So, checking out the story interview with IGN, I hear a line from Zavala that brought me back to a line of thought that I've had and abandoned, due to having to explain why every newly revealed feature in the game isn't a deathblow for us as players. In the video clip, Zavala can be hear saying to the player, "If the Light can find it's way back to you, then perhaps it can find it's way back to me as well." We know that the main premise of D2 is Ghaul shielding the Traveler and blocking us off from it as the source of our Light, the very power that fuels all of our abilities, our strengths, and out immortality as Guardians. But we often forget something; the Traveler is a conduit of the Light, but it's not the source. I'll be going into the Book of Sorrows a bit to expand on this.
The Hive began life as a weak, short-lived species on a super-massive planet called Fundament. It was home to trillions of life forms, and the planet was insanely hostile; continents that drifted, war with the other species, world-storms that could vaporize entire continents, and massive leviathan that could wipe out entire species. On top of that, the planet had a large number of moons, and it was predicted that if all of them aligned, it would cause a god wave that would wipe out all life on the planet. The corpse of a worm left to Aurash (sp?) enhanced this fear, and drove her and her siblings to dive deep beneath the waves to find the worm gods.
Through the bargain with the worms, they gained access to the power of the darkness, and became the proto-hive. The Traveler arrived and aligned with the moons of fundament, triggering the god wave and wiping out the planet, but the hive escaped this fate, due to their pact with the worms. The planet had been a proving-grounds of sorts, trying to find a vessel for the Darkness to leave the planet, and the Traveler triggered the god wave to try to prevent this. later in the history of the hive, Aurash, now Oryx, returns to Fundament and confronts one of the worm god. He wanted to commune with the Deep, the source of the Darkness directly and gain further power; to do this, he dismembered a worm god and took the power of that killing logic from it to commune with the Deep directly; this is the source of the Tablets of Ruin and his ability to Take.
We tend to regard the Traveler as the source of the Light, and up until TTK, that was true for us. But we gained abilities not granted by the Traveler as well, in the form of Sunbreaker, Stormcaller, and Nightstalker classes; each of these abilities is driven by the Light, and each of these abilities is provably not sourced from the Traveler, but another source of Light in the universe at large. The Book of Sorrows confirms this when the hive-to-be are diving on Fundament; a leviathan confronts them on the journey, and implores them to turn back, and seek instead the Sky. While this could have been another name for the Light, I don't believe so; the terms for the Darkness, and the Deep are not used interchangeably, but rather very specifically to refer to the power and it's source. Thus I have to believe that the Sky and the Light follow the same structure.
My theory is fairly simple: like how Oryx sought out a direct communion with the Deep to enhance his powers of Darkness, I believe we will connect with the Sky in a more direct fashion to restore our abilities. I think that, based on the commentary of the story team, this will be possible because of our commitment to what it means to be a Guardian and the ideals of the Light and Sky, and not because of anything to do with the Traveler. It would also explain why the Vanguard struggles so much with it when we don't; we are in the line of this duty, while they have been super-human for so long that they have defined themselves by the blessings of the Light. They have forgotten what it means to be a Guardian in the same way that we are, and that makes us more likely to reconnect to the Light sooner than they.
So in conclusion, I believe that we will re-obtain the Light from the universe and the Sky, and in turn use it to attempt to free the Traveler. We have been on parallel arcs with the Hive for a long time, and I think this reinforces that concept, as well as demonstrates the differences between the principles of the Deep and the Sky. It's all conjecture, but I expect we'll learn a lot more in the days to come.
Let me know what your thoughts are below, I'd be interested in discussing more D2 story theories (although we don't have a lot to go on).
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2 RepliesIsn't the shard of the Traveler in the EDZ the way we get our light back? Thought that was confirmed in a vid by bungie if I remember correctly?