If you've got some time you may find this post interesting, but it is a bit long. I've held the belief/theory for some time that we (our guardians and by extension us the player) are being intentionally mislead, duped or even used by the Speaker/Traveler/our ghosts. Additionally I have a theory about the way in which Bungie is telling this story, I'll outline that first: The devs were clearly excited about the game in all of the interviews and sneak peaks - and being gamers themselves by and large how/why would they be excited if there is no story? What if the chosen story telling technique for this grand story is to put us the players on the same footing as our characters and not do the cheesy/cliche mothod of winking to the audience and explaining poor plot devices that our character would have no way of knowing? Wouldn't it be refreshing not to sit through ridiculous and unrealistic conversations between your character and (insert NPC here) that jump from one plot device to another solely to 'tell the story' when nobody actually talks that way in real life? How many times have we been put through, in other games, bad cutscenes filled with voice over spilling plot points that they couldn't/wouldn't find ways for our character and us to discover in a remotely realistic way? I really hope this is what Bungie is doing and I really look forward to where they take us with this. Some points about why I disagree with a prevailing theory about the lack of story: The theory that, after 5 years of development Bungie/Activision either forgot to include or gutted and failed to replace some epic story, just doesn't track. They would have to be [i]really[/i] incompetent to make the bold claim of comparing their story to epic narratives like "[b]Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Star Wars[/b]" and not even bother to ship the game with much of a story at all. Now here is my theory about why we're not fighting on the right side - lets look at what details we're actually presented with that begin to shape the story and ask some basic questions: Guardians are (from what I've read in the grimoire) exclusively raised from the dead with no memory of their past lives.. why not from the living, what might a living person in the city (who we have 0 contact with) know that disqualifies them from being guardians? We are immediately pressed into service and instructed to kill or be killed.. why are the fallen trying to kill us - what threat do we pose them unarmed? We aren't given the opportunity (except once when we first meet the speaker) to ask questions but are generally preempted with half explanations and before we can even ask a follow up question we're sent off on a mission of the utmost importance.. what aren't they telling us and why aren't they telling it to us? The large door across from the speaker is being monitored by 2 cameras, what big secret is being kept in there that isn't freely shared with guardians. I mean, if we're all on the same side and we're the good guys why not keep us in the loop? The exo stranger (who appears to be a time traveler of some sort) claims to not be 'forged in light' which may imply darkness but it could also mean neither/unaligned - she implies in her statement 'it's important to choose a side, even if it is the wrong one' that we're on the/a wrong side of the conflict (this statement could be about the awoken but it doesn't fit based on her assertion that they haven't/wont choose a side). And the biggest indication that things aren't on the up and up: A black and white, good vs evil, light vs dark, etc plot for a 10-year franchise with half a billion dollars spent developing it makes 0 sense at all. [i]Clearly[/i] there are some major plot twists coming that will make us question the rather primal connections between light with good and darkness with evil. I, for one, am excited about what is in store for us.