My [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/171885380/0/0]previous attempt to cover this topic[/url] started as an overall analysis of the Awoken, but the topic was so large that it required three separate posts, but I felt that the overall volume of these posts drowned out topics like the veil which warrant their own discussions. [b]What Is The Veil?[/b] We know looking through or beyond the veil let's one see possible versions of the future which branch from one's own timeline. Lakshmi-2 might dock me reputation for sharing our secrets, but Future War Cult (FWC) has a Golden Age prototype device that allows those who step into it to "open the veil," and see possible futures. [quote]reported the sensation we have called "The Opening Of The Veil." The Device recorded temporal displacement of her consciousness. (Ghost Fragment: Future War Cult)[/quote] Beyond the veil seems to be where the thanatonauts go to for their visions. Thanatonauts are warlocks that commit suicide to get visions and knowledge before being revived by their ghosts. Interestingly, the thanatonaut Pujari used this method to get visions of the past also. [quote]A thousand Thanatonauts on a thousand journeys have made only the tiniest of tears in death's veil. (Bond of Veils description)[/quote] [quote]I am Pujari. These are the visions I have had of the Black Garden. The Traveler moved across the face of the iron world. (Legend: The Black Garden)[/quote] Queen Mara Sov and the coven mother of the Techeuns (AKA tech-witches) have the ability to look beyond the veil granting them visions. They are able to see the universe and all of infinity. [quote]The amulet around her neck marked Illyn as the coven’s mother, granting her visions beyond the veil, places only the Queen could go. (The Coven)[/quote] [quote]She was alone with her Fallen guards, sitting before a window into infinity. Her eyes did not leave the universe; but sensing her brother she said "Yes. What is it?" (Ghost Fragment: Queen's Brother)[/quote] The Radiance of the Sunsinger warlock seems to be associated with the veil. [quote]The Sunsinger is proof that the Light is everywhere. The wings of Radiance allow a Guardian to fly beyond the veil. What further proof do you need, Speaker? (Path of the Sunsinger questline)[/quote] [quote]A Warlock in a state of Radiance threatens to slip [b]beyond the bonds of the material[/b] (Radiance)[/quote] The veil seems to be a boundary not just separating our current moment in reality from other moments in time, but the bolded quote suggests that what exists beyond the veil is not material in nature. If that is the case, what immaterial things exist there? There are other clues that beyond the veil is more than just a "place" to see alternate futures and the past, but it is also a universe that is more "real" than ours, and that we might just be a pale shadow of (makes me think of Plato). The essence of things exists beyond the veil, and our universe is like a projection created by it. [quote]Your bullets reach beyond the veil to strike enemies at their purest essence. (Mos Morsus III description)[/quote] Maya Sundaresh, the Golden Age researcher that would go on to create FWC confirmed that the time-viewing device based on Vex gate systems. This leads me to believe that the Vex perform time travel by crossing the veil, and that the Black Garden exists beyond the veil. I would speculate that Thanatonauts gain knowledge from beyond the veil through the same principles as the FWC machine. [quote]We built the device in mimicry of the Vex gateway systems from Ishtar. (Ghost Fragment: Vex 5)[/quote] [b]The Darkness Beyond The Veil[/b] This view of existential supremacy of entities beyond the veil presented in the Mos Ardus III description is reminiscent of something Eris said to Ikora about the Taken. Much like the essence and realness of a thing is hidden beyond the veil, so too are Taken a more real. This leads to believe that the place that the Taken are brought to exists beyond the veil. I don't think it's the only thing beyond the veil though. This place where the abducted are brought to is the Darkness itself (AKA the Deep, according to Verse 5:7), or a place connected to the Darkness because Oryx obtained the power from the Darkness. [quote]I try to use the word ‘shadow’ but Eris hisses at me. A shadow is a flat projection cast by a light and an object. Less real. Eris insists that these Taken are more real, somehow. She uses words like inhabited, exalted, rendered final... (The Taken)[/quote] [quote]His speech to the Deep is not recorded here. But it is known that he returned, and he said, now I am Oryx, the Taken King. And I have the power to take life and make it my own. (Verse 3:8 — King of Shapes)[/quote] Now consider that the queen can call the dark. [quote]STARLIGHT WAS MY MOTHER.[...] AND MY FATHER WAS THE DARK. Here, at last, too late, the Kell begins to feel fear. CALL ON THEM, THEN, the Kell sends, one last mocking signal before death and ruin, AND SEE WHAT HELP THEY OFFER. So the Queen calls, as only she can. (Ghost Fragment: Fallen 4)[/quote] Now to the Black Garden. Because it exists outside of time, it must therefore exist beyond the veil. The Heart of the Garden is a piece of the Darkness, which shows that at least some portions of the Darkness are beyond the veil. For those who doubt that the Heart is a piece of the Darkness, Eris Morn said about the power of Taking (which we know is from the Darkness). [quote]Oryx wields this power. But Oryx did not make it. We face the same flower we met in the Black Garden. (The Taken)[/quote] We know the queen speaks to the dark, and that she can see beyond the veil, so it also makes sense that she uses her ability to reach beyond the veil to call the Darkness, or an affiliated less scary lowercase dark. [i]The Darkness, or fragments of it must exist in the immaterial realm beyond the veil.[/i] [b]Harbingers Beyond The Veil[/b] They are some sort of minds used as weapons that manipulate gravity; these were used by the Awoken in the battle against Oryx. [quote]They were all connected in trance, communing as the ancients did. Speaking would tip their hand to the Harbinger Minds they kept here, trophies from an ageless war, and weapons in the right hands. (The Coven)[/quote] I hypothesize that the Harbingers truly exist beyond the veil, and that they don't have a physical existence in our universe, (hence why they are referred to as just minds, and only appear as glowing orbs). The lack of physical body makes sense given how they need to use dead things to reproduce. The dead things could to act as vessels for the beings lacking bodies. [quote]The Harbingers, which to prepare?” Shuro was determined to see this all through. Excitement was taught to be kept at bay. “We cannot send them all.” Portia reminded. “All but one, the oldest. It stays with us. Sedia, Kalli, Shuro, take the children, tell her they are to be planted into a dead thing to have children of their own.” (The Coven)[/quote] Now what ageless war do the Awoken speak of? It can't be against the House of Wolves, because the "trophies" implies that they were taken from the enemy, but the Wolves never had the Harbingers. It isn't a war against the Darkness because the Reef has been mostly ambivalent, and have not taken sides in favor of light or Darkness (according to the Exo Stranger) until fairly recently. The most likely candidate for the Awoken's enemies in the ageless war, and the original owners of the Harbingers, seems to be... [i]the Nine[/i]. It makes sense given the physical proximity of the Reef to the Jovian worlds the Nine rule, and the Nine also seem to exist beyond the veil, as they live in another world, and are vulnerable in ours. [quote]He says the Nine are vulnerable ever moment they touch our world. (Brother Vance dialogue)[/quote] [b]EDIT:[/b] For more, read the new theory on harbingers and the Nine [b][url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/183854591/0/0]here[/url][/b] [b]Hive "Shapes" Beyond The Veil[/b] [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/177574612/0/0]In another topic[/url] I covered the Hive concept of shapes, and from what I could gather, shapes are abstract ideas that can be manipulated like objects. Death for example is a shape to the Hive, and the shape can be manipulated through the use of oversouls and deathsongs as it it were a tangible thing. Other concept like "lies" can be chewed upon and molded into weapons like poisons. We know that the stuff that exists beyond the veil is immaterial, but what is more immaterial than an abstract concept? This leads me to believe that these shapes exist in the strange plane that exists beyond the veil. Furthermore, the Darkness itself is described as a shape, and if the Darkness exists beyond the veil, it lends credence to other shapes existing in this space. (full citations in the linked thread) [b]To Sum Up The Veil:[/b] - It is a boundary separating not only time, but worlds. - The essence of existence lies beyond the veil. - Looking beyond the veil can be used to access visions of the past, present, and future. - The Vex travel beyond the veil with their gateway systems. - The "shapes" the Hive speak of may be the immaterial entities residing beyond the veil. - The true forms of harbingers exist beyond the veil. The same may be true for the Nine, who might be their original owners. - The Darkness, or at least portions of it resides beyond it. [b] For more theories by me, I refer you to the [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/183288968/0/0]Collected Treatises of The Warlock KAGEHOSHI[/url].[/b]