So I don't mean to brag but I seriously figured it out. Of all the species, it is most clear that the Fallen have previously interacted with and been "on the side of" the traveler, from variks dialogue and grimore. What is not clear is why they left their own system and chased the traveler here; variks says "The Great Machine resides with your House. Do you think it will stay?" suggesting the traveler may intend to leave us as it did them, meaning the answer to the Travelers next move is in the past. Now, here is something that nobody is focusing on in this game: souls exist. we know from the grimore that the white steam that leaves Fallen after they die is "their soul escaping the body." We know that certain hive enemies, namely Crota, remain in a limbo-like soul form and can linger on after death. Now here's the BIG KICKER: we know that AT LEAST the hive and the Fallen can REVIVE these souls / restore their bodies (Crota, the Archon Priest where they are "trying to restore its soul!" (rip)) SOUND FAMILIAR?!?!?! If your lightbulb hasn't gone off yet, let me spell it out: this is the power that the traveler has given humanity in the form of the Guardians; the ability to reanimate the dead. so lets assume that the traveler gave the same power to the Fallen for a minute, since we know it did something similar to their civilization as ours. Now, I started listening to as much variks dialogue as I could and I started noticing A TON of suggestions that the Fallen had their own version of ghosts and guardians when the Traveler was in their possession!!! -"Listen long enough and you will hear stories of great Eliksni heroes. When the Great Machine was still with us." (HFS!!!) -"Does the Great Machine speak to you, as it did to me?" -"We are friends, yes Guardian? Give me your Ghost. / Guardian, come here. I want to see your Ghost." Aside from the wonderful idea that Variks is an ex-guardian, this makes us look at the current situation as a repeat of the past. Sooo what happened to the Fallen's home? Why did they leave? Why would we leave if we had to? Because of the oppressive aliens pursuing our Traveler overcome us, and the traveler runs off to another race to bless with ghosts and the gift of ETERNAL LIFE, electing that race it's new champions. OBVIOUSLY we would chase after it if it left, along with our ghosts. which is what the fallen are doing. so what drove traveler away from the fallen? The Hive. Now, the hive is the only other race we know had some form of contanct with the traveler since they were IN POSSESION OF A PEICE OF IT despite the fact that we know from the grimore that the darkness has "searched for weaknesses" but has not yet breached the city, meaning they must have acquired it before it made the move to tower.... I'm just going to assume this happened ages ago instead of before humans discovered it on mars. It seems likely that the Traveler was "theirs" before the Fallen's and thus we could safely assume they pursued it on the Fallen world, and THUS assume they were the threat that drove out the traveler! We see they have this shard in that one mission where we discover they are using it to try at "Draining the Traveler of its Light" (!!!), and from this we can infer that they were attempting to reclaim whatever power the traveler gave to and then took from them when it left. maybe the cabal were before the hive, maybe some other race that got exterminated by the hive defending the traveler with their own immortal warriors. who knows. THANK YOU for reading this far. FINAL PEICE: Im not entirely sure on this one. I'd love some fresh thoughts on it, but: I think the Traveler is some rouge agent of / mirror double to / dark or contradictory VEX entity. EVIDENCE: -The Great Machine implies it is mechanical, but it's decidedly sentient - The Vex are the only race who pursue it and attempt to wipe it out despite needing no reviving powers from it -Off of that, THE VEX ALREADY HAVE reviving powers, and an explaination for them!! the Restorative Mind strike tells us a lot: the vex can BRING BACK fallen beings by BRIDGING TIME through multiple timelines What if the Traveler is using this same power to gain the allegiance of different races trying to obtain a seperate power from this vex all-timeline-all-worlds utopia, but saw the situation spiral out of control as various alien races began to turn on it? What if this whole OBVIOUS hinting at multiple timelines / time looping in the game is because YOUR GHOST IS PULLING DIFFERENT YOUS FROM DIFFERENT TIMELINES LIKE THE VEX??!?!