Our Enemies Have Banded Together?

[HipNuts]

Alright ladies and gentlemen. Familiarize yourself with the picture above and put on your spinfoil cap cause we’re about to jump into mega-theory territory here. But first Id like to thank some of the fellow lore-masters in the Mare Cognitum discord as they helped me refine this theory. So without further ado, here we go.

Lets begin by breaking this picture down left to right and identifying the different objects.

1. (Top left corner) Triangle ships (Master_RaTroll does a good job detailing a good theory on them here:

The Pyramid Ships: What are they? And what purpose do they serve?

So I began thinking about those Pyramid ships at the end of the credits, and had a strange theory come to mind. There have been many links to these ships and the “Darkness”. The most common theory being thrown around is that these ships we see are, in fact, the Darkness, and the Darkness itself isn’t some entity, but instead a species of itself. So I began to think, do the Darkness relate to the Deep? We see the term “The Deep” being talked about a lot in the Books of Sorrow (will be referring…

2. (Middle Left) Statues of humanoid figures/banners/circular/symbolism

3. (Middle) Statues obviously of beings different from their bannered counterparts

4. (Top middle) Ball thing

5. (Right bottom) cloaked figures

Okay now that we’ve identified the parts of this concept art I’m going to try to break down my theory as succinctly as possible.

So far we have seen 90% of the concept art released to us already translated into the game. This one remains a bit elusive. But of course I would expect it to apply to a later DLC. That being said, lets look at a couple pieces of gear. Namely Nezarec’s Sin and the Gensym class specific armor piece. (descriptions of each below)

Gensym Knight Cloak - Items - Destiny 2 DB

Asher’s entry details a meeting between he and Eris. The master of all things hive meeting with the master of all things vex. And not-so-unimportantly they talk about Nokris. A name we haven’t received any new information on since we originally scanned his statue in the dreadnought. At this point its important to note the paracausality of hive magic and the fact that it can keep things from the effects of time tampering. Why am I bringing this up? because Destiny purposely put Nokris back into the forefront of our attention. Not something you’re likely to re-emphasize if you have no plans for it later.

Moving on, most know the story of Crota but for those who dont, I’ll make it short. Savathun tricks Crota into letting the vex into Oryx’s home. Oryx get’s angry, defeats them and then tosses Crota into the still open vex gate uttering the words, "My son, this is your punishment. Come home glorious, or die forgotten!”

XL: An Emperor For All Outcomes - Books of Sorrow Grimoire

With that Crota battled through the time streams until he landed close to our home. Now this is the basis for my theory. What if he hadn’t succeeded and what if he had failed as Oryx warned? Well then he would have been lost to time much like our dear guardian Praedyth. There would be no mention of Nokris (even in the worlds grave) save a place that resides outside of the effects of time manipulation. Oryx’s throne. Or what if he simply became lost. Cursed to wander time streams hoping for the day of his return. And before you say “Well it doesn’t say anything about him having a second son,” keep in mind it doesnt actually put a limit on how many children Oryx had.

Now that we’ve established this portion the next parts should come much more easily. The banners on the right and left (at least to me and most people I discuss this with) bear a striking resemblance to what concept art for trials of the nine symbology would look like. Add to that the bannered figures below and it looks like we have an early rendering for the nine emissaries.

Moving on.

The heads with the horn things also bear a resemblance to our exotic helmet Nezarec’s Sin. Reading through the description of the helmet and noting that it was referenced in the pre-golden age we appear to have a similar visual and thematic theme. Shared horn structure and a description that looks to have much to do with time.

Finally we come to the statues. Remember back to the black garden? Remember coming across the Vex statues? And before you say “these dont match those closely enough” fear not. It appears bungie has given us a closer, more recent example to compare with.

And the ball theyre holding? Go just about anywhere on nessus and youll see them on the ground, in the walls, or broken and strewn about.

So now that we have all of information let’s put the theory together in a timeline.

Savathun tricks Crota into opening a vex gateway with his brother Nokris. Both enter the gate but only Crota emerges glorious. Nokris is forced to roam aimlessly (or pop out in undesireable spots) whilst attempting to reclaim his place in the world. In his journeys he meets Nezarec. Another “god level” being with questionable morals and goals. Together they begin to do what Savathun originally did to Nokris (And this has been done before so don’t freak out). They take control of a small number of vex and begin using them as their personal army bent on regaining their place in the universe. About this time the Nine catch notice of their activities and induct them into their ranks.

…dont believe me? Read the grimoire and tell me that at least one of those doesn’t match this description. (Sidenote: for this theory to work you have to believe the explanation of the nine that posits that this card isn’t a riddle and that the nine are in fact made up of nine factions/members. This card in that instance would simply be telling us who/what they are in a straight-forward manner.)

Ghost Fragment: Legends 2 - Legends & Mysteries Grimoire

I believe this art is detailing the preamble to a massive battle where our enemies and the other unknown players in our galaxy come together for a showdown of some sort. Anyways. Thats my theory. Please let me know what you think or if theres something I got wrong. Only thing I ask is that when you go about trying to disprove certain things, please provide a link for proof as it makes the whole thread run smoother.

Thank you for your interest Guardian.

[DrJazzyBebop]

Interesting theory! Just a few things I’d like to point out.

Firstly, the huge ball in on top of the statues in the middle looks far more closely like the Traveler than the giant stone balls you find on Nessus. In particular, it has curved lines that look very similar to those you see on the Traveler, as can be seen in the shot below.

Furthermore, the circular symbols on the pillars with the head statues very closely resemble markings that can be found on Io, near the stone pillars below where you first land.

We know that the Traveler has previously visited Io. Furthermore, the cutscene of your guardian’s vision from the Traveler shows the Traveler hovering above stone pillars very similar to those found on Io. This suggests that these circular markings may somehow be connected to the Traveler. The presence of these markings on the stone pillars in the concept art and the huge ball that closely resembles the Traveler may indicate that these statues are also connected to the Traveler, although it’s not clear at this stage what exactly this connection could be. Could these statues have been created by beings that worship the Traveler? Or something with a more malevolent purpose towards it?

Secondly, although the “horns” on the head statues do look similar to those on the Nezarec’s Sin helmet, there are differences between them that suggest that they could have nothing to do with this helmet or Nezarec. The horns on the statues are wider than those on the helmet and have a smaller gap between them.The statues also clearly have a face, rather than being covered by a helmet, so the horns could be some sort of headdress. On the other hand, the horns on the statues could be similar to what early concept art of the Nezarec’s Sin helmet looked like, perhaps before they changed it to how it looks in the game. Either way, there’s not enough evidence currently to say whether or not these head statues have anything to do with Nezarec.

Also, the description for Nezarec’s Sin says that it is from a “pre-Golden Age text”, not a Golden Age text.

Thirdly, the statues holding up the ball in the concept art do not look very similar to the Vex statues you see on Nessus and in the Black Garden (and also on the Floating Gardens map in Destiny 1). The Vex statues clearly have arms with fingers that are held out to the sides of their heads but the statues in the concept art don’t have any structures that resemble these arms. The bottom half of the Vex statues also look like two legs next to each other, whereas the bottom half of the statues in the concept art don’t look like legs, unless they belong to a being that has one leg (or perhaps two legs fused together). Moreover, the “heads” of the statues in the concept art don’t look like the heads of the Vex statues. If anything, they look more like the Destiny tricorn symbol, or at least the statue in the front does, although that could just be a coincidence.

[HipNuts]

Drjazzybebop! Always glad to receive your thoughts. I’ll address your concerns in order.

As for the traveler I actually felt that it more resembled the traveler thus giving the ultimate goal for this unknown race and faction but I thought I might be showcasing too many wild assumptions. Instead I went with the vex ball as I believe that those statues are vex related.

Good catch on those symbols! I’ve actually never seen those before (which is a rare thing for me these days). So this place could possibly be either heavily traveler or IO related?

(I’ll make the edit to the golden age section)

Nezarec’s sin’s reference is definitely a jump here. But I felt the need to point it out as this is the only other thing in the game I could find that even loosely resembles it.

As far as how close the statues represent the vex, I’ve taken some liberties with the translation of this picture because its only concept art. I mean we only need to look as far as the concept art for Consul-Ghaul to see that the art often doesn’t match what is shown in the game to a tee.

However, all that being said this is only a theory and all of this could turn out to be something completely different. Basically I want to hear you guy’s translation of this art because we can all agree theres much in this picture that needs explanation.

Thanks for your input!