Maybe just maybe the Traveler is vex. Maybe just maybe that's why the black garden mission comes from our only non-Tower affiliated source. Maybe just maybe our ghosts are just tiny restorative minds and the Traveler is causing golden age booms on different systems to see what technology new races can come up with, then absorb that tech and destroy the civilization through "collapse" as a way to ease the vex assault / minimize collateral intellectual damage from destroying pre-golds age worlds...?