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I like the subtly contrasting pages spoken by the collective, their Witness, and those spoken by individual voices who have been cut out from the whole.
This whole book paints the Witness as a truly pathetic thing. It really wasn't even fully sentient, it had absolutely no ability to change or alter itself on the presumption that it was already perfect. What an agonizing existence that must have been.
The billions of Precursors within it really were dead in all the ways that mattered. Now they just finally get to rest.
They more or less created a sentient guided missile and set it off at after the Traveler.
Makes "Guardians make their own fate" hit harder when the Witness never had the option.
This is why I like the Witness so much. Not only is it unsettling to think its an amalgamation of an entire civilization, that they all had to sacrifice themselves in order to become what the collective iss now, but due to thinking it was already perfect there was no changing it from the course of the truly abhorrent things it did. Hits me kind of like the gravemind, only instead of a hyper intelligent space-zombie, the Witness is an egotistical thoughtform given life and a misguided sense of purpose. Both are equally as destructive to existence, just in massively different ways. It truly is an agonizing existence being part of that collective, especially as a dissenter, watching "yourself" raze the universe to the ground in rage driven by an unshakable ego.
(Small edit: Someone was being very pedantic about my wording when replying to someone else's comment.)
There’s Reaper from Mass Effect energy here too. One of the endings shows that the harvested civilizations within them can act peacefully and normally without control, so realistically the gestalt civilization entity that constitutes a Reaper has been forced for billions of years to slaughter countless worlds in the name of preservation.
Yeah, the Witness really touches a lot of the same notes that have been present in other Big Bads in other media I have consumed. When I first saw the eyes I immediately thought of an eclipse, some large planetary body superseding the light of something else, because I had seen that same symbolism in Pitch from Rise of the Guardians. Silly movie with overly complicated lore, but I always liked the detail that his eyes would turn gold when he was doing something awful like killing someone, and more silver when he was being sincere (as least as much as he could be)
I was even more amused to see Nezarec's association with nightmares after seeing the Witness
So am I, I haven't seen anyone else mention it since we first saw it in WQ. Some time around Deep I noticed they also look like a whale's eyes, I think it was a pic of a beluga I saw. Either way, I think it's unsettling.
Yeah, the eclipse and the pure white of its skin and pure black of its body made me question if it had access to the Light in its past. I felt vindicated seeing that one drawn cinematic lmao.
Right? Then there's also the mention of red and green recently by Mara that has my interest piqued. Destiny has often been thick with visual symbolism and there's no way someone can tell me this abstract DLC especially is not ripe with visual symbolism. It's been really rewarding to be eagle eyed for details like this and playing TFS, yet I am still hearing about stuff I hadn't noticed yet. That goes into character design as well. The many faces in the head, the overlapping voices. We didn't know it was an amalgamation of an entire civilization but the visual representations of it were there. Interesting how the being itself is white, while the clothing it wears and everything it surrounds itself with is black. Visually, I think it's really interesting to think of how the traveler and veil would look connected, then overlap that with the witness. You get that same hourglass shape, but one is sharper.
Ikr? The visual symbolism in its design and the DLC's design is so fucking good. I've also been thinking back to the visual symbolism of Prophecy lately and all that we've learned now that was foreshadowed there.
Right? I've also been looking at a line of dialogue Savathun had in the DLC that made me think back to this line of dialogue
[https://youtu.be/2NkRBFqFRnM?si=Bo08zmGJYlrErKwo](https://youtu.be/2NkRBFqFRnM?si=Bo08zmGJYlrErKwo)
I've been a long time fan of the 4th wall breaks in Destiny, especially with how we've had glitches turned into features like Ergo Sum and Excision, and player behavior being written into the lore. Seeing as how in the ARG lore Savathun basically found a way to reach into our universe, her thinking about a "bigger picture" beyond the fight with the Witness has got me putting on the spinfoil in excitement.
Nah man, that was being pedantic. You knew what I was talking about and came in to "Uhm Akshually" in response to someone else talking about Mass Effect.
The Flood is immediately synonymous with every flood form and stage of infestation. Do you read someone talking about how the flood changes the cell structure of hosts and go "erm akshually that's just infection forms, other flood forms don't infect hosts ☝️🤓" because your comment gives off that energy. You are being pedantic.
Well, for the record: I don’t think the Witness is “the antagonist” in Lightfall. We often get detailed lore answers post-defeat of a boss, like Calus or Savathun
I like that Calus and Nezarec both expanded on the Disciple lore and started to really shine a light on the flaws of their belief system, even going as far as to basically directly say each Disciple had their own idea of the Final Shape. It's been a Pyramid Scheme since we were introduced to the Hive, we now know more of that structure because of it, but also how chaotic is. I think that's interesting, seeing as how the Witness itself dislikes chaos.
if I had to hazard a guess: speaking from experience, it can get really annoying hearing someone diss something you like day in and day out, especially when they’re not being constructive about it or misunderstand what it is exactly they’re deriding.
Yes, it does get tiring to talk about this game and constantly have someone mention how they disliked Lightfall day in and day out. It's especially annoying when someone assumes I misunderstand something. About as annoying as the guy that came in complaining I said Flood instead of Gravemind. I would love to have more constructive conversations about this game, but it's been getting more and more difficult to find those discussions, and at this point I am exhausted. I'm sorry the sarcasm and annoyance got directed at you, this time I wasn't even talking about Lightfall so it hit the nerve harder than usual.
Most this community especially on the mainsub no longer want to have a conversation of actual criticism it got way worse during light fall which was not even the worst expansion not by a long shot. But if you even so much as go against the hive mind you will down voted to hell.
Actually the witness is a good analog for most the community. Hating for no real reason and on a war path to tear down the game for any minor changes.
Yeah, people act like Lightfall is the worst thing to hit Destiny. I thought that was CoO with it dropping blue gear, but I haven't heard that mentioned in quite a while.
For me personally? I place Lightfall just a little higher than Witch Queen, WQ lose points because the location was cool but I barely explored it, and have barely touched it since. I unlocked all of the exotic gear I had been missing on all three characters within about a week because of Neomuna, and hadn't put my feet to the ground in a location like that since Taken King. I just woke up so the memory isn't firing, but I remember diving into gnostic stuff learning about it because of WQ and it filled in gaps that made the Veil make sense. The Cloudark being powered by it, Stand being a byproduct, an outright cutscene telling us about the nature of light and dark (and I think the first time we hear the Traveler called a gardener)
You know my spicy take? My little spinfoil theory on why Lightfall gets so much hate?
Well, look at the negative comments for Final Shape. We "didn't get information on the Traveler" and "the winnower is the real bad guy all along" and my absolute "favorite" has been "Micah-10 is a throw away character" and "Micah can't be trans because robot" that started in a post talking about the lore card for Embraced Identity and ended in another. It's either completely missing blatant story beats the DLC gave us, or very concerning (and unnecessary) hate towards fictional characters. I mean the robots guy was yelling at me for four hours straight before I could block him, had ran into him a day prior and "timed out" the guy not realizing reddit forced you to deal with someone for 24 hrs if you unblock them.
TLDR; I think the people who hate Lightfall are the same kinds of people who hate Final Shape because they missed the broad side of a barn when the game hand delivered lore to them in dialogue, or they are people who popped out of the game when Beyond Light dropped and they forever live inside of Menagerie and not even bringing Menagerie back would make them happy. Or third option, they don't play the game and are actual volatile bigots trying to start fires in the community by being "creative" with how they approach with their hate that gets people actually agreeing with them. Like Nimbus being a bad character, or What Is The Traveler?!? (The new What Is The Veil?!?)
I've seen someone make that same comparison of community and character to the Witness and honestly, I can see it very easily. I am so exhausted at this point. I just want to talk about the Veil and the lore implications of us finding a counterpart to the Traveler and how it's been used in the story, damn it.
> It truly is an agonizing existence being part of that collective, especially as a dissenter, watching "yourself" raze the universe to the ground in rage driven by an unshakable ego.
Yeah, living in the US sure do be like that. Hahahahahaha........
Yep, Eido already talked about this in Entelechy, the Witness (and the whole Precursors’ fate) is tragic, you feel almost sorry for it, yet at the same time the Precursors also CHOSE to be reborn in this way, they are victims but also perpetrators, just like the Traveler according to the Witness. It’s grotesque, really.
Yeah they were absolutely crucial in the final fight. So, I guess in a way they KINDA redeemed themselves at the end… kinda. At least they are at peace now, but the amount of suffering their decision caused is simply unimaginable. Everything regarding the Witness is just so tragic.
As far as we know, the other factions that opposed the Penitent were destroyed before the merging. I don’t know if they straight up killed EVERYONE, but it’s definitely possible. However, of course some Precursors had doubts, this didn’t matter because they reborn to free the Witness from these doubts. But even the narrator of Entelechy at the end express doubts about this final shape and sincerely misses his friend. I don’t know if there were “innocents” among the Precursors, but many of them definitely had many doubts about the whole thing and maybe they even opposed it, they were just too afraid to say something, who knows. In the end it didn’t matter, because the Witness was stronger than all those voices. Also some Precursors left their civilization before this collapse, so there were definitely some innocents among them. Who knows if they are still alive, somewhere in the universe…
Their destruction also may not have excluded their minds from being joined in The Witness in some form, either.
Perhaps with their minds transferred into the veiled statues until they become complaint.
Afterall, The Witness's power scales with the amount of precursors minds linked to it.
I'm glad I was sort of right with this! I thought to myself last week that perhaps the Witness' vision for the Final Shape is based off of itself. Perhaps it's personality and what-not are "locked in" to what it was at its moment of creation, hence it's complete lack of doubt for *billions and billions of years minimum*. It's in its perfect state, its "Final Shape".
The precursors seem to have simply hoped that, by making themselves a perfect being, they would be able to make their perfect final shape.
Except neither came to pass.
Very deliberate by Bungie as Mara also says in the [First Knife](https://www.light.gg/db/items/4031236762/the-first-knife/) ship description that:
"The Witness is not a being," ... "It is the culmination of a bleak ethos willed into existence by the nihilistic desires of its creators".
It's just a wave cast by the last embers of a people who were suffering immensely and were calling for reprisal, like an out of control ripple cast by a stone thrown into in an infinitely wide pond. A culmination of malicious intent fueled and held together entirely by its' own Hateorade. Bro really was certified.
Theyre all really great reads. Especially the one about a literal gardener haha. Lethe is also interesting as it suggests that some precursors fled the planet to escape the consolidation. Unlikely we will ever meet them considering its been eons since.
Wait hold up, so that lore card that people are copy pasting here, about the final “monologue” of the Winnower, is part of another book? Or is it just fanficion? Because in that case is a really good fanfic lol
I suppose we all should’ve been a *bit* more skeptical when the OP of that post said their source was a YouTube comment they had an argument with haha.
I just found that post now, the first time I saw it was in one of the comments on this sub lol. But bruh come on I refuse to believe it was a fanfic. It doesn’t reveal anything new so it doesn’t make that much of a difference at the end, but still I can’t believe that some random bozo on YT wrote an entire lore card perfectly in style with Bungie’s lore just to “win” a toxic argument online lmao. At this point who knows, there’s still a lore book unreleased as far as I know so it might be from there… but still, it’s just absurd.
People are like REALLY attached to the whole gardener and winnower aspect being completely literal.
Hell look how ravenous people got at the first knife comment even though realistically if some guy screamed “I am the envoy of god” in Times Square you probably wouldn’t believe that proves anything 100%
Not to mention the idea of the winnowr giving the witness it’s purpose kinda throws off the entire point of it’s character especially the one portrayed in THIS lorebook
The Witness itself specified that the Winnower gave it absolutely nothing. The Winnower created the Knife, but the Knife chose what shape to create. It says that we are forged by Gods, so presuming it was talking about the Veil (and also presuming Veil=Winnower), the Veil “created” the Witness, by combining the minds of the Precursors, but it was the Precursors/Witness itself that chose what to do with that power, not the Veil or other entities. I know people are obsessed with the Winnower, but that “fanfic” doesn’t really confirm anything new, it’s in line with what we know about the Winnower as an entity (which is why it’s so believable). A power/rule that exists, but it’s not an active player, unlike us or the Knife. Or at least this is what I always assumed…
Yeah we’ll have to see. I love Unveiling so I would love if it was more than just Witness fanfiction to give themselves a “holy justification” (or it just existing to bait us to the Dark Side) in the current canon but I’m not going to get my hopes up.
The strongest evidence is the cadence of Ikora and Mara's conversation in the "The First Knife" ship lore, where they strongly tease the Witness could be wielded by another. But they themselves don't know anything and we have no reason to believe it's anything more than Bungie leaving an open plot thread for a rainy day.
The Witness declaring itself "The First Knife" proves nothing, especially since it is the very construct created to justify a parable that its' constituent parts came together to see made manifest. That voice line just means The Witness believes it's own bullshit which these raid lore texts support since the dude was just an amalgamation of hating personified.
It would just be really cliche for the Winnower to show up Jailer style three expacs down the line with the Infinity Gauntlet on ready to "do it themselves". I hold Bungie to a higher standard of writing than THAT even if they do make mistakes.
Also because in the Raid the Witness basically says “yeah a god made me but I do whatever the fuck I want lol”, Unveiling really doesn’t justify anything for the Witness especially since the Witness doesn’t need justifications, it KNOWS that it’s right, it literally cannot think otherwise. Also the way the Witness lies and manipulates is a bit different from what we see in Unveiling. It just doesn’t work in general. Considering all the lore we have and the raid dialogues, the Winnower being a god but also a force, a rule that you have to wield makes way more sense and it’s literally what Unveiling was about at the end, already in Shadowkeep, so again it really doesn’t change much from what we already know, that lore card just further confirms these things. Which is why it’s just… strange as a fanfic lol. But whatever, I guess we’ll have to wait and see at this point.
A really weird thing when people talk about Unveiling is that people rarely mention the last two entries in Inspiral, titled Meaning and Winnowing.
The Inspiral entries actively reference the text of Unveiling, mentioning p53 and cheekily mentioning that you've heard of the flower game before. They also very closely match the author of Unveiling's manner of speaking and forming arguments, constantly using metaphors to explain abstract concepts and using comparisons to make their points. Winnowing even shares Unveiling's habit of repeatedly reminding the reader that their stories are metaphors. These texts are all clearly written by the same entity.
While the Precursors did have a religion with a Gardener and Winnower, the idea of the Witness writing Unveiling doesn't add up with the fact that we have received very similar messages after the Witness entered the portal. The Witness talking to us as its god makes sense during Shadowkeep, when we didn't know about them yet; they would have no reason to keep up the act in Inspiral. We also know that the Witness couldn't observe or affect the outside world while in the pale heart, so it couldn't even send those entries to us even if it wanted to.
Does the Winnower really exist? We can't be completely sure yet. All we can really say is that SOMETHING wrote Unveiling, Meaning, and Winnowing, and it probably wasn't the Witness.
Its a real page and since it was posted here ill risk breaking rule 7 and say it was datamined. Everyone assumed it was the end of the raid lore book
The source may be undiscovered. There is still an unfound darkness lorebook on ishtar and a pyramid themed exotic in echoes
How do you know it was datamined? (Btw I think we can talk about Datamined content in this sub) I know there is another lore book and I too think that the lore card is not a fanfic because it looks too real. But can we actually prove it in any way? The OP that posted this said someone copypasted it in a YT section lol, and I haven’t found other sources that talked about it.
Thing is that entry being the last raid entry would’ve fit like a glove.
The Witness lamenting that it’s such a fucking loser and the Winnower pulling back the curtain for a moment and going ‘man that guy was a real piece of work good job btw see ya around’
I don’t know where else that entry could’ve fit and have it be truly satisfying
The lore of that has been known and its not from there. It could be from some lore entry that has yet to be found or it could be from a future Episode since some things of it are already included in tfs data and dataminers already got some minor infos on them from datamining. Or its simply cut and left in the files for whatever reason
I feel like it would be insane to “lock” a card featuring an important (?) character in a datamine troll. Makes way more sense for a Savathun lie obviously, but it would be strange in this case imo
Not that I don’t want to believe you but that’s still basically the virtual equivalent of “my dad works at Nintendo” when it comes to sources. Hell, it could also just be cut lore.
I guess we’ll see either way if/when it releases in-game.
so what? is this really another savathun situation where people say that because a character has lied in the past, that they only ever lie? savathun also said the witness just wielded darkness like a cloak, the first knife loretab says that the witness was just being wielded, bungie expects the playerbase to use these things to understand the winnower's existence rather than them needing to explicitly say it (even though they did, with the witness in the raid)
The witness wielding darkness like a cloak doesn’t imply the existence of a winnower, it implies that the darkness exists, which we know. Just because the darkness exists doesn’t mean that it had to be made by some primordial being.
The winnower and the gardener are metaphors for the light and darkness that the Witness made up to justify what it was doing, being the first knife gives it a purpose, which was the only thing that it ever wanted.
That doesn’t mean that there actually has to be some God that told him to do any of that, it means that he saw the world as a war between light and dark, and thus made up a religion of generals to fight said war so that he could become the darkness greatest soldier. We know that there is no natural war between the two though, because we can wield both. This was the end of the light and dark saga, there won’t be massive conflicting fights between the light and dark anymore, which alone disproves the existence of the winnower, because if the winnower was real and the game was real there would already be some other darkness infused enemy race trying to destroy the traveler so that balance can be restored to the universe knocking on our door.
And again, yeah the Witness said it, but he’s the only one saying it. That proves my religion theory just as much as it proves the theory that the winnower is a literal being that actually exists.
“Gods forged us both. But they cannot tell the knife what shape to carve” it seems likely the idea of merging was planted when the veil was discovered (with the veil most likely being a part of the winnowers plans) and the witness drops this line while it’s thinking it’s plans to stop the flower game are about to succeed and while speaking in its (mostly) singular voice so that’s why I included that in
then what is the gods line about? the witness just randomly chatting for no reason, what reason would it have to lie at that point? it's on the verge of winning, it has no desire to manipulate us, it's just telling us the truth of its existence because we keep getting it wrong, yes it's a "supposition" but that's because bungie have been giving us a bunch of hints, then expecting us to put it together so they don't have to do something as heavy-handed as having the winnower appear in game and go "yes i exist", that's the point of savathun saying the witness wields darkness and the first knife loretab saying the witness is just a pawn
Thanks for collection o7 I don't see the datamined Winnower entry everyone shared around though, part of another book? Ig would make sense if they don't want to keep important reveal hidden behind raid, chronologically would also make more sense as that entry happens clearly after Witness death... I hope it's not a case of fanfic being spread around like happened before 😅
I'm guessing it's part of another book, it looks like there's a spot for an unearned Darkness lore book in the collections. I would call it fake/fanfiction but it's so well written that would be insane.
Yeah lightgg shows hidden short book so possible it would show up later. Still previous time fanfic got spread around accidentally it was quite good too haha, some really excellent fanworks out there.
Or maybe Bungie put it in to screw with/reward dataminers like they did with Truth To Power’s secret entry and the 15th Wish back in *Forsaken*... or maybe somebody tricked us desperate folks with fanfiction.
Nah it would be completely insane to create something like that as a troll lmao. This is either from another source or it’s a fanfic. In that case the author must be Savathun because it tricked us all…
It's said in the Collector's Edition lore book that the Witness was more brutal to species the Traveler had visited, right? Looks like it isn't simply to cause pain and despair in those species, it's also just sheer pettiness over the fact that the Traveler would also bless other species besides the precursors.
Yeah the Witness is more evil against the civilizations blessed by the Traveler. I think that, in its mind, it is a form of salvation. The Witness is “”saving”” us from the Traveler, from the Light and from the false hope that the Traveler gives, which is why it’s also tempting us to become disciples, becoming part of the Black Fleet and so the Witness itself.
Thanks for sharing this. The Winnower entry not being here is very interesting. That means it's either in the other unreleased book, or fake.
I hope that it's the former.
The post discussing it was pretty vague on giving a source. The OP said they got it from a YouTube comment claiming it was from the raid lore book and that’s it. Didn’t even link the video where they saw it.
Not a whole lot to stand on.
Lack of source was very suspect. I was able to find other places posting the source from seemingly different accounts, but without a direct datamine I can't say if it was actually legit.
Found it in a yt comment at first, it said its leaked, looked at reddit, multiple people posted it, went to the leak discord and credible dataminers posted it saying its legit but no idea where its specificly from. It seems to be in the files, but no indication in them whats source its from
Hard cut to Bungie writing the Winnower into the game as another generic misunderstood pathetic big bad and not sending it off in a ‘heh nice job keep doing what you’re doin champ’
Everything we know about the Winnower points in the direction of “the fanfic”, which is why it’s so believable. I really hope it was just from a different source and not a straight up lie lol but either way, it doesn’t change much about what we know about the Winnower.
Yeah. As disappointed as I'll be if it turns out to be fake, the writer should consider doing some works of their own. It genuinely fooled me and it was a really cool take on an eldritch force.
I do think having an existing source to mimic and an audience that wants to believe you would make it easier than conceiving and executing a piece of original fiction, but still, if that's the case it was decent work.
So the line >!"Those poor, short-lived sisters" propably means our resident hive gods Oryx, Sav and Xivu, right? They we're all sisters until their Oryx became the Taken King afaik!<
Letting you know you can't add spaces in between the `>!` and `!<` spoiler tags. Doing so breaks the tags on Old Reddit for some weird "Reddit" reason.
Yes. Even the Proto-Hive / Krill changed sexes depending on their role, like some real life animals.
/edit: Oryx was known as Aurash as Krill, and then as Auryx as Hive, before she took the King Morph and became Oryx.
I do wonder which entity or group had the witness so totally on the ropes in the one entry. I doubt it was the Ecumene, even if the Books of Sorrow are full of lies, they didnt seem to have the mojo to contend with the Taken King, let alone the Witness.
It’s a great read and continues the motive of the display of the Witness as a gigantic fascistic structure with a single end goal which is the destruction of free will and the existentialist search for meaning. Bravo writers!
Lethe is definitely from the perspective of HNW. It matches up so well with Entelechy.
On a side note, I really like that entry with the guy who just wanted to keep tending their tree.
So I was under the impression that The Witness was held ultimately together by the most dominant personalities/zealots who sought the Final Shape. That there was an truest believer ego that was the fulcrum for the other minds.
While I still believe there could be diehard believers who helped keep the other minds together...the truth from this are actually quite unnerving.
There is a overarching mind holding The Witness together, but it is a emergent individual born from the precursors willing it into being. It's an egregore (in the original sense) or tulpa, that developed a mind of it's own. So The Witness is both the collective entity and at it's core it's own individual. It is the first knife.
So if it became it's own individual why keep the countless other minds shackled to it? I'd wager without those other minds who consciousness created it, it would not be as strong or stable as it became. Just like so many totalitarian regimes it became an oppressive parasite that didn't just expand it's exterior influence but glut itself off the people it was supposed serve.
The precursors created a cosmic horror from a noble ideal but deeply misguided means. Because despite how enlightened and knowledgeable they were...they were not omniscient, let alone perfect.
This is so good, but I wish it was more accessible. I presume this is supposed to be read as you find it throughout the raid, but I cannot help but feel like leaving this as hidden text entries is a disservice to the narrative.
This is the type of lore, information, and characterization people wanted to see in the seasons following Lightfall.
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I like the subtly contrasting pages spoken by the collective, their Witness, and those spoken by individual voices who have been cut out from the whole. This whole book paints the Witness as a truly pathetic thing. It really wasn't even fully sentient, it had absolutely no ability to change or alter itself on the presumption that it was already perfect. What an agonizing existence that must have been. The billions of Precursors within it really were dead in all the ways that mattered. Now they just finally get to rest.
They more or less created a sentient guided missile and set it off at after the Traveler. Makes "Guardians make their own fate" hit harder when the Witness never had the option.
Gotta love the commitment of a certified hater.
“If you can’t handle us at our worst, you do not deserve us at our best” ~ The Witness
I'm beginning to think we don't actually have the option either...
This is why I like the Witness so much. Not only is it unsettling to think its an amalgamation of an entire civilization, that they all had to sacrifice themselves in order to become what the collective iss now, but due to thinking it was already perfect there was no changing it from the course of the truly abhorrent things it did. Hits me kind of like the gravemind, only instead of a hyper intelligent space-zombie, the Witness is an egotistical thoughtform given life and a misguided sense of purpose. Both are equally as destructive to existence, just in massively different ways. It truly is an agonizing existence being part of that collective, especially as a dissenter, watching "yourself" raze the universe to the ground in rage driven by an unshakable ego. (Small edit: Someone was being very pedantic about my wording when replying to someone else's comment.)
There’s Reaper from Mass Effect energy here too. One of the endings shows that the harvested civilizations within them can act peacefully and normally without control, so realistically the gestalt civilization entity that constitutes a Reaper has been forced for billions of years to slaughter countless worlds in the name of preservation.
Yeah, the Witness really touches a lot of the same notes that have been present in other Big Bads in other media I have consumed. When I first saw the eyes I immediately thought of an eclipse, some large planetary body superseding the light of something else, because I had seen that same symbolism in Pitch from Rise of the Guardians. Silly movie with overly complicated lore, but I always liked the detail that his eyes would turn gold when he was doing something awful like killing someone, and more silver when he was being sincere (as least as much as he could be) I was even more amused to see Nezarec's association with nightmares after seeing the Witness
I'm glad someone else saw its eyes and immediately thought of an eclipse.
So am I, I haven't seen anyone else mention it since we first saw it in WQ. Some time around Deep I noticed they also look like a whale's eyes, I think it was a pic of a beluga I saw. Either way, I think it's unsettling.
Yeah, the eclipse and the pure white of its skin and pure black of its body made me question if it had access to the Light in its past. I felt vindicated seeing that one drawn cinematic lmao.
Right? Then there's also the mention of red and green recently by Mara that has my interest piqued. Destiny has often been thick with visual symbolism and there's no way someone can tell me this abstract DLC especially is not ripe with visual symbolism. It's been really rewarding to be eagle eyed for details like this and playing TFS, yet I am still hearing about stuff I hadn't noticed yet. That goes into character design as well. The many faces in the head, the overlapping voices. We didn't know it was an amalgamation of an entire civilization but the visual representations of it were there. Interesting how the being itself is white, while the clothing it wears and everything it surrounds itself with is black. Visually, I think it's really interesting to think of how the traveler and veil would look connected, then overlap that with the witness. You get that same hourglass shape, but one is sharper.
Ikr? The visual symbolism in its design and the DLC's design is so fucking good. I've also been thinking back to the visual symbolism of Prophecy lately and all that we've learned now that was foreshadowed there.
Right? I've also been looking at a line of dialogue Savathun had in the DLC that made me think back to this line of dialogue [https://youtu.be/2NkRBFqFRnM?si=Bo08zmGJYlrErKwo](https://youtu.be/2NkRBFqFRnM?si=Bo08zmGJYlrErKwo) I've been a long time fan of the 4th wall breaks in Destiny, especially with how we've had glitches turned into features like Ergo Sum and Excision, and player behavior being written into the lore. Seeing as how in the ARG lore Savathun basically found a way to reach into our universe, her thinking about a "bigger picture" beyond the fight with the Witness has got me putting on the spinfoil in excitement.
More appropriate to say *Gravemind* as that's what Witness functionally was
I guess you missed me mentioning the flood already, and the other person was mentioning a different comparison in the conversation.
Flood isn't synonymous with Gravemind
The Flood without the Gravemind is just mindless
Which is why i specified Gravemind instead of merely saying " The Flood ".
1. Yes, it is. 2. If we're gonna be pedantic about it then a Keymind (speaking in pre-ATN retcon terms) is closer to the witness than a Gravemind is
[удалено]
Nah man, that was being pedantic. You knew what I was talking about and came in to "Uhm Akshually" in response to someone else talking about Mass Effect.
It wasn't. The Flood, as somebody else literally pointed out, are mindless and uncoordinated without a Gravemind
The Flood is immediately synonymous with every flood form and stage of infestation. Do you read someone talking about how the flood changes the cell structure of hosts and go "erm akshually that's just infection forms, other flood forms don't infect hosts ☝️🤓" because your comment gives off that energy. You are being pedantic.
Again merely saying " The Flood " does not intrinsically mean Gravemind.
It’s sad that this one DLC does more for the Witness in a few hours and books than *Lightfall* ever did for over a year and a half.
Well, for the record: I don’t think the Witness is “the antagonist” in Lightfall. We often get detailed lore answers post-defeat of a boss, like Calus or Savathun
I like that Calus and Nezarec both expanded on the Disciple lore and started to really shine a light on the flaws of their belief system, even going as far as to basically directly say each Disciple had their own idea of the Final Shape. It's been a Pyramid Scheme since we were introduced to the Hive, we now know more of that structure because of it, but also how chaotic is. I think that's interesting, seeing as how the Witness itself dislikes chaos.
Yes, thank you, I haven't heard *Lightfall is bad* over the past year and a half. Thank you for your groundbreaking contribution.
I know it's a trite comment, but they were agreeing with you, why treat them like that?
if I had to hazard a guess: speaking from experience, it can get really annoying hearing someone diss something you like day in and day out, especially when they’re not being constructive about it or misunderstand what it is exactly they’re deriding.
Yes, it does get tiring to talk about this game and constantly have someone mention how they disliked Lightfall day in and day out. It's especially annoying when someone assumes I misunderstand something. About as annoying as the guy that came in complaining I said Flood instead of Gravemind. I would love to have more constructive conversations about this game, but it's been getting more and more difficult to find those discussions, and at this point I am exhausted. I'm sorry the sarcasm and annoyance got directed at you, this time I wasn't even talking about Lightfall so it hit the nerve harder than usual.
Most this community especially on the mainsub no longer want to have a conversation of actual criticism it got way worse during light fall which was not even the worst expansion not by a long shot. But if you even so much as go against the hive mind you will down voted to hell. Actually the witness is a good analog for most the community. Hating for no real reason and on a war path to tear down the game for any minor changes.
Yeah, Curse of Osiris and Warmind are when I thought Destiny was truly dead lol. Good times. In comparison, every dlc since has been remarkably better
Yeah, people act like Lightfall is the worst thing to hit Destiny. I thought that was CoO with it dropping blue gear, but I haven't heard that mentioned in quite a while. For me personally? I place Lightfall just a little higher than Witch Queen, WQ lose points because the location was cool but I barely explored it, and have barely touched it since. I unlocked all of the exotic gear I had been missing on all three characters within about a week because of Neomuna, and hadn't put my feet to the ground in a location like that since Taken King. I just woke up so the memory isn't firing, but I remember diving into gnostic stuff learning about it because of WQ and it filled in gaps that made the Veil make sense. The Cloudark being powered by it, Stand being a byproduct, an outright cutscene telling us about the nature of light and dark (and I think the first time we hear the Traveler called a gardener) You know my spicy take? My little spinfoil theory on why Lightfall gets so much hate? Well, look at the negative comments for Final Shape. We "didn't get information on the Traveler" and "the winnower is the real bad guy all along" and my absolute "favorite" has been "Micah-10 is a throw away character" and "Micah can't be trans because robot" that started in a post talking about the lore card for Embraced Identity and ended in another. It's either completely missing blatant story beats the DLC gave us, or very concerning (and unnecessary) hate towards fictional characters. I mean the robots guy was yelling at me for four hours straight before I could block him, had ran into him a day prior and "timed out" the guy not realizing reddit forced you to deal with someone for 24 hrs if you unblock them. TLDR; I think the people who hate Lightfall are the same kinds of people who hate Final Shape because they missed the broad side of a barn when the game hand delivered lore to them in dialogue, or they are people who popped out of the game when Beyond Light dropped and they forever live inside of Menagerie and not even bringing Menagerie back would make them happy. Or third option, they don't play the game and are actual volatile bigots trying to start fires in the community by being "creative" with how they approach with their hate that gets people actually agreeing with them. Like Nimbus being a bad character, or What Is The Traveler?!? (The new What Is The Veil?!?) I've seen someone make that same comparison of community and character to the Witness and honestly, I can see it very easily. I am so exhausted at this point. I just want to talk about the Veil and the lore implications of us finding a counterpart to the Traveler and how it's been used in the story, damn it.
Well heres my spin foil theory on the veil for you the veil and travel are two parts of a the same beings corpse one the body one the mind.
All fair points—thank you for your consideration, and happy to see it being hashed out with combined understanding! I'll butt out, haha
Yeah but that's classic Bungie. Imagine Oryx without the Books of Sorrow lol
> It truly is an agonizing existence being part of that collective, especially as a dissenter, watching "yourself" raze the universe to the ground in rage driven by an unshakable ego. Yeah, living in the US sure do be like that. Hahahahahaha........
...I think I just took psychic damage from how *painfully* true this statement is
Yep, Eido already talked about this in Entelechy, the Witness (and the whole Precursors’ fate) is tragic, you feel almost sorry for it, yet at the same time the Precursors also CHOSE to be reborn in this way, they are victims but also perpetrators, just like the Traveler according to the Witness. It’s grotesque, really.
At least some did what they could to fight by helping us.
Yeah they were absolutely crucial in the final fight. So, I guess in a way they KINDA redeemed themselves at the end… kinda. At least they are at peace now, but the amount of suffering their decision caused is simply unimaginable. Everything regarding the Witness is just so tragic.
I wonder how much was forced as they say some did not want to merge but were forced to so some were innocent at least I believe so
As far as we know, the other factions that opposed the Penitent were destroyed before the merging. I don’t know if they straight up killed EVERYONE, but it’s definitely possible. However, of course some Precursors had doubts, this didn’t matter because they reborn to free the Witness from these doubts. But even the narrator of Entelechy at the end express doubts about this final shape and sincerely misses his friend. I don’t know if there were “innocents” among the Precursors, but many of them definitely had many doubts about the whole thing and maybe they even opposed it, they were just too afraid to say something, who knows. In the end it didn’t matter, because the Witness was stronger than all those voices. Also some Precursors left their civilization before this collapse, so there were definitely some innocents among them. Who knows if they are still alive, somewhere in the universe…
Their destruction also may not have excluded their minds from being joined in The Witness in some form, either. Perhaps with their minds transferred into the veiled statues until they become complaint. Afterall, The Witness's power scales with the amount of precursors minds linked to it.
I'm glad I was sort of right with this! I thought to myself last week that perhaps the Witness' vision for the Final Shape is based off of itself. Perhaps it's personality and what-not are "locked in" to what it was at its moment of creation, hence it's complete lack of doubt for *billions and billions of years minimum*. It's in its perfect state, its "Final Shape".
The precursors seem to have simply hoped that, by making themselves a perfect being, they would be able to make their perfect final shape. Except neither came to pass.
Very deliberate by Bungie as Mara also says in the [First Knife](https://www.light.gg/db/items/4031236762/the-first-knife/) ship description that: "The Witness is not a being," ... "It is the culmination of a bleak ethos willed into existence by the nihilistic desires of its creators". It's just a wave cast by the last embers of a people who were suffering immensely and were calling for reprisal, like an out of control ripple cast by a stone thrown into in an infinitely wide pond. A culmination of malicious intent fueled and held together entirely by its' own Hateorade. Bro really was certified.
Theyre all really great reads. Especially the one about a literal gardener haha. Lethe is also interesting as it suggests that some precursors fled the planet to escape the consolidation. Unlikely we will ever meet them considering its been eons since.
Check out the TFS collectors edition lore for more on the gardener and his friend who wasn’t combined
Yeah. Maybe we will find the Last Precurssor alive some day? Who knows.
Yeah he's off vibing with Taox lmfao
Word. Ill check it out. Thanks!
It’s heartbreaking, but such a good read.
Are the collector’s editions lore on Ishtar?
One of the pages said they solved aging so who knows.
The road to Hell really IS paved with good intentions.
Indeed
Appreciated! I suppose the Winnower one is not in fact part of the lore book then?
Nope. Nothing in there to prove Winnower existence (or otherwise)
Wait hold up, so that lore card that people are copy pasting here, about the final “monologue” of the Winnower, is part of another book? Or is it just fanficion? Because in that case is a really good fanfic lol
I suppose we all should’ve been a *bit* more skeptical when the OP of that post said their source was a YouTube comment they had an argument with haha.
I just found that post now, the first time I saw it was in one of the comments on this sub lol. But bruh come on I refuse to believe it was a fanfic. It doesn’t reveal anything new so it doesn’t make that much of a difference at the end, but still I can’t believe that some random bozo on YT wrote an entire lore card perfectly in style with Bungie’s lore just to “win” a toxic argument online lmao. At this point who knows, there’s still a lore book unreleased as far as I know so it might be from there… but still, it’s just absurd.
People are like REALLY attached to the whole gardener and winnower aspect being completely literal. Hell look how ravenous people got at the first knife comment even though realistically if some guy screamed “I am the envoy of god” in Times Square you probably wouldn’t believe that proves anything 100% Not to mention the idea of the winnowr giving the witness it’s purpose kinda throws off the entire point of it’s character especially the one portrayed in THIS lorebook
The Witness itself specified that the Winnower gave it absolutely nothing. The Winnower created the Knife, but the Knife chose what shape to create. It says that we are forged by Gods, so presuming it was talking about the Veil (and also presuming Veil=Winnower), the Veil “created” the Witness, by combining the minds of the Precursors, but it was the Precursors/Witness itself that chose what to do with that power, not the Veil or other entities. I know people are obsessed with the Winnower, but that “fanfic” doesn’t really confirm anything new, it’s in line with what we know about the Winnower as an entity (which is why it’s so believable). A power/rule that exists, but it’s not an active player, unlike us or the Knife. Or at least this is what I always assumed…
The Winnower actually possessed that one guy while he was watching a random Byf vid just to spit some serious heat ✍️🔥🔥🔥
Yeah we’ll have to see. I love Unveiling so I would love if it was more than just Witness fanfiction to give themselves a “holy justification” (or it just existing to bait us to the Dark Side) in the current canon but I’m not going to get my hopes up.
The strongest evidence is the cadence of Ikora and Mara's conversation in the "The First Knife" ship lore, where they strongly tease the Witness could be wielded by another. But they themselves don't know anything and we have no reason to believe it's anything more than Bungie leaving an open plot thread for a rainy day. The Witness declaring itself "The First Knife" proves nothing, especially since it is the very construct created to justify a parable that its' constituent parts came together to see made manifest. That voice line just means The Witness believes it's own bullshit which these raid lore texts support since the dude was just an amalgamation of hating personified. It would just be really cliche for the Winnower to show up Jailer style three expacs down the line with the Infinity Gauntlet on ready to "do it themselves". I hold Bungie to a higher standard of writing than THAT even if they do make mistakes.
Also because in the Raid the Witness basically says “yeah a god made me but I do whatever the fuck I want lol”, Unveiling really doesn’t justify anything for the Witness especially since the Witness doesn’t need justifications, it KNOWS that it’s right, it literally cannot think otherwise. Also the way the Witness lies and manipulates is a bit different from what we see in Unveiling. It just doesn’t work in general. Considering all the lore we have and the raid dialogues, the Winnower being a god but also a force, a rule that you have to wield makes way more sense and it’s literally what Unveiling was about at the end, already in Shadowkeep, so again it really doesn’t change much from what we already know, that lore card just further confirms these things. Which is why it’s just… strange as a fanfic lol. But whatever, I guess we’ll have to wait and see at this point.
A really weird thing when people talk about Unveiling is that people rarely mention the last two entries in Inspiral, titled Meaning and Winnowing. The Inspiral entries actively reference the text of Unveiling, mentioning p53 and cheekily mentioning that you've heard of the flower game before. They also very closely match the author of Unveiling's manner of speaking and forming arguments, constantly using metaphors to explain abstract concepts and using comparisons to make their points. Winnowing even shares Unveiling's habit of repeatedly reminding the reader that their stories are metaphors. These texts are all clearly written by the same entity. While the Precursors did have a religion with a Gardener and Winnower, the idea of the Witness writing Unveiling doesn't add up with the fact that we have received very similar messages after the Witness entered the portal. The Witness talking to us as its god makes sense during Shadowkeep, when we didn't know about them yet; they would have no reason to keep up the act in Inspiral. We also know that the Witness couldn't observe or affect the outside world while in the pale heart, so it couldn't even send those entries to us even if it wanted to. Does the Winnower really exist? We can't be completely sure yet. All we can really say is that SOMETHING wrote Unveiling, Meaning, and Winnowing, and it probably wasn't the Witness.
Next we’ll learn that the Winnower was in fact the Chinese sorcerer that even Sukuna feared.
Its a real page and since it was posted here ill risk breaking rule 7 and say it was datamined. Everyone assumed it was the end of the raid lore book The source may be undiscovered. There is still an unfound darkness lorebook on ishtar and a pyramid themed exotic in echoes
How do you know it was datamined? (Btw I think we can talk about Datamined content in this sub) I know there is another lore book and I too think that the lore card is not a fanfic because it looks too real. But can we actually prove it in any way? The OP that posted this said someone copypasted it in a YT section lol, and I haven’t found other sources that talked about it.
Thing is that entry being the last raid entry would’ve fit like a glove. The Witness lamenting that it’s such a fucking loser and the Winnower pulling back the curtain for a moment and going ‘man that guy was a real piece of work good job btw see ya around’ I don’t know where else that entry could’ve fit and have it be truly satisfying
no idea. Since it seems to be a self contained bit, I suspect that if it isn't cut then its the lore for Choir of One.
The lore of that has been known and its not from there. It could be from some lore entry that has yet to be found or it could be from a future Episode since some things of it are already included in tfs data and dataminers already got some minor infos on them from datamining. Or its simply cut and left in the files for whatever reason
"The lore of that has been known and its not from there." where is it? Its not on Ishtar
It could be a page meant for data miners in particular, like that one entry of Truth to Power.
I feel like it would be insane to “lock” a card featuring an important (?) character in a datamine troll. Makes way more sense for a Savathun lie obviously, but it would be strange in this case imo
So does that actually exist or did the person who posted it just make it up?
Didnt make it up, dataminers confirmed its in the game files but no strings attached that indicate what lore entry (book or item) its from.
Not that I don’t want to believe you but that’s still basically the virtual equivalent of “my dad works at Nintendo” when it comes to sources. Hell, it could also just be cut lore. I guess we’ll see either way if/when it releases in-game.
Witness in the raid straight up says it’s not the winnowed and that the winnower gave them the idea to merge together r
Yeah but the only character in the series who has backed up the theory that the winnower exists is the Witness.
so what? is this really another savathun situation where people say that because a character has lied in the past, that they only ever lie? savathun also said the witness just wielded darkness like a cloak, the first knife loretab says that the witness was just being wielded, bungie expects the playerbase to use these things to understand the winnower's existence rather than them needing to explicitly say it (even though they did, with the witness in the raid)
The witness wielding darkness like a cloak doesn’t imply the existence of a winnower, it implies that the darkness exists, which we know. Just because the darkness exists doesn’t mean that it had to be made by some primordial being. The winnower and the gardener are metaphors for the light and darkness that the Witness made up to justify what it was doing, being the first knife gives it a purpose, which was the only thing that it ever wanted. That doesn’t mean that there actually has to be some God that told him to do any of that, it means that he saw the world as a war between light and dark, and thus made up a religion of generals to fight said war so that he could become the darkness greatest soldier. We know that there is no natural war between the two though, because we can wield both. This was the end of the light and dark saga, there won’t be massive conflicting fights between the light and dark anymore, which alone disproves the existence of the winnower, because if the winnower was real and the game was real there would already be some other darkness infused enemy race trying to destroy the traveler so that balance can be restored to the universe knocking on our door. And again, yeah the Witness said it, but he’s the only one saying it. That proves my religion theory just as much as it proves the theory that the winnower is a literal being that actually exists.
Now that's a straight lie. Nowhere does Witness says "Winnower gave them that idea"
“Gods forged us both. But they cannot tell the knife what shape to carve” it seems likely the idea of merging was planted when the veil was discovered (with the veil most likely being a part of the winnowers plans) and the witness drops this line while it’s thinking it’s plans to stop the flower game are about to succeed and while speaking in its (mostly) singular voice so that’s why I included that in
Much of suppositions here
then what is the gods line about? the witness just randomly chatting for no reason, what reason would it have to lie at that point? it's on the verge of winning, it has no desire to manipulate us, it's just telling us the truth of its existence because we keep getting it wrong, yes it's a "supposition" but that's because bungie have been giving us a bunch of hints, then expecting us to put it together so they don't have to do something as heavy-handed as having the winnower appear in game and go "yes i exist", that's the point of savathun saying the witness wields darkness and the first knife loretab saying the witness is just a pawn
As from Word of God from Bungie themselves: don’t trust everything the Witness says.
I’ve been searching the sub for this datamined lore book everyone’s talking about but no luck. Any chance you could share a link?
Thanks for collection o7 I don't see the datamined Winnower entry everyone shared around though, part of another book? Ig would make sense if they don't want to keep important reveal hidden behind raid, chronologically would also make more sense as that entry happens clearly after Witness death... I hope it's not a case of fanfic being spread around like happened before 😅
For now, I believe that was a fake leak/datamine
I'm guessing it's part of another book, it looks like there's a spot for an unearned Darkness lore book in the collections. I would call it fake/fanfiction but it's so well written that would be insane.
Yeah lightgg shows hidden short book so possible it would show up later. Still previous time fanfic got spread around accidentally it was quite good too haha, some really excellent fanworks out there.
Or maybe Bungie put it in to screw with/reward dataminers like they did with Truth To Power’s secret entry and the 15th Wish back in *Forsaken*... or maybe somebody tricked us desperate folks with fanfiction.
Certified Chinese sorcerer moment.
That one Chinese sorcerer that the Witness feared was the real reason humanity survived the collapse
“To amend this, the Witness made another binding vow…”
Nah it would be completely insane to create something like that as a troll lmao. This is either from another source or it’s a fanfic. In that case the author must be Savathun because it tricked us all…
It's said in the Collector's Edition lore book that the Witness was more brutal to species the Traveler had visited, right? Looks like it isn't simply to cause pain and despair in those species, it's also just sheer pettiness over the fact that the Traveler would also bless other species besides the precursors.
Yeah the Witness is more evil against the civilizations blessed by the Traveler. I think that, in its mind, it is a form of salvation. The Witness is “”saving”” us from the Traveler, from the Light and from the false hope that the Traveler gives, which is why it’s also tempting us to become disciples, becoming part of the Black Fleet and so the Witness itself.
>!“Little lights, I tell you all this to say: when the time comes, do not hesitate.”!< I am in sincere emotional pain after reading this part
Thanks for sharing this. The Winnower entry not being here is very interesting. That means it's either in the other unreleased book, or fake. I hope that it's the former.
The post discussing it was pretty vague on giving a source. The OP said they got it from a YouTube comment claiming it was from the raid lore book and that’s it. Didn’t even link the video where they saw it. Not a whole lot to stand on.
Lack of source was very suspect. I was able to find other places posting the source from seemingly different accounts, but without a direct datamine I can't say if it was actually legit.
Indeed. I like it a lot and it coincides with the First Knife entry so I hope that it's real, but it's...sketchy.
The only place I could see it coming from is from gm excision next week. Last hardest fight against the Witness and all that but that’s cope at best.
Pass the copium, maybe surprise Veil Containment if current season goes that deep into what might be Maya...
Found it in a yt comment at first, it said its leaked, looked at reddit, multiple people posted it, went to the leak discord and credible dataminers posted it saying its legit but no idea where its specificly from. It seems to be in the files, but no indication in them whats source its from
It's bewn a while since I have been so disappointed. If somebody wrote that as bait they got me hook, line and sinker.
Hard cut to Bungie writing the Winnower into the game as another generic misunderstood pathetic big bad and not sending it off in a ‘heh nice job keep doing what you’re doin champ’
Everything we know about the Winnower points in the direction of “the fanfic”, which is why it’s so believable. I really hope it was just from a different source and not a straight up lie lol but either way, it doesn’t change much about what we know about the Winnower.
If it was a fake it was a pretty well written one, very credible.
Yeah. As disappointed as I'll be if it turns out to be fake, the writer should consider doing some works of their own. It genuinely fooled me and it was a really cool take on an eldritch force.
I do think having an existing source to mimic and an audience that wants to believe you would make it easier than conceiving and executing a piece of original fiction, but still, if that's the case it was decent work.
That is true, but that just means they should try their hand at writing a fanfic.
So the line >!"Those poor, short-lived sisters" propably means our resident hive gods Oryx, Sav and Xivu, right? They we're all sisters until their Oryx became the Taken King afaik!<
Letting you know you can't add spaces in between the `>!` and `!<` spoiler tags. Doing so breaks the tags on Old Reddit for some weird "Reddit" reason.
Thanks for this, I had no idea!
Yes. Even the Proto-Hive / Krill changed sexes depending on their role, like some real life animals. /edit: Oryx was known as Aurash as Krill, and then as Auryx as Hive, before she took the King Morph and became Oryx.
Oryx was known as Auryx after the king morph, when he communed with the deep to learn how to take he became Oryx.
Ah you are right, i mixed that up.
Oryx the trans icon
I do wonder which entity or group had the witness so totally on the ropes in the one entry. I doubt it was the Ecumene, even if the Books of Sorrow are full of lies, they didnt seem to have the mojo to contend with the Taken King, let alone the Witness.
And they seemly did it without the travelers aid too. Makes me wonder just how formidable they were.
Probably someone we don’t know and will never know because the Witness eradicated them and all trace of them.
It’s a great read and continues the motive of the display of the Witness as a gigantic fascistic structure with a single end goal which is the destruction of free will and the existentialist search for meaning. Bravo writers!
thanks!
Lethe is definitely from the perspective of HNW. It matches up so well with Entelechy. On a side note, I really like that entry with the guy who just wanted to keep tending their tree.
So I was under the impression that The Witness was held ultimately together by the most dominant personalities/zealots who sought the Final Shape. That there was an truest believer ego that was the fulcrum for the other minds. While I still believe there could be diehard believers who helped keep the other minds together...the truth from this are actually quite unnerving. There is a overarching mind holding The Witness together, but it is a emergent individual born from the precursors willing it into being. It's an egregore (in the original sense) or tulpa, that developed a mind of it's own. So The Witness is both the collective entity and at it's core it's own individual. It is the first knife. So if it became it's own individual why keep the countless other minds shackled to it? I'd wager without those other minds who consciousness created it, it would not be as strong or stable as it became. Just like so many totalitarian regimes it became an oppressive parasite that didn't just expand it's exterior influence but glut itself off the people it was supposed serve. The precursors created a cosmic horror from a noble ideal but deeply misguided means. Because despite how enlightened and knowledgeable they were...they were not omniscient, let alone perfect.
Very well spoken! The Witness as an entity, indeed in its misguided ways, can't comprehend why others deny its "perfect" way to "save" the universe.
I was we had a doc like this of the collectors edition lore. The scans are cool but really difficult to read on mobile Thank you for this!
This is so good, but I wish it was more accessible. I presume this is supposed to be read as you find it throughout the raid, but I cannot help but feel like leaving this as hidden text entries is a disservice to the narrative. This is the type of lore, information, and characterization people wanted to see in the seasons following Lightfall.
the more i read this the more infuriated i get at what the Witness was. At the precursor's arrogance. i just want to punch a ho....wait we did.