[url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/169921880/0/0]I once made a post[/url] mapping the connection between these forces, but in light of new evidence from the grimoire, I must appropriately amend my thoughts. [b]The Worms[/b] So the Books of Sorrow details the rise of the Hive as we know them. They used to be a weak short-lived species, and in their quest to save themselves from an extinction event, Oryx (at the time called Aurash) and his sisters entered a symbiotic deal with these worms that gave them power and immortality. The worms are from the Darkness, but they are not the Darkness. Source: [quote]the Darkness-which-is-the-Deep (Books of Sorrow: XLIX: Forever And A Blade)[/quote] [quote]We are the Worm your God, but we are not the Deep Itself (Books of Sorrow: XIX: Crusaders)[/quote] [b]The Ahamkara[/b] The Ahamkara are said to be dragons that appeared in the Solar System. They were said to grant wishes, influence thoughts, and they were supposedly hunted to extinction on the orders of the Vanguard. The Ahamkara didn't arrive, but instead just sprouted up when the Traveler arrived. [quote]Everyone knows the Ahamkaras were hunted to extinction. There's nothing to be afraid of anymore . . . How much life sprang up when the Traveler came. Like the Ahamkara. Do you know the legends? The dragon that made promises? (Ghost Fragment: Warlock)[/quote] [b]The Worm-Ahamkara Relation[/b] There are many passages from the Books of Sorrow which suggest a connection between the worms and the Ahamkara. Based on the evidence at the time, I interpreted the connection as the Ahamkara being another species who worship the worms, and I would still stand by this belief based on the language and evidence provided in the Books of Sorrow (feel free to read my reasoning in the original thread), but new evidence suggests that I was wrong. According to the new grimoire where explorers search the tunnels of the moon and find worms, it is revealed, or at least heavily implied that the worms are very closely related. I would posit that they share a common ancestor. [quote]They might have been worms, if worms had scales and teeth and moved more quickly than a man could run. (Ghost Fragment: Ocean of Storms 2)[/quote] [quote]There is no returning to what you were before: a believer of science, and the fundamental rationality of the universe. Not after seeing those worms. (Ghost Fragment: Ocean of Storms 2)[/quote] I still maintain that the worms and the Ahamkara are distinct because the Hive encountered the Ahamkara before, and they saw it fit to call them "dragons" instead of "worms" as they've previously referred to their symbiotes. Also, Savathûn, Oryx's sister wanted to vivisect an Ahamkara, which suggest that it is something unfamiliar to her that she wishes to learn about. [quote]Next arrives Savathûn, flanked by her chorus and her celebrants. They trick their way onto Ana-Harmony in disguises, so that they might vivisect these dragons. (Verse 5:4 — The Gift Mast)[/quote] [b]The Role of The Traveler[/b] Now consider what all appearances of the Ahamkara and worms have in common. It is always somewhere the Traveler has altered with it's powers. By using it's powers of Light, it unintentionally unleashes powers of the Darkness. I believe the symmetry described by the warlock Pujari explains why the actions of the Traveler results in creatures of the Darkness. Pujari talked about how the Traveler's terraforming of Mars is the reason for the Black Garden. [quote]The Traveler moved across the face of the iron world. It opened the earth and stitched shut the sky. [b]It made life possible. In these things there is always symmetry[/b]. Do you understand? This is not the beginning but it is the reason. The Garden grows in both directions. It grows into tomorrow and yesterday. (Legend: The Black Garden grimoire card). [/quote] Basically, when the Traveler performs actions like terraforming and seeding life, something linked to the darkness always arises also—in some cases it's the Ahamkara/worms. For further evidence, let us look back to the Fundament, the gas giant where the Hive as we know them were created. The worms were trapped by the Traveler deep inside the planet, and they used their powers to pull hundreds of species to the Fundament in hopes that one of them will able able to free them. These species did not evolve to survive in the gargantuan pressures and gravity of of a gas giant; these forces are so strong that they turn elements like hydrogen and helium into liquid. There is no way they should have been able to survive the Fundament. This suggest that the Traveler terraformed the Fundament to make it habitable, and this is likely what lead to the worms appearing. Who was it terraformed? Well the Traveler was at the time supporting a species known as the Ammonites who lived on one of the moons of the Fundament. The Traveler terraformed our planets and moons when it arrived in the Solar System for our benefit, and so I think it did so to the Fundament and it's moons for the benefit of the Ammonite. The worms are likely a biproduct of this. [b]The Record So Far[/b] Traveler terraforms Fundament: worms appear. Traveler terraforms the Harmony system: Ahamara appear. Traveler terraforms Mars in the Solar System: Black Garden appears. Traveler terraforms elsewhere the Solar System: Ahamkara appear. Traveler alters Earth's moon in the Solar System: worms appear (or Ahamkara, the narrator was not sure if worms. It could be that the worms on the moon came with the Hive, but the card seems to take place before the Hive took the moon). [b]Similarities and Differences Between the Worms and Ahamkara[/b] Worms start as larvae small enough that they can be ingested for symbiosis by the Hive. I assume they start as white considering the first worm discovered by the proto-Hive was white, and also small. [quote]Tomorrow he will wander the halls, speaking to his familiar, a dead white worm from the deep sea. (Verse 1:2 — The Hateful Verse)[/quote] [quote]Take into your bodies our children, our newborn larvae. From them you shall obtain eternal life. (Verse 1:9 — The Bargain)[/quote] *The worms we see on the dreadnaught match this description. More mature worms appear more dragon-like. They are large and possess scales and teeth. [quote]They might have been worms, if worms had scales and teeth and moved more quickly than a man could run. (Ghost Fragment: Ocean of Storms 2)[/quote] *This is assuming that these are worms, and not Ahamkara, but later on the narrator specifically calls them worms. Very old and powerful worms that achieved godhood appear extremely large, and winged. So large that the dreadnaught is actually made from a piece of a dead worm god (Akka). [quote]I am Yul, the Honest Worm. Behold my passage. Behold my vast displacement, my ponderous strength, my great and coiling length, my folded jaws and curled wings. Behold the hiving cities symbiotic with my flesh. (Verse 1:9 — The Bargain) [/quote] [quote]To make his ship, Oryx scrimshawed one piece of Akka, who was dead but far from gone. (Verse 4:11 — Dreadnaught)[/quote] The Ahamkara are often described as dragons, and the Ahamkara are described as parasitic reptilians by Cayde. [quote]We were there for the Ahamkara, parasitic reptilian critters that appeared out of thin air. Inexplicable genome. New proteins. So much potential. ([url=https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/3kxclc/spoilers_inside_caydes_treasure_island_notes/]Cayde's notes, more here[/url])[/quote] This description is very similar to mature worms. While the physiology is very close, the worms and Ahamkara behave very differently. The Ahamkara do not seek a physical union, as far as we know, but the worms do. The Ahamkara grant wishes, which is very generalized, but the worms give a very specific gift, which is immortality. Both of their gifts come at a price; the worm's require bloodshed, and the Ahamkara's has an unknown price, but it was deemed so unacceptably high that the Vanguard ordered their destruction. [quote]Power had been obtained from the bargains, and the City needed power. Knowledge had been gleaned, and the Ahamkara knew answers to questions no one had known to ask. But the price was too high. (Ghost Fragment: Legends 3)[/quote] [i]Why are the Ahamkara and the worms different if they were originally one species? [/i] One possibility is that I am wrong about the Ahamkara being inherently of the Darkness because of the symmetry described by Pujari (or that the symmetry product doesn't have to be of the Darkness), and the worms could be the Ahamkara that do happen to join the Darkness. It could also be that the Ahamkara are the same Darkness-born species that simply behaves differently. Sure, the Hive seemed to think the worms and the Ahamkara are different, but that could simply be because the aren't used to seeing non-god matured worms since they ingest theirs when they're still larvae. Cayde's comment about Ahamkara being parasitic seems to suggest that if they wanted to, they could merge with other living beings the way the worms do with the Hive. [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]