<Long ago, I believed the Exo Stranger - Elizabeth's - future was our own in a few years. I believed it was the result of the Darkness arriving and bringing upon the system a second Collapse, the swift destruction of a system with no healing Traveler and an unprepared army of Guardians. However, I was wrong, entirely so. Funnily enough, it's the Vex that hold the key to the future now, as our paths are now divergent from Elizabeth's failed timelines. [b]A Dead Heart[/b] Probably one of the biggest differences from this "Dark Future" and our own timeline is that the Heart of the Black Garden is destroyed. This automatically shuts down one of the biggest parts of Elizabeth's future, where we didn't find out about the Heart until way later and, by the time we got there, it had become powerful enough to influence everyone around it to become more than just a little bit emo (hey Uldren). This is a critical blow to this theoretical "Dark Guardian" army, as now we only have those who are turned by the Pyramids when they arrived. While I expect a few edgy morons, it'll never be enough to make an army now that we struck down the source. Not to mention, killing the Heart means the Traveler has time to heal, as the Heart was responsible for preventing its healing processes. [b]Stupidly Loyal[/b] One of the things that made me confused about Elsie's future was the bit about Awoken dissenters, those who split off from Mara and joined the forces of Darkness. As we all know by now, the Awoken are pretty loyal to their Queen, more than I'd like given her recent failures. I fail to see this happening any time soon, especially while Mara still lives, even if her assaults there failed too. [b]The Cabal Should be Smarter than We Give Them Credit For[/b] The wreckage of The Almighty shows us that everything up to Beyond Light happened as it did here, relatively speaking. However, the Bombardment tells a time where the Hive, a bunch of idiots, the Fallen House of Salvation, and the Cabal absolutely shredded the Last City before the former two turned on the latter two. Am I the only one who gives Caiatl the benefit of the doubt that she isn't a moron? Caiatl is, as of Y4, officially leading the Red Legion remnants. She is currently trying to figure out what the hell is going on with these Cryptoliths and trying to bring the Legion back up to speed. Her goals, as stated in Heir Apparent, are to avoid the failures of her father and Ghaul. Ghaul, too focused on the Traveler and the Light. Calus, too opulent and wrapped up in his vices. Calus, as we know, is obsessed with Darkness, believing them to be unstoppable. If Caiatl's smart, she'll take the middle road. That leaves the Cabal not being stupid enough to trust the Hive, who only kill, and the Fallen, essentially pirates. I don't see them participating in the Bombardment and wonder what leaps in logic had to be taken for Caiatl to do so, as someone who studied under Umun'Arath, the most paranoid Cabal to ever exist. [b]Eramis is/will be Gone[/b] Maybe I'm jumping the gun a little bit, but as of right now Eramis is considered KIA by Elsie and at the very least incapacitated by anyone with a brain cell. Even if Eramis were to unfreeze soon, her end will be swift as we can game-end her permanently if we have to. Either way, Eramis will die in this timeline, and with all her commanders dead, House Salvation is effectively broken. The Bombardment won't happen in this timeline. [b]The Unknown Artifact[/b] In Elsie's future, Eris found the Unknown Artifact and it corrupted her. However, I don't see this happening here. For one thing, we've gotten too many "Eris is evil" moments to make her actual turn be anything but unsurprising and frankly irritating. The latter is especially true due to our assistance in Shadowkeep, where we helped her come to grips with her fireteam's deaths as the Lunar Pyramid attempted to drive her mad with Nightmare manifestations of them. Though I'd hardcore simp for Dark Eris in ways I can't tell on this website, she won't turn evil. Even the "Regarding Stasis" lorebook isn't enough to convince me otherwise. If Bungie wanted to make her evil, they wouldn't make it so obvious. I'd honestly expect Mara Sov to go Dark before Eris at this point because it would honestly make more sense right now. [b]Too Much Investment[/b] In Elsie's future, we never healed the Traveler. We never helped Eris deal with her crippling mental state. We never killed Eramis. Instead, the IDEA of Darkness kept itself around in ways even this timeline hasn't reached. In this timeline, we healed the Traveler, we helped Eris, we killed/will kill Eramis. We've invested too much without the Stranger. Now she comes around, and we invest more. For the Traveler to abandon us would be criminal. For a substantial amount of Dark Guardians to rise would be stupid. We've reached a point where any of this happening, with few exceptions like Exo Rasputin, would not work. [b]The More Likely Dark Future[/b] When the final Undying Mind was killed, Osiris witnessed the Infinite Forest change its prediction algorithms to view a new future. Unlike the variable futures beforehand, which saw a dead system filled with Vex and occasional Darkness, this future was more akin to a void. A dead sun, a void of nothing between it and Earth. A dead Earth with a destroyed City and only the swirling dust and the Pyramid Fleet above it. This, I believe is the more likely future. One we'll inevitably avoid because this game will probably have a bittersweet ending at worst and more likely a happy ending where we win. Still, it's a better indication, all things considered. With Cabal that should have more than two brain cells, and all the other things we've done in this timeline, we've effectively removed almost all of the Darkness's proxy armies. That just leaves IT to do its own job. To date, this timeline has yet to be averted. The Sundial incident was unrelated and, if anything, would've prevented this future. However, the Legion were driven out, the Sundial shut down, and this future likely remains. So don't take the headache-inducing Dark Future lorebook as gospel, that's like taking the Eris portions of Truth to Power as 100% truth or the Chronicon as an accurate timeline of events post-Opulence.>