<So I made a post a while back talking about Vex futures and how we completely just -blam!- it up all the time. The Black Garden, Paradox, Dark Future, DARK Future, etc. So, as a break from all the Cayde and Uldren posts, here's another "we're doomed" post by yours truly. There's was this gem mentioned in D1. [b]Legends and Mysteries: Vault of Glass 3.[/b] [quote]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.[/quote] I never touched on this future. In fact I forgot that it even existed. But it changes things. Let me get this out of the way, I dislike the Stranger. I really do. When I first played through D1, I was indifferent, but I grew to just resent her as a character. Cryptic for literally no reason. Plus the "no time to explain" line was just... ugh. Also the community's obsession with her drove me away, similar to Nokris (until now), and... someone else who's name I forgot. All of that being said, she is a key to understanding this future and hers. She's been confirmed as Elsie Bray, actual daughter of the OG Clovis Bray family and not adopted like Anastasia. She was interested in Vex tech (explaining her interest in the Vex and her time-warping). Her future and this future are close, in fact they may be the same... but there's something to add due to the introduction of the Dark Future and the oncoming doom. Can't believe I'm actually analyzing something from her... [quote]From the journals of Beatrix Danai, Pilot Elsie Bray designed this ship—she was even at the naming ceremony. I wasn't the pilot of the ship back then. Back then there wasn't even a war to worry about. That was the Golden Age, and it's as if all anybody ever did was improve themselves, expand knowledge, build amazing machines, and eat lotus or whatever you do in endless paradise. But I'll tell you what, those dark panels? Those avoid detection by other ships' sensors. Which kind of makes you wonder, why did she design something so great for war in a time of peace? Maybe for some people, perfection in the Golden Age meant developing something like perfect vision of just what could become of Humankind. Not all of it would be pretty.[/quote] It's the lore tab of [b]Shadow Trespass[/b]. Keep that name in mind. In D1, we hear that the Stranger's future involves ships given her line about "killing the engines". So they're somewhere adrift... running from something. Some theories earlier on said Vex, but that was swiftly proven wrong. The Vex don't use ships. Fallen were too few. Only Cabal had a viable chance at being "them". Lo and behold, some theories actually came with that in mind during the D2 reveal. However... the Vex themselves actually give us some insight in to what this is. Also the D2 End Credits give us another hint. -blam!-, the ship itself gives us an idea, from name to appearance. Every Vex future that doesn't belong to them (Dark Future 2 (current) and Paradox) involves something greater. Something they fear. Let me tell what that is. The Darkness. They fear us, but they fear IT more. It's a shadow that can eclipse their eyes. The thing that can wipe them all out. The thing capable of corrupting their Collective Mind. The Dark Future we see in the campaign and the Dark Future mentioned in Null Calamity 9's lore tab are very similar, the only difference being IT. In the 1st Dark Future, the Vex are the only things alive, having succeeded with heavy losses. In the 2nd, they are having a mass exodus from Mercury, the whole planet shaking from earth-shattering drum sounds. It is the Darkness' future now. The ship's name is sort of a giveaway. Shadow Trespass. What shadow do we know? What uses ships besides Cabal, Fallen, and Hive? The Darkness. I would say that the Hive could be the ones responsible for the ship's design... but they aren't. Here's why: [quote]RECORD 092-BRIDGE-08.1 Configuration worked, mostly. Arrived under the surface, surrounded. Too slow to return, barely fought to a vantage point. Yes there is dark evil here, and not the one we chase. Suggest no other attempts without more care. RECORD 120-BRIDGE-05.3 They are feral on the surface but their intent is complex behind the teeth and claws. More is shared with the machines than common enemies alone. RECORD 142-BRIDGE-07.4 An unexpected extraction. These Guardians stopped some dark ritual before I could reach it. Tearing the Light away... like the Garden. Too similar to go uncharted.[/quote] [quote]RECORD 312 - BRIDGE - 3.3 Watching Guardian-Hive engagements confirms a trajectory toward Earth. This Moon is theirs — a breeding ground, their black heart, perhaps. Different from that we know, but seems to be that same dark end I see us fall to over and over.[/quote] The Hive aren't the evil that hunts the stranger. But it's part of the same "dark end". Do you know what the Heart of the Black Garden was supposed to do? It was supposed to empower the Vex Sol Progeny with dark abilities in order to destroy Light and Dark and pave the universe for the Convergence... now that I know... that plan didn't work against the Darkness. Dark abilities... the two theories on what the Heart was both involve the Deep. Whether it's a shard of IT or a stolen worm. It's the same Darkness. And it makes sense. So why did I link the End Credits and mention it in the post? Well... it's for the second part of the title. Drums play, easily heard over everything else, when the Light passes over this fleet. Loud. Hard to miss. Null Calamity 9 (hey we're back to this) says this: [quote]Osiris hovered, cross-legged, at the center of a ruined Lighthouse. A dead sun loomed in the lightless sky. Arrayed on the ground below to the horizon, yellow Vex eyes pierced the gloom. Sagira zoomed straight to Osiris's side. "I thought we averted this future!" Eyes closed, Osiris shook his head. "Many equations lead to this answer." A sound like a drumbeat, but with the impact of an earthquake, shook the Lighthouse. Sagira darted through the crumbling chamber. "What do we do?" Another bone-rattling drumbeat kicked up clouds of dust. Osiris floated to his feet. "We start over." BOOM. Through the window, a shadow eclipsed the Vex eyes. [/quote] I once thought the "Heart Future" in the D1 Vanilla campaign was a future where the Vex won, like the 1st Dark Future. It turns out that the latter is the ONLY future in Destiny history so far where the Vex win. Everything else is just prolonging the inevitable. Short version: Shadow Trespass is named that because it can avoid detection by the Darkness, based on collected knowledge of Legends and Mysteries: Vault of Glass 3, Null Calamity 9, Ghost Fragment: Exo Stranger 2, and the Destiny 2 After Credits Cutscene. Short-short version: We're -blam!-ed.>