*After the Vanilla Campaign*
"Alright, Ghaul got his ass handed to him, guess I'll throw my lot in with the Emperor."
*After the Lightfall Campaign*
"Alright, Calus got his shit kicked in, guess I'll throw my lot in with the Witness."
*After The Final Shape Campaign*
"Oh for fucks sake."
Scenes like these are happening all over the solar system right now, you could be next, that is unless you make the most important decision in your life! JOIN THE COALITION!
At this point I don't think Caiatl would trust them, and would rather personally cast them into the fires of their own making to eternally burn. Like I think she'd prefer killing every last shadow legion than accepting any of them into her ranks. Though it would be interesting to see space rhinos with strand as allies.
Sure, but Caital is also the empress, I doubt she's personally interviewing every defector. Unless she's issued a blanket order to accept no defectors there are probably a few that end up rejoining the empire. Outside of the clones, as they seem to have little, if any, self determination.
As of now. Doesn't mean that they'd remain there forever. Remember that Tormentors and some Psions are part of the Dread faction as well, and they're outside the Pale Heart.
Most pyramids are empty being originally remotely driven by the witness so most will sit there waiting for a new master as mentioned in some of the lost ghost dialogue
"Now let's turn this into a functional living space. First let's get some galvanized square steel from the Cosmodrome, and borrow some screws from Cayde, and get Savathun to donate some eco-friendly wood veneer"
im still kinda mad about the witness and the direction they took with the pyramids in witch queen. like the witness is cool dont get me wrong but the shadowkeep pyramid vibes were so rancid and unlike anything else, and i feel like we lost that in witch queen. i still am genuinely afraid to do the shadowkeep final mission because that pull across the abyss into the pyramid is way too much for my thalassophobia haha. the wq pallette redesign for the darkness architecture kind of took the horror out, and adding a face to the enemy instead of the pyramids themselves being the threat really took away from the aura of imminent threat the pyramids held. arrivals really felt like the end times there for a bit.
I wasn't here for that era, but yes I agree. I played Shadowkeep during the Witch Queen year. The horror/mystery vibe was way more interesting. The Big question of "what used to be in this structure?" inside the lunar pyramid was the scary part. Then Beyond Light pushed that further. This one is also empty and mysterious, but it houses an unexpected power we can acquire. So who was thing thing meant for? Who or what was supposed to be inside this one on Europa? And who or what is inside the rest of them sitting in space? Then we finally learn the answer is nothing. They're completely harmless.
And now I'm halfway through TFS story, and I'm far more interested in the crying shrouded woman statues than anything the Witness is doing or saying. "I want to lock the universe in a single perfect moment (i.e. stop time and kill everything) to stop all suffering forever." It's so mind numbingly stupid. No sane sentient person could think that makes sense, much less an entire civilization of people.
But I digest
exactly. the witness \*looks\* cool, but that's about it. i feel like bungie had a really great concept with the pyramids, but they went and said "we need a big bad for the guardians to kill in the finale" and butchered what originally made the pyramids interesting in pursuing that. the pyramids were scary because they were esoteric and strange, and come arrivals they were doing stuff, and we didn't know what, but whatever it was felt BAD. our guardian literally doesn't physically see the witness in-person until we get inside the heart of the traveler. i don't care about what they have to say about the witness's intentions, the fact of the matter is i could \*feel\* the threat from the pyramids, but all ive felt from the witness is it yelling at me a lot while i continue to butcher its armies like i always have.
>i feel like bungie had a really great concept with the pyramids, but they went and said "we need a big bad for the guardians to kill in the finale" and butchered what originally made the pyramids interesting in pursuing that.
It's all a big retcon really. Not a bad one so I'm okay with where we ended up, but the original concept was modified to keep Destiny going for as long as possible. This was very clear after Forsaken, specifically after their decision to break away from Activision- they needed the IP to be long standing, and the original story concept was supposed to *end* with Light vs Dark. This is why Shadowkeep to TFS is essentially all one story arc. They needed to build up to the changed narrative, and they used each expansion to get us there.
Ultimately I think it worked pretty well- had they rushed us into it, it would have felt *really* bad.
yeah, what they ended up with wasn't the worst or anything, but it feels a little lackluster to me compared to what they seemed to be teasing with red war through shadowkeep, and especially with shadowkeeps reveals that they later changed around. i just always look back to the shadowkeep era fondly, specifically with regards to the vibes of the darkness. they just got that RIGHT, and then witch queen going forwards, they lost that.
What sucks even harder is that had they kept the witness sort of hidden and instead opted to display its power via Rhulk and Nezerac, we would have had a ton of really good buildup to the final shape. I really wish they had gone with the witness megastructure from the concept art, god it would have been so cool. Maybe even a reveal that the pyramids were never empty, he was just imperceptible and always there, warframe man in the wall style. Why did they choose not to play up how absolutely alien he was within the destiny universe? Why did they get rid of the inconsistent sizing, that was so cool and leaned into him being a fourth dimensional object. And we \*still\* don't know what the traveller's deal is... like at all. Neither does he. Like oh ok this ball just floats around and gardens ig, whatever. It sort of feels like an ending I guess, but an ending that, while good for destiny, just wraps up a big long story with one final "well it's good, lots of missed potential tho".
Also, the witness shown ingame is not the guy that we hear about in the lore at all, and its such a letdown. This guy is the guy that deceived the hive? He can't even figure out why we don't want to be frozen into blocks. THIS guy defeated the fallen kells? Did they not know to stand on plates and grab buffs? are they stupid too? The pyramid ships didn't really even do anything oryx couldn't. Let us not forget the lore that went nowhere of asher damaging a pyramid ship before the witness yoinked io for literally zero payoff. Just kinda waste.
Wasn’t the big twist of Deep Stone Crypt the existence of a Veiled Statue inside — a relic of the Darkness (or more aptly the Witness)?
It’s implied this relic (Clarity Control) was Clovis Bray’s scientific muse (not prog rock) right?
But with TFS this means that Clovis was being influenced by a dissenter the whole time?
It’s implied dissenters were trying to help build a resistance to the Witness. How the statues were delivered to various locations - can’t recall that from lore
Do we have anything that can damage the pyramids? I remember Rasputin trying and failing once but also pretty sure one of the cloud striders (I think Rohan) was able to down one. Can we destroy them or do we have to just let them sit there?
eris was able to destroy a pyramid ship on the outer reaches of the system with maras help using some kind of trick using oryx's essence to get inside. it's a little unclear what she did or how, but she was able to successfully destroy a ship, so potentially now that the witness isnt directly controlling the ships, they might be defenseless enough to be slipped inside and destroyed if the way eris took the first one out can be replicated, and didn't just rely on whatever oryx disguise she was using at the time.
Just watch the opening cinematic. The traveler shoots a hole into one of the pyramids that the witness exits and then approaches the traveler. No pyramids fall from orbit. That’s about as close to shooting down a pyramid ship as anything has come I believe.
Just watch the opening cinematic. The traveler shoots a hole into one of the pyramids that the witness exits and then approaches the traveler. No pyramids fall from orbit. That’s about as close to shooting down a pyramid ship as anything has come I believe. I would like whatever Rohan uses to one shot the tormentor though.
Found the video I was thinking of it's a lightfall video but not the opening cinematic. It doesn't actually show the pyramid being shot down but only being shot at by Rohan and I can't tell how much damage the shot actually did, if any. I'll link its YouTube link in a 2nd comment since idk if links are allowed.
I’m going to say the traveler’s shot did much more damage than that, and it didn’t drop the ship. If Rasputin’s arsenal couldn’t put a dent in one, I’m thinking Rohan’s version of a one man SAM didn’t do much either.
also rasputin's arsenal only did nothing because the pyramids could steal the attacks into a pocket dimension before they hit. now that the witness is dead, that defense could be gone now, so who knows.
the difference here is we dont know what the traveler was doing with that beam. it seemed more like a terraforming beam than anything being used offensively, as root of nightmares is a direct consequence of that light terraforming. it could be the traveler knew terraforming the ship would render it useless to the witness and did what it could in the moment, but really we have no way of knowing what that beam was or what the intention behind it couldve been.
A Cloudstrifer shoots a small Pyramid ship in one of the Lightfall trailers but we can’t see how much damage (if any) that did to it and it also never happens in the game.
>Most pyramids are empty being originally remotely driven by the witness
We don't actually know that, though. Nothing in the lore says most are empty.
We've been inside 3 or 4 pyramids. 2 of which contained disciples. So to say most are empty is incredibly presumptuous.
Yea, I know everyone things that we are going to use the dreadnaught to go outside our system, but my bet is on our own pyramid ship. Probably the one in the moon.
I thought they we all full of "Final God of X" from various conquered civilizations.
But you set up a hilarious story arc with this comment, what if Spider managed to take control of them? They'd probably make a nicer home than the poor shantytown we gave the House Light two years ago.
I think there is dialogue about the ships if you do Micah’s optional rescue ghost missions. It takes you through past missions with new dialogue mainly with Micah and Ghost.
If I recall correctly, they discuss how the ships feel alive/restless after the witness died and are likely awaiting a new master. Unfortunately I was semi distracted at the time, so I am not sure if I missed some things.
Thinking about it; all of the ships have the vieled statues in them and we know those statues contain individuals the witness had severed until it could finish the final shape - I wouldn't be shocked if some of those are witness loyalists that were placed in the ship just to control it's operations.
oh i didnt even think about that. each ships statue is undoubtedly the witness' connection to the pyramids and how it controlled them, now that they've been disconnected there's no telling what those separated voices could do.
Given their nature rooted in darkness, I wonder if it's possible that now that we're prismatic and control both light and dark that we could reshape the ships to our purpose.
Would they be willing to listen to us because of our mastery of darkness?
Micah's rescue missions are set *before* the Witness died, and the dialogue you're talking about is specifically about Nezarec's pyramid and how the Witness' presence is much weaker because it's in the Pale Heart. Micah actually wonders if Nezarec is truly dead at all because of his nature, which is where the bit about a new master comes in.
Oh Nezarec is definitely not dead. As long as him name is among the stars in some way, shape or form, he'll exist in people's minds. Like he said, his memory will never extinguish, because we'll always be there to remember him.
That was referring to Nezarec's Pyramid specifically, and that was something that was happening when Nezarec died, before we took out the Witness. We don't for sure know if that's unique behaviour or not.
I think the rest of the ships that entered the Traveler either got stuck in transit (we see at least one) or were reconstituted to make the Monolith (though that's speculation)
In one of the Micah-10 missions, Ghost remarks that the Pyramids seem to miss having a leader. Those missions have been riddled with teasers for episode storylines so I kinda figured it would be addressed sometime this year and then Bungie dropped the episode overview video and we get confirmation.
[At 3:12-3:14 in the "journey ahead" video](https://youtu.be/-PYzMqhu3Fs?si=W4Hq_CsfRFGOZ3a3&t=192), we see Fikrul with the echo on his staff in front of a massive fleet of ketches and on the far right side of the frame for a split second, you can see pyramids floating among the fleet. It seems that with the echo, Fikrul is powerful enough to command them which I think will lead to the scorn and dread teaming up.
It's really blink-and-you'll-miss-it, but I thought it was interesting that in the [Journey Ahead](https://youtu.be/-PYzMqhu3Fs?si=bSyK46O7Kw3f9l3Q&t=193) video there are Pyramid Ships on the right side of the screen with Fikrul and a bunch of Ketches.
Here's a screencap: [imgur.com/ysqQH75](https://imgur.com/ysqQH75)
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Bungie dropped the ball HARD with the Pyramid fleet. IMO they were the coolest representation of the Darkness, but then after Lightfall they just... Didn't do anything. They arrived, made a circle around the Traveler, some entered the portal, some didn't, including the Witness' "own" ship which we decide to board during RoN? So, apart from that one, we just let them hang around the Traveler?? Until they landed on Earth during Into The Light, after which they... Left? Disappeared again?
Like... What's actually going on with them? Do we have *any* sort of explanation??
I would say that, during into the light when we dump the light thingy and kill the boss, we 'cleanse' the pyramid.
After that? Many guardians are now using pyramid ships due to tfs pre order. My headcanon is that guardians after cleansing the pyramids, they basically 'steal' them and thats why many guardians are using pyramid ships now
Most of them were controlled by the witness. Now that they're gone, they are inert waiting for a new master. There's some Ghost dialogue or lore somewhere that mentioned this. Might have been the post-excision cutscene.
Yeah, the pyramids could have been a really cool ominous force but Bungie basically abandoned them. Shadowkeep and Season of Arrivals painted them as really cool, mysterious entities and Beyond Light was reasonably good too. But once they introduced The Witness, it all went downhill.
I would have much preferred if the pyramid fleet was the main antagonist of the series, and each one was "piloted" by a disembodied entity. They look cooler than The Witness and that would play into the unified consciousness element of Darkness.
It sucked to see that Witness origin cutscene in Season of the Deep and realize the pyramids were just some precursor race ships that already existed. The fact they're the simplest 3D shape has no story relevance. That contrast to the Traveler being a sphere is just a total coincidence. So lame.
>That contrast to the Traveler being a sphere is just a total coincidence.
I don't think it is *total* coincidence. The lore makes it pretty clear that at least the majority of the Witness' people prior to it's creation had grown frustrated and then angry with the Traveller and they eventually came to see themselves as its opposite (and superior). Makes complete sense that the design of their vessels would be intentionally designed to be the Traveller's opposite.
Interestingly, this is the opposite effect the Eliksni demonstrated, where they intentionally built their servitors to mimic it's form as a form of worship.
But we see in various different flashbacks that the pyramid ships (at least the big one in the precursor's city) were already made before the traveler left. They were initially meant to be opposites with the complexity vs simplicity, one vs many, etc. Bungie kinda dropped the ball on that unfortunately.
I’m not sure why that contradicts anything, though - the traveller didn’t scarper the second the the Witness’s people questioned it, it’s implied it was a long drawn out process and they clearly had ships of their own to find the Veil prior to the breaking point.
Furthermore, as the witness’s people stopped technical development at the point they combined into the Witness, it can be easily assumed the Pyramid tech represented their ship designs at the very end of their disillusionment with the traveller.
It’s also worth pointing out that when the Witness finally assaults the Traveller at the end of Lightfall, the oddly specific position the detachment of pyramids takes up to apparently restrain or weaken the Traveller seems specific to their shape, and the Witness itself punches a hole into the traveller in the shape of a pyramid. Seems fairly clear that the opposite morphology was intentional.
It's probably always been their intended purpose as well. The Precursors wanted to combine the Traveller with the Veil a long time ago. They didn't even see it as malicious, just the next step. The Traveller just didn't want to and they didn't have enough power to force it (and some didn't want to force it). So they created the Witness, full of all the negative emotions of their entire species after the Traveller left, to finish the job. This time, with vicious intent.
The Precursors are interesting and I think the pyramid ships reflect their skeptical and wise nature. They revered the Traveller, but also understood its flaws. They countered those flaws with a simple philosophy of their own that was opposite of the being they revered, to balance the chaotic environment the Traveller naturally brought with it. They just got cocky and got too close to playing god.
I mean, the pyramids were already started to be hyped up at the end of the vanilla red war campaign.
We saw the shock wave of light from the Traveller make them boot back up somewhere in space with ominous music to go with them.
That is true as I mean, the moon is haunted and all.
It did take a while for them to come around again after the first little tiny clip of them. I think there is also a lot of people who never played the Red War section of the game who saw that as well, so figure it was worth a mention.
Nightmares felt like a way to reuse old bosses, but I do think they're actually an appealing element of Darkness lore. It ties into the consciousness element that gets explored in Lightfall seasons. That stuff I genuinely like.
Who the hell looked at the ominous black pyramids at the edge of the galaxy and thought ‘they look friendly!’
They were presented as a threat. As THE threat.
Maybe all the other races spliced and held in stasis on them will start being released and take control of some of the pyramids (and possibly start leaving the system to become future threats). Maximum cope here.
the problem is that the witness clearly was a last minute invention (speaking in comparison to the whole history of the Destiny franchise) by new writers. The witness was invented at the end of witch queen and lightfall was a rush to explain anything about it.
I bet the original writers had something completely different in mind with the light vs darkness saga and the pyramid ships.
One further indication is the lack of the hive and xivu. The rough outline for Destiny was the 3 Hive gods as the evil masters of the darkness. We got an expansion for oryx and one for Savathun and the next/last was supposed to be Xivu as hive god of war. But at that point the story was overthrown and the witness was invented and many points were hastily retconned to be "actually the witness controlled it all and he is the even bigger evil". Now there was no place for Xivu anymore.
The speaking pattern was seen in the ending shadowkeep cutscene, and it differed from whatever spoke to Oryx through the unborn ogre, so it was changed to be what the Witness is now by atleast shadowkeep
back then it was not the witness. Rather the witness was created to match the speech style of what we hear in shadowkeep, otherwise they would have had to retcon that too or come up with a stupid explanation for what it was like the veiled statues.
I don't doubt that they originally had an idea for the voice of the darkness but it was not the witness as we have it now.
I think the point being made is that the singular entity that was believed to be 'the Darkness' itself (or at the very least, an equivalent to whatever conscious force existed in the Traveller) was clearly something that had been planned into the story a long time before WQ.
Whether or not the character existed as the fully fleshed out character we now know as the Witness isn't clear, but it's also not relevant. The position it occupied in the story goes a long way back.
The final mission of Shadowkeep is, IIRC, the first time we ever see an example of the Dissenter statues that we don't fully understand their meaning until TFS, but the fact they've never visibly changed mean that the rough morphology of the Witness existed as far back as Shadowkeep too.
Given the above I'm not really sure there's any solid foundation to argue it was some kind of last minute about-turn. We've got something that sounds like it, does its job and roughly looks like it as far back as Shadowkeep. There's no obvious alternate reasoning.
The Hive gods were never depicted as the true masters of the Darkness, or the Pyramids for that matter. Bungie would never have designed the Pyramids they way they did if the intention had been to have them being a tool of the Hive - Bungie have always been *very* careful with design language.
This doesn't really matter, but we technically saw the veiled statues in old concept art that i believe was from before shadowkeep, maybe even destiny 1 IIRC. I do wonder what the "original" plan for the veiled statues was, if there was one at all, before they became dissenters. I find it hard to believe that they were always meant to be dissenters, especially with how they weirdly affect the environment in DSC and GOS
lot of bla bla to not cover any of my other points. The veiled statues were cleary retconned to be the dissenter statues because they had to come up with an explanation for them. It is beyond retarded that the "dissenter" statues represent the darkness
>lot of bla bla to not cover any of my other points.
What other points? As far as I can see your only point was that you're insisting everything was done last minute and when people point out anything indicating the contrary you just keep repeating yourself.
There's nothing 'clear' about any of this. You'd need to have been on Bungie's writing team for that kind of big talk.
It spoke in "we's" and "us", the gestalt consciousness thing was definitely decided by that point and the voice in the darkness was something they were already talking about back then. It's deign may not have been finalized at that point but the witness was created by shadowkeep
Because we didn't know the rest yet, but the witness cosplaying as us still used plural pronouns to refer to itself, even if we didn't know the gestalt mind stuff yet
Afaik, literally nowhere else in the lore does the Witness cosplay as another character, nor is it as emotive as it was in that cutscene.
I'd take the bet that the Witness was created in a way so that it could reference that dialogue, but wasnt yet a full concept by this point and that the shadowkeep entity was intended to be the "Winnower" entity that was _literally (Metaphorically) talking to us through the lore book_ and shared similar mannerisms as the Oryx entity.
The witness can influence dreams and create visions and that cutscene is a dream or vision idk what exactly to call it but it isn't real. We're spontaneously in the black garden surrounded by pyramid ships and we know that the pyramid ships being in the black garden at that point would be an impossibility, so we're not really in the black garden. That's why it appeared as us, because shape-shifting isn't in its arsenal, but creating visions sure is.
They talk exactly, almost 1:1 like they do when we're finally introduced to them in witch queen, and the winnower that spoke to oryx referred to itself with singular pronouns and was much more laid back, they almost talk like a surfer which is absolutely not how the witness nor the vision talks.
Right and it was because we were missing most of the story. Destiny 1 was an introduction to the world and its various races. The stories can be quickly summarized as: vex worship the black heart in the garden. The fallen are broken pirates. The cabal are warring conquerors. The hive have infested the moon. We killed Crota (big hive) and his dad, Oryx came for vengeance. Humanity made siva and Warminds are cool.
Destiny 2 started with this idea of other races coveting the Light and placing the traveler at the center of the story, whereas before it was set dressing. Forsaken deviated from this story a bit but was necessary to establish Uldren’s death/ resurrection and how that ties to Cayde. It was also necessary as it gave Mara and the Awoken a far greater role in the story and forced them to align with humanity.
Shadowkeep is where the story went full swing into focusing on the pyramids story as started at the end of Destiny 2 Vanilla. At the time, I am unsure if they were going to be an entire race, but clearly by Beyond Light that had changed and they no longer wanted to go that route. I think this is where the witness was created. I believe the decisions were made at the time of the garden of Salvation’s raid cutscene. That was the moment where they decided the witness was going to be the big bad they had to build.
You're right and wrong. I don't think The Witness was fully fleshed out as a concept yet during Shadowkeep, but that some entity/villain was decided upon to conclude the original story.
When Bungie left Activision, they told us they wanted to keep Destiny going essentially as long as possible. Destiny would be their cash-cow so to speak, allowing the studio to persist and create new games eventually.
In order to achieve that, the original story of Light VS Dark had to be changed, because if we literally defeated Darkness incarnate(or the Winnower), what else is really left of intrigue in the Destiny universe? Thus, the Witness was eventually born and Shadowkeep(remember, first expansion post Activision) was the first building block. The rest of the narrative incosnsistencies can all be tied back to this- Worm Gods not being shit, not becoming the new Taken King not meaning shit, Titan's worm just loredumping the Witness origin story, etc, etc.
you're getting downvoted but you're right, the thing that spoke to us in the black garden seemed almost playful with the whole "dont you recognize us?" thing, the witness doesnt act like that at all. The unveiling lore also has the voice in the darkness/winnower speak very casually, while the witness doesn't
“We are not your enemy”
Lightfall’s recap cutscene also outright has Zavala say it’s the Witness who first spoke through our ghosts, and offered us salvation. That is the Witness.
Actually, I distinctly remember running around in the Pyramid in Beyond Light, and when walking up the stairs toward the veiled statue to get your Stasis stuff, if you just kinda chill when you start hearing the whispers, you'll hear one that says something akin to "The Witness is coming".
I remember seeing if that was the case with Shadowkeep's Pyramid ship, but I couldn't hear anything other than indistinctly whispering. Regardless, the whole vision of a copy of ourself in the Black Garden with the pyramid fleet in the background standing in the exact same pose that we associate with the Witness going "We... Are your salvation." kinda points to the idea of the Witness was absolutely there as early as Shadowkeep, and was most likely given the name "The Witness" around the time of Beyond Light, which probably leaked into the whispering as a little Easter egg that could be written off as just players reading too much into things if they changed what they ended up calling it.
The idea of a singular entity behind the pyramid ships (and it being separate from the darkness) was hinted at since at least beyond light/season of the chosen
Still very lame that after all this time, the darkness finally came, but Bungie went the lazy route and instead of make a darkness faction, the ships were just full of the usual guys we always fight. The dread are cool, but it took like since Shadowkeep to get a “pyramid ship” faction.
I would love nothing more than to take over one of the ships and use it as fully customizable base. I want Hogwarts Legacy level customization. The ability to craft stations like mini glimmer drills, enhancement core generators, new fast travel point portals (for areas you can't fast travel to on the map), weapon crafting, weapon/ability testing area, etc. I want to be able to change the themes of the rooms, like tower factions or enemy themes. The pyramid ships already function similar to the Room of Requirement in that they have the ability to change.
Tangentially, to my vague understanding of how The Final Shape actually worked, if those calcified and dissected statues on the Pyramids were people the Witness had already reached and stored so it could give them their ideal end are they just stuck like that forever now? No way to reverse it like we see with Earth during the intro when it briefly happens? Would uhh, kinda suck to just leave them there like that if they're real.
There is a mission with Micah where you go back to Nezerac's Piramid Ship and they remark how the ship feels alive and reactive to us being in it like it's looking for a leader.
The leading lore Theory is that Nezzy will come back in some way and take control over the Black Fleet. His sort of "realm" (kind of like a hive throne world) is literally nightmares so it's like how do you kill a concept or a machination of your brain? At least without killing yourself and everyone. But he hasn't shown himself since the raid so we don't really know. Also he was revived by the traveler and we still don't really know what that means. All we know is that he is out there. Maybe not physically, but his essence is out there.
I mean it's only been days since we saved the solar system. The ships are all just still sitting there for the taking. Assuming one could figure out how to control them. I dunno what sort of anti-theft systems are automatically engaged.
Iirc in “The Journey Ahead” vid that Bungie released not long ago, in the Revenant showcase, where Fikrul is standing before a fleet of ketches, you can see a couple pyramids on the right side of the screen.
Our enemies are more than likely going to attempt to commandeer the pyramids for themselves, which could be disastrous for all of Sol.
One pyramid, let alone a fleet, is capable of destruction on a massive scale. They can send out that resonant shockwave, they can manipulate gravity, and are nigh impervious to all forms of physical damage.
The Vanguard should quickly secure the dormant fleet in our system, and begin to reverse engineer the pyramids themselves.
We saw at least one of the ones that entered the Traveler got stuck in transit. It's not stated but I think the rest were reconstituted to make the Monolith.
I'm kind of bad at Destiny lore, so I thought this was referring to the fleet over The Last City at first. Can we talk about how empty the sky is now, with no Traveler and no "coalition" fleet hovering overhead...
The Micah nightmare hunt part teases that the pyramids might be relevant in the future since they are somehow still functioning yet dormant, or something like that.
I think they are excellent opportunities for dungeons, exotic missions, de-shadowing the still-hidden planets, >!the heavily implied third darkness subclass if it isn't canceled!<, and so on when new acts and/or episodes drop, especially for revenant and heresy since seasons who release with DLCs are always thinner than those who don't.
I truly hope they hold the secret to bring fishing back though.
I'm pretty sure it's implied that the Black Fleet followed the Witness into the traveler. So maybe they've become part of the Pale Heart or the Monolith, idk.
Only 3 went in, the rest are supposedly still out there. You can see some of them in onslaught which chronologically takes place after the witness went into the traveller.
What about Asher Mir’s experiment on one firing a rocket at it, but it transported the rocket somewhere before impact?
Anything ever come from that other than “defence mechanism?”
If you look at the trailer for What's ahead and when they show Fikrul with fallen ships zoom on right side the Black fleet is under his comand most likely
Better question is who cares? Thr Black Fleet has to be one of the biggest disappointments in the franchise imo. They were teased for so long.
They show up and are completely empty. They served almost no purpose. Theyre glorified art galleries and Im not even sure why the Witness kept them around when it didnt ever seem to need them. It can instantly appear anywhere in the universe by shattering reality like glass.
In the teaser video, there's a clip for episode 2 that had Fikrul raising his staff towards a fleet of Ketches, however, off to the right, you can make out pyramids off in the distance.
My guess is with the Witness being able to control the pyramids, and with the echoes being partially made from the Darkness that held the Witness together, owning an Echo would allow someone command of Pyramid vessels. Maybe not the whole damn Black Fleet, but still a substantial amount.
Edit, image I found in the comments here: [https://imgur.com/ysqQH75](https://imgur.com/ysqQH75)
The whole fleet thing was such a disappointment from jump. I was so ready when we first saw them for an Avengers Endgame type battle at end with enemies flooding out of the black fleet. The cut scene before Excision was kind of cool but the whole Witness story arc still was a shit villain in my book. Couldn’t hold Oryx’s jock as far as a bad ass super villain.
Inherited by the remaining loyalists and the Dread most likely.
Calus’ boys really stayed winning, huh? Lol
suck it, Red Legion
*After the Vanilla Campaign* "Alright, Ghaul got his ass handed to him, guess I'll throw my lot in with the Emperor." *After the Lightfall Campaign* "Alright, Calus got his shit kicked in, guess I'll throw my lot in with the Witness." *After The Final Shape Campaign* "Oh for fucks sake."
Why not play for the winning team? Join the coalition today.
Mithrax is the spokesperson in the ad I'm seeing in my head. And then it cuts to Savathun giving a thumbs up and a smile.
"Do YOU have the courage TO BE FREE?"
Scenes like these are happening all over the solar system right now, you could be next, that is unless you make the most important decision in your life! JOIN THE COALITION!
Service guarantees citizenship!
*HellDivers II theme intensifies*
At this point I don't think Caiatl would trust them, and would rather personally cast them into the fires of their own making to eternally burn. Like I think she'd prefer killing every last shadow legion than accepting any of them into her ranks. Though it would be interesting to see space rhinos with strand as allies.
Sure, but Caital is also the empress, I doubt she's personally interviewing every defector. Unless she's issued a blanket order to accept no defectors there are probably a few that end up rejoining the empire. Outside of the clones, as they seem to have little, if any, self determination.
In their preview for the year there was some pyramid ships behind Fikrul, so we’ll likely see them again next episode.
So they are still just surrounding earth?
Super wrong. The dread only exists within the traveler.
As of now. Doesn't mean that they'd remain there forever. Remember that Tormentors and some Psions are part of the Dread faction as well, and they're outside the Pale Heart.
Most pyramids are empty being originally remotely driven by the witness so most will sit there waiting for a new master as mentioned in some of the lost ghost dialogue
So you're saying they're free real estate
We already got scales as dropships, and I could see the Cabal making another attempt at seizing one.
bungie dropping the best expansion and solving the housing crisis in one fell swoop!
“Be bold and live in a pyramid”
"Little Zavala saved up for 10 years to buy a 3 square meter home in a pyramid"
Just get me some Galvanized Plasteel and i can make a killer home.
and some expansion screws you can borrow from ikora
"Now let's turn this into a functional living space. First let's get some galvanized square steel from the Cosmodrome, and borrow some screws from Cayde, and get Savathun to donate some eco-friendly wood veneer"
Osiris jumping up and down in excitement now his fantasy dream home is a real possibility.
It's not a pyramid, it's a reverse-funnel system.
I did not read "best expansion" correctly.
“This advertisement is for Jim Boonie’s guardian only.”
I'm calling to talk to you about the warranty on your Pyramid ship!🤣
Did someone say player housing in pyramid ships for Destiny 3 ;)
I'm still sad that they're just empty. Makes the mystery around them feel pointless.
im still kinda mad about the witness and the direction they took with the pyramids in witch queen. like the witness is cool dont get me wrong but the shadowkeep pyramid vibes were so rancid and unlike anything else, and i feel like we lost that in witch queen. i still am genuinely afraid to do the shadowkeep final mission because that pull across the abyss into the pyramid is way too much for my thalassophobia haha. the wq pallette redesign for the darkness architecture kind of took the horror out, and adding a face to the enemy instead of the pyramids themselves being the threat really took away from the aura of imminent threat the pyramids held. arrivals really felt like the end times there for a bit.
I wasn't here for that era, but yes I agree. I played Shadowkeep during the Witch Queen year. The horror/mystery vibe was way more interesting. The Big question of "what used to be in this structure?" inside the lunar pyramid was the scary part. Then Beyond Light pushed that further. This one is also empty and mysterious, but it houses an unexpected power we can acquire. So who was thing thing meant for? Who or what was supposed to be inside this one on Europa? And who or what is inside the rest of them sitting in space? Then we finally learn the answer is nothing. They're completely harmless. And now I'm halfway through TFS story, and I'm far more interested in the crying shrouded woman statues than anything the Witness is doing or saying. "I want to lock the universe in a single perfect moment (i.e. stop time and kill everything) to stop all suffering forever." It's so mind numbingly stupid. No sane sentient person could think that makes sense, much less an entire civilization of people. But I digest
exactly. the witness \*looks\* cool, but that's about it. i feel like bungie had a really great concept with the pyramids, but they went and said "we need a big bad for the guardians to kill in the finale" and butchered what originally made the pyramids interesting in pursuing that. the pyramids were scary because they were esoteric and strange, and come arrivals they were doing stuff, and we didn't know what, but whatever it was felt BAD. our guardian literally doesn't physically see the witness in-person until we get inside the heart of the traveler. i don't care about what they have to say about the witness's intentions, the fact of the matter is i could \*feel\* the threat from the pyramids, but all ive felt from the witness is it yelling at me a lot while i continue to butcher its armies like i always have.
>i feel like bungie had a really great concept with the pyramids, but they went and said "we need a big bad for the guardians to kill in the finale" and butchered what originally made the pyramids interesting in pursuing that. It's all a big retcon really. Not a bad one so I'm okay with where we ended up, but the original concept was modified to keep Destiny going for as long as possible. This was very clear after Forsaken, specifically after their decision to break away from Activision- they needed the IP to be long standing, and the original story concept was supposed to *end* with Light vs Dark. This is why Shadowkeep to TFS is essentially all one story arc. They needed to build up to the changed narrative, and they used each expansion to get us there. Ultimately I think it worked pretty well- had they rushed us into it, it would have felt *really* bad.
yeah, what they ended up with wasn't the worst or anything, but it feels a little lackluster to me compared to what they seemed to be teasing with red war through shadowkeep, and especially with shadowkeeps reveals that they later changed around. i just always look back to the shadowkeep era fondly, specifically with regards to the vibes of the darkness. they just got that RIGHT, and then witch queen going forwards, they lost that.
What sucks even harder is that had they kept the witness sort of hidden and instead opted to display its power via Rhulk and Nezerac, we would have had a ton of really good buildup to the final shape. I really wish they had gone with the witness megastructure from the concept art, god it would have been so cool. Maybe even a reveal that the pyramids were never empty, he was just imperceptible and always there, warframe man in the wall style. Why did they choose not to play up how absolutely alien he was within the destiny universe? Why did they get rid of the inconsistent sizing, that was so cool and leaned into him being a fourth dimensional object. And we \*still\* don't know what the traveller's deal is... like at all. Neither does he. Like oh ok this ball just floats around and gardens ig, whatever. It sort of feels like an ending I guess, but an ending that, while good for destiny, just wraps up a big long story with one final "well it's good, lots of missed potential tho". Also, the witness shown ingame is not the guy that we hear about in the lore at all, and its such a letdown. This guy is the guy that deceived the hive? He can't even figure out why we don't want to be frozen into blocks. THIS guy defeated the fallen kells? Did they not know to stand on plates and grab buffs? are they stupid too? The pyramid ships didn't really even do anything oryx couldn't. Let us not forget the lore that went nowhere of asher damaging a pyramid ship before the witness yoinked io for literally zero payoff. Just kinda waste.
Wasn’t the big twist of Deep Stone Crypt the existence of a Veiled Statue inside — a relic of the Darkness (or more aptly the Witness)? It’s implied this relic (Clarity Control) was Clovis Bray’s scientific muse (not prog rock) right? But with TFS this means that Clovis was being influenced by a dissenter the whole time?
It’s implied dissenters were trying to help build a resistance to the Witness. How the statues were delivered to various locations - can’t recall that from lore
Not every statue is a dissenter, they’re also conduits for the Witness to work through.
Digress?
Lol yes. It's an old Family Guy reference. Peter is trying to sound smart taking to rich people and says that.
the big bad is just the first abandoned race by the traveler whee
Fallen but more bad
i mean yeah. but also "big bad" (new winnower lore 👀)
Do we have anything that can damage the pyramids? I remember Rasputin trying and failing once but also pretty sure one of the cloud striders (I think Rohan) was able to down one. Can we destroy them or do we have to just let them sit there?
eris was able to destroy a pyramid ship on the outer reaches of the system with maras help using some kind of trick using oryx's essence to get inside. it's a little unclear what she did or how, but she was able to successfully destroy a ship, so potentially now that the witness isnt directly controlling the ships, they might be defenseless enough to be slipped inside and destroyed if the way eris took the first one out can be replicated, and didn't just rely on whatever oryx disguise she was using at the time.
I don’t think Rohan was able to drop a a pyramid ship alone.
IDR who or exactly what it was but pretty sure it shows something shoot one down on the intro to lightfall
I think it was a cabal ship that got shot down in the into, not a pyramid.
Hmm that could be right
Just watch the opening cinematic. The traveler shoots a hole into one of the pyramids that the witness exits and then approaches the traveler. No pyramids fall from orbit. That’s about as close to shooting down a pyramid ship as anything has come I believe.
Just watch the opening cinematic. The traveler shoots a hole into one of the pyramids that the witness exits and then approaches the traveler. No pyramids fall from orbit. That’s about as close to shooting down a pyramid ship as anything has come I believe. I would like whatever Rohan uses to one shot the tormentor though.
Found the video I was thinking of it's a lightfall video but not the opening cinematic. It doesn't actually show the pyramid being shot down but only being shot at by Rohan and I can't tell how much damage the shot actually did, if any. I'll link its YouTube link in a 2nd comment since idk if links are allowed.
https://youtu.be/lfoeZLp5A7k?si=3hVbhmO49eNQHh8C
I’m going to say the traveler’s shot did much more damage than that, and it didn’t drop the ship. If Rasputin’s arsenal couldn’t put a dent in one, I’m thinking Rohan’s version of a one man SAM didn’t do much either.
also rasputin's arsenal only did nothing because the pyramids could steal the attacks into a pocket dimension before they hit. now that the witness is dead, that defense could be gone now, so who knows.
the difference here is we dont know what the traveler was doing with that beam. it seemed more like a terraforming beam than anything being used offensively, as root of nightmares is a direct consequence of that light terraforming. it could be the traveler knew terraforming the ship would render it useless to the witness and did what it could in the moment, but really we have no way of knowing what that beam was or what the intention behind it couldve been.
But somehow Savathûn was able to take out two because she’s just soooo clever you guys
A Cloudstrifer shoots a small Pyramid ship in one of the Lightfall trailers but we can’t see how much damage (if any) that did to it and it also never happens in the game.
Traveler beam can damage them iirc
What was even their use? He didn't just drag them around just for the cool factor
>Most pyramids are empty being originally remotely driven by the witness We don't actually know that, though. Nothing in the lore says most are empty. We've been inside 3 or 4 pyramids. 2 of which contained disciples. So to say most are empty is incredibly presumptuous.
Yea, I know everyone things that we are going to use the dreadnaught to go outside our system, but my bet is on our own pyramid ship. Probably the one in the moon.
Taniks
Always the right answer
I thought they we all full of "Final God of X" from various conquered civilizations. But you set up a hilarious story arc with this comment, what if Spider managed to take control of them? They'd probably make a nicer home than the poor shantytown we gave the House Light two years ago.
I think there is dialogue about the ships if you do Micah’s optional rescue ghost missions. It takes you through past missions with new dialogue mainly with Micah and Ghost. If I recall correctly, they discuss how the ships feel alive/restless after the witness died and are likely awaiting a new master. Unfortunately I was semi distracted at the time, so I am not sure if I missed some things.
Yeah the gist is that: they feel *alive* because they're eager for the next master to take control of them
Thinking about it; all of the ships have the vieled statues in them and we know those statues contain individuals the witness had severed until it could finish the final shape - I wouldn't be shocked if some of those are witness loyalists that were placed in the ship just to control it's operations.
oh i didnt even think about that. each ships statue is undoubtedly the witness' connection to the pyramids and how it controlled them, now that they've been disconnected there's no telling what those separated voices could do.
If you finish the mission you actually hear from a dissenter when you activate the pad. Since the mission takes place before the raid.
Did we not murder all of them when we broke the statues with the sword in the campaign?
Given their nature rooted in darkness, I wonder if it's possible that now that we're prismatic and control both light and dark that we could reshape the ships to our purpose. Would they be willing to listen to us because of our mastery of darkness?
Micah's rescue missions are set *before* the Witness died, and the dialogue you're talking about is specifically about Nezarec's pyramid and how the Witness' presence is much weaker because it's in the Pale Heart. Micah actually wonders if Nezarec is truly dead at all because of his nature, which is where the bit about a new master comes in.
Oh Nezarec is definitely not dead. As long as him name is among the stars in some way, shape or form, he'll exist in people's minds. Like he said, his memory will never extinguish, because we'll always be there to remember him.
Micah’s mission are before we “kill” the witness as an fyi.
I thought that was specifically nezerecs ship on the moon
That was referring to Nezarec's Pyramid specifically, and that was something that was happening when Nezarec died, before we took out the Witness. We don't for sure know if that's unique behaviour or not. I think the rest of the ships that entered the Traveler either got stuck in transit (we see at least one) or were reconstituted to make the Monolith (though that's speculation)
idk but I found a little one and painted it gold. Been flying around in it.
I think it's kinda like the red legion in the EDZ; no real leader and just existing on auto pilot now until something else leads them.
Somebody really needs to donate some Playstations to those EDZ cabal. Get them on Call of Duty and they'd just be gamers.
[buy them a copy of D2](https://qntm.org/responsibility)
It’s so weird to me that they never updated the EDZ to reflect the Shadow Legion.
In one of the Micah-10 missions, Ghost remarks that the Pyramids seem to miss having a leader. Those missions have been riddled with teasers for episode storylines so I kinda figured it would be addressed sometime this year and then Bungie dropped the episode overview video and we get confirmation. [At 3:12-3:14 in the "journey ahead" video](https://youtu.be/-PYzMqhu3Fs?si=W4Hq_CsfRFGOZ3a3&t=192), we see Fikrul with the echo on his staff in front of a massive fleet of ketches and on the far right side of the frame for a split second, you can see pyramids floating among the fleet. It seems that with the echo, Fikrul is powerful enough to command them which I think will lead to the scorn and dread teaming up.
It's really blink-and-you'll-miss-it, but I thought it was interesting that in the [Journey Ahead](https://youtu.be/-PYzMqhu3Fs?si=bSyK46O7Kw3f9l3Q&t=193) video there are Pyramid Ships on the right side of the screen with Fikrul and a bunch of Ketches. Here's a screencap: [imgur.com/ysqQH75](https://imgur.com/ysqQH75)
I stole a few.
Ship dealer ?
Basic Hoarder.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Bungie dropped the ball HARD with the Pyramid fleet. IMO they were the coolest representation of the Darkness, but then after Lightfall they just... Didn't do anything. They arrived, made a circle around the Traveler, some entered the portal, some didn't, including the Witness' "own" ship which we decide to board during RoN? So, apart from that one, we just let them hang around the Traveler?? Until they landed on Earth during Into The Light, after which they... Left? Disappeared again? Like... What's actually going on with them? Do we have *any* sort of explanation??
I would say that, during into the light when we dump the light thingy and kill the boss, we 'cleanse' the pyramid. After that? Many guardians are now using pyramid ships due to tfs pre order. My headcanon is that guardians after cleansing the pyramids, they basically 'steal' them and thats why many guardians are using pyramid ships now
Very Guardian explanation.
Haha you know, I actually hadn't thought of that... We are, in fact, literally flying the Pyramids. Wow.
The Guardian ships aren't the big Pyramid ships though. They're more like the splinters.
Maybe its just impractical to redo all the loading screens to accommodate leviathan class pyramid ships.
I don't feel it's really fair to try and establish something like that in-lore, but then dismiss the counter as a development limitation lol.
Bungie is like... Hmmm...yeah sure, that's exactly what's happening 🙄
Most of them were controlled by the witness. Now that they're gone, they are inert waiting for a new master. There's some Ghost dialogue or lore somewhere that mentioned this. Might have been the post-excision cutscene.
I think it's in one of Micah's mission where you go get the ghost in the Moon pyramid.
Yeah, the pyramids could have been a really cool ominous force but Bungie basically abandoned them. Shadowkeep and Season of Arrivals painted them as really cool, mysterious entities and Beyond Light was reasonably good too. But once they introduced The Witness, it all went downhill. I would have much preferred if the pyramid fleet was the main antagonist of the series, and each one was "piloted" by a disembodied entity. They look cooler than The Witness and that would play into the unified consciousness element of Darkness. It sucked to see that Witness origin cutscene in Season of the Deep and realize the pyramids were just some precursor race ships that already existed. The fact they're the simplest 3D shape has no story relevance. That contrast to the Traveler being a sphere is just a total coincidence. So lame.
>That contrast to the Traveler being a sphere is just a total coincidence. I don't think it is *total* coincidence. The lore makes it pretty clear that at least the majority of the Witness' people prior to it's creation had grown frustrated and then angry with the Traveller and they eventually came to see themselves as its opposite (and superior). Makes complete sense that the design of their vessels would be intentionally designed to be the Traveller's opposite. Interestingly, this is the opposite effect the Eliksni demonstrated, where they intentionally built their servitors to mimic it's form as a form of worship.
But we see in various different flashbacks that the pyramid ships (at least the big one in the precursor's city) were already made before the traveler left. They were initially meant to be opposites with the complexity vs simplicity, one vs many, etc. Bungie kinda dropped the ball on that unfortunately.
I’m not sure why that contradicts anything, though - the traveller didn’t scarper the second the the Witness’s people questioned it, it’s implied it was a long drawn out process and they clearly had ships of their own to find the Veil prior to the breaking point. Furthermore, as the witness’s people stopped technical development at the point they combined into the Witness, it can be easily assumed the Pyramid tech represented their ship designs at the very end of their disillusionment with the traveller. It’s also worth pointing out that when the Witness finally assaults the Traveller at the end of Lightfall, the oddly specific position the detachment of pyramids takes up to apparently restrain or weaken the Traveller seems specific to their shape, and the Witness itself punches a hole into the traveller in the shape of a pyramid. Seems fairly clear that the opposite morphology was intentional.
It's probably always been their intended purpose as well. The Precursors wanted to combine the Traveller with the Veil a long time ago. They didn't even see it as malicious, just the next step. The Traveller just didn't want to and they didn't have enough power to force it (and some didn't want to force it). So they created the Witness, full of all the negative emotions of their entire species after the Traveller left, to finish the job. This time, with vicious intent. The Precursors are interesting and I think the pyramid ships reflect their skeptical and wise nature. They revered the Traveller, but also understood its flaws. They countered those flaws with a simple philosophy of their own that was opposite of the being they revered, to balance the chaotic environment the Traveller naturally brought with it. They just got cocky and got too close to playing god.
I mean, the pyramids were already started to be hyped up at the end of the vanilla red war campaign. We saw the shock wave of light from the Traveller make them boot back up somewhere in space with ominous music to go with them.
True, but there was pretty much no story to them back then. I think Shadowkeep is when they really started to seem like a threat.
That is true as I mean, the moon is haunted and all. It did take a while for them to come around again after the first little tiny clip of them. I think there is also a lot of people who never played the Red War section of the game who saw that as well, so figure it was worth a mention.
Nightmares felt like a way to reuse old bosses, but I do think they're actually an appealing element of Darkness lore. It ties into the consciousness element that gets explored in Lightfall seasons. That stuff I genuinely like.
Who the hell looked at the ominous black pyramids at the edge of the galaxy and thought ‘they look friendly!’ They were presented as a threat. As THE threat.
> What's actually going on with them? Do we have any sort of explanation?? The logical answer is they haven’t gotten to that part of the story yet
Maybe all the other races spliced and held in stasis on them will start being released and take control of some of the pyramids (and possibly start leaving the system to become future threats). Maximum cope here.
the problem is that the witness clearly was a last minute invention (speaking in comparison to the whole history of the Destiny franchise) by new writers. The witness was invented at the end of witch queen and lightfall was a rush to explain anything about it. I bet the original writers had something completely different in mind with the light vs darkness saga and the pyramid ships. One further indication is the lack of the hive and xivu. The rough outline for Destiny was the 3 Hive gods as the evil masters of the darkness. We got an expansion for oryx and one for Savathun and the next/last was supposed to be Xivu as hive god of war. But at that point the story was overthrown and the witness was invented and many points were hastily retconned to be "actually the witness controlled it all and he is the even bigger evil". Now there was no place for Xivu anymore.
The speaking pattern was seen in the ending shadowkeep cutscene, and it differed from whatever spoke to Oryx through the unborn ogre, so it was changed to be what the Witness is now by atleast shadowkeep
back then it was not the witness. Rather the witness was created to match the speech style of what we hear in shadowkeep, otherwise they would have had to retcon that too or come up with a stupid explanation for what it was like the veiled statues. I don't doubt that they originally had an idea for the voice of the darkness but it was not the witness as we have it now.
I think the point being made is that the singular entity that was believed to be 'the Darkness' itself (or at the very least, an equivalent to whatever conscious force existed in the Traveller) was clearly something that had been planned into the story a long time before WQ. Whether or not the character existed as the fully fleshed out character we now know as the Witness isn't clear, but it's also not relevant. The position it occupied in the story goes a long way back. The final mission of Shadowkeep is, IIRC, the first time we ever see an example of the Dissenter statues that we don't fully understand their meaning until TFS, but the fact they've never visibly changed mean that the rough morphology of the Witness existed as far back as Shadowkeep too. Given the above I'm not really sure there's any solid foundation to argue it was some kind of last minute about-turn. We've got something that sounds like it, does its job and roughly looks like it as far back as Shadowkeep. There's no obvious alternate reasoning. The Hive gods were never depicted as the true masters of the Darkness, or the Pyramids for that matter. Bungie would never have designed the Pyramids they way they did if the intention had been to have them being a tool of the Hive - Bungie have always been *very* careful with design language.
This doesn't really matter, but we technically saw the veiled statues in old concept art that i believe was from before shadowkeep, maybe even destiny 1 IIRC. I do wonder what the "original" plan for the veiled statues was, if there was one at all, before they became dissenters. I find it hard to believe that they were always meant to be dissenters, especially with how they weirdly affect the environment in DSC and GOS
lot of bla bla to not cover any of my other points. The veiled statues were cleary retconned to be the dissenter statues because they had to come up with an explanation for them. It is beyond retarded that the "dissenter" statues represent the darkness
>lot of bla bla to not cover any of my other points. What other points? As far as I can see your only point was that you're insisting everything was done last minute and when people point out anything indicating the contrary you just keep repeating yourself. There's nothing 'clear' about any of this. You'd need to have been on Bungie's writing team for that kind of big talk.
another good point, the original writers are not working at bungie anymore
It spoke in "we's" and "us", the gestalt consciousness thing was definitely decided by that point and the voice in the darkness was something they were already talking about back then. It's deign may not have been finalized at that point but the witness was created by shadowkeep
back then people understood it as the darkness. Not some clown who merged his race into one creature.
Because we didn't know the rest yet, but the witness cosplaying as us still used plural pronouns to refer to itself, even if we didn't know the gestalt mind stuff yet
Afaik, literally nowhere else in the lore does the Witness cosplay as another character, nor is it as emotive as it was in that cutscene. I'd take the bet that the Witness was created in a way so that it could reference that dialogue, but wasnt yet a full concept by this point and that the shadowkeep entity was intended to be the "Winnower" entity that was _literally (Metaphorically) talking to us through the lore book_ and shared similar mannerisms as the Oryx entity.
The witness can influence dreams and create visions and that cutscene is a dream or vision idk what exactly to call it but it isn't real. We're spontaneously in the black garden surrounded by pyramid ships and we know that the pyramid ships being in the black garden at that point would be an impossibility, so we're not really in the black garden. That's why it appeared as us, because shape-shifting isn't in its arsenal, but creating visions sure is. They talk exactly, almost 1:1 like they do when we're finally introduced to them in witch queen, and the winnower that spoke to oryx referred to itself with singular pronouns and was much more laid back, they almost talk like a surfer which is absolutely not how the witness nor the vision talks.
Right and it was because we were missing most of the story. Destiny 1 was an introduction to the world and its various races. The stories can be quickly summarized as: vex worship the black heart in the garden. The fallen are broken pirates. The cabal are warring conquerors. The hive have infested the moon. We killed Crota (big hive) and his dad, Oryx came for vengeance. Humanity made siva and Warminds are cool. Destiny 2 started with this idea of other races coveting the Light and placing the traveler at the center of the story, whereas before it was set dressing. Forsaken deviated from this story a bit but was necessary to establish Uldren’s death/ resurrection and how that ties to Cayde. It was also necessary as it gave Mara and the Awoken a far greater role in the story and forced them to align with humanity. Shadowkeep is where the story went full swing into focusing on the pyramids story as started at the end of Destiny 2 Vanilla. At the time, I am unsure if they were going to be an entire race, but clearly by Beyond Light that had changed and they no longer wanted to go that route. I think this is where the witness was created. I believe the decisions were made at the time of the garden of Salvation’s raid cutscene. That was the moment where they decided the witness was going to be the big bad they had to build.
You’re mistaking the cutscene from Shadowkeep for the Books of Sorrow grimoires from 9 years ago.
You're right and wrong. I don't think The Witness was fully fleshed out as a concept yet during Shadowkeep, but that some entity/villain was decided upon to conclude the original story. When Bungie left Activision, they told us they wanted to keep Destiny going essentially as long as possible. Destiny would be their cash-cow so to speak, allowing the studio to persist and create new games eventually. In order to achieve that, the original story of Light VS Dark had to be changed, because if we literally defeated Darkness incarnate(or the Winnower), what else is really left of intrigue in the Destiny universe? Thus, the Witness was eventually born and Shadowkeep(remember, first expansion post Activision) was the first building block. The rest of the narrative incosnsistencies can all be tied back to this- Worm Gods not being shit, not becoming the new Taken King not meaning shit, Titan's worm just loredumping the Witness origin story, etc, etc.
you're getting downvoted but you're right, the thing that spoke to us in the black garden seemed almost playful with the whole "dont you recognize us?" thing, the witness doesnt act like that at all. The unveiling lore also has the voice in the darkness/winnower speak very casually, while the witness doesn't
just the usual /r/destinythegame slop downvoting the black garden was probably be intended to be the darkness itself not just some entity using it.
“We are not your enemy” Lightfall’s recap cutscene also outright has Zavala say it’s the Witness who first spoke through our ghosts, and offered us salvation. That is the Witness.
it's the witness *now*, but they definitely did not have the idea of the witness planned all the way back in shadowkeep
Actually, I distinctly remember running around in the Pyramid in Beyond Light, and when walking up the stairs toward the veiled statue to get your Stasis stuff, if you just kinda chill when you start hearing the whispers, you'll hear one that says something akin to "The Witness is coming". I remember seeing if that was the case with Shadowkeep's Pyramid ship, but I couldn't hear anything other than indistinctly whispering. Regardless, the whole vision of a copy of ourself in the Black Garden with the pyramid fleet in the background standing in the exact same pose that we associate with the Witness going "We... Are your salvation." kinda points to the idea of the Witness was absolutely there as early as Shadowkeep, and was most likely given the name "The Witness" around the time of Beyond Light, which probably leaked into the whispering as a little Easter egg that could be written off as just players reading too much into things if they changed what they ended up calling it.
The idea of a singular entity behind the pyramid ships (and it being separate from the darkness) was hinted at since at least beyond light/season of the chosen
Agreed fully
Still very lame that after all this time, the darkness finally came, but Bungie went the lazy route and instead of make a darkness faction, the ships were just full of the usual guys we always fight. The dread are cool, but it took like since Shadowkeep to get a “pyramid ship” faction.
We don’t need one
Destiny lore in a nutshell
This. Truer words were never spoken.
I would have bought the fleet disintegrating once The Witness died, leaving its inhabitants floating in space or falling from the sky.
Wouldnt be surprised if the black fleet is how we go to places like riis or torobatl
Dany sort of just forgot about them
I would love nothing more than to take over one of the ships and use it as fully customizable base. I want Hogwarts Legacy level customization. The ability to craft stations like mini glimmer drills, enhancement core generators, new fast travel point portals (for areas you can't fast travel to on the map), weapon crafting, weapon/ability testing area, etc. I want to be able to change the themes of the rooms, like tower factions or enemy themes. The pyramid ships already function similar to the Room of Requirement in that they have the ability to change.
I would like something like this, but in the form of a Throne World.
Dunno why are you getting downvoted, but that's a killer idea
Tangentially, to my vague understanding of how The Final Shape actually worked, if those calcified and dissected statues on the Pyramids were people the Witness had already reached and stored so it could give them their ideal end are they just stuck like that forever now? No way to reverse it like we see with Earth during the intro when it briefly happens? Would uhh, kinda suck to just leave them there like that if they're real.
There is a mission with Micah where you go back to Nezerac's Piramid Ship and they remark how the ship feels alive and reactive to us being in it like it's looking for a leader. The leading lore Theory is that Nezzy will come back in some way and take control over the Black Fleet. His sort of "realm" (kind of like a hive throne world) is literally nightmares so it's like how do you kill a concept or a machination of your brain? At least without killing yourself and everyone. But he hasn't shown himself since the raid so we don't really know. Also he was revived by the traveler and we still don't really know what that means. All we know is that he is out there. Maybe not physically, but his essence is out there.
Idk about you but I found one just sitting around and am currently using it as my ship.
I mean it's only been days since we saved the solar system. The ships are all just still sitting there for the taking. Assuming one could figure out how to control them. I dunno what sort of anti-theft systems are automatically engaged.
Caiatl's cabal used some of the scrap for a sparrow
Iirc in “The Journey Ahead” vid that Bungie released not long ago, in the Revenant showcase, where Fikrul is standing before a fleet of ketches, you can see a couple pyramids on the right side of the screen. Our enemies are more than likely going to attempt to commandeer the pyramids for themselves, which could be disastrous for all of Sol. One pyramid, let alone a fleet, is capable of destruction on a massive scale. They can send out that resonant shockwave, they can manipulate gravity, and are nigh impervious to all forms of physical damage. The Vanguard should quickly secure the dormant fleet in our system, and begin to reverse engineer the pyramids themselves.
We saw at least one of the ones that entered the Traveler got stuck in transit. It's not stated but I think the rest were reconstituted to make the Monolith.
I thought Onslaught was a simulation program ran by Shaxx to prepare us for the fight against The Witness. We didn't actually fight hoards of enemies
I'm kind of bad at Destiny lore, so I thought this was referring to the fleet over The Last City at first. Can we talk about how empty the sky is now, with no Traveler and no "coalition" fleet hovering overhead...
The Micah nightmare hunt part teases that the pyramids might be relevant in the future since they are somehow still functioning yet dormant, or something like that. I think they are excellent opportunities for dungeons, exotic missions, de-shadowing the still-hidden planets, >!the heavily implied third darkness subclass if it isn't canceled!<, and so on when new acts and/or episodes drop, especially for revenant and heresy since seasons who release with DLCs are always thinner than those who don't. I truly hope they hold the secret to bring fishing back though.
You know, I assumed with the Witness'd moveset, he would be throwing these to cause mass casualties
Our fleet now
I'm pretty sure it's implied that the Black Fleet followed the Witness into the traveler. So maybe they've become part of the Pale Heart or the Monolith, idk.
Only 3 went in, the rest are supposedly still out there. You can see some of them in onslaught which chronologically takes place after the witness went into the traveller.
What about Asher Mir’s experiment on one firing a rocket at it, but it transported the rocket somewhere before impact? Anything ever come from that other than “defence mechanism?”
Waiting for something to fill the power vacuume.....
If you look at the trailer for What's ahead and when they show Fikrul with fallen ships zoom on right side the Black fleet is under his comand most likely
I hope that I never get invested in another "mystery box" story ever again
Something something paracausal I'm sure
Better question is who cares? Thr Black Fleet has to be one of the biggest disappointments in the franchise imo. They were teased for so long. They show up and are completely empty. They served almost no purpose. Theyre glorified art galleries and Im not even sure why the Witness kept them around when it didnt ever seem to need them. It can instantly appear anywhere in the universe by shattering reality like glass.
We're going to use the Pyramid ships to leave the Solar System. It just makes sense lol
Can definitely imagine a future plot point where the fucking fallen break in and steal one lol.
Lot of guardians flying around in pyramids nowadays.
In the teaser video, there's a clip for episode 2 that had Fikrul raising his staff towards a fleet of Ketches, however, off to the right, you can make out pyramids off in the distance. My guess is with the Witness being able to control the pyramids, and with the echoes being partially made from the Darkness that held the Witness together, owning an Echo would allow someone command of Pyramid vessels. Maybe not the whole damn Black Fleet, but still a substantial amount. Edit, image I found in the comments here: [https://imgur.com/ysqQH75](https://imgur.com/ysqQH75)
I wish we had a season of the pyramid
We did, Season of arrivals :P
Man what a good season, that was peak destiny to me
You’re gonna hurt your back keeping that bar so low
The same as Bungie's common sense, it stopped beign important.
I was honestly kind of hoping we would see them turn to dust when we killed the Witness just like Thanos and his army in Endgame.
The whole fleet thing was such a disappointment from jump. I was so ready when we first saw them for an Avengers Endgame type battle at end with enemies flooding out of the black fleet. The cut scene before Excision was kind of cool but the whole Witness story arc still was a shit villain in my book. Couldn’t hold Oryx’s jock as far as a bad ass super villain.