Especially knowing the human anatomy and how it is being described. It is like the witness was trying to carve out the nervous system and red bone marrow to feed the nervous system.
When I realized that TFS's opening cutscene wasn't a dream or vision at all, but the Witness actually enacting its Final Shape only for screaming Traveler to directly intervene and stop it, I was genuinely shocked.
I think this definitely closes the "plot hole" of why the Witness left the Traveler alone after the collapse, it needed it to regain its strength in order to survive the process of enacting The Final Shape. It needed the Traveler at its full strength in order to not kill it and render all that work done for nothing. So the Witness left the Traveler alone, until it awoke after the Red War and then waited for it to truly heal some years later before it really began to move against it.
Wasn't that Savathun's doing? I seem to recall Savathun's worm specifically saying that Savathun told lies to the Witness that sent it back into space.
@ForTheViolence it really didn't matter if it waited or not, once it entered the system it took like no time at all to defeat us and get into the Traveler. Lightfall is still canon unfortunately
@ForTheViolence hmm, see, I don't think that would've worked. The Traveler only woke up during the Red War because it was necessary for it's survival. If the Witness parked in Sol, the Traveler might've just stayed asleep forever, and the Witness might not have ever known when the Traveler returned to full strength. Also, pretty sure Savathun tricked the Witness into thinking the Traveler was dead, so that is why it left (that, and stealing the Veil, obviously).
Is this lore tab not just the Witness making dread enemies? It even has the line quoted, "-|A form to teach our enemy fear. A shadow they will dread.|-"
I don’t care what people say, I love the witness as a character/concept/idea. I genuinely think that it is the absolute extreme of just how evil any villain could possibly be. Solely solipsistic, collectively omnipotent, and in the end very nearly perfectly determined in its singular objective. Well done Bungie 👏
The areas where the Witness lays bare the memories of the Vanguard team inside the traveler are referred to as "incisions" by the Witness itself, and I think that plays into all of this as well
I remember a dialog between our guardian and Immaru. Where immaru told us our ghost is lying that it couldn't hear the traveller. That in fact the traveller was screaming in pain for help.
yknow its actually best for patients undergoing brain surgery to be fully lucid. sometimes the doctors will have the patient do something like play an instrument just to make sure theyre not fucking with any of the wrong parts. the brain also has no pain receptors
@@MrTavrosNitram I mean in the old ways, like that of mad doctors and transorbital lobotomies. The Witness is a master of reality warping but he went the extra mile of making sure the traveler feels it, and like you said that they keep patients awakw, the Traveler knows it’s happening but can’t resist or fight back full
I think this lore tab is directly describing the creation of The Dread, for one main reason: > But though the Witness has never wielded the Light like this before, parts of it recall a time when they made the Gardener's tools their own. But now that power is not freely given; now every stroke of the chisel is accompanied by a distant wail. A minor annoyance, at most. I think the distant wail is coming from the Traveler|Gardener, and the canvas that The Witness works upon is a still-living being that followed it in. It is working to create -|A shadow they will dread.|- In the case where it has created the first Husk, I assume the assistants are Hive. If it is creating an Attendant or Weaver, the assistants are Psions. Either way, they fear what the Witness has turned one of their own into: -|Perfection.|-
That was my interpretation as well. Both the timing and placement of the Dread seems to imply that the Witness used the Light of the Pale Heart to create this new army. It’s a bit unclear why it did so, given that its existing armies probably would’ve sufficed (at least as well as the Dread did lmao). Unsupported guess of mine says it’s the “reward” for its loyal followers - those who weren’t individually useful enough to justify turning them into disciples. Nezarec seems to have his own, strange connection to Light, so that might help explain the Tormentors. Specifically why they’re A. The first Dread template and B. The only Dread template outside of the Pale Heart atm. Although, neither theories explain the whole “template” thing, especially since Rhulk literally killed everyone else like him and we still don’t know what Nezzy really is. I *really* don’t think the Witness “birthed” or “spawned” these creatures, but I have zero clue who or what they were twisted from.
You mentioned the 4th encounter of the raid early on in the video and the corruption that's spread through it. I know the destination itself is called "The Pale Heart", but is the 4th encounter maybe the *actual* pale heart of the traveler? Its clearly not pyramid architecture and that alone makes me think, during the process of doing the encounter, that we're helping free the traveler from the witness' control
Well, I mean the actual inside of the traveler isn’t the “inside of the traveler” the things we see are only there because WE perceive them that way. So I think that you are right but the actual heart of the traveler wasn’t a white room with statues but a black abyss with only white light in the middle allowing us to do our work and make a bridge to the Witness
Anyone else notice that “stigma of the witness” looks like a vex conflux made out of red egregore? “Guts in the walls should always be a concern” Mataiodoxia is bug pinning. Or what you would do to pin a larger bug for display. Think butterflies in cases
Imagine some random alien species on your own planet when the Witness nearly finalized the universe. No idea whats going on, some random voice is telling you that there won't be any suffering and that they're remaking reality, then suddenly a scream and everything is back to normal. That's some culture defining stuff right there. Chaos is spreading across countless civilizations because of this.
The scariest part of the opening cut scene is that the witness doesn't kill the people in the last city, just traps them in stillness, frozen in time. It's clear they were still conscious despite their frozen state.
Collecting the “mini travelers” I think it was the 6th or 7th that Micah-10 was in so much pain she couldn’t breath and it is believed it was the memory of collapse
To completely heal the Traveler we would all have to give up our ghost, and whatever light we have. Cause to return the ghost, is to return the traveler's light. Ghost are just small cuts on the traveler, but if ALL ghost were returned...
The dreads and subjugators are a masterpiece, especially Subjugator bosses, really feels like the antithesis of the Guardians themselves, even more so than the Tormentors that seem too brutish in most times.
I think The Final Shape, more than anything else in Destiny history, truly brought everyone back on the side of the Traveler. The Traveler has been seen in such a negative light for the past couple of years. For the longest time, people thought that the Traveler had only remained because Rasputin crippled it. It abandoned so many civilizations and was only using them to make homes for itself. And, to top it all off, then it blessed our greatest enemies with the Light! Savathun? A Guardian? There was no way. But now, we've been inside the Traveler. Seen glimpses of its mind. Rasputin didn't shoot it, The Traveler CHOSE to stay. Misraaks sees a vision during one of Cysts missions when you find the hidden feather that outright says that The Traveler was done running. It stood to fight. And for the past year it has endured torture at the many hands of the Witness to stall long enough for us to find a way through the portal. We literally hear The Traveler screaming in the campaign as we climb up the Divide. You can only imagine the pain and agony that it was in, especially after a year of the Witness being inside of it. And even on the brink of death, The Traveler still tried to guide and help us, providing us with gifts and weapons. If that is not evidence to how much the Traveler cherished not just humanity but all of its allies, I truly don't know what is. Because, remember, the Traveler didn't have to do ANY of that. It could have left. But it didn't. And like it or not, we needed Savathun. It was only due to her that we even got through the portal. I felt so bad for The Traveler throughout the whole campaign and I'm just glad it survived. I'm very curious what new changes will occur within the Traveler, now that Light and Dark are merging into harmony. I feel like this has the potential to be a very positive change. The Traveler's mind may literally expand now that it has Darkness to augment its memory. And with the capacity to remember, comes the ability to learn. I hope that we will get updates on The Traveler's condition throughout the episodes. After all this, we can't just have the Traveler sit and be a backdrop that we don't hear anything about.
When the mission said that the Traveler stood to fight,I was so hyped. For a while now, I was speculating to myself that during Season of the Seraph’s final cutscene, the Traveler wasn’t leaving, it was planning on taking the brunt of the damage from Rasputin so the city wouldn’t be harmed. So finally having some vindication in that thought was just amazing.
@@lizflessert2427 I always thought the Traveler's departure was more about the Black Fleet approaching than anything about the Warsats. By the time it started moving, we had already essentially taken care of the Warsats. All we needed Ana to do was unplug Rasputin or whatever she did. I think the Traveler had faith that we would protect it and we did. I think it was more getting into position to confront the Witness. That's part of what made Lightfall so agonizing. There was such hype leading up to that confrontation. I thought there would be a BIG fight! The Traveler fighting alongside us for the first time! But then...nothing. Yeah, the Traveler shooting a beam was cool, but then it was immediately suppressed and basically sat there until the Witness made the portal and disappeared. They could have given the Traveler at least a little efficacy in that scene. It was able to resist the Witness for a year, but couldn't even impede it a tiny bit by firing a big fucking beam at it? God, why was Lightfall so terrible?
I think part of our distrust is that we just fundamentally misunderstood what the traveler is and what it can do. We begged it for answers not realizing that it just can’t speak. We begged it to fight back not knowing it was powerless to stop the witness by itself. Its most powerful “weapon” was a terraforming ray that brought a man back from the dead. We wanted guidance as if it had a greater understanding of the situation than we did
@@biiill5259 That's a big part of why I'm eager to see what this transformation occurring within the Traveler will bring. The Traveler will, arguably, be a more complete and harmonious being, with a mind capable of memory. What new thoughts will it have and how will they be expressed? Will it finally, for the first time in its long life, speak? We know that it has wanted to speak, despite its belief that it shouldn't. I guess time will tell what the Traveler does next.
@@thatawesomethingsFrontiers might have us take control of the Dreadnaught, maybe exploring new systems? Maybe the Traveler will give info about other civilizations besides Fallen, Cabal, and Hive, so we can go to those worlds as well?
Mataiodoxia description really remind me of a quote said by the sculptor Michael Angelo: "I saw an angel trapped in the marble, and I carved until a set him free" I think its poetic to say that the Final Shape is the angel saw in the universe's fabric, and the Witness wanted to carve it out and free it
Whenever the dread are mentioned I can’t help but be reminded of one of the Vidocs that said their dialogue can be translated and that it could be interesting or help to understand the larger scope. With the added context of them being entirety’s comprised of light and dark I think we should as a community try to decipher it
This just shows how evil the witness was that even it’s creations shiver even though it has complete control over there minds and it is scary to think of this
Ive always thought of the corruption as necrosis, a hollow void filled with mold feeding on its nerves. its what made the end of lightfall and the following year hard, i couldnt do anything to help the traveler, just had ti imagine it suffering..and what it did for us.
The dismay of his "assistants" in this lore tab really captures what I like about the Witness' role as a villain. The character's self-righteousness blinds itself to the malevolence of its actions. It believes so greatly in the good of its cause that it butchers entire civilizations and the Traveler itself in dispassionate manner. Its impassive behavior really sells to me how "alien" and different this being feels to anything we know. It directly explains its motivations and its "salvation" to us, and yet it still manages to feel to inscrutable.
The Lord description in the text for the warlock armor piece reminds me of the Phyrexians from magic the gathering, especially the white aligned, machine orthodoxy, and the blue aligned progress engine, each of which striving to make a more perfect entity, one by flying and then grafting bone-like plates onto the surface of beings. The other cutting apart and piecing back together entities almost flaying them completely down to their bones. Each of them are creating gory and gruesome creations, that are still somehow completely cognizant of what's happened to them, or brainwashing them to serve the greater will.
Byf, I can't remember did you make a video talking about the traveler and the Veil potentially being two of three parts of the tree of silver wings from the black garden
The witness was cutting away at the traveller's para causal flesh until it exposed its bare nervous system. Then mutilated it's nerves so that it could take direct control of the traveller's light. Essentially using the traveller as a meat puppet. That's some brutal shit.
There should be a community event where we collectively heal the traveler through the overthrow activites. And when the event is done there would be a fully bloomed tree of silver wings where the monolith stands.
I keep thinking about "The Dread" and the potential meaning about it. All the time we have been Guardians, there has always been this sense of: "am I doing what is right?", "Is this what my destiny is?", and then the Witness starts tearing into that belief with an almost physical manifestation of the existentiel dread, that we have felt throughout all these years. it might not be relevant to the topic of todays video. And I might have missed people talking about this. I just really wanted to express it.
I interpreted the Mataiodoxia loretab more literally. Given the mention of wings in the flavortext and the line "A form to teach out enemy fear. A shadow they will dread" (keyword: dread), my theory was it was describing the Witness creating a Grim, reshaping it from an "imperfect" lifeform.
Think of the Traveler as a bird. The Witness doesnt need a bird, so it cuts off the feathers. It cuts off its wings, its head, removes its skin and muscles. But still it needs whats inside, so it scrapes off the bone. All while the bird is still alive, and feeling every moment. Then the Witness shoves its rot into the deepest nerves, uncaring of the screaming, so full of itself it sees this only as perfection. It doesnt need the Traveler alive, it is in the way, it only needs what keeps it alive. I thin it kept the Traveler alive until the Final Shape would have killed it, and to make it suffer because of its own insecurities. I can only hope the Traveler isnt too far gone, and that the immediate pain is over
Mataiodoxía being a descriptive lore of an insect being dissected essentially is such an interesting tie-in to an observation Caital makes to us and Micah-10. During one of the overthrow missions, she posits how (and I’m paraphrasing) “the Traveler’s Light could take any shape and instead of weapons(not counting Ergo), it chooses to reveal itself in small creatures such as the Ghost, birds and tiny insects.” I can’t remember Micah’s reply but she does make one which is a hypothesis as to why…
Micah speculates that the reasoning for the preference for birds and plants and insects is cuz perhaps the traveler sees in us a hope where we won't need weapons, or for light to be manifested into weapons, but unfortunately today is not that day. I think it's an interesting expression difference between guardians and the traveler, where guardians main purpose was to be an undying army to fight back the darkness, so the guardians form of expressing light is thru crafting a weapon of pure light, to physically beat back against the darkness in conflict, whereas the traveler seems to be "the blueprint of life that civilization studies and learns from" (basing this off of the collectible in the refraction that looks like a mini traveler that gives Micah insight about a memory of the traveler, which in itself is a hugely intriguing piece of information worthy of discussion), so it takes on more biological forms of life, via birds and bugs and plants, the very same expressions of light that were used to terraform the other planets in sol. It's pretty neat imo lol
@@StainlessKay Oh, Thank You! I appreciate this as I picked up that collectable but could not for the life of me remember Micah’s response. I totally agree that it’s quite the intriguing conversation to expound on. It also had me once again drawing back to Lady Efrideet’s pacifist colony and if that exact line of thought that lead them to that lifestyle. If them seeing the Traveler’s representation leaning into that of “Life Giver/Creator” was what pushed them to build on their pacifist principles out in the Heliopause. I do so hope it becomes one of the forthcoming “Frontiers” of our future exploration and adventures. Thanks again for the lore assist 🤘🏾🖤
Now i understand how, the traveler whos known as the "Silent God" was made to scream so loud that everyone could hear it, it was brutal. on a side note: after watching this video i went on and did the last mission of campaign so i can hear witness scream like a lil bitch as i rend apart its minds , one by one..
It feels like the Witness assembled everything, the black fleet, divinity, ruinous effigy... all of it seems to have been made from the wood from a tree of silver wings.
It would be cool if they added parts to the Pale Heart each episode to show the regrowth or new growth of the Traveller. Imagine a massive tree of silver wings, but with a combination of light and dark, but perhaps you could make the light parts seem like ink, whilst you can make the dark seem like feather or something like that. Add some visual story telling to show not only tell, that the Traveller is recovering, but the natures of the light and dark are mixed or are at least in balance.
Could you make a video about the raid encounters? I don't really understand what we're doing even after completing the full raid. Like, what is the giant rock we're climbing and why it changes its form after the Witness's death. I'm also quite curious about the 4th encounter. Why is there suddenly a chamber of light among all the encounters and filled with all the statues of the guardians and things. So many questions.
I wonder what the ending would have been like if Bungie kept the Darkness as the antagonist rather than pivoting towards this idea of the Witness a few years ago.
Probably not as interesting. Most villains need a face or voice to follow, and given our use of the funny dark magic, wouldn't have been nearly as visceral here.
So the cutscene were the witness enacted the final shape, by what the final shape looks like by the witnesses definition looks like the statues in the pyramid ships were hints to what it thought the final shape was the whole time.
Is there worthwhile lore to be found and/or talked about in the raid encounters and their mechanics as a whole? Verity (and the raid altogether, alongside plenty other raids) was a fantastic experience and I would absolutely just listen to someone ramble about Salvation's Edge for 30 minutes If there are videos on this channel or others just exploring each raid's depths, any pointers would be appreciated
I haven’t watched the video yet but I’m pretty sure I’d start screaming if a dude started digging around in my insides to steal my life essence
Agreed
Pause?
i just know he got u screaming 🤣
Major pause…
Ayo.
The language in Mataiodoxia is so brutal. Props to the writers
Not only brutal, so visceral, not crude but MAN, PROPS!
I am eating food. After byf read the lore for matiodoxia, I am ligit sick to my stomach.
Genuinely made me feel uncomfortable, so good
Especially knowing the human anatomy and how it is being described. It is like the witness was trying to carve out the nervous system and red bone marrow to feed the nervous system.
Like to keep the nervous system fresh so that they may use the controls of the body to do what it wants.
So basically the witness was cutting and rearranging the travelers insides without anesthesia
He was in them guts
@@ZakuZuko and the traveler didn’t consent
Much worse than that but I think you got the idea.
for 18 months
And traveler still not blatantly asking for help instead appears in some other form
When I realized that TFS's opening cutscene wasn't a dream or vision at all, but the Witness actually enacting its Final Shape only for screaming Traveler to directly intervene and stop it, I was genuinely shocked.
I didn't realize this
Yup. We were THAT close to another Dark Future.
I thought that was team four star not the final shape
I think this definitely closes the "plot hole" of why the Witness left the Traveler alone after the collapse, it needed it to regain its strength in order to survive the process of enacting The Final Shape. It needed the Traveler at its full strength in order to not kill it and render all that work done for nothing.
So the Witness left the Traveler alone, until it awoke after the Red War and then waited for it to truly heal some years later before it really began to move against it.
Great! This was indeed a question that I wanted answered.
That doesn’t even make sense. He could have taken over the solar system and waited.
Wasn't that Savathun's doing? I seem to recall Savathun's worm specifically saying that Savathun told lies to the Witness that sent it back into space.
@ForTheViolence it really didn't matter if it waited or not, once it entered the system it took like no time at all to defeat us and get into the Traveler. Lightfall is still canon unfortunately
@ForTheViolence hmm, see, I don't think that would've worked. The Traveler only woke up during the Red War because it was necessary for it's survival. If the Witness parked in Sol, the Traveler might've just stayed asleep forever, and the Witness might not have ever known when the Traveler returned to full strength.
Also, pretty sure Savathun tricked the Witness into thinking the Traveler was dead, so that is why it left (that, and stealing the Veil, obviously).
Babe wake up gods are screaming at eachother
“Honey, just use the paracausal earplugs. It’ll be fine…”
Is this lore tab not just the Witness making dread enemies? It even has the line quoted, "-|A form to teach our enemy fear. A shadow they will dread.|-"
Definitely seems more like the Witness creating the first of the Dread. (Tormentors excluded)
I agree. I didn't read it as the Traveler at all. I 100% saw it as the dread creation in the lore tab.
Totally what I was thinking as Byf read it.
“…with no Vaseline”
Yo Dre!
No vaseline? Ice Cube?
@@xdbetyar Yessir!
Dry homie.
“Show me on this basketball where the Witness touched you”
Cayde did say that The Witness was digging in the travelers guts
Rearranging them.
God, the descriptions in this video made my stomach turn. You and bungie both did excellent in showing the cold cruelty of the witness, good job
I don’t care what people say, I love the witness as a character/concept/idea. I genuinely think that it is the absolute extreme of just how evil any villain could possibly be. Solely solipsistic, collectively omnipotent, and in the end very nearly perfectly determined in its singular objective. Well done Bungie 👏
The areas where the Witness lays bare the memories of the Vanguard team inside the traveler are referred to as "incisions" by the Witness itself, and I think that plays into all of this as well
I remember a dialog between our guardian and Immaru. Where immaru told us our ghost is lying that it couldn't hear the traveller. That in fact the traveller was screaming in pain for help.
I always imagined the witness had a burning needle and it was literally sewing corruption into its light
It just seemed like to me that someone was performing surgery on your while you're still awake and conscious
My same thoughts. The Witness was vivisecting the Traveler.@@jaredf.6532
@@jaredf.6532
And without any local anesthesia whatsoever.
I imagine the feeling the traveler went through is akin to brain surgery but the patient is still awake and can feel every inch of
yknow its actually best for patients undergoing brain surgery to be fully lucid. sometimes the doctors will have the patient do something like play an instrument just to make sure theyre not fucking with any of the wrong parts. the brain also has no pain receptors
@@MrTavrosNitram I mean in the old ways, like that of mad doctors and transorbital lobotomies.
The Witness is a master of reality warping but he went the extra mile of making sure the traveler feels it, and like you said that they keep patients awakw, the Traveler knows it’s happening but can’t resist or fight back full
The Witness carved away at the Traveler's flesh, and from its essence constructed an antenna to broadcast oblivion across all of existence.
He made it scream 💀
(S)cream
It*
Toes curled too
@@IIzanagii They*
It was up in them GUTS
I think this lore tab is directly describing the creation of The Dread, for one main reason:
> But though the Witness has never wielded the Light like this before, parts of it recall a time when they made the Gardener's tools their own. But now that power is not freely given; now every stroke of the chisel is accompanied by a distant wail. A minor annoyance, at most.
I think the distant wail is coming from the Traveler|Gardener, and the canvas that The Witness works upon is a still-living being that followed it in. It is working to create -|A shadow they will dread.|-
In the case where it has created the first Husk, I assume the assistants are Hive. If it is creating an Attendant or Weaver, the assistants are Psions. Either way, they fear what the Witness has turned one of their own into:
-|Perfection.|-
That was my interpretation as well.
Both the timing and placement of the Dread seems to imply that the Witness used the Light of the Pale Heart to create this new army. It’s a bit unclear why it did so, given that its existing armies probably would’ve sufficed (at least as well as the Dread did lmao). Unsupported guess of mine says it’s the “reward” for its loyal followers - those who weren’t individually useful enough to justify turning them into disciples.
Nezarec seems to have his own, strange connection to Light, so that might help explain the Tormentors. Specifically why they’re A. The first Dread template and B. The only Dread template outside of the Pale Heart atm.
Although, neither theories explain the whole “template” thing, especially since Rhulk literally killed everyone else like him and we still don’t know what Nezzy really is. I *really* don’t think the Witness “birthed” or “spawned” these creatures, but I have zero clue who or what they were twisted from.
You mentioned the 4th encounter of the raid early on in the video and the corruption that's spread through it. I know the destination itself is called "The Pale Heart", but is the 4th encounter maybe the *actual* pale heart of the traveler? Its clearly not pyramid architecture and that alone makes me think, during the process of doing the encounter, that we're helping free the traveler from the witness' control
Well, I mean the actual inside of the traveler isn’t the “inside of the traveler” the things we see are only there because WE perceive them that way. So I think that you are right but the actual heart of the traveler wasn’t a white room with statues but a black abyss with only white light in the middle allowing us to do our work and make a bridge to the Witness
the raid description literally says _"Free the Light."_
It’s hard to fathom a channel where every video is appointment viewing uploading every single day. Thank you so much.
Bro was turning it from a sphere to a cube
Not a cube but a pyramid.. cmon bruv
Bro was asleep during Verity 💀
thats right!! it goes in the square hole !!!!
Anyone else notice that “stigma of the witness” looks like a vex conflux made out of red egregore?
“Guts in the walls should always be a concern”
Mataiodoxia is bug pinning. Or what you would do to pin a larger bug for display. Think butterflies in cases
Make it even worse challenge winner right here
@@katama4843LMFAOOO
This makes even more sense. It's makes sense with the so much disturbing feeling even.
Imagine some random alien species on your own planet when the Witness nearly finalized the universe. No idea whats going on, some random voice is telling you that there won't be any suffering and that they're remaking reality, then suddenly a scream and everything is back to normal. That's some culture defining stuff right there. Chaos is spreading across countless civilizations because of this.
I remember reading the lore tab and knowing it would make for a good vid, lovely video as always!
The darkness ooze holding the feather down in the trailer preety much sums up what the witness did to the traveller.
The scariest part of the opening cut scene is that the witness doesn't kill the people in the last city, just traps them in stillness, frozen in time. It's clear they were still conscious despite their frozen state.
Collecting the “mini travelers” I think it was the 6th or 7th that Micah-10 was in so much pain she couldn’t breath and it is believed it was the memory of collapse
Yo Byf, i just wanna say you’ve been dropping nothing but straight heat back to back😭🔥
To completely heal the Traveler we would all have to give up our ghost, and whatever light we have. Cause to return the ghost, is to return the traveler's light. Ghost are just small cuts on the traveler, but if ALL ghost were returned...
The dreads and subjugators are a masterpiece, especially Subjugator bosses, really feels like the antithesis of the Guardians themselves, even more so than the Tormentors that seem too brutish in most times.
Damn, a Byf video is the exact thing I needed to get through the rest of my shift.
I just gotta say man. Your reading ability has gotten so good over the years. You reading that armors lore tab gave me chills.
Holy moly my home page blessed me with an immediate upload
I think The Final Shape, more than anything else in Destiny history, truly brought everyone back on the side of the Traveler.
The Traveler has been seen in such a negative light for the past couple of years. For the longest time, people thought that the Traveler had only remained because Rasputin crippled it. It abandoned so many civilizations and was only using them to make homes for itself. And, to top it all off, then it blessed our greatest enemies with the Light! Savathun? A Guardian? There was no way.
But now, we've been inside the Traveler. Seen glimpses of its mind. Rasputin didn't shoot it, The Traveler CHOSE to stay. Misraaks sees a vision during one of Cysts missions when you find the hidden feather that outright says that The Traveler was done running. It stood to fight. And for the past year it has endured torture at the many hands of the Witness to stall long enough for us to find a way through the portal. We literally hear The Traveler screaming in the campaign as we climb up the Divide. You can only imagine the pain and agony that it was in, especially after a year of the Witness being inside of it.
And even on the brink of death, The Traveler still tried to guide and help us, providing us with gifts and weapons. If that is not evidence to how much the Traveler cherished not just humanity but all of its allies, I truly don't know what is. Because, remember, the Traveler didn't have to do ANY of that. It could have left. But it didn't. And like it or not, we needed Savathun. It was only due to her that we even got through the portal.
I felt so bad for The Traveler throughout the whole campaign and I'm just glad it survived. I'm very curious what new changes will occur within the Traveler, now that Light and Dark are merging into harmony. I feel like this has the potential to be a very positive change. The Traveler's mind may literally expand now that it has Darkness to augment its memory. And with the capacity to remember, comes the ability to learn. I hope that we will get updates on The Traveler's condition throughout the episodes. After all this, we can't just have the Traveler sit and be a backdrop that we don't hear anything about.
When the mission said that the Traveler stood to fight,I was so hyped. For a while now, I was speculating to myself that during Season of the Seraph’s final cutscene, the Traveler wasn’t leaving, it was planning on taking the brunt of the damage from Rasputin so the city wouldn’t be harmed. So finally having some vindication in that thought was just amazing.
@@lizflessert2427 I always thought the Traveler's departure was more about the Black Fleet approaching than anything about the Warsats. By the time it started moving, we had already essentially taken care of the Warsats. All we needed Ana to do was unplug Rasputin or whatever she did. I think the Traveler had faith that we would protect it and we did. I think it was more getting into position to confront the Witness.
That's part of what made Lightfall so agonizing. There was such hype leading up to that confrontation. I thought there would be a BIG fight! The Traveler fighting alongside us for the first time! But then...nothing. Yeah, the Traveler shooting a beam was cool, but then it was immediately suppressed and basically sat there until the Witness made the portal and disappeared. They could have given the Traveler at least a little efficacy in that scene. It was able to resist the Witness for a year, but couldn't even impede it a tiny bit by firing a big fucking beam at it?
God, why was Lightfall so terrible?
I think part of our distrust is that we just fundamentally misunderstood what the traveler is and what it can do. We begged it for answers not realizing that it just can’t speak. We begged it to fight back not knowing it was powerless to stop the witness by itself. Its most powerful “weapon” was a terraforming ray that brought a man back from the dead. We wanted guidance as if it had a greater understanding of the situation than we did
@@biiill5259 That's a big part of why I'm eager to see what this transformation occurring within the Traveler will bring. The Traveler will, arguably, be a more complete and harmonious being, with a mind capable of memory. What new thoughts will it have and how will they be expressed? Will it finally, for the first time in its long life, speak? We know that it has wanted to speak, despite its belief that it shouldn't.
I guess time will tell what the Traveler does next.
@@thatawesomethingsFrontiers might have us take control of the Dreadnaught, maybe exploring new systems? Maybe the Traveler will give info about other civilizations besides Fallen, Cabal, and Hive, so we can go to those worlds as well?
Mataiodoxia description really remind me of a quote said by the sculptor Michael Angelo:
"I saw an angel trapped in the marble, and I carved until a set him free"
I think its poetic to say that the Final Shape is the angel saw in the universe's fabric, and the Witness wanted to carve it out and free it
Never thought id listen to Byf smut, but here we go.
It feels good to be back, playing Destiny 2, and watching your vids Byf.
3:30 "the very opening cutscene of Lightfall"
Byf, that is TFS. : P
The way you read that made it even more visceral than it was written, well done, it gave me shivers
Whenever the dread are mentioned I can’t help but be reminded of one of the Vidocs that said their dialogue can be translated and that it could be interesting or help to understand the larger scope. With the added context of them being entirety’s comprised of light and dark I think we should as a community try to decipher it
Honestly I really like how evocative of the Lady of the Lake holding Excalibur the final sentence of Ergo Sum's lore tab is, it's kinda badass
Yeah when the opening cutscene played, I sat there in shock and it became very clear just how close we were to losing everything.
Damn, Cayde wasn't kidding about feeling the Witness digging around in the Traveler's guts.
This just shows how evil the witness was that even it’s creations shiver even though it has complete control over there minds and it is scary to think of this
Even cayde says "because the witness is digging around in its guts" after the traveler shreaks
Ive always thought of the corruption as necrosis, a hollow void filled with mold feeding on its nerves. its what made the end of lightfall and the following year hard, i couldnt do anything to help the traveler, just had ti imagine it suffering..and what it did for us.
"I can feel the Witness digging around in its guts"
Thanks, Cayde. Thanks
The dismay of his "assistants" in this lore tab really captures what I like about the Witness' role as a villain. The character's self-righteousness blinds itself to the malevolence of its actions. It believes so greatly in the good of its cause that it butchers entire civilizations and the Traveler itself in dispassionate manner. Its impassive behavior really sells to me how "alien" and different this being feels to anything we know. It directly explains its motivations and its "salvation" to us, and yet it still manages to feel to inscrutable.
The way its talking about peeling away.... makes me wonder about The Journey Ahead when they talk about the Dreadnought and its gear peeling away
The Lord description in the text for the warlock armor piece reminds me of the Phyrexians from magic the gathering, especially the white aligned, machine orthodoxy, and the blue aligned progress engine, each of which striving to make a more perfect entity, one by flying and then grafting bone-like plates onto the surface of beings. The other cutting apart and piecing back together entities almost flaying them completely down to their bones. Each of them are creating gory and gruesome creations, that are still somehow completely cognizant of what's happened to them, or brainwashing them to serve the greater will.
Byf, I can't remember did you make a video talking about the traveler and the Veil potentially being two of three parts of the tree of silver wings from the black garden
The witness was cutting away at the traveller's para causal flesh until it exposed its bare nervous system. Then mutilated it's nerves so that it could take direct control of the traveller's light. Essentially using the traveller as a meat puppet. That's some brutal shit.
And we made the Witness scream. Fair game
There should be a community event where we collectively heal the traveler through the overthrow activites. And when the event is done there would be a fully bloomed tree of silver wings where the monolith stands.
I keep thinking about "The Dread" and the potential meaning about it. All the time we have been Guardians, there has always been this sense of: "am I doing what is right?", "Is this what my destiny is?", and then the Witness starts tearing into that belief with an almost physical manifestation of the existentiel dread, that we have felt throughout all these years. it might not be relevant to the topic of todays video. And I might have missed people talking about this. I just really wanted to express it.
I think the "assistants" could be the dissenters
That lore entery made me shiver and twitch. Bloody hell it is brutal and horrofying poor travaller :(
I think that matiadoxia is more about the creation of the dread. "a form that our enemies can dread"
Look, if my mortal enemy was digging around in my guts to claim my power I would be screaming too
I interpreted the Mataiodoxia loretab more literally. Given the mention of wings in the flavortext and the line "A form to teach out enemy fear. A shadow they will dread" (keyword: dread), my theory was it was describing the Witness creating a Grim, reshaping it from an "imperfect" lifeform.
“All these squares make a circle” -The Witness, probably
I thought the lore entry was clearly talking about The Witness creating the Dread - specifically the Grim.
The Witness was giving the Traveler devious back shots is the conclusion my fireteam came to💀
the travelussy
Think of the Traveler as a bird. The Witness doesnt need a bird, so it cuts off the feathers. It cuts off its wings, its head, removes its skin and muscles. But still it needs whats inside, so it scrapes off the bone. All while the bird is still alive, and feeling every moment. Then the Witness shoves its rot into the deepest nerves, uncaring of the screaming, so full of itself it sees this only as perfection. It doesnt need the Traveler alive, it is in the way, it only needs what keeps it alive. I thin it kept the Traveler alive until the Final Shape would have killed it, and to make it suffer because of its own insecurities.
I can only hope the Traveler isnt too far gone, and that the immediate pain is over
You are putting in work buddy. Great video!
New Preaching from Lore Daddy just dropped
Byf: the witness made the traveller scream
me: really? right in front of my salad?
I'll have what it's having 🥺
It was the clan headcannon for a year that the Witness was answering the Travler's booty call
The witness got all up in its guts and the traveller screamed
Mataiodoxía being a descriptive lore of an insect being dissected essentially is such an interesting tie-in to an observation Caital makes to us and Micah-10. During one of the overthrow missions, she posits how (and I’m paraphrasing) “the Traveler’s Light could take any shape and instead of weapons(not counting Ergo), it chooses to reveal itself in small creatures such as the Ghost, birds and tiny insects.” I can’t remember Micah’s reply but she does make one which is a hypothesis as to why…
Micah speculates that the reasoning for the preference for birds and plants and insects is cuz perhaps the traveler sees in us a hope where we won't need weapons, or for light to be manifested into weapons, but unfortunately today is not that day.
I think it's an interesting expression difference between guardians and the traveler, where guardians main purpose was to be an undying army to fight back the darkness, so the guardians form of expressing light is thru crafting a weapon of pure light, to physically beat back against the darkness in conflict, whereas the traveler seems to be "the blueprint of life that civilization studies and learns from" (basing this off of the collectible in the refraction that looks like a mini traveler that gives Micah insight about a memory of the traveler, which in itself is a hugely intriguing piece of information worthy of discussion), so it takes on more biological forms of life, via birds and bugs and plants, the very same expressions of light that were used to terraform the other planets in sol. It's pretty neat imo lol
@@StainlessKay Oh, Thank You! I appreciate this as I picked up that collectable but could not for the life of me remember Micah’s response. I totally agree that it’s quite the intriguing conversation to expound on. It also had me once again drawing back to Lady Efrideet’s pacifist colony and if that exact line of thought that lead them to that lifestyle. If them seeing the Traveler’s representation leaning into that of “Life Giver/Creator” was what pushed them to build on their pacifist principles out in the Heliopause. I do so hope it becomes one of the forthcoming “Frontiers” of our future exploration and adventures. Thanks again for the lore assist 🤘🏾🖤
Assuming that at 3:36 he meant final shape and not lightfall since the cutscene for TFS proceeds to play.
"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"
-Harlan Ellison, 1967
Now i understand how, the traveler whos known as the "Silent God" was made to scream so loud that everyone could hear it, it was brutal.
on a side note: after watching this video i went on and did the last mission of campaign so i can hear witness scream like a lil bitch as i rend apart its minds , one by one..
It feels like the Witness assembled everything, the black fleet, divinity, ruinous effigy... all of it seems to have been made from the wood from a tree of silver wings.
It would be cool if they added parts to the Pale Heart each episode to show the regrowth or new growth of the Traveller. Imagine a massive tree of silver wings, but with a combination of light and dark, but perhaps you could make the light parts seem like ink, whilst you can make the dark seem like feather or something like that. Add some visual story telling to show not only tell, that the Traveller is recovering, but the natures of the light and dark are mixed or are at least in balance.
Witness: How many hand flicks does it take to get to the center of the Traveler?
I'm gonna say it destiny has finally hit a grimdark note that is almost at the level of the stuff in warhammer 40k and I'm am here for it
Was just talking about the old motif of fruit falling onto floors in art.
Love ya byf! Keep up the awesome content
I see you weren't joking when you said it was disturbing text😢
Amazing video 👍
The traveller's getting it's life essence taken, it's essentially marriage.
One of the more gruesome moments in Destiny lore, and very disturbing. 😨
Fantastic work by the Bungie narrative team!
What if the witness was actually called the freakness and he just got freaky with the traveller
bro was giving the travler backshots
I was wondering this during the final shape
Could you make a video about the raid encounters? I don't really understand what we're doing even after completing the full raid. Like, what is the giant rock we're climbing and why it changes its form after the Witness's death. I'm also quite curious about the 4th encounter. Why is there suddenly a chamber of light among all the encounters and filled with all the statues of the guardians and things. So many questions.
Being skined alive. That is essentially what the witness did to the traveler.
All the death in the traveler, it is surprising the Egregore hasn't consumed more of the Traveler.
Paracausal backshots is CRAZY
The Witnesses' assistants could be metaphysical too, pieces of its billion-selves doing other tasks as the main cluster works.
The Witness displays remarkable similarities with a Drukhari Homaenculus here.... In fact his whole vibe is very Drukhari.
I had always thought this was it talking about making the dread.
Man, can’t imagine the pain our traveler was going through 😢
I don’t know if you noticed this but there is what looks like finalized guardians in the cosmodrome and a ghost filled with darkness
It's just part of one of the lost ghost quests for Micah-10. There are others
I noticed the hive gods trapped in the tree in the blooming. Creeps me out
I wonder what the ending would have been like if Bungie kept the Darkness as the antagonist rather than pivoting towards this idea of the Witness a few years ago.
No way it's the guy
Probably not as interesting. Most villains need a face or voice to follow, and given our use of the funny dark magic, wouldn't have been nearly as visceral here.
Love the vids Byf ❤
So the cutscene were the witness enacted the final shape, by what the final shape looks like by the witnesses definition looks like the statues in the pyramid ships were hints to what it thought the final shape was the whole time.
Is there worthwhile lore to be found and/or talked about in the raid encounters and their mechanics as a whole? Verity (and the raid altogether, alongside plenty other raids) was a fantastic experience and I would absolutely just listen to someone ramble about Salvation's Edge for 30 minutes
If there are videos on this channel or others just exploring each raid's depths, any pointers would be appreciated
It was digging around in the Travelers guts, Cayde said it himself so it's a canon event