Describe time. No, really, give it a go. You're going to say something about a sequence of events, aren't you? Seconds sliced off a clock, marching one by one off into infinity. Go ahead, use your metaphors: A line. A loop. A flat circle. Heard someone say time was like water once. At least that was novel. The Vex, they're the closest to understanding it. They've got distance from it. If time's a river, then we're fish and they're diving birds. What's wet mean to a fish? What's it mean to an osprey, who's never fooled by refraction on the water's surface?

Everyone seems to have a favourite topic in d2 (character, race, groups etc) that I love reading their analysis of and then... there's me, bouncing between 20 minor characters and 200 miniscule interactions across the destiny timeline like a scavenger.

Did you know that Tevis Larsen had apparently had an instance of direct contact with Rasputin? Where Red told him he does not care about humanity?

Or that Drifter had at some point asked Felwinter to kill the Warlord Citan that had massacred Eaton when Felwinter had already joined the Iron Lords, and been under the Iron Decree no less? And that Felwinter did it anyway?

Or that Wei Ning's fists could move mountains? That Taeko-3 was a Praxic Warlock and Eriana was one as well?

How Andal Brask died from Tallulah Fairwind slapping his shoulder the moment he got to the City? After he barfed on the watercraft Micah-10, Den-Mother-Of-Ghosts, put him to cross over the Pacific to get to the City? And how she is being hunter by the Ghost killing Guardian Cyrell while she herds Ghosts towards their new charges?

That Shaxx kicked Teben Grey and Shin Malphur (as Zyre Orsa at the time) out of the Crucible with a great many threats and how, where Andal had been almost neutral towards them, Cayde was instead pointedly dismissing the not-yet Shadows, because he and Shaxx were close?

How Pahanin kept saying puns just to annoy Kabr because he thought it funny and the piece of crumpled gum-wrapper he tossed at Praedyth's head before they walked in the Vault is still something Praedyth has.

All these little events are so important to me, and I'm not sure why.

I know it's a long shot but I hope the next time we get some full Vex content, we get to meet Praedyth again. His questline in D1 is one of my favorite things the games have given us. A man stuck in the Vault of Glass in every sense of the word. We have conversations with him, and then find his bones right after.

I was so glad to read more of him in the Season of the Undying, and tying back to the Ishtar simulations was great. Until they show him again, I'm just going to keep thinking of the final line, "Somewhere, they are always stepping through."

I'd really love to see Praedyth again as well. The Aspect lore book made me so emotional about him.

I cannot recommend that lore book enough. It's so good in so many ways. This bit knocked me out and always does:

He has three guns, two disassembled down to their casings for parts. Two boxes of physical ammo and one of Omolon energy cells he's been using to power his radio. He stripped his armor down long ago; he made a comm unit from his helmet and pulled fine coils of wire from the conductive pads on his gauntlets and steel plating from his boots. In his pockets, he's got lint and the wrapper from a candy Pahanin tossed at his head half an hour before they entered the Vault. It's worn soft and folded into the shape of a crane. No Ghost. Her loss is one thing he has never gotten used to after all this time in the Vault; he still wakes up some days expecting the small weight of her on his shoulder.

I need him to meet us and be our friend.

Convergent Keepers / Time, Refracted - Observed in the Vault of Glass, in the depths of the Ishtar Sink. Captured at the convergence of past and present through the corridors of time.

Azra repressed the urge to fidget, letting her eyes flit back around the circle. She was out of her element in the worst way. Speeches? Storytelling? The weight of all of the attention was suffocating. But unless she wanted to have this conversation a dozen different times with a dozen different people, this was the best option. No matter how much it made her itch to sit here with everyone staring at her.

She took a deep breath. "I think I finally put together what's happened." She looked at Ikora, at Praedyth and Shaxx. "It's more than you think."

"Start from the beginning," Ikora said soothingly.

In an earlier time, Azra would have leaned back and started cheekily regaling them the story of the birth of the Universe. Now, she hunched and rested her elbows on her knees. The beginning? "June fourth, twenty-nine sixty," she decided. 

2 praedyth doodles. rest in peace dude he wouldve loved hello kitty picross for the 3ds.

“The suns’ positions change as we walk,” Praedyth notices while they are tearing their way through a grove of tangled shrubbery. Elsie’s sword hisses with every strike, leaving a trail of branches and charred vines in its wake. “It’s like we’re physically moving through the day.”

The sky above them is azure-pink now, bright with aurora. Streaks of orange haze span across it in irregular patterns, seeming almost separate to the suns’ placement or the physics of how their rays should disperse. The result comes off as something like a conceptual approximation of daybreak, rather than a quirky but nonetheless naturally occurring phenomenon.

Chapter nine: Northwards

Lightfall & Aspect

hi destiny tumblr!

it’s me, your local lore geek. as we speak, i am working on a (long!) meta post about the connections between the lightfall campaign & the aspect lorebook. i haven’t really seen people talking about these ties so i wanted to do it myself.

in the time it takes me to write this, i really really encourage anyone confused about lightfall to read aspect! if nothing else, read it so you can rip my theories to shreds when i finish this meta. but seriously i can’t encourage it enough, go check out aspect please

Three things that I think are relevant to where the Vex are gonna maybe end up in the nearish future:

I think "the pattern" mentioned in Unveiling is something separate from or semi-external to the Vex (or I guess arguably something that projects the Vex). Two quotes keep pulling me back to that:

"PRAEDYTH: They think this is the end of them: A path with no escape. And yet, here they are, there they were, and there they will be... and there they will have been. (pauses) For them, there is no paradox. There is only the pattern. And the pattern needs the Vex to see it to completion. And so the Vex must be. For the mind of the Vex... is that faith?"

There's also this line from Maya Sundaresh:

“Of course I’m not a Vex. Is there “a” Vex? Is “Vex” something you can be, rather than something that you do? I don’t know. I don’t know why they sent me here. I don’t know if they do either. They just do things."

I also think the simulated Guardians (Kabr and Asher Mir) and humans (Maya Sundaresh plus who knows how many other copies of the simulated Ishtar researchers who were caught over the years; we know from the Nessus strike that MSund12 is still active) who exist within the Vex's mind are causing it to re-evaluate its current positions on light. Not gonna copy-paste the whole thing but Kabr's Glass Aegis is the big point of relevance here; I think this also helps to clarify why the Vex struggle with paracausality so much re: it being a matter of 'separation'.

I bring these up because I think there's a feeling people have that there aren't any interesting Vex 'characters,' and that's why they haven't been getting any attention lately; I just wanted to point out three who aren't Asher or Quria who could easily drive a season on their own.

(If nothing else I think everyone even a little bit interested in the Vex should read the lore for Kabr's Glass Aegis because there's a lot to unpack there.)

This is a long one, but I really couldn’t find a good place to split it up, so here it is!

You ever get stuck in a loop with a chatbot (or a toddler)?  It’s annoying for you, but do you think the chatbot realizes what’s happening?  Or does it never have any context for what you’re saying to it?

dont fuckin @ him he's chillin

So I went and tried to get further details on Kabr's fireteam, and as I was listening , I decided to make a list of what I could hear from him:

"They want me to send a message. The creatures will soon reach the heart of the vault. When they do they plan to destroy(?) the Vex. Once they take the Vex, they'll come for the light."

What creatures did he mean? Was he talking about the Taken?

"I have no idea where I am. My name is Praedyth, and I was a member of Kabr's fireteam. I just hope that someone will hear this. "

"I don't know why they're letting me speak(?). Now, after so long. But if anyone is listening, I came into the Vault with two others, Kabr was intense sometimes. And Pahanin was always talking to himself. But they don't deserve this. No one does."

Again, who is they?? Why wouldn't they let him speak?? What did Kabr and Pahanin not deserve?? Was it a reference to Kabr being corrupted by the Vex mind?? Was it a reference to their deaths, or something worse? And for him to ask why after so long, how long has he been there already???

"I think that's it. They're closing the door. I lived! Just remember, tell them, I live-!"

Once more, we see 'Them'. Who are they? The Vex themselves? Some branch off of the Vex? He must have been so happy to have survived the encounter, only to slowly wither away in the small chamber(?). Or was it some sort of room and he died of his wounds before he could actually get out?

i think it would be so fucking interesting if Praedyth is a Praxic Warlock

can't begin to tell you how much it would make me happy if he were fucking Guardian Internal Affairs

should i make a pretentious post about architecture instead of a pretentious post about destiny. just to keep things fresh.

convincing myself certain things will happen in destiny then getting upset when they dont. anyway charlemagne next season

for some reason i want that guy to be a canon guardian and i don't know why. maybe because of how weirdly specific it is

I too think there should canonically be a femboy bee-themed guardian who simps to moth and exists solely to torture vex.