I just want to point out that Oryx was able to bring his systers back after killing them in the ascended realm by “worshipping” their core concepts, wich is war and deception.
As far as I can tell, Oryx is not yet alive, but Savathun is making her way to worship him by taking new species, and I believe that the questline in wich the Taken are taking the Vex is the way to prepare the territory for Oryx’s summoning.
Plus I really believe that when we defeat Oryx on Destiny 1 he didn’t die, he took himself and became the process of achieveing his final perfect form.
Oryx was able to resurrect his sisters because they died in his throne, not their own. From XXVI:
Beneath a green fire sky, in the throne-world of King Auryx, our lords embrace.
If Savathûn, for example, had died in her throne realm- the same way Oryx did in his at the end of King’s Fall- she would not have been able to be resurrected. Oryx is permanently dead because of where he died: the Dreadnaught, his throne. Oryx says this himself in L:
If my echoes are killed, and I am killed in the material world, then I will be driven back to my throne the Dreadnaught. If my Court and my throne can be beaten, if I am confronted in my throne, if I am defeated there, then I will die. My work will end.
Even if Oryx was able to be resurrected, it wouldn’t be through Taking. The resurrections come from the sisters’ natures, stated when they first made the pact in IX:
You must obey your nature forever. In your immortality, Aurash, you may never cease to explore and inquire, for the sake of your children. In your immortality, Xi Ro, you may never cease to test your strength. In your immortality, Sathona, you may never abandon cunning.
These are the same natures Oryx used to bring his sisters back with in XXIX:
At the end of those hundred years he killed the Ecumene Council on the Fractal Wreath, and from their blood rose Xivu Arath, saying, “I am war, and you have conjured me back with war.”
From their ashes rose cunning Savathûn, saying, “I am trickery, and you have conjured me back with trickery.”
Oryx himself doesn’t have a “perfect final form”- the Darkness does, or so the Hive believe. The Sword Logic is the final form, as the Worms say in XIX:
When they could have helped whittle the universe towards its final, perfect form!
They will gain hope of ascendance and by their ruthlessness they will assist the universe in arriving at its perfect shape.
Oryx had plans, if he was killed, to ensure the continuation of the Sword Logic:
They will become me and I will become them, each of us defeating the other, correcting the other, alloying ourselves into one omnipotent philosophy. Thus I will live forever.
Oryx did not want to die- he wanted to be “isomorphic to conquest, to triumph, to killing and death”- but he acknowledged that, if someone was stronger than him, that he had to die to let the Sword Logic continue.
First I want to apologize, I can only put 2 links in a post as a new user, so I will not be able to link the cards that I’m going to reference.
and still, from the same card
and from XXVII:
Never before any of them refered itself as alone as did Auryx in this moment.
It is true that card XVIII tells this:
but remeber that “you” is the same word for both singular and plural, and since this happens before each of them creates their court and their respective throne, the throne that is being referenced here is the “sword realm”, and it is created by the might of the sword logic itself, and not by each individual power. Still not one nor the other theory is in fact flawless, so I choose to believe in this one.
This is true, however I do believe that in the moment that Auryx understood the Sword Logic, killed his sisters and took the power of Akka he changed his nature, and that is reflected by the change both in name and title. While Auryx has took the King morph, and the nature of the explorer and inquirer, at that exact moment he took the nature of the Taken.
He is Taken King not because he rules over the Taken, but because he took his power, and that is the proof that he understood fully the sword logic.
So no, the sword logic is not the final form, but the tool trough wich the hive brings the final form upon the universe. From XLVII:
But the one that sets out to understand the one true law and to perform worship of that law will by that decision gain control over their future. They will gain hope of ascendance and by their ruthlessness they will assist the universe in arriving at its perfect shape.
The first sentence describes that trough the use and worship of the sword logic one can transcend causal closure. From XVI:
You are no longer bound by causal closure. Your will defeats law. Kill a hundred of your children with a long blade, Auryx, and observe the change in the blade. Observe how the universe shrinks from you in terror.
The second sentence outlines the benefits of becoming paracausal, that for the hive is reaching an ascended state, and bring the universe towards it’s final perfect shape.
From XXVIII:
That is the final shape: Darkness itself. Not the Hive, not the Taken, but the Darkness. However, as seen in XLVIII when Oryx makes his Taken he changes their shape into one closer to perfection, and perfection to him is the final shape
When I make my Taken I make them closer to perfect, I heal their wounds and enhance their strengths. This is inherently good.
Now, regarding to Oryx being dead himself there is 2 passages that support my theory that he is, in fact, capable to have escaped death inside his throne room. One is from XXXVIII:
This is a technique that Oryx daughters are experimenting trough millenia. And the fact that Oryx, in the final cutscene, does not die, but gathers power from his sword into a sphere, and rams that sphere into himself while vanishing (and laughing, wich is a strange way to portrait powers that cease to exist in the media) leads me to believe that he, at that point sent himself somewhere else, and this technique that his daughters started to experiment so long ago might be just what he used.
Otherwise he would have killed himself, but that goes against the Sword Logic he so much holds dear, and the conclusion he reaches on XLVII:
Aiat: the only right is existence, the only wrong is nonexistence.
and from L:
So for me to believe that he chose nonexistence, that he chose to be wormfood, that he went back on his word of going on forever, that he did not prepared a second path and killed himself… it just doesn’t make any sense.
For the final blow on Oryx was not ours, but his own. We bested him, but we did not killed him.
I’m sure Erin will have a much more detailed response for you but I’d like to point out that Oryx using the power to take on himself was not the last we saw of oryx. WE defeated him later in his own world. I believe you’re referring to the campaign but I think you’re leaving the raid out of your assessment.
As Erin has already pointed out, Xixu Arath and Savathun were able to be resurrected because they were killed in Oryx’s throne world, not their own. At the start of XXVI: star by star by star, the card which describes him killing his sisters, it says that they are “in the throne-world of King Auryx”.
That Oryx’s sisters were not killed in their own throne worlds is confirmed in XXV: This Love Is War, where Xivu Arath says:
Once, I permitted King Oryx to kill me so that he could gain the sword logic and overcome Akka, our god. This left me trapped deep in my throne.
The true deaths that are described in XXVI do not seem to be the same as permanent deaths. A true death is a death that occurs within the ascendant realm (or “sword world” as it is called in the card) but not within the throne world of the Hive that has been killed. So they are trapped within their own throne world until they can be resurrected in some way, such as by carrying out acts that describe their nature.
In contrast, a permanent death is when a Hive is killed within its own throne world, so they cannot be resurrected. In XVII: The Weakness Verse, it says:
Your body is gone, but you have endured. Safe in the cyst universe created by your own might – your throne world. From this day forward, Auryx, you and your sisters will each survive death – so long as you aren’t killed in your own throne.
Oryx confirms that if he is killed in his own throne world, then he will have been permanently killed. In L: Wormfood, Oryx says:
I have died many times but these deaths were only temporary. If my echoes are killed, and I am killed in the material world, then I will be driven back to my throne the Dreadnaught. If my Court and my throne can be beaten, if I am confronted in my throne, if I am defeated there, then I will die. My work will end.
As Hipnuts said, we killed Oryx in his own throne world in the King’s Fall raid. Since Oryx was killed in his own throne world, he cannot be resurrected as Xivu Arath and Savathun were.
It is worth noting that it can be said that Oryx killed his sisters in both his own throne world and the ascendant realm or sworld world since his throne world is located within the ascendant realm, as are all the other throne worlds. Toland describes the ascendant realm, or what he calls the Overworld, in Ghost Fragment: The Hellmouth:
Now I fly between green-black suns in the labyrinth beyond Crota’s god-star. This is the Overworld, the Sea of Screams, where the throne-universes of the great Hive fester in eternal majesty. I move among them. I map the shapes and connections of this world.
However, saying that Xivu Arath and Savathun were killed within the sword world does not mean that they were killed in their own throne worlds. As mentioned previously, XVII: The Weakness Verse shows that Oryx created his own throne world before he killed his sisters as described in XXVI: star by star by star. XXI: an incision confirms that all three siblings created their own throne worlds prior to the events described in XVII:
SAVATHÛN said, Auryx my brother and king, I have studied the wounds cut by the Worm our God. Also I have studied the manner of your death and return. These two things are the same, for they are predicated on death and the passage through cut spaces. Let us practice the sword logic until we are sharp. We may then cut our own wounds and step through.
But XIVU ARATH said, sister, I am already sharp, look, my sword cuts into another space. And she cut her way between moons through green fire and joyous screams.
Three kingdoms grew swollen in the sword space. They were the gaze and glory of AURYX, the cunning and knowledge of SAVATHÛN, the triumph and brawn of XIVU ARATH. These kingdoms were created from the minds and worms of our lords. They were coterminous with all spaces consecrated by our Hive. Through these spaces passed speech and food, and all the moons were bound close.
Sayeth AURYX, this is where I went when I died. Let us establish our thrones here. For I am Auryx the First Navigator and I shall chart death. And my throne shall be carved of osmium.
So when it says in XVII that they were in “the throne-world of King Auryx”, this is referring specifically to Oryx’s (or Auryx at this point) throne world, not just the sword world or ascendant realm in general.
Jazzy has already made an excellent reply to this piece of your comment, so I won’t retread old ground.
Oryx doesn’t say why he is the Taken King specifically, but in XXVIII he says this:
His speech to the Deep is not recorded here. But it is known that he returned, and he said, now I am Oryx, the Taken King. And I have the power to take life and make it my own.
Given the emphasis on “take life and make it my own,” it seems that the name is a reference to the Taken themselves. The power to “fully understand the Sword Logic” doesn’t require a new name to do so- Quria deduced it, Toland knew it, Savathûn and Xivu Arath speak of it before Oryx kills them in XXVI:
“Then kill me,” says Xivu Arath, “and use that killing logic, the power you prove by killing something as mighty as me.”
So King Auryx took up his blade and beheaded Xivu Arath.
“And strangle me,” says Savathûn, holding a blade behind her back. “Use that killing logic, the cunning you prove by killing something as smart as me.”
Additionally, Oryx himself doesn’t have the power to Take- the Tablets of Ruin do:
He wrote this secret on a set of tablets, which he called the Tablets of Ruin. And he wore them about his waist.
And, given some of D2’s content, someone else now has access to those Tablets, and by extension the power to Take. Oryx was the Taken King, yes, but this requires the Tablets.
As you’ve said, the Darkness is the “final shape”- the one the Hive use the Sword Logic to hopefully achieve. Oryx says himself in XLVIII that he is not the same as his Taken:
I am not Taken. The Hive is not the Deep.
Side note: Oryx may not even be able to be Taken. One of TTK’s Ghost Scans says this:
Ghost: This membrane is attempting to form a bridge between dimensions, but I think it requires a living host.
Given that Oryx isn’t exactly alive- he’s paracausal just like the Guardians- it may be impossible for any Hive with a throne to be Taken, including Oryx. It’s been discussed some here.
As Hipnuts has said, this seems to leave the raid out of any theorizing. You mention the “final cutscene”- that being of the campaign- but Oryx was in King’s Fall.
In King’s Fall, we did not perfectly obey the Logic, which Toland later berates us for:
How did you find your way into the King’s Cellars? How did you even recognize that benighted draught for what it was? Do you not know that the Hive pursue Light precisely for the purpose of devouring it with slavering jaws and slick greedy gulping throats? How did you take (or rather, un-Take) the Blighted Light that Oryx gathered to offer in sacrifice to Akka, and ignite it so that it burned and burned the Darkness?
But you have toppled Oryx and you have not replaced him!
There must be a strongest one. It is the architecture of these spaces.
Death is the last part of living
and life is learning to die
The song is the same as the singing
Oryx did not die purely because of the Sword Logic, he died because the Guardians released the Light and defeated him truly. His backup plan culminates in the Touch of Malice, but given what we see in-canon there’s next to no way for Oryx to come back from a throne-world death.
I just finished the PS4 only strike, with an alternate dialog then I normally witness.
Firstly Oryx is named here the Former Taken King by Devrim talking to Zavala.
This ending said (mind you trying to remember the exact text)
Ghost: We have a problem, This last one was Red Legion.
Zavala: something aligning: this can’t be true the the Taken can’t take since we killed oryx (memory loss sorry)
Ghost replies: According to Ikora, the Book of Sorrows mentions Oryx has sisters.
I believe this conversation is partly bungie acknowledging the fact that Oryx is really dead, and teasing Savathun might be commanding the Taken now?
Didn’t we kill oryx outside his realm? I thought the dreadnaught was his realm but when we kill him he is technically outside the ship. Not sure if that is correct in concept because he also technically “took” himself in his throne world instead of letting us kill him, because he knew it was his only chance. The rest I believe could be the trick to get himself into our backpack.
What you are talking about is the final story mission, Regicide. We kill him out of his throne world in that mission, and when he appears to take himself I believe that he is just transporting himself to his throne world. Then, in the raid (Kings Fall) we go into his throne world and kill him to die his final death. At least, that’s what I got out of that.
It states the dreadnaught is his throne realm, in regicide we are about to kill him in the the dreadnaught.
So knowing that this death would be final (because it was in him throne world) oryx took himself/his worm to save himself. If not why take himself at all? He could just keep coming back if it was not a final death.
In the raid oryx floats around the dreadnaught, so he has no fear of death, (and falls into Saturn in his cocoon to evolve into his next form. )
Not necessarily. The Throne realm is only tied to the Dreadnought in the sense that the only place one may access it is whilst on/in the ship. This does not mean that leaving the physical bounds of the Dreadnought is the same as leaving the Throne realm.
From the little I understand about throne worlds, I believe that the only way in or out is through the ascendant portals. As long as he doesn’t leave through one, which I don’t think he did, and we passed through one, which I think we did, he died his final death.
Technically Oryx could probably be revived with a massive act that simulates his nature, which is curiosity and discovery. This gets really scary when you consider that Savathun is currently trying to discover the Distributary…
That is true…if we understand completely how Hive death and resurrection occur. I am thinking of the true deaths Oryx gave Savathun and Xivo Arath before he resurrected them but he also took power from them. It is possible that taking their power and then using it in a manner akin to how they would have used it was what enabled them to return. IF that is the case, Oryx would not be able to return, as no one took Oryxs’ power.
While the Strike “The Festering Core” does seem to suggest that, I point you to the origins of the Hives power: the Worms.
Originally, the power was given. However, Auryx eventually determined that power, when given, violates the Sword Logic and weakens it potency. We also know that Oryx only gained Savathuns and Xivo Araths power by killing them. I posit that the only way one may gain the power of a Hive, god/king or otherwise, is to deliberately take it when you kill. Given that Oryx was killed by us and we did not take his power or his place, no one exists with his power any longer and thus cannot use it to bring him back. Now, that is not to say there no longer exists anyone to Take. That is an inherent power of the Deep/Darkness and I believe that can be taken (little pun there lol) by any with the skills and knowledge and power to wrest it from a powerful enough avatar/wielder of the Deep/Dark.
Unless Savathun did take his power when he died. This would explain why we did not, if Oryx’s power was taken by Savathun. Even if she did not literally kill him, what if she tricked Mara into creating the plan that got Oryx killed so that Savathun could Take Oryx’s power, then kill us and the Awoken with that power, and then use it to resurrect her brother? Just some food for thought.
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