Now, a lot of what science tells us about time travel is purely theoretical, and current researchers don’t have nearly the resources or technology to come close to being able to achieve such a revolution, but hypothetically, if one were to have the means to, a Machine capable of creating temporally oriented wormholes might have a resemblance to what we see in the Aphix Conduit. First off is actually establishing the Wormhole. Modern physicists have been able to produce a magnetic wormhole, which allows magnetic fields to disappear and reappear at two different points in space, but in oder for physical matter to experience the same effects, you’d need a gravitational wormhole, and to produce that you’d need a sizable amount of gravitational energy. The tricky thing about that, is that currently, its unknown how to produce gravitational energy in the quantity required to make said wormhole, so getting into the exact science of what a machine like that would look like is off the table. But, Vex teleportation already resembles instantaneous travel from one point to another in 3d space, so it’s not hard to imagine that their transmat system incorporates Einstein-Rosen bridges, or some level of variant in their design. The exact manner in which a wormhole is created isn’t so much important, rather its the matter of if it can achieve a considerable level of time dilation that’s relevant in regards to the Vex network’s ongoings. The basic mechanic of it is to synch both ends of the wormhole’s local time together, then to select one end of the wormhole and cause it to experience time dilation (aging out of synch of the nominal measurements of spacetime), essentially slowing down it’s aging so that it’s portal is rooted in the past. One method would be bringing the end you’ve chosen into the gravitational force of something gargantuan, so big that it causes a sink/curve in spacetime large enough to slow local time out of synch with nominal spacetime to the increment of years-decades-centuries, local time. Obviously the Vex can’t uproot one of their Gates to take it for a stroll around the local blackhole, as well as the fact that they don’t appear to possess any interplanetary vessels in which they could physically take their gates with (unless those pillars on Mercury count), so this method seems to be off the table. However, another method to create time dilation would be to accelerate one of the ends of the wormhole to a sizable fraction of the speed of light. In this case, the wormhole would have to be set in motion and brought back to it’s starting point once it reaches the intended level of temporal dilation, so we’d still come to the same impasse as the Gravitational method. Unless, you were to possess some other method of accumulating speed, say a rotating administrative disk fastened to the Wormhole’s dimensional boundaries with a series of synthesized exotic matter nodes sustaining the portal’s form, for example. Well, its not like we have any of those lying around, so I guess the theory’s scrapped. Oh, wait! It just so happens that the Vex Gate in the Aphix Conduit possesses just such a thing. Now, we all know that Vex temporal capabilities have always been under question, especially in recent months with the Kairos Function Boots proposing the idea that if the Vex possessed actual Time travel, that they’d use it to eliminate all life in Sol before it ever had a chance of developing. The interesting thing about this is that “time travel” via Wormhole isn’t so much gaining access to our timeline’s chronological flow, but rather establishing a connection between two different points on the timeline, like a road between destinations (which would explain the Mercury public event, “Crossroads”. Simply two intersecting paths Vex take between temporal wormholes that when threatened summon a Mind to attempt to keep causal integrity). Time travel when rooted through Wormholes also has a humongous limiter set upon it’s very nature, which is that the furthest bridge back in time you can create would only go back to the initial creation of the wormhole. It would work like placing a stake in time with your Slowed Aging Portal while you’d travel with your Normal Portal in nominal time, stretching out your “Road”. The funny thing about synchronized portals is that their personal time remains synchronized regardless of time’s condition outside of the wormhole, meaning that if you step through the Slowed Portal, you’d exit the Normal Portal when it was the age of the Slowed Portal, and vice versa, thus creating temporal travel. Einstein-Rosen bridge act as a tunnel between anchored locations on the timeline, so if you don’t have a portal already being slowed down, you don’t have a place to travel back to, which makes jump-back potential severely lacking if the technology was recently created, i.e. not what we’d consider Time Travel. I know the obvious question, that signs of Vex presence in Sol have been dated billions of years before humanity’s existence, so wouldn’t that mean that the Vex should have assets and portals all across the time stream? Not quite. Although its possible that the Traveler’s terraformation processes caused a conflux between our’s and an alternate universe’s Venus, bringing the Vex and their ancient structures into our universe, it doesn’t really matter. Even if the Vex have been in the system longer than humanity’s evolutionary chain, they only really seemed to start their convergence processes at the time of the Golden age (seen in the past simulations of Mercury in the Infinite Forest). Meaning that even if the Vex are ancient in our universe, the technology oriented towards their current prime directive would still be relatively new, and that their wormholes likely only reach back to a couple hundred years before the Golden Age at most. Now, what’s all this mean in the grand scheme of the Vex Collective Prime Directive? Basically that if the Aphix Conduit houses a hub for Vex to meet at different points on the timeline, then there are likely other Conduits in their network with a similar function for each Vex Mind’s Programming Sub-Collective, such as a Virgo Conduit or Hezen Conduit. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a Conduit is basically a pipeline leading somewhere, which makes sense in the context of this theory. If you were the Vex, obviously you’d want your quay in a position where your troops would have easy access to the entirety of your territorial array, hence the placement of their temporal-landing-zone at a main vain of their network. The real question is, where do the Conduits lead? The most likely answer I could come up with is the Nexus on Venus. Again, for those who don’t know what the word the Nexus location was named after means, a Nexus is a connection linking two or more things together. This would mean that the Nexus was the center of the Vex Rout Handling Systems, and it’s Mind would’ve be in charge of directing and redirecting the many passages the Vex have for getting around as well as constructing links between Conduits. I doubt the Nexus was the only central hub the Vex possessed, especially after the Guardians destroyed it’s Mind. Crossroads like the ones seen in the Fields of Glass don’t just happen, their planned. There’s probably dozens upon dozens of Vex super highways throughout Sol, so there’d undoubtedly be a need for several Minds to hand them all, not to mention those dedicated to maintaining the Conduits Wormholes. Quite the fragile order, the Vex have set up. One would have to wonder, if a wrench were to be thrown into it, what exactly would happen? Well friends, the Guardian are one hell of a wrench, I assure you that. End of Part 2 Part 1: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/247886633?sort=0&page=0 Part 3: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/247886682?sort=0&page=0