just wondering what the purpose of it was. or did i miss that?
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I dunno. I like to think that the Black Garden was a Hypocrite thing when it came to the Vex. They want to kill everything and make the universe an absolute Limbo. But they worship in a Garden that is said to have every species of plant we know of, and more.
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There’s been some vague allusions to why the Vex protected the Black Garden. Some have to do with why the Vex worshiped the Heart in the first place:
Why would a hyperintelligent, time-spanning thought mesh exhibit religious behavior? The answer […] if the Vex found worship and devotion more effective than any other behavior, they would adopt worship. Whatever the Vex found - or made - in the Garden, it transcends even their power.
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.
We see them doing something similar with the Sword Logic in the Books of Sorrow:
By directing worship at the worms, Quria learned it could alter reality with mild ontopathogenic effects. Being an efficient machine, Quria manufactured a priesthood and ordered all its subminds to believe in worship.
Additionally, the Speaker says the Garden may be “where the Vex are born.” This sentiment is echoed in Through the Gate:
The Vex are born here, in the sense of baptism: consecrated to the service of some terrible purpose that the machines found within.
With that “service” presumably being to the Garden’s Heart itself.
Uldren has his own ideas of what the Garden is for:
It seems the most natural thing in the world that a garden should have a heart. “The Vex infest the place,” he says. “It gives them something they crave. It… grows them toward what they want to be.” […]
“Whatever the heart of that place is,” he says, pacing, “it’s a seed, I think, a seed left behind to grow. Like a… a node of Glimmer. Or…” The idea strikes him as a thunderbolt. “Or a tripwire. Bait to attract those who seek out and destroy what they don’t understand.”
Bait for Guardians. Bait to mark some milestone in the Traveler’s recovery.
There’s also been some theorizing based on what Ikora had to say about its relation to the Taken in TTK:
Oryx wields this power. But Oryx did not make it. We face the same flower we met in the Black Garden.
The implication being that the power of the Garden’s Heart is the Darkness itself – the Deep that gave Oryx his power to Take. Whatever the Heart was, the Garden seemed to house it, and the Vex protected it within the Garden.
As for us seeing the Garden again, there’s are a few interesting Ghost Scans about that:
If I’m reading this right there are… other Gardens. Like Black Garden Gardens. I couldn’t tell if they were being built, or were already destroyed… what does it mean?
A Conflux that’s directly connected to Mars. The Vex there are having a heck of a time with the Red Legion, it seems like. “Garden gate gone. Bay lost. Bastion fallen.” Huh.
So, we might! We may also see a different Garden sometime in the future.
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I couldn’t help but notice the use of “bait” by Uldren. It makes me think back to the traveler as the “Sky’s bait star”, which I freely admit to not understanding as a concept, referred to in the Book of Sorrows.
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you have to admit, the heart of the black garden looks like the same matter that the taken are make from. i thought that it was the birth place of the darkness and the vex found it first and claimed it for themselves
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The “bait stars” are first established as a type of trophy on Fundament, the birthplace of Oryx and his sisters. They’re the bait that stormjoys use to lure in prey, though they can be cut off:
A STORMJOY. A stormjoy is a living cloud. When it passes over our continent, it lowers its feeding tentacles. On each tentacle are the BAIT STARS. Although light makes you happy, you must avoid it. You will be eaten.
A stormjoy is a good way for an old person to choose death. Also, a daring knight can cut the bait stars from the tentacles. I have six!
So, they’re set up as the alien equivalent to a worm on a fish-hook – tempting, but you’ll get eaten.
Later, the Worm Gods use the bait stars as a metaphor while speaking to Savathûn:
Make him understand that the ideals of peace and stability he clings to are cancers — brutal, unjust obstacles between us and a fair cosmos. These are the bait stars the Sky uses to blind its slaves.
The “bait stars” here, peace and stability, are the qualities we associate with the Light. However, the Darkness is arguing that these ideas are little more than ideas, dangled in front of civilizations so that the Light can “eat” them-- that is, bind them in servitude.
In XVI, the Worm Gods call the Traveler itself the Light’s bait star:
The source of these weapons is the Traveler, the Sky’s bait star. Their effect is subtle, but devastating.
Where again, the comparison is that the Light uses the Traveler and the peace it brings to blind civilizations to the ‘truth’ of the Sword Logic. The Worm Gods are attempting to portray themselves and the Darkness as enlightened, or as “more worthy of existence.” It’s essentially anti-Light propaganda, as are many things that the Darkness / Worm Gods say in the Books.
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Who called it that, do you remember? The definition of that phrase depends on the context. If it was the Hive or the Worm gods, I would think the term “bait star” would mean the Traveler is the Sky’s bait. Like Mara says, it’s a torch in the dark. It attracts all kinds of things. I think they’re insinuating that the Traveler, intentionally or not, creates proxies out of civilizations and how these proxies act as bait; or alternatively, the Traveler is literally the bait and the civilizations that fall victim to the Dark are the ones who, well, fall for the bait.
Edit: Yeah, nevermind. erin’s post is much more thought out.
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I’d like to add that the Traveler might be related to the Black Garden in some form. The Traveler’s actions on Mars is “not the beginning but it is the reason.” And I’ve long thought that the Ruin Wings flavor text referred to the Black Garden. The Mk. 44 Stand Asides in D2 support that idea with its lore tab. The lore tab makes mention of the Gardener, who I assume is the Traveler, as Rasputin has used that name before in reference to the Traveler. That could maybe tie the two together.
There’s nothing concrete about the Traveler’s relationship with the Garden. It’s all barely theory. But I’d like to mention it as no one seems to really consider any relationship between the two at all. If I had to guess (and this isn’t even theory, barely a hypothesis) I’d say the Traveler created the Garden and the Darkness set up shop, corrupting the place. That makes the most sense to me and I like the notion. Food for thought, if nothing else.
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Well, who created the Traveler?
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You ask a difficult question @LittleLight, because there isn’t a true answer. I personally believe that the Traveler was made by the Light.
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But again we don’t know a true answer.
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so, little birdie told me that the traveler visited the fallen a long time ago. are the fallen attacking us so that they can take back the traveler for them selves?
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@LittleLight, from my studies, and some Awoken Warlock who calls herself Jessora, it is safe to assume so yes. (Yeah I dunno why I did that. But we believe so.)
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Yes. They probably think that we are holding captive and they want to free it. They refer to it as “The Great Machine”. Please correct me if i’m wrong on the great machine.
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so if the Light created the Traveler, then did the darkness create something of their own (other than the Hive)?
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Maybe? I thought that is what the Pyramid ships might be, the Darkness in a more foreboding, more material form. But then again, the idea that the Hive are the Darkness we speak of…
Think about it, Oryx had very geometrical shapes for his ships, the unique cylinder-ish, diamond-ish shaped tubes. And now we have pyramid ships.
But Oryx had spikes on his, very gothic, much wow.
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The light and the dark are opposites. The Traveler is a sphere. Wouldn’t it make sense for the dark to be angular and have many edges?
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Good point.
…
Get it?
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I don’t agree that they’re opposites. They have a lot of similarities.
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remember the gross worms on the dreadnaught in the taken king? when scanning artifacts aboard the ship, your ghost tells you that they are supposedly born from pure darkness.
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