So I just got done with the story for the third time, and I payed a little extra attention to what the stranger had to say in the cinematics ... And my mind suddenly latched on to something that should have been obvious since day one, and I had a new theory. What if "the stranger" is actually "the traveler"? Thoughts, opinions, and all various forms of slagging may now commence, thank you for your time. So everyone can see the process without having to dig through the replies: Okay, so here's the thought train. She was there when you were raised by your ghost, and watched you escape (tutorial end), and just the way she watched you, thinking back, she knew where to be. The way she speaks about certain things makes her seem time lost, and her doubts about you seem to support the time lost theory too, trapped in a specific cycle, and stuff like that. [quote]...i know what you're about to do, should you succeed, come find me[/quote] or something along those lines. (My recall isn't perfect) Then when you meet her again "I wasn't forged in the light" and many aspects of her personality are [b][i]too[/i][/b] human to be exo, never mind awoken, yet she gives off an air of disappointment and desperation, kind of like a parent who's sad at your failures, but desperate to help you stay alive, and succeed. Now, after you do succeed, the stranger basically tells you she's seen what lays beyond your newly reclaimed worlds, but the way she says it makes her seem as old as time itself, then hands you a new tool with which to venture forth, and looks at you with just a shade of pride... Then walks straight toward the traveler, off the loading dock, and "phases out" just like your ghost appears and disappears. Now, supporting strategy for my theory; you are a massive entity, fighting your fight against an adversary that outmatched you time and again, you find the one place where the indigenous populace is actually stubborn and tenacious enough to maybe, just maybe, hold your enemy at bay. So you help them with everything they would need to stand and fight, but in so doing you make them softer than you intended. So once more your enemy surrounds you, and you join your new "children" in defending your new home, and yourself. You are wounded beyond simple repair, and dying, the energy you need to maintain your whole body being to great a strain on what reserves you have... So you make yourself smaller, to save energy, to survive, and to very slowly mend your wounds. You split yourself into smaller, sustainable parts... You take new forms for yourself so you aren't trapped in one place, but you live in many places at the same time. The stranger and her crew maybe, or at least one or two of them... And finally... The ghosts themselves, protected by their guardians... Who for the light they receive... They return a thousand fold to you and your still healing body.