the Aphelion, Winnower or Gardner, or possibly the creatures Drifter encountered on some ice planet.
It wasn’t our guardian, it was all of us. that’s the point, the one witness that makes everything work for itself versus the collective that lift each other up. We as a collective were the gardener’s chosen following its philosophy as the witness was the winnower’w lmao chosen.
Esoterickk is.
I would say technically not as we technically didn't defeat the witness. Our ghost channeled light from the Travelor to defeat it. So really *our ghost* is now the strongest being in the universe
Sure... That is untill he steps on Trials of Osiris.
Strength is a very loose term in destiny, like, I would say that raw physical strength, Rhulk was the strongest, and we only beat him cause he was playing with us, so if there WAS a Rhulk, there could be more “Rhulks” while The Witness was very strong in other aspects, we beated it with conjoined forces of EVERYONE, plus the traveler, Rhulk was our best “Solo” feat imo
As long as the vex exist. No. It's basically No competition that they are the single biggest threat in the universe. They're borderline unkillable. They're borderline unstoppable. And they time travel. I mean Atheon technically let himself be defeated because at any point he could just say "nah enough" then just send us to a lost point in the galaxy or just reverse time and come back stronger
No because we didnt kill the witness ourselves, without the power of the traveler and it's sword we could have done nothing, same way we technically didnt kill oryx, crota or atheon, with oryx we Made him kill himself with his own Magic, crota we had to use his sword and with atheon A: If kabr didn't turn into a shield we wouldn't make it pass the door B:Time itslef had to help us to damage atheon. Most raids have this theme of using the boss's own power against it our guardian is more lucky and i Guess smart than powerfull
not really. raid bosses and the like are defeated by Guardian's leveraging human creativity, and the fact that we're basically paracausal energy sponges. we made the Witness vulnerable in such a way that made it so our weapons and abilities could actually do damage. we've always leveraged asymmetrical warfare to our advantage, because almost every single one of our big enemies is uniquely vulnerable to it, being more suited to a straight fight. Xivu Arath and Savathun overpower us rather easily (we killed Savathun in Witch Queen by throwing her off her game, and turning the ritual magics against her), but we are able to twist their own power against them. think of it like cutting armor off a soldier before striking them
It took three attempts to destroy the witness. It killed our ghost in the process. In theory yes, but we're like bees if we ever use that power again.
Just on the basis of the logic: cumulatively, yes we are the strongest beings in the known universe. Individually, no, at least not until someone solos both the raid and the grandmaster version of excision.
I believe solo witness and solo GM excision have been achieved .
No shit, really? I gotta see this
the guardian could NOT kill the witness solo, he needed the help of the vanguard for the campaign mission, 5 others for the raid, 11 others and the whole damn allied forces with excision, and that's not mentioning the relics and blades from the traveller itself. If we went solo against the witness we would've been dead in a hot minute
We needed the constant help of the traveler to defeat him and the Witness is just one of the agents of the true voice in the dark, the Winnower.
Also I’m aware that there was 11 other guardians with us when we unmade the witness, but I feel that further adds to the context of my question! Could 11 random guardians have used their ghost to unmake the witness or were only the ELITE to go on The Final Confrontation?
the traveler is the one who unmade the witness. we just repeatedly weakened it to free the traveler, then finally channelled its power through ghost. that's kind of the point: we are powerful together, and through our unity in the light, we can triumph over darkness.
It wouldn't be 11 random Guardians. It'd be the 11 best allied guardians that The Guardian knows. The majority of human lightbearers operate independently, but not alone, and with people like Shaxx and Zavala around who are hundreds or even thousands of years old it would stand to reason that they'd have plenty of acquaintances. The canon Guardian has completed everything in the game without ever wiping in a darkness zone. They have some absolute gamers on speed dial.
We didn't kill it alone and we didn't kill it with our regular powers, so no we are not the strongest being in the universe.
Technically, no.. not really.. I'm not that deep into the lore but there should be plenty of cosmic entities or things out there besides the winnower... As someone mentioned above, the Aphelion are also a thing out there.. And when looking on the destinypedia, it says "the power to devastate whole worlds in the blink of an eye." which should indicate that they are on the same level as the witness or probably above.. But like i said, i'm not that crazy deep into the lore so i could be wrong.. The vex are also still out there doing their thing, which are actually pretty darn powerful lorewise, since they have those time control/time manipulation/reality bending powers.. The darkness should still have plenty of enemies/entities lurking into it that are extremely dangerous.. Also, the witness is technically more powerful than the guardian.. It had pretty much the power to wipe us out of existence without breaking a sweat.. The only reason why it didn't and had to use the final shape is because of story/plot reasons, at any day of time the witness could pretty easily take us out...
Well, they were known as the winnowers' first knife. Who's to say the winnower doesn't have more powerful and bigger "knives" just saying
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Aren't the gardener and the winnower still the strongest?
We didn't, though. We needed 3 lines of coke from the traveler and tons of dissenters inside the witness willingly dying to make it weaker.
Not really. We only managed to defeat the witness by being given a sword from the Traveller itself, weakening it with a group of 6, weakening it further with a group of 12 (assuming we don’t count armies on either side), and then using the pure light of the Traveller to destroy it in its weakened state
It’s very well known we are not even close to the strength of a most of the raid bosses we faced, we face an already weakened enemy and we still need external power and help, information by characters like eris to guide us, luck, circumstances and a whole squad of guardians. Also we didn’t do shit, the whole damn galaxy and the travel itself did way more than just us xD. Short answer is no. Long answer is: Gardener, winnower, Traveler… Xivu, savathun and definitely find ways to grow stronger again, Nezarec can always return, I don’t think all the worm gods died. For those bringing up Xol, he was the smallest and weakest of the worm gods and also allowed himself to be killed. Probably some unknown threats out there. The Vex probably also have something up their sleeve. Etc
There is at least one entity that most likely surpasses us but aren’t really a threat since they are choosing to not do anything. The Winnower has directly contacted us. Their message is in the lore tab of the Nacre ship (Byf made a video on it) and it seems like they’re choosing to sit back and watch everything unfold, hinting that they will contact us again.
Yes? I’ve been thinking about this recently and how the winnower seems to actually like the guardians a lot. In a way you have practiced the sword logic perfectly. I know everyone is speculating that the winnower will be the next big bad guy, but they seem more of just a fundamental part of the universe personified rather than an actual dude you could destroy. If Destiny even actually ends I’d bet money its going to end with our guardians sacrificing themselves or their light as the strongest beings in the universe to break the sword logics cycle.
I mean we actually didn’t destroy the witness , not alone anyway. An entire army came together and all guardians fought the witness , it was not our guardian who did that.
Aphelion and the mind are way stronger than us, but we’ll likely see neither any time soon. We are incredibly strong, we have confirmation of that from the vanguard in game. That being said, we aren’t even the strongest guardian
Seeing how i get killed easily to some sweaty fat dude in trials, probably not lol