Toland The Shattered

Greetings Guardians,
I want to post my thoughts about Toland The Shattered and his understanding of life, I will have a mix of grimoire and speculation, so take everything with a pinch of salt. I apologize if a similiar post has already been done.
We know that Oryx is trying to acheive the universe’s “final shape.” I feel like this is what Toland was trying to explain to us. Toland understood this, and somehow knows what the final shape should be. This is what he explains in his journals.
“HOW DO I EXPLAIN IT it’s so simple WHY DON’T YOU SEE”

“Imagine three great nations under three great queens. The first queen writes a great book of law and her rule is just. The second queen builds a high tower and her people climb it to see the stars. The third queen raises an army and conquers everything.”

"The future belongs to one of these queens. Her rule is harshest and her people are unhappy. But she rules. “there is no reason for it, no more than there was reason for the victory of the atom. It is simply the winning play.”

In Ghost fragment: Darkness 3 he explains why things are made of atoms:

“Why do we have atoms? Because atomic matter is more stable than the primordial broth. Atoms defeated the broth. That was the first war. There were two ways to be and one of them won. And everything that came next was made of atoms.”

“Atoms made stars. Stars made galaxies. Worlds simmered down to rock and acid and in those smoking primal seas the first living molecule learned to copy itself. All of this happened by the one law, the blind law, which exists without mind or meaning.”

This is where I like to get highly speculative.
The hive believe that the final shape will be accomplished by war (much like the atom in the “first war”). War will always be present. In every society, religion, and culture war occurs.
So does that mean that possibly life is just the broth vs the atoms? Is human life so insignificant? Guardians? Even in the case that we win the “atom” situation, one day our victory would be that of the atom, and then the cycle repeats itself again.
If the hive believe that they are the final shape then one of Oryx’s sisters is the final shape theorized by Toland.
"Of course, it might be that there was another country, with other queens, and in this country they sat down together and made one law and one tower and one army to guard their borders. This is the dream of small minds: a gentle place ringed in spears.

But I do not think those spears will hold against the queen of the country of armies. And that is all that will matter in the end.
The queen of the country of armies could be a reference to Savathun or Xivu Arath. Could we possibly see another hive god in the future? There is much more to be learned from the hive. Maybe we are the other country, but we are the “dream of small minds: a gentle place ringed in spears.” If we go off of the atom logic being gentle will not matter in the end. The strongest being will be the one to survive in the end. Are we just delaying the inevitable or will we become the final shape ourselves?

Forgive any spelling errors, I have not had nearly enough time to create a proper Lore post. This has just been something that I have been wanting to do for a long time.

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Well, each of the Hive godkings aspires to be the “king of the only universe” where it mattered. Toland’s explanation is more of a Sword-Logic for Dummies!.

While Xivu Arath embodies war as part of her bargain with the Worm Gods, this doesn’t mean she’ll be the inevitable winner of reality in the end; she’s just driven to continually test herself by that bargain, much how Oryx is driven by his bargain to incessantly explore (and find new civilizations to destroy) and Savathun is to exercise subterfuge and trickery to fulfil her never-ending symbiosis with her own worm.

Ultimately the Hive will either end up being the ones to complete the Deep’s great work or, as Oryx calls it, the proof will be sealed if they are defeated by something stronger, more powerful than them, something with a greater lust for adaptive life than they could ever hope to aspire.

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Do you have any idea where Toland was? Before he died? (I use the term died loosely, more like a mix of life and death).
Would he have been at the moon, where he could have studied the Hive in depth? Or the Earth, where there were more manageable amounts. But what about Venus or Mars?

While we’re at where he was, we should also talk about where he currently is. The common theory that I have come across was that he was in the rock that Eris holds. However, if he wanders in the throne world of the Hive, would it be possible he is in some corner of the King’s Fall Raid?

He died in Crota’s netherworld beneath the Moon, and yes was watching as we defeated Oryx (he was definitely not that light that disappears whenever we go near it, however; that’s silly, as it summons Oryx or Taken).

Maybe he was cursed somehow? Im not sure how that would work out, but it would make sense from a few perspectives.

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Killed by a Deathsong but somehow survived. I think he made preparations for it.

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so this dude’s obsession ends up scoring him his date with Ir Yut, the Deathsinger and she basically lullabies him to undeath…he is stuck so he says in “between the green-black suns of the labryinth beyond Crota’s god-star,” “the Overworld,” the “Sea of Screams.”

He’s basically a trapped spirit and apparently very “alone” or at least he thinks he is. So him being an Ascended anything is kind of poofed away.

I think his death at the voice of Ir Yut “redefined” his “shape” that is is his very existence, hence, undeath in a non-corporeal state. Flittering through the unrealities and observing our mistakes with slightly muffled frustration at our apparent ignorance to the truths he now witnesses.


“You fools! You disastrous, bumbling squanderers! It’s not right! Who now shall be First Navigator, Lord of Shapes, harrowed god, Taken King? Not you! You might have been Kings and Queens of the Deep! But you have toppled Oryx and you have not replaced him!”

^ …see? His babbling reveals a few things.

  1. We worshipped Oryx by fighting and killing him. His Worm got a nice dose of Sword-Logic and guess what we may have created an unstable power-vacuum which oops, means more Sword-Logic is on the way, which translates to the Hive becoming stronger…

Would Toland have us to simply give up and not fight so as to prevent Sword-Logic? No we must burn the Darkness, we must “kill it back, yesssss?”

  1. He thinks we should have done like good o’ Mara Sov and took Oryx’s throne(world) for ourselves; is this what he was after all along? He just messed up by parleying with Ir Yut first.

But how does he figure we last/live long enough to actually not get Sword-Logicked ourselves?

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I don’t think he figures, I think he is alive somewhere that he has seen us. If you recall, he sends some messages in the same way.