originally posted in:The Ashen Conflux
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I've begun to understand what the cards from the Paradox secret mean. They tell the tale of Praedyth's ghost as it got flung through time by the Vault of Glass. Let's analyze them in order.
1. The first card references the Eliknsi (fallen) homeworld, and describes the planet from the eyes of the ghost, and ends with a vision of the Traveler hanging over the planet.
[spoiler]The image clears of dirt and dust as a hand wipes the lens clean. A figure holds the Ghost up, looking into the lens. Harsh light from an unfamiliar sun backlights the four-armed creature, making it impossible to see its face. Its massive head turns, and a clicking and chittering voice can be heard speaking to something off-screen. While the noises themselves are harsh, the tone and content seem almost gentle. A curious creature, not a violent or angry one. The lens refocuses beyond the creature’s head as it talks, and a startling landscape climbs to the horizon. It’s a paradise. Carefully tended lakes and rivers, water everywhere, wind their way between fields of lush iridescent crops and into groves of starkly colored trees. Every inch of the land seems engineered, brushed by a sculptor’s hand for form and function both. The sky is a light pink, spotted with clouds and crowded with ships. Thick lanes of aerial traffic soar through the air, tightly managed and seemingly endless. And beyond it all, above the clouds, hangs a perfect alabaster sphere. The image wobbles, shaking, flickering as if the Ghost is blinking. And the fragment ends.[/spoiler]
2. The second card is a battle between armies of Exo and Vex. This card culminates with a crashed Golden Age ship. This heavily implies that before the collapse, Exos were built to fight Vex.
[spoiler]Images flicker in and out repeatedly over its length. The result is a series of tableaus, moments in time captured by the Ghost’s struggle to see what’s going on: – The face of an Exo, staring impassively down at the Ghost from very close. He appears to be confused, unsure what he is looking at. – A landscape, from a position a few feet off the ground, moving laterally to the point of view. The Ghost appears to be clipped to the Exo’s belt. The image is of a battlefield, and over two dozen Exo soldiers can be seen marshalling for battle. – A chaotic scene of Vex and Exos fighting a titanic battle. The backdrop is a pitted and scarred landscape, a planet unidentifiable from present context. Vex energy bolts hang in midair as the frames click by, teeming masses of constructs surging towards an entrenched line of Exo soldiers. – A metallic leg and boot, belonging to a Vex Goblin. The Exo goes down. – The horizon of this battle-scarred world, the Ghost kicked free of the Exo’s body. Most details are obscured by dark and shadow, but one detail is easily made out: a massive crashed spacecraft. The last image: a sigil of Golden Age Earth, emblazoned on the side of the ship’s prow.
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The third and final card is probably the most important, as the ghost travels to the future. In this future, he sees a fleet of human ships bearing banners and shards of the City and Tower (Is this a hint at the future of Destiny? Does the city get destroyed at some point?)
[spoiler]A starfield. The stars swing slowly across the Ghost’s field of view, just darkness and the blazing fury of distant suns as the Ghost tumbles through empty space. Hours of this before, with a wash of power, a huge convoy of ships drops into reality from warp. A convoy of Guardian craft, hundreds strong. Ships of all sizes and shapes can be seen, from venerable craft that have been salvaged from the Golden Age through to City designs to vessels that have yet to emerge from the Shipwright’s hangars. The ships are battle-scarred. Many are barely spaceworthy. As warp drives wind down several seem to lose power and begin to drift. Some of the largest craft bear imagery familiar to frequent visitors to the tower: Dead Orbit symbols, the simple icon of the Vanguard. The New Monarchy and Future War Cult as well, though fewer examples can be seen. Others bears symbols never seen in the Tower to date. Every single ship, from the largest cruiser to the smallest personal craft, carries shards of stone, remnants of the City and the Tower. Banners too, tattered and worn from entering and leaving warp. The fleet is only visible for a few breaths, less than a minute. Then, with a massive flash of light, the fleet jumps on. The craft that have lost power are left behind, spinning and whirling away from the etheric wake of their powered fellows. The Ghost spins on, and soon enough only stars fill its field of view until the fragment ends.
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I can gather many things from these cards:
1.The Fallen were not always violent, and perhaps grew to be massive
2. The Traveler remained on the Fallen homeworld for some time, and was not damaged at that time. Perhaps adding fuel to the theory that Rasputin attacked the Traveler from below to keep it over the City (that's a story for another time).
3. The Exo were created to battle the Vex.
Long ago, Exo and Vex battled across war-torn planets, and the Vex may have been a major contributing factor to The Collapse
4. The Tower and the City are going to be attacked and Destroyed. Human fleets will retreat to deep space, and carry remnants of the settlement with them. They are presumably looking for a new home
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The final card is him going to the past. Not the future, just FYI. It's at the end of the golden age.