[quote]So, who was talking to them through the Veil?[/quote] Me

I disagree. The winnower is just another name for the veil. Say that because we saw them call the traveler the gardener, which means the gardener isn't another entity like people thought. Then, the witness people figured there must've been an opposite in the universe to the traveler/gardener, a winnower, then they met the veil. Also, they didn't worship the traveler in peace. They started having questions, didn't get answers, and when they went looking for answers, that's how they found the veil.

The Winnower is the Witness. The Darkness is a neutral force, as is the Light. Look at the Dark Age where many guardians used their light as a way to control people. It's not the power that's good or bad, it's the people and how they wield it. That's literally the whole point of the story since Forsaken. They didn't [i]learn[/i] the sword logic from the Veil. They created the sword logic from the lack of purpose that the Traveler's gifts gave them. The Traveler is chaos, the Veil is order. The sword logic is simply the means to shape chaos into order. But Bungie is presenting it in a different way. The Traveler is meant to represent free will, the Veil (or the Darkness) is meant to represent predestination. The battle is less "good vs evil" and more "free will vs fate". Should we have free will, even if it means bad people doing bad things (think the Drifter, the Warlords from the Dark Age, ie Shaxx) or should we be content with fulfilling our lot in life, even if it's a tragic end (think Elsie Bray being stuck in her never ending time loop).

The truth they found is that the Traveler has left other civilizations and or planets bringing ruin it's wake. As to what communed with the civilization that became the Witness. Well, nothing communed back. Think of it this way. In the cutscene where Osiris is talking about Strand to Nimbus, he says that Darkness is revealed in many facets, Dreams, Nightmares, Pain, Emotion and memory. Memory, The Veil is Darkness energy which would explain why when the Civilization "communed" with the Veil they realized that it was connected to the Traveler. Memories have echoes, which is further reinforced by the Witch Queen campaign when we activate Deep sight in Savathúns Throne World, we gain the ability to see path ways long since gone, and memories linked to objects like the Worm Familiar in "The Cunning" mission. It's not a stretch to say that the Veil contained some kind of way to capture memory from the planets and or civilizations that the Traveler has abandoned.

I didn’t think the cutscene made it seem they pushed against the traveler? More the opposite? I figured they were trying to commune with both the traveler, referred to as the gardener, and the veil, which I assume would be implied to be the winnower if it is on the same combining scale as the Traveler.

If you listen to the cutscene, it describes they sought a purpose; i.e to become the ‘Winnower’ to the Gardener. The Veil gave them darkness, but they sought to become the Winnower.

[quote]So, who was talking to them through the Veil?[/quote] Who knows. For all we know, they were speaking to Jake from StateFarm. All I want to know is how exactly did the Witnesse's race learn about the Veil & where exactly in the vastness of our Universe did they "find" it? Did it call to them, like a whisper? No one just miracously "finds" an ancient relic of evil power. It must've "called" to them because of their communion/study of the Traveler's Light. They weren't lightbearers per say, just scholars of the light?

It didn't drive them to go against the traveler. They were shown something so they brought the veil back to connect it with the traveler. So the traveler fled. So the witness species sacrificed/merged themselves into one being with the power of the veil. They only went after the traveler once it fled.

I'm going to be extremely surprised if the Winnower ends up not existing. Imo all the lore in D1 and 2 point to the character appearing at some point. If I had to guess, the Winnower will hopefully be revealed at the end of Final Shape. It would be a clean-ish way for Bungie to continue the game's story as well.

[quote]They worshipped the Traveler in peace until they found the Veil and communed with it, then they found out a truth that drove them to go against the Traveler. So, who was talking to them through the Veil?[/quote] Ignorance at its best, its implied the veil is the physical manifestation of the universes memory. The first civilization would have seen the universes memories and come to the conclusion on what needed to be done. There is no where anywhere in the cutscene that says they were spoken too but infact SHOWN something. But hey cling to your absurd theories more