[Part 2]
Part 1 link: https://www.bungie.net/de/Forum/Post/252803194/0/0
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[b][u]What we know about Shadowkeep:[/u][/b]
Despite all the obvious facts like Eris returning and the red fortress and all that stuff, what do we know about Shadowkeep that gives us clues towards its story?
Here’s a small list:
- “The Darkness is closer than you think”
- the moon has major geographical changes
-it’s not only about the Hive
- it will push elements of psychological horror
- it’s about the worst fears of Guardians
- old enemies are coming back as “Nightmares”
- ”Nightmares are manifestations of our guardians past”
- Eris unleashed the Nightmares, seemingly on accident
- the Fallen have a new settlement on the moon
- a secret golden age expedition to the moon will also play into the story
- Black Garden is the new Raid
- Vex invasions will be happening throughout the system
For the intents and purposes of this post, I will leave out all the stuff about Fallen and Vex, because that’s a discussion for another time. But do know that it’s probably important.
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[b][u]Theory time:[/u][/b]
First up: I don’t think that the Nightmares are actually [i]resurrected[/i] enemies. Think about it. They are called [b]Nightmares[/b] and are described as “manifestations”. If you look closely at them, you’ll see that all of them seem a little bit translucent. Moreover, the gameplay of the fight against Nightmare Crota labels him as “Crota Phantasma”. They probably are something along the lines of an apparition or phantom.
Now comes the theory part. I’m not extremely sure about this, but it’s definitely worth a thought.
I think that the fragments are linked to the Nightmares, if not causing them in the first place.
Remember what we learned about the fragments? That they cause hallucinations and visions in [b]Guardians[/b]? The developers literally said that Shadowkeep would be about the worst fears of [b]Guardians[/b] and psychological horror. What a coincidence that all the Nightmares are enemies [i]our[/i] Guardian has killed before.
I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.
Our Guardians worst fear is probably failure. And failing to kill the most dangerous foes to humanity (or some of them) over and over, as it is described in the ViDoc, would be devastating for our Guardian.
I’m not yet ready to go further with this theory, because I can’t fit Eris or Savathûn in this yet, so that’s all for now.
All I’m going to say now is that the Nightmares [b]may[/b] be the product of the Hive experimenting with the fragments.
No matter if the fragments do or don’t cause the Nightmares, they have to come from somewhere.
We know they come from at least one crashed ship of unknown origin.
I personally think a link could be made to the secret golden age expedition, which seems to be related to the first Chinese colonists of the moon. Especially since the fragments are described to be similar to a solar panel in appearance. Even though they do give off some [i]heavy[/i] Darkness vibes, they are described to sound not so alien.
So either they are somehow man-made and from the golden age [b]or[/b] they do have a dark origin and somehow came into possession of humanity before the collapse, which also seems weird.
I do admit that the link starts to get hazy at this point, but it’s still worth a thought, especially since golden age tech is still very mysterious and sometimes seems close to magic in how ridiculous it can be.
I still want to stress that it’s extremely likely that we will get some [b]major[/b] Darkness teasers, or probably even Darkness involvement in Shadowkeep. That’s a given.
So I’m basically still leaning towards a dark origin of the fragments, even though the coincidence of a crashed unknown ship and a failed expedition is...tempting.
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That’s it for now. There will probably be a follow-up/correction to this post once we have more information. Feel free to add your own thoughts.
[spoiler]I’m posting this while most of you are probably asleep, so I’m going bump this later.[/spoiler]
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It would be very cool to play through all of the “what-if” pathways as nightmares. I.e. what if we failed to stop Crota from destroying Earth? What if we failed to break Ta’arch’s grip on freehold? etc. etc. Interesting concept and an even more excellent excuse to recycle content.