I remember that some time ago, you theorized that the Final Shape would be us, the Guardians, wielding both Light and Dark, overcoming the logic of our current universe. If you are right, then past Byf is vindicated once more.
He really brought The Gardner and The Winnower to life in the lore here. Makes me wonder, if the Gardner is proven to be real. Will we need to content with her brother (I’ve always envisioned the two as siblings)?
Love the way you've been reading dialogue in loretexts, Byf. There's a lot more emotion and intent behind it, which really fits the characters saying it.
Appreciate it! I'm trying where possible. Some days I'm just tired, other days I'm able to give it my all. It helps when it's a great writer behind the lore. The Unveiling stuff is Seth Dickinson if I'm not mistaken. His stuff is phenomenal (See Books of Sorrow). It's really easy to get sucked into performance with VO when the dialogue is great. To this day he's written one of my favourite lines (Wrath! Behold the wrath of Oryx coiled for 10,000 years!)
@MynameisByf i feel like there are good opportunities w AI voices these days to imitate the possible voices of each character in these lore readings, would add to the immersiveness of it
@@4newestaccoun While I'm sure Bungie wouldn't mind, Sony owns them now, so they would most likely respond with legal action. As the voices themselves are still subject to copyright, and that's stated on every publicly available AI voice generator.
I feel like the Final Shape can only be properly realized, so long as there's only one individual that is unchallenged in its interpretation of how the universe should be. It would explain why the Darkness/Winnower is obsessed with it because it's the catalyst for and is the reward for ultimate competition, shaping reality as you think it should be. It would also be why the Traveler/ Gardener never wished to make it for itself, or even directly speaks for that matter, because it desires complex life with their own perspectives, generating complexity. The Final Shape (as it was, at least) is incompatible with its goals at a fundamental level, and so doesn't desire perfection. In many ways, then, Transcendance really is the Gardener's best argument against the Final Shape, and it seems fitting it would condone and encourage the Darkness to be used alongside Light.
I think this is the best explanation for why the Traveller doesnt talk to us during the series. With one exception, its been absolutely silent, and seemingly aloof. But I like your explanation. Perhaps thats on purpose. to see what we will do
In the final shape reveal we hear someone talking to our guardian, i didnt recognize the voice but it seemed almost like a female ghost. It could be a character and i just didnt recognize them, but i honestly felt like it was the traveler speaking to us directly
@@josephcool981I would prefer the traveller to remain silent, for the reason behind its silence to be symbolic of something hence why I like this interpretation.
@gavinferguson2938 i think if it really is the traveler, then it will speak only to the guardian and no one else. Bungie mentioned something along the lines of us being given new power when the traveler chooses us as it "champion of light" and i think in a way it would be cool if on top of all of our other achievements, we also essentially become the next speaker (technically the first REAL one, since the traveler never actually spoke to any of the others).
If you remember from the final Parting the Veil quest, Nimbus and Osiris theorized that at one point the Traveler and the Veil and subsequently the Light and Darkness at one point, were actually one and the same, one singular power. Transcendence could be that very power.
Our guardian will use the power to combine all darkness and light powers into one subsequently being able to seperate the millions of lifeforms inside the witness! I am expecting at some point the true enemy behind the witness to come forth for us to then combine that and the traveller back into one being.
14:28 This is like the force in Star Wars, people who purely watch the movies think using the dark side automatically make you a sith, and light a jedi. Sith is purely an ideology, just like being a jedi is. You can use either aspects of the force without ever being aligned to either ideology. It's just that being a part of either order helps you gain more knowledge. So if you're primarily light side user or even a jedi and use something like force lightning and you're still beholden to your principles, it doesn't automatically make you bad unless you want to be. As byf said, they're simple a creature using one kind of energy.
The Gardner to the Guardians (those dead in the Traveler/afterlife, and alive): “There must be meaning in our roar. A transcendence of light and dark. This, is our destiny”.
@@garrettviewegh9028he’s literally not correct though. His belief was, essentially, that the Darkness is a necessary symmetry to the Traveler. However, since it used to be believed that the Darkness was a being that caused the collapse, it’s clear now that what we used to call “the Darkness” can actually be differentiated between the Darkness that is the force, and the voice in the Darkness that is the Witness. It’s also clear that when he says “the Darkness is a necessary symmetry to the Traveler”, he’s talking about the voice entity, AKA the Witness. If he meant the force, he would have said it was a symmetry to the Light, not to the Traveler. And this idea is obviously just completely absurd and wrong given current context. The witness does not represent any sort of symmetry opposed to the Traveler. If such a symmetry exists, it’s likely with the Veil.
This. This is THE Byf lore video. This is the one. That's it. I agree with absolutely everything here. And I've ALWAYS took a more literal approach to Unveiling. That the Gardener and the Winnower were actual beings. And hearing the Gardener's voice in the new trailer just proved for me what I've been saying for YEARS at this point.
@RespiteofChampions Literally anyone? A dead guardian, our mother, a Leviathan from fundament, etc. etc. There's a good reason to believe it's the Gardener, but there's hardly anything conclusive... It might even be the Precursor who refused to join the Witness. I find the winnoner and the idea of the strong defeating the weak until one remains to be interesting because given evolution, the circumstance gives rise to "strength", i.e. a long neck may let you graze freely among the tallest trees, but just as easily be your undoing when ice sets in and your food retreats into the caves. By its nature, no one would ever be the "strongest" forever unless time and evolutionary pressure is halted. As long as the potential for divergence exists, so, too, is there a difference in what constitutes perfection and by extension, "strength". Beings with desires can never reach a state of perfection unless they can reach a state in which they cease to have desires. Desiring anything implies that which is could be made better and that which is imperfect. The Winnower does not speak as if he has no desires, and the Gardener certainly speaks of its own wants. Basically, I don't believe in one "strong" final shape because strength is relative. Scissors beats paper, paper beats rock, and rock beats scissors, so which one is the strongest? In a one on one match there's always a winner, but when 3 or more players play the game, who wins?
Domain expansion: infinite suffering. Cue every possible application of CC and debuffs in the game. Suspend, freeze, shatter, all three twin tailed rockets for scorch, suppress, and jolt, probably blind in there somewhere, ignite them, and just incase nuke them with a nova bomb or a needlestorm.
You could say that the final shap for bomb logic is the final shape that will never come to pass... For we must always change, always adapt, and always be open for more growth.
Transcendance sounds and looks cool but my need for symmetry wishes there was a third Darkness subclass before this fusion was introduced. Like, it low key annoys me that there are not an equal number of Light and Darkness subclasses. ...this may be the start of my villain arc.
It makes a lot more sense for it to be number 7, especially considering Bungie's fascination for the number, but... My guess is they just ran out of time.
To be fair, they were being honest that they were playing their cards really close to their chest. I have no idea why, but I really do have this strange feeling number 3 may still come out...
If the witnesses final shape is the triangle, then the Traveller's is the destiny tricorn. The title screen symbol thats been with us since the very beginning. Its rounded like a sphere, but angled like an upside down triangle. It is representative of an inversed hierarchy. Implying a reversal of the Witnesses ideals. Its white too, signifying that it is indeed the traveller's final shape and it furthermore reflects infinite complexity given its rounded nature. I have also seen some on reddit note that previously the symbol represented the consensus between the speaker, the factions, and vanguard with the Traveller in the middle. This would line up squarely with the issue facing the Witness currently. Namely that despite pursuing the Traveller for aeons, the precursors had not achieved full consensus before being merged into one singular being. In other words, the witness has yet to achieve a concensus whilst the Traveller has. The Travellers final shape is a fidget spinner.
My favorite disciple of The Witness so far has to be Calus. He doesn’t know what the Final Shape is and he doesn’t care. He knows that whatever else is is meant to be it’s functionally the end of the universe as we know it and all he wants is to exist and experience as much of that ending as he possibly can. Almost like the Cenobites from Hellraiser, he just craves experience.
Absolutely criminal byf has only got a mil subs now very few youtubers put as much work and effort into the quality of their videos... either way congrats
Transcendence perhaps lends into the core meaning of this entire game, Destiny. Guardians make their own fate and with Prismatic we now wield both Light and Dark together and thus we shape Destiny.
Destiny has always fundamentally been about time and more frontforwardly then that about the missuse of it so it would be poetic that this power once it combines all forms into one can manipulate time in some way.
He has. Every lore video for a while has been wrong about the witness, the disciples, etc because he refuses to look into anything that isn’t directly/concretely stated in the lore books because it could be “lies”. He’s missed the point more times than I could count. Other lore creators are more accurate now imo.
This reminds of Kingdom Hearts 3. The chess game between the two kids at the beginning, about there always being the same outcome. Until light or dark chose to change what they were for. The game went on until dark had almost snuffed out all light, then the agents of light rose up, more powerful than before (transcendence). Always a good story troupe.
The cut scene that showed the history of The Witness changed how I thought about the Unveiling lore book. When the Witness' people find the Traveler buried on their planet, it put things in a whole new context. Now I consider Unveiling to be closer to folk lore of the Witness' people. A way for them to explain something for which they have a very limited understanding. Even though the Witness knows about the functionality of the Traveler and the Veil, both of those cosmic entities predate the Witness. Thus we get a vague and whimsical story about a gardener and a winnower rather than a detailed history.
Would be nice to get prismatic and unlock our final darkness subclass through it via fragment unlocks slowly over time. I still think Resonance should be the 3rd darkness subclass.
A transcription in game “ Pilgrimage: Garden of Esila, Dead Tree” mentions two gardeners. A female gardener who loses to the winnower, the gardener from the first knife group of lore, and the traveler. The traveler speaks of itself as a gardener and the last of his kind in the grimoire “ghost fragment: Mysteries”
Yesssss this is exactly what came to mind seeing the Prismatic subclass, especially within the traveller. We are going to become some aspect of the Final Shape, or an answer to it. What I'm really excited about seeing though is if that surprises the Witness at all, or if we're somehow part of their plan as well. I have a running theory that the Witness' goal is to become the Winnower's Final Shape, and we'll be the Gardener's, and it's possible there's either a precursor or some other kind of being inside the Traveller that's going to be making us their champion. Once we win, because of course we will, it might happen to herald some new form of Golden Age.
Man watching this and thinking back to playing VoG in D1, first time fighting Atheon and seeing the message Guardians make their own fate is something else. Never would have thought id spend the next 10 years with this story and it finally coming to a head.
I think the voice we hear sounds like Ikora. It sounds like the voice is coming over comms. Why would the Traveler/Gardener speak to us through our comms?
I like that idea that Nezarac was sooooo close, when you look at the designs for his Wipe VFX it literally looks like he’s trying too fuse/use light and dark all at once but since he doesn’t have true Prismatic Transcendence he can only try, but with us in the Final Shape we are able too mix them perfectly! It’s almost like mixing Carbonated Water and Soda Syrup (weird way too go but it’s how I envision it) if you have too much of one or the other it’s just wrong, but…..when you have the perfect mixture….it hits just right! Maybe just maybe this is what the Traveler ment for the guardians/ghosts all this time too act as a “Prism” in which too focus not just the light but also the dark too finally defeat the Witness. (Reason why we didn’t have darkness from the start is obvious in a few ways)
Gardeners were first mentioned in the grimoire card for the black garden but the light and darkness sagas are pretty full explained in lore cards for Lumina Mk. 44 Stand-Asides T = 0 The Cambrian Explosion
I also love how the sword logic vs bomb logic analogy also applies to a lot of the gameplay design. We've long since moved away from passive perks and subclass trees, and into complex buildcrafting and perk combos that chain into weapon rotations.
Maybe the real finals shape was the friends we met along the way (quite literally). No seriously, this is actually likely to be how the light and darkness saga ends, and it makes sense with the lore. The traveler is literally said to be complexity personified as it's a sphere. The traveler's bomb logic is stated to be all acting as one, individual, independent and likely unknown to one another components triggering a mutually beneficial effect for all. Given the darkness runs on emotions, it's entirely possible for the red subclass to be The Power of Friendship as an element.
@13:00 the way she says guardian it sounds like Ikora's voice actress but distorted a bit, perhaps the voice is similar to when Riven takes on voices, using Ikora's to guide us.
Legit brought this up on my podcast reacting to TFS gameplay showcase. Love when we line up in those rare times Byf!! Our final shape (us) versus the witness’s calcification of the universe! Ideology v ideology! The best kind of RPG ending! !!
so how im thinking of it. this always bring me back to the statues. the darkness statues. a woman covered by a "veil" hiding the truth. i think the womans voice is the gardener but the gardener is actually inside the traveller. Brings back to what the witness said during the invention of the portal
Think its time too take a look back at root of nightmares byf I think its a big hint that we would one day combine darkness and light. I mean look at conditional finality it’s a weapon that combines dark and light. And the vines in the raid give off that same blue pink colors that we see on prismatic.
Love it. I think we’ve known the gardener/traveler’s “final shape” all along. From d1 we know that in opposition to the sword logic (which has really been evolved/retconned and co-opted from the hive’s philosophy to that of the Witness) that the traveler bets that when given control over physics (read: paracausality as a combined fundamental force as theorized by Osiris in the Veil missions) that its chosen will create a gentle place ringed in spears. The gardener’s chosen will use the extra power it and the winnower created when they joined the game (paracausality) to protect a place of life and complexity, even as the philosophy of the winnower exists in the universe in the form of the Witness also trying to master the full spectrum of paracausality to instead end/finalize reality. Transcendence and the ability to use light and dark to become “the light of hope” aligns perfectly with the original “bet” of the traveler from d1, and it’s really kind of a beautiful full circle moment. I think they just might pull off an incredible narrative conclusion to this 10 year epic, it seems like they’re definitely going to nail it from a gameplay perspective. Exciting times for sure, I’m excited to listen to you and the lore community as it unfolds.
When I think of light vs. dark or complexity vs. perfection (which seems to be what Destiny speaks of), an alternate version of this conflict in the real world that is much more ancient is words vs. silence, or female vs. male. I don't play Destiny anymore, but I find its greater themes in the story line to be incredibly deep and fascinating. Your videos are a story by themselves, Byf. Keep up the great work. ❤️
I totally agree with your point of view,especially since it match how the final shape was marketed and how something New will start,outside of the obvious marketing talk,it make sense to end a light and dark saga and start a New one knowing we avoided the planned end due to our difference and capacity to wield dark and light
I’ll stake my non-existent reputation on the following assertion. The Witness didn’t tell its Disciples what the final shape truly is in order to keep them (as it were) in the dark or to maintain control by letting its minions think their way was what would be, although those are useful by-products of its silence on the matter. No. The Witness doesn’t know what the final shape is. It doesn’t have any capacity for creativity. It lacks not only the generative power of the Traveler, but of common life forms like you and I. It is so fundamentally obsessed with its purpose that it cannot conceive of anything but seeking said purpose. It needs the Traveller not just for the power of the Light, but so that it can even imagine what that final shape should be. It is, in the final analysis, as hollow and empty as its creations. And oh, how it hates that. It hates that it is sterile, uncreative, only able to destroy. The Witness doesn’t know what The Final Shape is. It literally can’t conceive of what that might actually be…after all, with all its power? If it could imagine what it wanted, then it would already have made it. This has the potential to be VERY satisfying.
Literally agree with everything you said within closing to this video it certainly makes complete sense and i feel this has to be the answers we are all wanting thank you for all your hard work and appreciate all you do.
12:52 Is that not Ikora's voice? Obviously it's altered, either for 'mystery' purposes or due to (extra-)long range communication i.e. when we get to where the other side of the portal is, but I definitely hear Ikora's voice underneath the effects.
O mighty Byf, Oracle, Seer, Keeper of Knowledge, Kell of Logs. I had a crazy thought about Cayde in Final Shape and thought the Traveller has "resurrected" him as its new Speaker, acting as an intermediary with us. Or am I just medicating too much.
Love seeing Byf's Big Bonk Build. Amuses me to no end. And great video, man. I've been thinking back to Unveiling a lot since Into the Light dropped, and we heard that voice in the cutscene. I thought it was a distorted Ikora Rey, at first. Now, I'm not so sure. I reckon they're gonna bring back in the woman with the veiled face as the Gardener, or some cosmic force above the Traveler. Guardians make their own fate. And I don't think that's gonna stop because of the Witness. I do believe the Traveler's conception of the final shape to be something where power comes from complexity, not simply from strength; and that protecting those who can't protect themselves is the ultimate power.
The voice mentioned on 13:00 on the latin american spanish dub is just Ikora so either they used the same VA in the dub or it's very distorted in the english trailer
Great stuff! Love the videos Huge issue with the theroy of transcendence being the power that overcomes the Final shape. I didn't see the option to choose Well of Radiance as a super...
Ikora wouldn't encourage the Guardian to use Darkness. At least, not publicly like that. Osiris would be far more encouraging to the idea since he helped us learn Strand, but he has no way to give us Darkness, same with Ikora.
@@lordpumpkinhead265 it is ikoras voice though you can find videos comparing the voices and theyre identical, unless its the traveler or the gardener themselves using ikoras light to possess them and talk to us like our ghost has been controlled before by darkness
This kind of lore is why I adore destiny's premise. It is essentially a mythology in motion. A mythology we are helping to write. I made a comment a long time ago sort of comparing Destiny to more prevalent mythologies of the past and what I find so fascinating about destiny's lore is it takes notions like non-duality and enlightenment and makes them physical things. Naturally, it's a video game so that form is usually a cool power of some kind but it makes its point very well. The Light and Dark being two aspects of a holistic universe interconnected and changing is a masterstroke of mythological storytelling. It's taking a complex multifaceted notion and breaking it down into something you literally hold in your hands in the game. There's something so profoundly Epic about that. In truly the sense of a proper written Epic of a Mythology and affiliated Sagas.
It’s Also why I find the decision to remove content is so infuriating. I quit destiny 2 for good back in shadowkeep because of burn out and personal issues in life and I now I can’t and won’t ever get back into it because I refuse to support the direction bungie went in terms of increasingly predatory monetization,how they rolled out content and how they remove content. I am glad bungie seems to be improving things look better for the players who remain. I just wish higher up’s at bungie were less awful because of the amount of wasted potential and destiny unlike other beloved game franchises destiny can’t be experienced in its entirety by new players or players who needed to quit temporarily and that is genuinely sad.
The one thing that stands out to me is Eido’s conclusion on The Witness and its goal: how it needs the light to actualize its universal ideas. We now have both abilities and powers now.
This argument makes a lot of sense. For so long, the Traveler fled the Witness (and Winnower). But in Sol, it "changed the rules" in a sense. It stayed and created the Ghosts and subsequently the Guardians. Essentially it used "bomb logic" and made new complexities. Why it chose humanity, idk.
I am wondering if the Unveiling Lore book did happen at least in some form where the Gardner (what would become the Traveller) and Veil (The True Winnower). Did exist in some higher dimension and as some creational forces, but to become one with the game itself they lowered themselves into beings that could exist physically inside the simulation. I have been thinking that maybe the new rule added to the game was introducing "Paracausality" into the worlds themselves. It could make sense that in a perfect simulation that was created by the Winnower and the Gardener, without some way of overruling basic statistics eventually you would endup with a output inline with gaussian statistics (The Final Shape). Where if large amounts of pseudo random events occur in simulation the average of the simulation would be predictable acrosss all simulations. By adding in Paracausality as the new rule proposed by the Gardener, that would allow species that definitely shouldn't to flourish. This also alligns with the idea that the Gardener and Winnower would have to become one with the rules themselves as the True sources of Paracausality and therefore go from observers of the game to the players. I don't think merging the Veil and Traveller is what causes the Final Shape (if Paracausality is the additional rule). My guess is that its a byproduct of the new rule because we now have incarnations of the creators themselves merging the two powers lets you "Trancend" the Rules of the simulation. In our case it will be like we can trigger parcausal effects with the wrong element like triggering Gunpower Gamble With Stasis Shurikens, and truly blur the line between light and dark. The Witness wants to use the power to either expedite The Final Shape and/or destroy this simulation and go back to the ones pre the rules change (kinda like Thanos with the with the snap) I am wondering if the first knife refers to the Penitent themselves, the first species that the Traveller has visited. And by showing them the reality of the Gardener's chaos would be enough to make them abandon the Gardner. This puts the Gardener on the back foot and causes the cyclic notion of: Find Gardener, Golden Age, Black Fleet, Collapse, Gardner Run Away.
In my case, I like to think that the Gardener's Final Shape is the simple act of protecting today so tomorrow can come. There is no need for purpose or meaning. All that matters is life can exist again today, and they can experience more tomorrows. It's ironic cause this is where I somewhat agree with Savathun. I can't remember which lorebook it was from, but didn't Savathun questioned why she's following the Sword Logic before? She said that what she wants is to see more of the universe. To roam its vastness, and yet she's following a logic that destroys everything. I think that's exactly what the Gardener wish to protect. That chance to see and experience more things. There's no need for purpose nor meaning in such a world-for to have a purpose is to be tied to it-and the Traveler promised freedom. To put it into perspective, it's like hoping for the next Destiny 2 expansion to come. You hope that today will be safe and tomorrow will come, so you can experience the next expansion for a game you like to play.
The combination and usage of both light and dark go beyond what’s detailed in unveiling, as the speakers only speak from the usage of their own respective powers to shape the universe. There very well may be a final shape for light as there is for dark but with the combination of them both into a single being or species, you subvert both of them. You essentially become both the Gardner and winnower in one and are able to dictate the flow of the universe forever with both growth and death as you see fit.
I wonder if Conditional Finality was the teaser to what is to come in the final shape. An ending that is conditioned by us which is the fusion of both dark and loght. Just like the exoctic shotgun combining both stasis and solar.
thank you for addressing the Voice! I was trying to figure out who it was when watching the stream, but then immediately got distracted by everything, & forgot about it. very interesting, to say the least... 🤔
I reckon the voice we hear encouraging us to Transcend might be Micah-10, possibly stepping into her role as a Speaker? Or Speaker-Adjacent*. In which case, Byf is still right that it's the desire of the Gardener. I just hear vague exo-tones in that voice (could be ghost speakers or just the transmission, I'm not saying it's certain) and I have personally been desperate for Micah to make a reappearance. She popped up a great deal between the 'Your Friend,' lorebook and her later role as 'den-mother of Ghosts', all of which seems to suggest she has a deeper, more spiritual attunement to the Traveller. And that seems like something that's been built up too much to be ignored. I'm not certain I'm right, but it would be brilliant to see Micah-10 taking a more active role, considering her suggested relationship with the Traveller. *(I say Speaker-Adjacent because we know that the Speaker who died in the Red War named himself the Last Speaker in the lore, but... who can say?)
Part of me wonders how light and dark subclasses will continue should the main story conclude. Will Light overcome darkness, and in doin so, remove darkness from the universe? Or will there be some level of synergy/balance to these cosmic forces? A new shape, if you will. Will out guardian live on past this conflict? Or will they finally get the rest they deserve? I'd like to see a sort of amalgamation of light/dark along with the cloud strider tech used as a new breed of guardian, utilizing nano-tech infused light to bolster new gaurdians...just. a thought I've been having lately.
I think at the end of the campaign, the witness will end up telling us we are the final shape and it will be our task to shape “destinys” universe as we see fit in the next expansion or destiny 3.
"Are you ready for your paracasuality lessons?" Pujari gulped Osiris blinked nervously Toland sighed Aunor shuddered "Yes Ulan-Tan." They said in unison.
Every time something with their idea of the Final Shape arrived, we would always play a part in their end, we are proving the Gardener's point, we are providing a way beyond the end of all things. A way past the Final Shape. This is why the Traveler came to be, so the Gardener could gift something the power to fight back the Final Shape.
Howdy, so I have a thought on this subject. As you said, unveiling is unreliable. But taking a moment to read into it, I think it implies something interesting. The gardener states that they want for there to be a new rule to promote complexity, to reward those who choose to build and create more complex patterns. They also state that a rule like this must be implemented in parallel to the other rules, so as to not have them interfere with each other. And the gardener also says that it will make itself into this rule of the universe. This makes me think, first, that the traveler is the gardener's implementation of this rule, being that it repeated uplifted civilizations, rewarding them for building and creating complexity. Second, it makes me wonder if the veil represents the original rules of the game. It represents fundamental aspects of the universe, unless I am mistaken. And this could be cause for the traveler fleeing from the veil. The rule that the traveler represents cannot be linked to the veil without ruining the game that the gardener wants. It must exist separately for it to be carried out properly. I also see this dichotomy in the way that the light and dark elements work. Light seems to be of the physical, allowing for the breaking of the conventional laws of physics. Whereas the dark is about control and collective consciousness, end goals for the traditional final shape that the gardener grew bored of. That's about where I'm gonna stop my thoughts. I may think more on this when I'm not burnt out from work. I think it's interesting if nothing else. Also, and I have to say this every time I comment, thank you, Byf, for continuing to be my inspiration for getting excited about lore and world building. Keep up the great work.
I remember that some time ago, you theorized that the Final Shape would be us, the Guardians, wielding both Light and Dark, overcoming the logic of our current universe. If you are right, then past Byf is vindicated once more.
It seems likely at this point. A fittingly pathetic conclusion for destiny but at least it will be over soon.
Lisan Al Gaib!
@@arryn786 god damn bro chill....
@@D4RK_FL4M3 .. huh? Confused as to that overreaction there, idk what u are referring to🤷♂️ .
@arryn786 you just kinda came outa nowhere with that one
A guardian using darkness for life and complexity is exactly that- a defiance of the pattern, of stagnation, of a predetermined end.
That sucks.
I am here once again to express my appreciation for the beautiful Byf.
Byf has the most daddy voice
He really brought The Gardner and The Winnower to life in the lore here. Makes me wonder, if the Gardner is proven to be real. Will we need to content with her brother (I’ve always envisioned the two as siblings)?
Love the way you've been reading dialogue in loretexts, Byf. There's a lot more emotion and intent behind it, which really fits the characters saying it.
Appreciate it! I'm trying where possible. Some days I'm just tired, other days I'm able to give it my all.
It helps when it's a great writer behind the lore. The Unveiling stuff is Seth Dickinson if I'm not mistaken. His stuff is phenomenal (See Books of Sorrow). It's really easy to get sucked into performance with VO when the dialogue is great.
To this day he's written one of my favourite lines (Wrath! Behold the wrath of Oryx coiled for 10,000 years!)
@MynameisByf i feel like there are good opportunities w AI voices these days to imitate the possible voices of each character in these lore readings, would add to the immersiveness of it
@@4newestaccoun No, I prefer Byf!
@@4newestaccoun While I'm sure Bungie wouldn't mind, Sony owns them now, so they would most likely respond with legal action. As the voices themselves are still subject to copyright, and that's stated on every publicly available AI voice generator.
@No-wx1ex i mean voices that dont exist. Like the winnower or gardener lore entry for example, imaginative renditions for story effect
I feel like the Final Shape can only be properly realized, so long as there's only one individual that is unchallenged in its interpretation of how the universe should be.
It would explain why the Darkness/Winnower is obsessed with it because it's the catalyst for and is the reward for ultimate competition, shaping reality as you think it should be.
It would also be why the Traveler/ Gardener never wished to make it for itself, or even directly speaks for that matter, because it desires complex life with their own perspectives, generating complexity. The Final Shape (as it was, at least) is incompatible with its goals at a fundamental level, and so doesn't desire perfection.
In many ways, then, Transcendance really is the Gardener's best argument against the Final Shape, and it seems fitting it would condone and encourage the Darkness to be used alongside Light.
And through this transcendence we shall achieve nirvana.
I think this is the best explanation for why the Traveller doesnt talk to us during the series. With one exception, its been absolutely silent, and seemingly aloof. But I like your explanation. Perhaps thats on purpose. to see what we will do
In the final shape reveal we hear someone talking to our guardian, i didnt recognize the voice but it seemed almost like a female ghost. It could be a character and i just didnt recognize them, but i honestly felt like it was the traveler speaking to us directly
@@josephcool981I would prefer the traveller to remain silent, for the reason behind its silence to be symbolic of something hence why I like this interpretation.
@gavinferguson2938 i think if it really is the traveler, then it will speak only to the guardian and no one else. Bungie mentioned something along the lines of us being given new power when the traveler chooses us as it "champion of light" and i think in a way it would be cool if on top of all of our other achievements, we also essentially become the next speaker (technically the first REAL one, since the traveler never actually spoke to any of the others).
If you remember from the final Parting the Veil quest, Nimbus and Osiris theorized that at one point the Traveler and the Veil and subsequently the Light and Darkness at one point, were actually one and the same, one singular power. Transcendence could be that very power.
Our guardian will use the power to combine all darkness and light powers into one subsequently being able to seperate the millions of lifeforms inside the witness! I am expecting at some point the true enemy behind the witness to come forth for us to then combine that and the traveller back into one being.
Yep. You're right. Just look to the traveler's portal. It's the same pattern that transcendence.
that would actually be huge if that is the case
I love when I can actually watch as soon as the notification comes through
14:28 This is like the force in Star Wars, people who purely watch the movies think using the dark side automatically make you a sith, and light a jedi. Sith is purely an ideology, just like being a jedi is. You can use either aspects of the force without ever being aligned to either ideology. It's just that being a part of either order helps you gain more knowledge. So if you're primarily light side user or even a jedi and use something like force lightning and you're still beholden to your principles, it doesn't automatically make you bad unless you want to be.
As byf said, they're simple a creature using one kind of energy.
The bit in The First Knife where the winnower was angry...you ever considered voice acting? Because damn
The Gardner to the Guardians (those dead in the Traveler/afterlife, and alive): “There must be meaning in our roar. A transcendence of light and dark. This, is our destiny”.
the rainbow subclass is gonna go crazy
for real bro. gonna be a fun time
Ulan-Tan to the Vanguard: “Say it. I was right”.
@@garrettviewegh9028he’s literally not correct though. His belief was, essentially, that the Darkness is a necessary symmetry to the Traveler.
However, since it used to be believed that the Darkness was a being that caused the collapse, it’s clear now that what we used to call “the Darkness” can actually be differentiated between the Darkness that is the force, and the voice in the Darkness that is the Witness. It’s also clear that when he says “the Darkness is a necessary symmetry to the Traveler”, he’s talking about the voice entity, AKA the Witness. If he meant the force, he would have said it was a symmetry to the Light, not to the Traveler.
And this idea is obviously just completely absurd and wrong given current context. The witness does not represent any sort of symmetry opposed to the Traveler. If such a symmetry exists, it’s likely with the Veil.
@@yourewrong9028 Ah. I’ll admit, maybe I missed some details in comparison. But, we was on to something. Albeit, his theory did have holes.
Coming out in June as well
“The First Knife” would be an EPIC raid sword drop!
Would it really be a purple or would it be better as an exotic
The concept of Light and Dark in Destiny will always be the coolest thing in media for me
They stole it from star wars
@@MrMultiPlatform stole this, stole that. Believe it or not almost everything is made up of stolen ideas
@@MrMultiPlatform Eh, could be either or, but they made it interesting, more interesting if anything imo
I love the light being the physical aspect and the dark the mental aspect
@MrMultiPlatform star wars definitely didn't invent it
This. This is THE Byf lore video. This is the one. That's it.
I agree with absolutely everything here. And I've ALWAYS took a more literal approach to Unveiling. That the Gardener and the Winnower were actual beings. And hearing the Gardener's voice in the new trailer just proved for me what I've been saying for YEARS at this point.
Do we know for sure that’s the gardener? I hear it accepted here and there that it is but afaik we’re not sure
@@jafogx No, we don't know for SURE that it is the Gardener, but who else could it be?
@RespiteofChampions Literally anyone? A dead guardian, our mother, a Leviathan from fundament, etc. etc. There's a good reason to believe it's the Gardener, but there's hardly anything conclusive... It might even be the Precursor who refused to join the Witness.
I find the winnoner and the idea of the strong defeating the weak until one remains to be interesting because given evolution, the circumstance gives rise to "strength", i.e. a long neck may let you graze freely among the tallest trees, but just as easily be your undoing when ice sets in and your food retreats into the caves. By its nature, no one would ever be the "strongest" forever unless time and evolutionary pressure is halted. As long as the potential for divergence exists, so, too, is there a difference in what constitutes perfection and by extension, "strength". Beings with desires can never reach a state of perfection unless they can reach a state in which they cease to have desires. Desiring anything implies that which is could be made better and that which is imperfect. The Winnower does not speak as if he has no desires, and the Gardener certainly speaks of its own wants.
Basically, I don't believe in one "strong" final shape because strength is relative. Scissors beats paper, paper beats rock, and rock beats scissors, so which one is the strongest? In a one on one match there's always a winner, but when 3 or more players play the game, who wins?
The Warlock pose always makes me think, "You fool, Thunder Cross Split attack"!
Domain expansion: infinite suffering. Cue every possible application of CC and debuffs in the game. Suspend, freeze, shatter, all three twin tailed rockets for scorch, suppress, and jolt, probably blind in there somewhere, ignite them, and just incase nuke them with a nova bomb or a needlestorm.
A JOJO REFERENCE?!
Pink is an S-tier color and I like that we got a pink subclass instead of the red one. Change my mind
Pink forever will be the best and sassiest colour.
I do hope we get a 7th darkness subclass at some point
if we get that red gravitational subclass in the future that would be sick since d2 obviously isnt done yet
@@Fenyxclips sassiest…? Fuck that it’s simply beautiful 😂
@@jacobpinson2834Well this "subclass" isn't actually a subclass so they should give us the resonance powers of the Witness.
You could say that the final shap for bomb logic is the final shape that will never come to pass... For we must always change, always adapt, and always be open for more growth.
Transcendance sounds and looks cool but my need for symmetry wishes there was a third Darkness subclass before this fusion was introduced. Like, it low key annoys me that there are not an equal number of Light and Darkness subclasses.
...this may be the start of my villain arc.
It makes a lot more sense for it to be number 7, especially considering Bungie's fascination for the number, but... My guess is they just ran out of time.
Well, we may get a third darkenss subclass after Final Shape.
To be fair, they were being honest that they were playing their cards really close to their chest. I have no idea why, but I really do have this strange feeling number 3 may still come out...
It bothers me to no end!
I believe we get the 3rd darkness subclass in the chapter after the final shape there are some leaks that mention that.
Been seeing fanart of stuff similar to transcendence for years. Glad its finally a thing.
The way byf read that “the first knife” passage was something else. I felt it in my bones.
If the witnesses final shape is the triangle, then the Traveller's is the destiny tricorn. The title screen symbol thats been with us since the very beginning.
Its rounded like a sphere, but angled like an upside down triangle. It is representative of an inversed hierarchy. Implying a reversal of the Witnesses ideals. Its white too, signifying that it is indeed the traveller's final shape and it furthermore reflects infinite complexity given its rounded nature.
I have also seen some on reddit note that previously the symbol represented the consensus between the speaker, the factions, and vanguard with the Traveller in the middle. This would line up squarely with the issue facing the Witness currently. Namely that despite pursuing the Traveller for aeons, the precursors had not achieved full consensus before being merged into one singular being. In other words, the witness has yet to achieve a concensus whilst the Traveller has.
The Travellers final shape is a fidget spinner.
I love the part around16:00 but especially at like 16:35 when you make the perfect call back to Vog with the "make our own fate" line
The thing to remember is that the Gardener as an entity has existed since Destiny 1 Grimoire cards, it predates Unveiling in terms of our readings.
So glad to hear you have some spark back in your voice and be excited about destiny again.
My favorite disciple of The Witness so far has to be Calus. He doesn’t know what the Final Shape is and he doesn’t care. He knows that whatever else is is meant to be it’s functionally the end of the universe as we know it and all he wants is to exist and experience as much of that ending as he possibly can. Almost like the Cenobites from Hellraiser, he just craves experience.
Absolutely criminal byf has only got a mil subs now very few youtubers put as much work and effort into the quality of their videos... either way congrats
Transcendence perhaps lends into the core meaning of this entire game, Destiny. Guardians make their own fate and with Prismatic we now wield both Light and Dark together and thus we shape Destiny.
Destiny has always fundamentally been about time and more frontforwardly then that about the missuse of it so it would be poetic that this power once it combines all forms into one can manipulate time in some way.
@@Theemptythroneistaken The Vex are not going to like that.
There better be an Exotic Glaive named First Knife that you get from the Raid.
Sick idea
Or an exotic sword-
Man I wish Destiny 2 had swords
Bro will never fall off
He has. Every lore video for a while has been wrong about the witness, the disciples, etc because he refuses to look into anything that isn’t directly/concretely stated in the lore books because it could be “lies”. He’s missed the point more times than I could count. Other lore creators are more accurate now imo.
@@equinoxruinouseffigy7856curious cuz I’m a returning player and haven’t caught up on a bit of the lore, what has he been wrong about?
This reminds of Kingdom Hearts 3. The chess game between the two kids at the beginning, about there always being the same outcome. Until light or dark chose to change what they were for. The game went on until dark had almost snuffed out all light, then the agents of light rose up, more powerful than before (transcendence). Always a good story troupe.
When Byf discussed the perception of the final shape from the travellers point of view, that is something I have not heard from anyone else.
My final shape is this:
No Darkness.
No Winnower.
No Chaos.
No Evil.
Only Good.
Only Order.
Only the Gardener.
Only the Light.
The cut scene that showed the history of The Witness changed how I thought about the Unveiling lore book. When the Witness' people find the Traveler buried on their planet, it put things in a whole new context. Now I consider Unveiling to be closer to folk lore of the Witness' people. A way for them to explain something for which they have a very limited understanding. Even though the Witness knows about the functionality of the Traveler and the Veil, both of those cosmic entities predate the Witness. Thus we get a vague and whimsical story about a gardener and a winnower rather than a detailed history.
Would be nice to get prismatic and unlock our final darkness subclass through it via fragment unlocks slowly over time. I still think Resonance should be the 3rd darkness subclass.
A transcription in game “ Pilgrimage: Garden of Esila, Dead Tree” mentions two gardeners. A female gardener who loses to the winnower, the gardener from the first knife group of lore, and the traveler. The traveler speaks of itself as a gardener and the last of his kind in the grimoire “ghost fragment: Mysteries”
Been hooked on the content lately, keep it up man
Man, the Winnower got mad that it wasn't allowed to win all the time.
Loseower
He was mad the Gardener was proposing the first Nerf to his Final Shape meta
Yesssss this is exactly what came to mind seeing the Prismatic subclass, especially within the traveller. We are going to become some aspect of the Final Shape, or an answer to it. What I'm really excited about seeing though is if that surprises the Witness at all, or if we're somehow part of their plan as well. I have a running theory that the Witness' goal is to become the Winnower's Final Shape, and we'll be the Gardener's, and it's possible there's either a precursor or some other kind of being inside the Traveller that's going to be making us their champion. Once we win, because of course we will, it might happen to herald some new form of Golden Age.
Man watching this and thinking back to playing VoG in D1, first time fighting Atheon and seeing the message Guardians make their own fate is something else. Never would have thought id spend the next 10 years with this story and it finally coming to a head.
I think your theory is spot on. Would be interesting to hear other perspectives.
I think the voice we hear sounds like Ikora. It sounds like the voice is coming over comms. Why would the Traveler/Gardener speak to us through our comms?
I like that idea that Nezarac was sooooo close, when you look at the designs for his Wipe VFX it literally looks like he’s trying too fuse/use light and dark all at once but since he doesn’t have true Prismatic Transcendence he can only try, but with us in the Final Shape we are able too mix them perfectly!
It’s almost like mixing Carbonated Water and Soda Syrup (weird way too go but it’s how I envision it) if you have too much of one or the other it’s just wrong, but…..when you have the perfect mixture….it hits just right! Maybe just maybe this is what the Traveler ment for the guardians/ghosts all this time too act as a “Prism” in which too focus not just the light but also the dark too finally defeat the Witness. (Reason why we didn’t have darkness from the start is obvious in a few ways)
Gardeners were first mentioned in the grimoire card for the black garden but the light and darkness sagas are pretty full explained in lore cards for Lumina
Mk. 44 Stand-Asides
T = 0
The Cambrian Explosion
chills Byf your lore videos always give me chills
I also love how the sword logic vs bomb logic analogy also applies to a lot of the gameplay design. We've long since moved away from passive perks and subclass trees, and into complex buildcrafting and perk combos that chain into weapon rotations.
Maybe the real finals shape was the friends we met along the way (quite literally).
No seriously, this is actually likely to be how the light and darkness saga ends, and it makes sense with the lore. The traveler is literally said to be complexity personified as it's a sphere. The traveler's bomb logic is stated to be all acting as one, individual, independent and likely unknown to one another components triggering a mutually beneficial effect for all.
Given the darkness runs on emotions, it's entirely possible for the red subclass to be The Power of Friendship as an element.
@13:00 the way she says guardian it sounds like Ikora's voice actress but distorted a bit, perhaps the voice is similar to when Riven takes on voices, using Ikora's to guide us.
This video rocked. Well done Byf. I always thought the witness’ phrase “you have no purpose” was interesting. Makes even more sense now.
Pretty clear to me though the designs that the veil is the winnower and the traveler is the gardener. They are made to connect to each other.
Legit brought this up on my podcast reacting to TFS gameplay showcase. Love when we line up in those rare times Byf!! Our final shape (us) versus the witness’s calcification of the universe! Ideology v ideology! The best kind of RPG ending! !!
so how im thinking of it. this always bring me back to the statues. the darkness statues. a woman covered by a "veil" hiding the truth. i think the womans voice is the gardener but the gardener is actually inside the traveller. Brings back to what the witness said during the invention of the portal
Think its time too take a look back at root of nightmares byf I think its a big hint that we would one day combine darkness and light. I mean look at conditional finality it’s a weapon that combines dark and light. And the vines in the raid give off that same blue pink colors that we see on prismatic.
The mechanics too were about using light and dark to pass the encounters and survive wipe mechanics.
Love it. I think we’ve known the gardener/traveler’s “final shape” all along. From d1 we know that in opposition to the sword logic (which has really been evolved/retconned and co-opted from the hive’s philosophy to that of the Witness) that the traveler bets that when given control over physics (read: paracausality as a combined fundamental force as theorized by Osiris in the Veil missions) that its chosen will create a gentle place ringed in spears. The gardener’s chosen will use the extra power it and the winnower created when they joined the game (paracausality) to protect a place of life and complexity, even as the philosophy of the winnower exists in the universe in the form of the Witness also trying to master the full spectrum of paracausality to instead end/finalize reality. Transcendence and the ability to use light and dark to become “the light of hope” aligns perfectly with the original “bet” of the traveler from d1, and it’s really kind of a beautiful full circle moment. I think they just might pull off an incredible narrative conclusion to this 10 year epic, it seems like they’re definitely going to nail it from a gameplay perspective. Exciting times for sure, I’m excited to listen to you and the lore community as it unfolds.
When I think of light vs. dark or complexity vs. perfection (which seems to be what Destiny speaks of), an alternate version of this conflict in the real world that is much more ancient is words vs. silence, or female vs. male. I don't play Destiny anymore, but I find its greater themes in the story line to be incredibly deep and fascinating. Your videos are a story by themselves, Byf. Keep up the great work. ❤️
I totally agree with your point of view,especially since it match how the final shape was marketed and how something New will start,outside of the obvious marketing talk,it make sense to end a light and dark saga and start a New one knowing we avoided the planned end due to our difference and capacity to wield dark and light
Game theory collab when? I wanna see 2 british people talk about how Taniks is actually Spamton G. Spamton.
Please😂
I don’t think byf would stoop that low 🤢🤢🤢 only person who makes worse theories then them is aztecross
@@tromar5758shut up, aztec makes the best theories.
Oops i put that response on the wrong comment lol
I’ll stake my non-existent reputation on the following assertion.
The Witness didn’t tell its Disciples what the final shape truly is in order to keep them (as it were) in the dark or to maintain control by letting its minions think their way was what would be, although those are useful by-products of its silence on the matter.
No. The Witness doesn’t know what the final shape is.
It doesn’t have any capacity for creativity. It lacks not only the generative power of the Traveler, but of common life forms like you and I. It is so fundamentally obsessed with its purpose that it cannot conceive of anything but seeking said purpose.
It needs the Traveller not just for the power of the Light, but so that it can even imagine what that final shape should be.
It is, in the final analysis, as hollow and empty as its creations. And oh, how it hates that. It hates that it is sterile, uncreative, only able to destroy.
The Witness doesn’t know what The Final Shape is. It literally can’t conceive of what that might actually be…after all, with all its power? If it could imagine what it wanted, then it would already have made it.
This has the potential to be VERY satisfying.
Literally agree with everything you said within closing to this video it certainly makes complete sense and i feel this has to be the answers we are all wanting thank you for all your hard work and appreciate all you do.
13:20 we have very likely heard the voice of the traveler before and it sound nothing like that. We heard the voice in the forsaken subclass mission
12:52 Is that not Ikora's voice? Obviously it's altered, either for 'mystery' purposes or due to (extra-)long range communication i.e. when we get to where the other side of the portal is, but I definitely hear Ikora's voice underneath the effects.
O mighty Byf, Oracle, Seer, Keeper of Knowledge, Kell of Logs. I had a crazy thought about Cayde in Final Shape and thought the Traveller has "resurrected" him as its new Speaker, acting as an intermediary with us. Or am I just medicating too much.
Content: *exists*
Byf: "MORE VIDEOS! MORE MORE MORE"
😂
Hyped for skittles subclass
Love seeing Byf's Big Bonk Build. Amuses me to no end.
And great video, man. I've been thinking back to Unveiling a lot since Into the Light dropped, and we heard that voice in the cutscene. I thought it was a distorted Ikora Rey, at first. Now, I'm not so sure. I reckon they're gonna bring back in the woman with the veiled face as the Gardener, or some cosmic force above the Traveler.
Guardians make their own fate. And I don't think that's gonna stop because of the Witness. I do believe the Traveler's conception of the final shape to be something where power comes from complexity, not simply from strength; and that protecting those who can't protect themselves is the ultimate power.
The voice mentioned on 13:00 on the latin american spanish dub is just Ikora so either they used the same VA in the dub or it's very distorted in the english trailer
Great stuff! Love the videos
Huge issue with the theroy of transcendence being the power that overcomes the Final shape. I didn't see the option to choose Well of Radiance as a super...
Bomb logic and transcendence was what I was thinking since you had been speaking of Sword Logic
Epic reading of unveiling! The voice in trailer could just be Ikora through a radio though - sounds similar enough to me
Ikora wouldn't encourage the Guardian to use Darkness. At least, not publicly like that. Osiris would be far more encouraging to the idea since he helped us learn Strand, but he has no way to give us Darkness, same with Ikora.
@@lordpumpkinhead265 it is ikoras voice though you can find videos comparing the voices and theyre identical, unless its the traveler or the gardener themselves using ikoras light to possess them and talk to us like our ghost has been controlled before by darkness
holy f**k byf, the voice acting on this one is stellar, truly
This is the transcendence video I’ve been waiting for
it sounds like destiny 2 devs who thought of the idea of the final shape is a big fan of pain from Naruto seems like a perfect copy
Final shape drip color pallet looks like it’s gonna be immaculate, you already know the shaders are about to go mf CRAZY.
This kind of lore is why I adore destiny's premise. It is essentially a mythology in motion. A mythology we are helping to write. I made a comment a long time ago sort of comparing Destiny to more prevalent mythologies of the past and what I find so fascinating about destiny's lore is it takes notions like non-duality and enlightenment and makes them physical things.
Naturally, it's a video game so that form is usually a cool power of some kind but it makes its point very well. The Light and Dark being two aspects of a holistic universe interconnected and changing is a masterstroke of mythological storytelling.
It's taking a complex multifaceted notion and breaking it down into something you literally hold in your hands in the game. There's something so profoundly Epic about that. In truly the sense of a proper written Epic of a Mythology and affiliated Sagas.
It’s Also why I find the decision to remove content is so infuriating. I quit destiny 2 for good back in shadowkeep because of burn out and personal issues in life and I now I can’t and won’t ever get back into it because I refuse to support the direction bungie went in terms of increasingly predatory monetization,how they rolled out content and how they remove content. I am glad bungie seems to be improving things look better for the players who remain. I just wish higher up’s at bungie were less awful because of the amount of wasted potential and destiny unlike other beloved game franchises destiny can’t be experienced in its entirety by new players or players who needed to quit temporarily and that is genuinely sad.
The one thing that stands out to me is Eido’s conclusion on The Witness and its goal: how it needs the light to actualize its universal ideas.
We now have both abilities and powers now.
YOOO BYF AS THE VOICE FOR THE WINNOWER WOULD BE DO FIRE
Byf can you talk about possibly seeing the gardener or the winnoner in the final shape? I would like to see your take on that
This argument makes a lot of sense. For so long, the Traveler fled the Witness (and Winnower). But in Sol, it "changed the rules" in a sense. It stayed and created the Ghosts and subsequently the Guardians. Essentially it used "bomb logic" and made new complexities. Why it chose humanity, idk.
I am wondering if the Unveiling Lore book did happen at least in some form where the Gardner (what would become the Traveller) and Veil (The True Winnower). Did exist in some higher dimension and as some creational forces, but to become one with the game itself they lowered themselves into beings that could exist physically inside the simulation.
I have been thinking that maybe the new rule added to the game was introducing "Paracausality" into the worlds themselves.
It could make sense that in a perfect simulation that was created by the Winnower and the Gardener, without some way of overruling basic statistics eventually you would endup with a output inline with gaussian statistics (The Final Shape). Where if large amounts of pseudo random events occur in simulation the average of the simulation would be predictable acrosss all simulations. By adding in Paracausality as the new rule proposed by the Gardener, that would allow species that definitely shouldn't to flourish. This also alligns with the idea that the Gardener and Winnower would have to become one with the rules themselves as the True sources of Paracausality and therefore go from observers of the game to the players.
I don't think merging the Veil and Traveller is what causes the Final Shape (if Paracausality is the additional rule). My guess is that its a byproduct of the new rule because we now have incarnations of the creators themselves merging the two powers lets you "Trancend" the Rules of the simulation. In our case it will be like we can trigger parcausal effects with the wrong element like triggering Gunpower Gamble With Stasis Shurikens, and truly blur the line between light and dark. The Witness wants to use the power to either expedite The Final Shape and/or destroy this simulation and go back to the ones pre the rules change (kinda like Thanos with the with the snap)
I am wondering if the first knife refers to the Penitent themselves, the first species that the Traveller has visited. And by showing them the reality of the Gardener's chaos would be enough to make them abandon the Gardner. This puts the Gardener on the back foot and causes the cyclic notion of: Find Gardener, Golden Age, Black Fleet, Collapse, Gardner Run Away.
18:16 missed the opportunity to say "maybe we can shape our own destiny"
In my case, I like to think that the Gardener's Final Shape is the simple act of protecting today so tomorrow can come. There is no need for purpose or meaning. All that matters is life can exist again today, and they can experience more tomorrows.
It's ironic cause this is where I somewhat agree with Savathun. I can't remember which lorebook it was from, but didn't Savathun questioned why she's following the Sword Logic before? She said that what she wants is to see more of the universe. To roam its vastness, and yet she's following a logic that destroys everything.
I think that's exactly what the Gardener wish to protect. That chance to see and experience more things. There's no need for purpose nor meaning in such a world-for to have a purpose is to be tied to it-and the Traveler promised freedom.
To put it into perspective, it's like hoping for the next Destiny 2 expansion to come. You hope that today will be safe and tomorrow will come, so you can experience the next expansion for a game you like to play.
Prismatic might be the reason stasis and strand were put in the kinetic slots so we could use a light and a dark weapon at the same time for builds
The combination and usage of both light and dark go beyond what’s detailed in unveiling, as the speakers only speak from the usage of their own respective powers to shape the universe. There very well may be a final shape for light as there is for dark but with the combination of them both into a single being or species, you subvert both of them. You essentially become both the Gardner and winnower in one and are able to dictate the flow of the universe forever with both growth and death as you see fit.
I have finally finished the chronological playlist!!!
i loved when the Traveler got up and said "This is my Final Shape" and then shaped all over the place
12:57 that voice actor sounds similar to Quinn on Neomuna. Wonder if it is her. Maybe she is linked to the veil and we just don’t know it.
I wonder if Conditional Finality was the teaser to what is to come in the final shape. An ending that is conditioned by us which is the fusion of both dark and loght. Just like the exoctic shotgun combining both stasis and solar.
thank you for addressing the Voice! I was trying to figure out who it was when watching the stream, but then immediately got distracted by everything, & forgot about it. very interesting, to say the least... 🤔
It sounded like Eido to me but I like this theory
I reckon the voice we hear encouraging us to Transcend might be Micah-10, possibly stepping into her role as a Speaker? Or Speaker-Adjacent*. In which case, Byf is still right that it's the desire of the Gardener. I just hear vague exo-tones in that voice (could be ghost speakers or just the transmission, I'm not saying it's certain) and I have personally been desperate for Micah to make a reappearance. She popped up a great deal between the 'Your Friend,' lorebook and her later role as 'den-mother of Ghosts', all of which seems to suggest she has a deeper, more spiritual attunement to the Traveller. And that seems like something that's been built up too much to be ignored. I'm not certain I'm right, but it would be brilliant to see Micah-10 taking a more active role, considering her suggested relationship with the Traveller.
*(I say Speaker-Adjacent because we know that the Speaker who died in the Red War named himself the Last Speaker in the lore, but... who can say?)
Congrats on 1 mil btw
The gardener be like your little siblings in games, "Bruh I keep losing, change the rules!"
Part of me wonders how light and dark subclasses will continue should the main story conclude. Will Light overcome darkness, and in doin so, remove darkness from the universe? Or will there be some level of synergy/balance to these cosmic forces? A new shape, if you will. Will out guardian live on past this conflict? Or will they finally get the rest they deserve?
I'd like to see a sort of amalgamation of light/dark along with the cloud strider tech used as a new breed of guardian, utilizing nano-tech infused light to bolster new gaurdians...just. a thought I've been having lately.
I think at the end of the campaign, the witness will end up telling us we are the final shape and it will be our task to shape “destinys” universe as we see fit in the next expansion or destiny 3.
"Are you ready for your paracasuality lessons?"
Pujari gulped
Osiris blinked nervously
Toland sighed
Aunor shuddered
"Yes Ulan-Tan." They said in unison.
Ulan Tan feeling very fucking vindicated right now
The Gardener was mentioned in D1 lore about the black garden.
Every time something with their idea of the Final Shape arrived, we would always play a part in their end, we are proving the Gardener's point, we are providing a way beyond the end of all things. A way past the Final Shape. This is why the Traveler came to be, so the Gardener could gift something the power to fight back the Final Shape.
Sitting here and the question "what's the final shape for the gardener" comes and a coca cola ad with a gardener appears
Howdy, so I have a thought on this subject. As you said, unveiling is unreliable. But taking a moment to read into it, I think it implies something interesting. The gardener states that they want for there to be a new rule to promote complexity, to reward those who choose to build and create more complex patterns. They also state that a rule like this must be implemented in parallel to the other rules, so as to not have them interfere with each other. And the gardener also says that it will make itself into this rule of the universe. This makes me think, first, that the traveler is the gardener's implementation of this rule, being that it repeated uplifted civilizations, rewarding them for building and creating complexity. Second, it makes me wonder if the veil represents the original rules of the game. It represents fundamental aspects of the universe, unless I am mistaken. And this could be cause for the traveler fleeing from the veil. The rule that the traveler represents cannot be linked to the veil without ruining the game that the gardener wants. It must exist separately for it to be carried out properly.
I also see this dichotomy in the way that the light and dark elements work. Light seems to be of the physical, allowing for the breaking of the conventional laws of physics. Whereas the dark is about control and collective consciousness, end goals for the traditional final shape that the gardener grew bored of.
That's about where I'm gonna stop my thoughts. I may think more on this when I'm not burnt out from work. I think it's interesting if nothing else.
Also, and I have to say this every time I comment, thank you, Byf, for continuing to be my inspiration for getting excited about lore and world building. Keep up the great work.
I want to say that voice is Ikora, strained and through coms. She's said the line before: "Be brave in dark places."
The Guardians are drilling the path toward tomorrow
Will we pierce heaven tho
Light 3
Dark 2
Light & Dark 1
We been counting down