A Theory about Nokris

My first time posting on this forum so please be gentle.
I recently had a burning desire to create a raid (for some unknown reason) and I wanted to base it around three figures mentioned in the book of sorrows. These would be Nokris, Savathun Xivu Arath and Quira, Blade Transform.

The thing I found as an anomoly that has been mentioned before is Nokris, Nokris is quite an enigma as it has not been mentioned as being related to the other hive gods yet has been given a statue placed next to oryx and crota which some people suggest might signify a familial relationship between them. However there is absolutely no mention of Nokris outside of this one piece of lore. I feel as though the Vex may have something to do with this.
Their time related abilities are able to affect your history and completely erase it. It ma y be possible that nokris is what is produced when a worm from the hive is combined with vex milk. Quira, Blade transform halted in attempting to combine a worm with vex milk but what if it did?

What if instead of becoming real it was lost in time, as Quira understood that Nokris could potentially destroy everything if it could just lose it all to time becoming the absolute pinnacle of the sword logic utilizing vex technology.
I know this is a stretch but I like the idea. I want some feedback, constructive criticism is always welcome.

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I really like this idea. It is known across the system that the Vex have the power to completely erase someone or something from existence so to have an entity like that appear once in the lore without any further explanation can at least entertain that as a valid theory. In the Curse of Osiris expansion [Quick spoiler warning for those who haven’t played it yet], in the final story mission, Panoptes almost literally erases us and our Ghost from existence. It’s entirely possible that something similar happened to Nokris before we met Oryx and Crota.

I’m personally a huge Hive nut. One thing I immediately noticed in your post was the “Savathun Xivu Arath and Quira” part. Savathun and Xivu Arath are two separate sisters, so I assume you were refering to JUST Savathun, The Trickster.

Quira, Blade Transform was a gift from Oryx to Savathun when the Vex infiltrated Oryx’s throne world via a tear in spacetime that Crota accidentally made (Savathun tricked him, it wasn’t all his fault). The Hive captured this Vex creation and Oryx took it, allowing him to control it. He gave it to his sister, Savathun for her to study.

The only hiccup in this theory is that Quria, Blade Transform was manifested by the Vex to simulate and attempt to destroy Oryx. Quria, as far as we know, doesn’t have the power to control time. That’s for Panoptes to deal with. However, to counter myself, the battle between the Vex and Hive in Oryx’s throne world lasted for a century. That could have been plenty of time for the Vex to infiltrate the Dreadnaught and find the statues of Oryx, Crota, and Nokris. The only question is: since this is one of the very few encounters that the Hive and Vex have, why would they decide to erase Nokris from existance? Why not Crota? Why not one of Oryx’s daughters, Ir Halak or Ir Anuk?

Another theory: Nokris could have been a Hive god that Oryx created to counter the Vex’s Quria. If the enemy creates an entity to try to destroy you, why not do the same?

This theory and yours pose many many questions into who Nokris is/was and to what extent the Hive can manipulate Quria’s powers. It’s entirely possible that the Vex wiped Nokris from time. It’s also a possibility that, while in her attempts to test on Quria, Savathun herself did something to trigger the wipe, either by accident or on puropse. Only Bungie can tell us the answer to all these questions. I really hope they follow up on this character and find a way to integrate him into the story fully.

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That’s an interesting idea, that Nokris, whoever he/she was, ended up victim to one of the Vex weapons capable of erasing your existence.

Regarding Quria not introducing a worm larvae into its mind build, I saw a video with an interesting theory:

Aside from his main theory that involves Savathun (video was done a few months before D2’s launch), the author proposes that the Exo Stranger comes from a different timeline, one in which the Hive did not arrive to our Solar System. This is based on the Grimoire card which includes many entries from the Exo Stranger, noting how she didn’t know about the Hive and how was she discovered they had a lot in common with the Vex from her timeline:

RECORD 084-BRIDGE-10.7
Right When this time, wrong Where. The world so big on the horizon — wasn’t expecting it. As it happens, something’s here that’s not supposed to be, other than myself. Will return.
RECORD 092-BRIDGE-08.1
Configuration worked, mostly. Arrived under the surface, surrounded. Too slow to return, barely fought to a vantage point. Yes there is dark evil here, and not the one we chase. Suggest no other attempts without more care.
RECORD 120-BRIDGE-05.3
They are feral on the surface but their intent is complex behind the teeth and claws. More is shared with the machines than common enemies alone.
RECORD 142-BRIDGE-07.4
An unexpected extraction. These Guardians stopped some dark ritual before I could reach it. Tearing the Light away… like the Garden. Too similar to go uncharted.
RECORD 142-BRIDGE-08.1
This attempt was precise — landed meters and minutes from prior ritual. Confirmed the extraction was extinguished. The Little Light mentioned Venus, we may have another.
RECORD 167 - BRIDGE - 5.2
Successfully observed Guardian discovery of Hive on Luna. No evidence today of knowledge past Vex breaches here. Delay in return command is a liability to solve before engaging this close again.
RECORD 312 - BRIDGE - 3.3
Watching Guardian-Hive engagements confirms a trajectory toward Earth. This Moon is theirs — a breeding ground, their black heart, perhaps. Different from that we know, but seems to be that same dark end I see us fall to over and over.
RECORD 472 - BRIDGE - 2.1
I’ve followed this Light as far back as it goes. Let the Little One guide me through Fallen as I puzzle out what the Hive want in the bones of this broken Cosmodrome.
RECORD 473 – BRIDGE - 1.2
Back to the Temple, again, but this time the Little one knows I’m here. I have seen the failures of so many, but none have been as interesting. Preparing to engage…

https://www.destinypedia.com/Grimoire:Allies/The_Exo_Stranger#Ghost_Fragment:_The_Exo_Stranger_2

The author proposes that perhaps in the Stranger’s timeline, Quria did introduce the worm larvae into its mind fluid.

As for the use of these weapons that could have erased Nokris, I think it’s worth pointing out two more entries from the Grimoire:

“At last, the Heart of the Garden has been destroyed, its stranglehold on the Traveler released. Our Light brightens. But the power of the Vex is not broken. Look into the Vault, Guardian, for it is said to hold powers the Progeny were meant to bring forth.”
—The Speaker

https://www.destinypedia.com/Grimoire:Activities/Story:_Mars,_Meridian_Bay#The_Black_Garden

…It is my hypothesis - a hypothesis at best - that the Vex saw the abominable presence at the heart of the Garden as a divine power. I can hear your protest already: how can machines have a god?
The answer is simple. The Vex, for all their voracious intelligence, could not understand or decipher what they found. They searched through all available reactions, and they settled on the course with the greatest payoff…to worship this power, and to remake themselves in its image.
I believe the three Axis Minds found in proximity to the abomination were Vex machines built to serve as vessels for this power: a way to extend its reach across space and time, binding it to the Vex, and the Vex to it. If they had succeeded, I cannot begin to guess what horrors they would have unleashed.
Attend carefully. There is cause for hope. When endangered, the abomination activated these vessels and defended itself. This tells us that it was threatened. Whatever it was, Guardians could harm it.
And it activated only a single vessel at a time. Its strength was limited. Whatever it intended, it was not ready yet.
We must assume the abomination was part of something greater. And we cannot flinch from the terrible, obvious comparison: just as the Traveler acts through us, this power was able to act through its own servants.
Let us be wary. There may be other abominations, and other vessels.
Ikora

https://www.destinypedia.com/Grimoire:Enemies/Vex_Axis_Minds#Sol_Progeny

The first one is probably the most direct link the story from vanilla Destiny has to the Vault of Glass, which unlike other raids don’t have some other connection to the story of the campaign story. Now, perhaps my understanding of the line is wrong, but it sounds like the Vex intended for the Sol Progeny to bear both the powers from the Black Heart (the darkness) and the unique abilities/weapons seen on the Vault of Glass, including the ontological weapons that can rewrite or erase the existence of their enemies.

The second one actually gives some background to the final boss fight of vanilla Destiny 1: the Vex wanted to make use of the power of the Black Heart and take use across different places and time periods, which is why they prepared 3 vessels from 3 different time periods for it. However, the Black Heart itself was in a weak state, so much it could not control more than one Minotaur at a time and using all 3 vessels expended all its remaining strength.

However, I suspect the most relevant piece of information lies not on the Vault of Glass or the Sol Progeny of the Black Garden, but rather on Qodron, the Gate Lord fought in the Prison of the Elders:

Qodron is depicted as if also possessed by the power of the Black Heart, and his background indicates that he basically broke away from the other Vex collectives in order to seek a glorious future for itself by vanquishing a “light” that would challenge him in the Prison of the Elders. It’s also worth noting that some of Qodron’s aides, the Overmind Minotaurs, are ultra Minotaurs of the same type as the Primeval Mind, but these don’t seem to have the power of the Black Heart as Qodron or the Primeval Mind itself.

I’m inclined to think that perhaps Qodron was the first “test subject” to be granted the power of the Black Heart, at which point he started acting independently forms the rest of the Vex network (though his followers from the Sol Progeny and Aphix Invasive did follow him) and became obsessed with destroying the light he predicted would eventually appear to challenge him.

Perhaps one of the biggest question is exactly what was the power up these Vex units got from the Black Heart, and perhaps more importantly, what the Vex actually thought the result would be: perhaps their intention as to make the something closer to the Taken, to Oryx/ascendant Hive or perhaps even a dark equivalent of the Guardians, perhaps an entity that would be essentially be immortal under most circumstances?

However, his test subject status seems to have gone beyond that of receiving the power from the Black Heart, as he also possesses some of the Vault of Glass’ Templar abilities, namely the detainment bubbles and the suppression field, the later which is one of these ontological weapons that rewrite reality. This also make him an example of the use of such weapons outside the Vault of Glass.

All that being said, I’ve a theory of my own about the present Vex possibly trying to avoid the future from which the Descendants come from, based on the names of the Sol Imminent (a descendant Vex) and Sol Eschaton (a present Vex), eschaton being:

“the final event in the divine plan; the end of the world”

Add the supposed original purpose of the Floating Gardens crucible arena, a shrine in which the Vex are meant to recycle their frames:

It is a shrine for the Vex, where they recycle their bodies when they are no longer fit for service.

https://www.destinypedia.com/Floating_Gardens

I found the article which seems to be the source for this quote:

Bungie says: “The map originally started out with this concept where the Vex would basically fall through this well and crack open so they could get their milk back – their life blood. That morphed into this shrine that the Vex would go to and sacrifice themselves if they were past their repair point. So you’re running through these trenches of Vex parts and Vex milk as it’s falling off the side and being recycled into the next set of Vex. It’s basically a shrine and a recycling center…

My take is that Vex normally don’t use their frames for so long as to reach the deteriorated condition in which the Precursors are seen, which could mean that something has gone wrong in the future they come from, which has forced them to do so. For them at this point, or assuming the natural course of events continue, this is an “imminent” or impending future, but one they want to avoid.

By extent we could imagine that the present Vex are trying to utilize the powers from the Black Garden and Vault of Glass to change that outcome, essentially that being their ultimate plan for the “eschaton” (thus reconciling the names of the Sol Progeny from the Black Garden).