FINALLY SOMEONE GETS IT. OH MY GREAT GODS SOMEONE GETS IT. People are just desperate for an answer for who the Stranger is so they grasp at the weakest of straws. Remember, these people legitimately think that just because Elsie said the word “strangers” in her letter that somehow that makes Elsie THE Stranger.

We don't know for sure if it's Elsie. We just know for sure it's not anyone else.

There’s no proof, but there are some very heavy hints. First, here’s Eon Trespass, which mentions how Elsie disappeared during the Golden Age. No hints at her being the Stranger, but her disappearance does open her up as a candidate. Especially because she’s a Bray, which already puts her in the best disposition to become the Stranger because of access to Exo tech and The Machine https://www.ishtar-collective.net/items/eon-trespass-2?highlight=Eon Here’s the important one. The Eon Drive Sparrow. And no, it is [b]not[/b] because the word “stranger” was used, so anyone looking to start a fight over that can stow it. This is very important, okay: Someone from the Golden Age, someone who made that Sparrow and worked in BrayTech, was [i]impossibly[/i] in that room shortly before [u]us, the Guardian.[/u] I don’t need to remind anyone that literal centuries (confirmed to be far more than 500 years) have passed since the Collapse and we know it is completely impossible that a person survived that long. On top of that, this person knew exactly who we were and when we were going to show up. [i]And[/i] she mentioned running the simulations, and I have yet to find any alternative than for her to be referring to The Machine. https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/eon-drive?highlight=Eon+drive And [i]then[/i] there is the universal connection between all the Eon equipment. All Eon lore refers very specifically to three things: The Machine, FWC (FWC was formed by the original team working on the machine), and Elsie Bray. Personally, I would prefer if the Stranger was some random that no one even knows. But it being Elsie is the most supported theory and works pretty well. Maya Sundaresh was the original suspect #1, but there’s less connections with her, no actual hints, and I’m very content with the amount of story she’s already gotten.

You never played Warmind, have you...? I can’t remember how you get them, but you can get letters from Elsie to Ana Bray. I think you get them from shooting the nodes seen around the patrol areas and opening the two caches. Elsie also made the Worldline Zero, which uses Vex tech to -blam!- with time apparently. Which definitely sounds like something the Exo Stranger would do. And I’m pretty sure the she has the same accent as the Concierge AI.

She wears the bray family crest

While she never pops in and blatantly says, "Hiya, I'm Elsie Bray!" There are enough hints and nods that pretty much sum it up. Enough so that if it turned out the Stranger wasn't Elsie, then it would go against a lot of what was set up. Most story tellers don't do that and we've seen what happens when they do. In DC comics there was an event called Armageddon 2001. In it the villain Monarch went back in time to do villainy stuff. Many clues were left as to his identity and it was eventually leaked to be a hero from the story. So the writers panicked and did a last minute change that countered all of the evidence that was present at the time. It also pissed off fans in a major way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch_(comics) [spoiler] The reveal of Hank Hall as Monarch led to some controversy amongst the fan community; Monarch was originally intended to be revealed as Captain Atom, with clues in the story pointing towards this which had to be discarded when it was changed at the last minute. This change was due to the premature leaking of Monarch's identity. While Monarch was always supposed to be Captain Atom, this was supposed to be a secret. When Monarch's identity was prematurely leaked, DC decided to preserve the surprise of the story by switching Monarch's identity to that of Hank Hall.[/spoiler]