She's not going back in time though, she's being Hurled to a Parallel Universe where the Events haven't happened yet. (That's not Our Elsie, like Saint-14 isn't Ours.) She then got dropped into ours, where there's 1 Difference....Us....the Guardian. We are a Singularity....(am I using that Word right?) That Never Showed in any other Timeline. By Reading throughly through the Lore, if come to the Conclusion.... Neither side can Win! Both the Witness and the Traveler need to be Destroyed. At the Same Time. A Stale Mate. If the Traveler Wins.....Game over, End of Universe. If the Dark Wins......Game over, End of Universe. How can I back this up? The Entries from Brother Vance, discovered when a Guardian died in the ToO there was 2 Pings at the Light house. 1 would go out for a Min then Return, while the 2 would Remain. He discovered that the Lighthouse was Seeing both Light and Dark Signatures and when the Red War happened..... Thousands went out. Thus proving his Theory. In the EDZ by the Warmind Bunker rests a Shard of the Traveler with both Light and Dark in harmony with each other. That Natural order of things. By Removing both key Pieces(Traveler and the Witness) we become the Finale Shape and a Balance of Both Logics. The Traveler is 100% Team Light. The Witness is 100% Team Dark. We.......we Walk the Line......we are Paracasual.....we are Neutral....we are.....The FINAL SHAPE. Edit: I also don't Believe Elsie was sent by the Dark to save the Traveler when the Dark wants to Win.

The Light takes its users. They don’t choose it. You can’t choose to come back when you’re dead. It takes us by force, brings you back ignorant and easy to influence. Be it your own worst tendencies or someone else’s. The Dark, on the other hand, requires people to choose it. The Hive were tricked into choosing it. The Fallen chose to use Shards. Guardians chose to first use then Shards then directly will it from within. You stay alive and don’t lose your memories or sense of self. Light takes, Darkness is a choice. Savathun being an exception of course, she did a whole lot to seek it out and earn it deliberately. It’s not certain at all that the Traveler died before Elsie went back in time, Dark Future Chapter Nine: The Darkness energy Eris manipulates canvases the landscape and makes its way to the sky. I see the Traveler, getting brighter as the Darkness encapsulates it. I race toward Eris, but I'm too late. In an enchanting explosion, the Traveler's Light enshrouds all in totality. Then darkness. n I'm awake. I see a tower. THE Tower. I'm in the Last City. It's… thriving. Bustling with life. Children laughing.” I take it as a Hail Mary attempt to avoid dying. As sudden bursts of Light like that had only been seen when the Traveler does something. As for not having a connection to Light but Dark. Using an enemies pawn, which Elsie isn’t as she uses Darkness for the side of the Light which makes her an enemy of the Darkness, for your own goals. The rest of your post can be answered by the page, The First Knife from Unveiling: I looked up in shock. I said, What? What do you mean? 1. "A special new rule. Something to…" The gardener threw up their hands in exasperation. "I don't know. To reward those who make space for new complexity. A power that helps those who make strength from heterodoxy, and who steer the game away from gridlock. Something to ensure there's always someone building something new. It'll have to be separate from the rest of the rules, running in parallel, so it can't be compromised. And we'll have to be very careful, so it doesn't disrupt the whole game…" All you will do, I said, with rising panic|fury, is delay the dominant pattern that will overrun the others. It is inevitable. One final shape. "No, it'll be different. Everything will be different, everywhere you look." [b]- Right here we see the Light was made specifically to prevent the Game from ending in a Final Shape. Which was always the Vex pattern. You also see that the Winnower does in deed want that outcome. -[/b] 2. Everything will be the same. Your new rule will only make great false cysts of horror full of things that should not exist that cannot withstand existence that will suffer and scream as their rich blisters fill with effluent and rot around them, and when they pop they will blight the whole garden. Whatever exists because it must exist and because it permits no other way of existence has the absolute claim to existence. That is the only law. "No," the gardener said, "I am the growth and preservation of complexity. I will make myself into a law in the game." And thus we two became parts of the game, and the laws of the game became nomic and open to change by our influence. And I had only one purpose and one principle in the game. And I could do nothing but continue to enact that purpose, because it was all that I was and ever would be. [b]- Here I believe is where people come to the conclusion that they are part of the cosmos and can’t be killed. It’s a fair literal interpretation but it’s actually more academic. They made their philosophies, which is to say their very purpose and drive, laws of the universe. This is Sword Logic and Bomb Logic. That’s why Lightbearers can gain power through killing. Before they ever hear the words Light or Dark. There is every reason to think they are not immortal, can die and most likely will die. The Gardner was nearly killed, the quote would be along the lines of having her godly flesh torn away. Comatose, a weakened limbo state due to outside interference until our revival and efforts in D1. Now we know the final blow didn’t fall simply due to Savathun wanting to gain the Light for herself to free her from the Worm Pact. At best she may have hoped to be able to stop the Darkness, though her plan to steal the Traveler might indicate she was just being selfish. In truth, the Gardner isn’t the one that has to die. It’s the Winnower. You can’t let someone who wants to literally murder the cosmos survive. -[/b] I looked at the gardener. I looked at my hands. I discovered the first knife. -The Winnower strikes first and tries to kill the Gardner. According to the words used by the Winnower, it was semi-successful. It refers to the Gardner as being dead and a corpse. Which infers the Gardner is on life support, which is conveniently has in the form of its Light.-

Probably. Just not directly. She says she was not "forged in Light", and a side must always be chosen even if it's the wrong side. Because a choice implies responsibility, and action. While no choice at all implies you're content with nothing. There is no going back in time, just stepping from side to side between alternate timelines. Can you imagine if time travel were real, in a fixed position? When the universe is expanding and everything is moving, how would you "go back" in time to a point where you were but everything else hasn't caught up yet? You'd be nowhere in space waiting for the universe to catch up. You'd need to establish a Point A and Point B already, at the same placement regardless of where it is in relation to time. Like the Infinite Forest. You use it to enter through various points in time. It's placement is the same throughout all points regardless of where it is in relation to time when you step out into the past. In order to do that though, as I've said, You'd need to establish already existing points. Which means time travel isnt really time travel, since the events from Point B have already occurred in Point A before Point B happens. Like Saint-14's rescue. It was impossible until we established that point by entering the Infinite Forest. Only we could do it because we were already part of it, no matter how much Osiris' Reflections or his Echos searched. We needed to initiate the Point A, to get to Point B despite being a Point C. Also, if the Elsie we know is from another timeline.. where is our Elsie? Elsie doesn't get sent back in time, but her consciousness does. Or it doesn't. She simply "remembers" where she's already been. She didn't use to.. it was a struggle for her until she found something that could restore her memories. Like her Fish Companion, something similar to the Altar of Reflection. How do you think Savathûn restored Crow's memories? Using this same concept. Elsie isn't the only one who can Step. Savathûn needed her memories for something despite knowing who she already was. Even our Guardian asked this question and then was never answered. So, then where is our Elsie? She IS our Elsie. She simply just remembers her previous attempts. That or Exo's are copies of their consciousness' whilst the originals exist somewhere else that's a "Point A" Memories get uploaded into a new frame, or a frame that's theirs from another timeline yada yada, you get it. This is why I've compared Exo's to the Ship of Theseus. What happened to their human remains? If a Ghost revives a Guardian due to their resonance, what actually gives it off, the consciousness? What if they're a skeleton? Is it any different from an Exo frame? If the Light restores the soul's vessel to it's most complete form (age differences, scars etc) why do Exo's remain Exo's? Which qualifies as a consciousness, if consciousness can be replicated and remade. When they don't even have to be completely organic in nature and can be artificial? Who designates what is artificial or not? If all intelligence by virtue of establishing Compassion & Understanding, replicating it artificially. Is that not life also?

Naw, Mara sent her back.

Elsies only goal is to save her sister Anna & prevent her from turning to the darkness .. just so happens our goals & ambitions align with hers. The light takes. We have no choice in becoming guardians. The darkness gives, if you willingly seek it out.