Howdy all. I welcome you to a special post I put together to try and get a coherent look of what I believe could be destiny’s endgame. (as in, the entire series not just one game) Essentially this will be a combination of a few of my previous theory posts. Connecting the dots to the very end. Let’s get started. So as you all know, there’s an overarching enemy in destiny that is referred to as “The Darkness.” This is very vague and gives us little to nothing to work with in terms figuring out who this enemy is. However, this enemy has left behind some hints as to what it can do, and even a proper name. We’ll start with the name . Rasputin has fought the darkness itself before. He met it at “the gate of the garden.” (I’ll get into that later) He refers to the Darkness as “IT.” (GF: Mysteries) “IT” shows up in another card. He is talking to what is presumed to be the stranger and he gives “IT” and name and a very short description.[quote][the flower eater, the queen of final shapes, that which also inhabits its petitioners][/quote](GF: Rasputin 4) Now we have a name, and we can confirm that the Darkness is its own entity. Now that we have a name, let’s get down to what it can do. This is the juicy part of the post as it sets up how the collapse happened, why the exos were made, why we can’t seem to find the bodies of the darkness’ army. To be entirely honest, this may explain almost everything. To find out what the Darkness can do, look no further than the Black heart. Some say the heart could be a hive worm that the Vex capture long ago. Others say the Heart is a relic of the Darkness itself. I believe there is a middle ground between these two positions. The vex captured a few hive worms eons ago. I used to think the heart was just a relic of darkness, but I didn’t consider the fact that the worms grow with worship and tribute. The vex likely decided to direct worship at just one worm to maximize efficiency. Assuming the vex didn’t lose the worm and they didn’t overfeed it, the worm would have had plenty of time to grow. On that note, It may have become powerful enough to manifest itself into a being of the darkness itself. As Oryx wanted to be the King of final shapes, that worm may very well be the Queen of final shapes. Speaking of Oryx, let’s look at what he can do. (As he’s the only other person known to have spoken with the darkness itself or “The deep”) Oryx possesses the ability to “take.” If you look at the heart and a taken blight, you may notice they look very similar. Not only do they look similar, but they react almost exactly the same. [url=https://youtu.be/yc6HX86rP_k?t=9m]The Black Heart defeated.[/url] [url=https://youtu.be/ifhj5xWhmck?t=1m20s]Taken blight defeated[/url] Notice that these two things disappear in a blinding light when the majors around/sustaining them are killed. The beings around the taken blights are always taken. One could assume the beings controlled by the black heart are much the same. They’ve been “taken”, but in a different way. How can I prove that they’re “taken” by the black heart. A picture and a Quote: [quote]I met IT at the gate of the garden and I recall IT smiled at me before before IT devoured the blossoms with [b]black flame[/b] and pinned their names across the sky.[/quote](GF: Mysteries) [url=https://www.destinypedia.com/images/thumb/f/f7/SolProgenyGrimoireCard.jpg/300px-SolProgenyGrimoireCard.jpg]The Sol Progeny[/url], Happens to have a sort of black flame-like stuff coming off of them. And they aren’t the only ones with that black fire. [url=https://www.destinypedia.com/images/thumb/9/91/Qodron_Gate_Lord.jpg/260px-Qodron_Gate_Lord.jpg]Qodron[/url] also has this black flame, and as his card states, he is not a prisoner in the prison of elders. He is there with a purpose and that purpose seems very primitive at first, but when you apply the principle of tithing, it becomes clear what his purpose is. Qodron went to the prison as an extension of the Queen of final shapes to kill guardians (and other) to feed her (or rather, her worm). And the fact that he is still surrounded by a black flame, [b]after[/b] the heart was destroyed, leads me to believe there is more than one black heart. (as the black heart may act as a sort of tithing shrine similar to Oryx’s old shrine on the moon.) Or the Queen of final shapes hold more power outside this realm than we think. But let’s put that on the back burning for now, let’s get back to the Heart and the “taking” thing. So I think the heart is something similar to a taken blight that was created by the worm that was captured by the vex. The vex gave the worm tribute until it became powerful enough to commune with the darkness itself. But the worm was not bonded with another specimen (assuming it didn’t bind with a vex) so when it could commune with the darkness, the darkness inhabited it directly, turning it into the Queen of Final shapes. About it being able to “Take” things, I believe it takes things, but in a way different from how Oryx takes. The way the Queen takes things is less noticeable and seems more potent. (for the sake of avoiding confusion, we’ll call this ability “Corruption”) However, this ability to “Corrupt” things probably abides by the same rules as the taken, and we have some rules to taking things. Rule number one, things that are dead cannot be taken. This would include things that are entirely mechanical. There’s one thing I know that is all machine and was conveniently made during the time of the collapse. Exos. Now, the mere mention of that brings a very grim reality to what happened during the collapse. We had to build and send exos into battle for us during the collapse, because only they could resist the Queen’s ability to corrupt. One has to consider what the exo would be fighting. The card, Ghost Fragment: Legends, may hold our answer.[quote]...None of them will tell you that [b]the army is made of everyone we meet.[/b] The people we work with and the people we see in the street and the people we tell about our dreams. [b]We kill them all.[/b][/quote]The quote is about the deep stone crypt. Exos dream about reaching a tower in the distance, but they have to fight an army to reach it. That army is made of everyone they’ve ever known. The deep stone crypt is what seeded the very first Exo conciseness. The exos were coded to have a plan to kill everyone they meet. This was just in case any person they knew became corrupted. What threatened us so much that we had to build the exos? Ourselves. The Queen of final shapes turned our own people against us with her dark powers. Powers that only machines could resist. Why haven’t we seen any corpses belonging to the Queen’s army? You have. It’s army was us. And in the event you still aren’t entirely convinced, have a look at some positions on what the Darkness is.[quote]The Pujari Position describes the Darkness as a force with both physical and moral presence, an actualization of evil. Pujari art depicts the Darkness as a great storm, or as a change in conduct, a corruption that emerged from within and poisoned the Golden Age. Saint-14's Position argues that the Darkness was an invading armada, an alien force of incredible - but tangible - power. Some adherents believe that this armada sprang from species rejected or discarded by the Traveler for their sins.[/quote] These positions gear more toward what the darkness itself is, and they may have hit the nail on the head. The Darkness has both a physical and moral presence. Wielders of the dark follow the morals of “the deep.” It was a corruption that emerged from within and poisoned our golden age. It was our own people that were being turned against us to bring us down. It was an invading armada with incredible but tangible power, the ability to “corrupt”. [b][u]TL;DR:[/u][/b] Now, let’s summarize. The Darkness may be a hive worm that was stolen by the vex eons ago. The vex hid it and gave tribute to it. (probably through a system of tithing) The worm grew so powerful from the tribute it was obtaining that it was able to commune with the darkness/deep. Because it was not bonded with another being, the darkness turned the worm into a being of the darkness itself. “The Queen of final shapes.” With this, The Queen was given the ability to “take”, but in a more perfected/Subtle form. (Which I’ll call “Corrupting” for clarity) With this ability, she destroyed our golden age by corrupting our own people and turning them against us. Similar to the taken power, Exos couldn’t be corrupted, so we built them and sent them in to push back the corrupted people. Then the traveler did something to push it all away. For now. Now that we’ve discussed the past and analyzed our overarching enemy, let’s discuss the future. [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/222863841]Destiny's Endgame: Part 2[/url][quote]Back to master thread: [url]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/205238605[/url][/quote]Cheers! :D