I wouldn’t think too hard on it. I mean you make sense, I said the same thing a long time ago when the whole multiple timelines/universe wasn’t actually confirmed. It’s a never ending stream of bad guys, who are super powerful because they won, that can gather together and/or hide from us infinitely while harassing us and whittling us down. It sloppy writing on their part. It [i]sounds[/i] cool but when looked at critically it falls apart easily. As far as Atheon, my understanding of their time spanning means there is really one [i]one[/i] Vex. Their interconnected nature and how the Vault was the central hub for [i]All[/i] timelines means there was only ever one Atheon. So the multiple timeline works against them. Their extra dimensional space however affords them protection from the forces of the Darkness. In the BoS, it was said the Hive lost so much of their power going into the Vex domain they had to retreat. It isn’t explained how. Elsie in this timeloop is a great example of a poorly managed retcon. For one, it’s a massive retcon of her origin story, where she was doing either time travel or we were a simulation she was tinkering with. (Her D1 grimiore cards are interesting) Even the whole Dark Future concept, which involved the Vex in Curse, has now been retconned to be Elsie’s story. However there is a single lynchpin that can completely unravel the threat the other timelines pose. The removal of paracausality. Remove the power and all those threats vanish. As long as we defeat the Vex first, the removal of paracausality will kill the Hive entirely and the Darkness forces. It’ll also remove our power and the other timelines won’t be able to threaten us. No Vex means no gates to travel by. It’s the only way it can go, otherwise there can be no end to the conflict.