I have a standing theory of my own. I think Rasputin IS the Vex. One consciousness controlling literally billions of individual units across galaxies? Wouldn't be too hard for a Super computer A.I. would it? EVERY mission that involves Vex and ONLY Vex involve the guardians invading the places the Vex are occupying. These missions also all seem to have a glaring flaw or strategic weakness that your meant to find or figure out. Almost like a training course or activity with Rasputin as your training instructor. Your meant to fail, unless your exceptional. Ras knows what's out there, the things you'll have to face, and he NEEDS you ready. RAS survived the collapse even though all other Warminds didn't. It's not hard to imagine he could survive long enough to master time travel, develop and perfect a weapon platform he could use against our enemies and to prepare us for what's coming. The Vex. While looking for the Gate Lord's eye your Ghost mentions that the Vex constructs and ruins on Venus pre-date human history. Think about it, if the world ends and you want to change that but you need to build a army uncontested and completely hidden what better place than the past on a planet that no living being will set foot on for millennia? Also think about this; Cabal attack the Dust Palace, Hive use a shard of the traveler to silence it, and the Fallen raid a prison and liberate a Archon Priest. But what move does the Vex make directly against us? In the case of the Archon Priest it's almost like the Vex where trying to STOP the Fallen until you get there! After you take out the Vex near priests pod, poof no more Vex, it's like the Vex suddenly thought "OH, the guardians are here they got this.". Just a thought.

Ok here's my idea of what the story actually is: It was a dark and stormy day at Bungie home offices when the phone rang in Harold Ryan's office. "Hello? Roldie Ryan here, what can I do ya for?" said Ryan, absently fumbling with a Halo 4 pen on his desk. It leaked ink across his doodle of a stick man defecating on a rendition 343 Guilty Spark. "Shut up Ryan, I know who it is. Who the hell even answers the phone like that?" came a a growling voice from the other end. "Oh, uh sorry Mr. Kotick, I was just uh-" "Being a jackass, yeah I get it. How does 500 million dollars sound to make the next big game in Bungie history?" interjected Bobby Kotick. "Wow, uh that sounds amazing sir! We have a lot of the work already done, and the story is written. I think You're going to love-" began Ryan. "Will you shut the -blam!- up for 2 seconds Ryan? When you can afford to publish your own games, you can tell me all about it. Until then, let's figure out how to monetize the -blam!- out of it, and then we can worry about the logistics and "story". It's a shooter, no one gives a shit about a story," Kotick cut in again. "Ye-yes sir" squeaked Ryan. "Alright, I'll send the check, and I'll be in touch soon. And Ryan?" "Yes sir?" "Stop answering the phone like an asshole. It makes you come across as a loser" "Yes sir..." sighed Ryan before ending the call. Ryan sat up in his chair, crossing his hands behind his head, imagining the look on people's faces as he made the announcement of Activision's investment. One word kept him from excitement. [i]Monetize[/i]. It rang in his ears still, like hot needles stabbing his eardrums. After giving it a few moments of thought, dollar signs flashed in his eyes. Ryan sprinted down the hallway of his office floor and jammed his finger into the button for the elevator. A few minutes later he emerged in the sub-level basement, where Marty O'Donnell was hard at work crafting a masterpiece score in a sound-room for a concept he knew very little about. Ryan burst into the room, eyes gleaming with green. Startled, O'Donnel raised his head to see who had barged in. "Marty! Great news! We have funding for Destiny!" blurted Ryan. "Uh...ok. I'm still not even sure what Destiny is. You guys have kept me in the dark for a long time down here, and told me to just shut up and make music, so I that's what I did. I'm almost done" said Marty. "Oh, right. Destiny is a Sci-Fi MMO shooter with light RPG elements and a story driven narrative!" explained Ryan. "Well if that's the case, I want to rewrite the music. What I've made just doesn't seem like it fits with that idea. Most of what I have made is pretty generic, and could be used in a 2D sidescrolling puzzle game, just as well as what you described. I'm not happy with it," said Marty. At that very moment, Ryan received a text message on his phone. It was from Bobby and it read; Ryan, you need to shit this game out ASAP. No more wasting time on story. Take what you have and go to print! Ryan looked up from his phone at Marty. "I'm sorry Marty, that's not going to happen." "But Harold, I'm really not satisfied with-" "You're fired Marty. Get out. We will ship your things." said Ryan suddenly, anger flaring in his eyes. The idea of money had all but consumed. Marty just sat in his chair in stunned silence, his face turning an ashen white. After a moment and a hard swallow he responded. "Ryan, I've been with Bungie for over a decade! You can't just-" "I will call security. Now GTFO." Ryan said with a devilish grin. Marty could see that Ryan wasn't kidding. He stood, mustering his dignity, and proudly walked out. Ryan made his way up to the office of head writer Joe Statten. He knocked on the office door. "Come in" came the reply. Ryan swung the door open and strutted in. "Joe! Great news! Activision is paying us big bucks to finish up Destiny, but we have to ship ASAP!" "Ummmm Ryan? I'm not finished with the story yet, and as I'm sure you're aware, not all the voice actors are finished with their dialogue recording yet. Also, we haven't even cooked up what impact each Faction will have in the game," explained Joe. "Statten, I don't care. Just...take what you have, make a few edits so it sort of makes sense, and then get it on my desk first thing tomorrow," said Ryan, becoming agitated again. "Harold, you know me better than that. I've been working for Bungie for a very long time and you know I only produce quality. I'm not ready to release some half-assed story concept and expect people to just play along." said Joe. "Well Joe, if you don't like it, there is the door. You're free to leave whenever you like. I can just hire some two-bit nobody to pen in some lore-ish crap on collectible cards. Nerds eat that shit up!" replied Ryan in a low and ominous tone. Joe's eyes bulged slightly in shock. "You're serious, aren't you? Then what? What about all the content that is already completed? Are you just going to cut it from the game? It wouldn't make any sense!" stammered Joe in disbelief. A light-bulb flickered on in Harold Ryan's head. "Well Joe, we will just peddle the cut content as DLC. People are so stupid, they won't even realize that it was originally part of the game! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Joe could see the corruption that had taken hold of Harold Ryan. It was time for Joe to go, lest he fall victim to that same depravity. As Ryan laughed maniacally, Joe slipped away quietly, snatching up his bobble head of Master Chief from his desk as he went. That was how the Darkness was born, and it consumed the minds of all who touched it.

Babylon 5 did it better. Babylon 5 had an actual plot.

I'm surprised no one brings up Lakshmi-2 and the Future War Cult, the oldest known faction in the game. Read these quotes What if there were a single timeline untouched by war, would you have any idea how to live in it? What if there were a better timeline somewhere? What have you done to earn it? A single light in an infinity of darkness. Like the last signal flare before the wars are overrun. You think i'd let you into the inner circle if you stand there long enough? Hahahaha... I might. *Even the stores struggle! From the black holes of their bodies, new timelines are born. Born into strife. * So; I can tell by the way you stare at me you've seen her. Haven't you. We keep our mysteries close. Take them from us if you can. Another war story? I could tell you about Tranquility, and the Hive? Oh I never run out of war stories friends. Have you heard of the Dust Devils? Don't think i'll give up our secrets just because you stare at me. The inner circle has its secrets. Maybe in time. A trillion timelines, and all at war. Like a thousand red flowers growing in a black garden. What if you could learn to love your fate? Dead Orbit can run to the ends of the universe, but a war will be there waiting for them. War is our fate. Can you learn to love it? She will find it Guardian. And when she does, we'll be there. Another war story? Well, I could tell you about the Knights that Darkness overrun in Mumbai. You think the Guardians can carry the fight alone? You think you have the right to be weak? Know the only truth is war Guardian. You'll always be needed. I could tell you another. I could tell you about the siege of Tycho. Paradox is just a word that stupid people use to hide from the truth. I walked during the dark times. A thousand Kings rose and fell then. An infinity of timelines. If one timeline in a trillion knows peace, how could you ever hope to find it? Dead Orbit just misdiagnosed the problem. It's not a matter of distance, but of time. And in each new world, a new birth of time. And as always the seas of war will be there too. Another war story? I was there when the House of Devils burned London. What if on some dreadful night, the Darkness were to come creeping up to you and whisper "This war, is all there is for you."

Yo, alright, hold on - I saw this thread yesterday, watched the video, and was kinda intrigued by the whole idea. It's a pretty novel concept and makes sense with the metastory of Destiny as well. But today I was playing on a lower level character and heard something that almost made me piss myself. When you're off to kill the Gate Lord to take its head to the Queen, Ghost gives you a bit of a low-down on the Gate Lord: [quote]Here's what we have on the Gate Lord: Three stories tall, protect the realms the Vex keep locked out of time. Time?? That can't be right..."[/quote] This line always seemed so awkward and unresolved to me, but using this theory as a framework, it fits in perfectly. We killed the Gate Lord, thousands and thousands of times, because we broke time by doing it, allowing everything to be cyclical and/or in arbitrary order. Which leads me to the next topic: the Awoken. They know [b]exactly[/b] what this Gate Lord does, what its purpose is, everything about it and the Black Garden, so they definitely know that it guards these realms of time that the Vex have blocked off. The Queen's brother starts off by mocking you, but after the Queen gets the idea for the Guardian to kill the Gate Lord, he gets rather gleeful - he knows that the Queen has an excellent plan in mind. Of course we, the player, the Guardians, don't hear a stray whisper, or even see their lips move, but we know from their reactions that they're up to some shady stuff. But what could the Awoken POSSIBLY want with time being astranged like it is? What advantage does this give them, and what end is this a means to? As it lays right now, there's hardly a scrap of canon information on the Awoken, the Queen's Grimoire card even saying the entire Reef is an enigma. We know that the next DLC is going to be about the Awoken because of its title, House of Wolves (which is the House that the Queen represents), and we also know that the missions will span all 4 terras in the game, indicating that it's going to be quite the widespread conundrum. Trying to save the last of Earth, we totally just did the Awoken's bidding, and probably put the entire universe at danger. Ya'll, I'm gettin' goosebumps from excitement.

or OR OR. . . the Halo writers left and this is what Bungie storytelling is left to. If Destiny's story was so grand and mysterious then why didn't it grab so many people? Mass Effect story was very mysterious with the Geth and the Protheans. This story is just terrible. It sounds mysterious because there IS NO STORY.

Okay .. I watched the video. Honestly .. I didn't need that video to tell me that in the Destiny universe time is cyclical. Approximately every 20 minutes or so, that damn Devil Walker drops in the Divide. Over and over and over again. In my time in the Tower, I could swear I've run into other Guardians who are all returning from the very same Strike that I have just completed, yet I never saw them there. We've all killed Sepiks Prime or Phogoth and destroyed the Nexus, yet for some reason the Vanguard continues to send other Guardians to complete these same missions. In short, the video doesn't really present a "theory". We are all doing the same thing over and over again. That isn't a "theory". It's a FACT.

Could everything be a simulation, being run over and over again rather than time/history repeating itself?

I've done a bit of digging into the grimoire myself and I can support almost everything mentioned here. Though the story doesn't immediately jump out and catch people with a gripping narrative or flashy cut scenes, someone has invested a significant amount of time in crafting the beginnings of an epic space opera. In addition to what was said in the video I would add that the Future War Cult plays a huge role in the timeline, as they are a faction of zealots born from a group of people who invented a machine that allowed them sight into the future. Of the futures that they viewed almost all ended in horrific destruction. This future (or our present) was supposed to be the one where we had the highest chance of survival, and even then just by the skin of our teeth. It is possible that this is why the Stranger is so focused on our timeline as well. [spoiler]There are other fantastic theories too which speak to time travel. Some believe that the beginning of Crota's raid (the long light portal) is us travelling back in time to kill Crota. There's a lot of evidence to support this considering that someone already killed Crota resulting in his soul being caught in the crystal at the end of the DLC mission "The Wakening". Who's to say that it was us. Other bits and pieces are sprinkled throughout the game, including the role that the Vex have to play in governing the timestream. [/spoiler] Great post with the vid, and kudos to the author!

They are preparing the terrain for the biggest revelation in the history of videogames, I too have thoughts but mine are about the Vex, and still my idea applies to his. I always thought, from the grimoire cards, that the game was called destiny because you were trapped in an infinite simulation created by the Vex. The only things I don't understand right now are what are the implications of destroying atheon and what is real what's Vex's simulation. I'm sure that there is more to come, Bungie cannot think at something simple, they may have have had problems to render it but I never doubted of rhe basic idea.