I just don’t understand why Bungie would establish that the Echoes are partially the memories of others subsumed by the Witness and build this entire story with the Qugu and Te’Qal only for it to be utterly meaningless within the in-game narrative of the Episode outside of a single radio message. My hope is that MAYBE this will be leveraged better with Revenant and the Echo Fikrul has found, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

[spoiler]It was more like, once the Pyramid was pierced through, the Witness triggered a wave of Resonance to wipe out the remaining Qugu, and simultaneously offer Te'Qal and the Qugu "Salvation" through being made part of the Witness' gestalt being as a memory/Echo.[/spoiler] It does greatly recontextualize why the Qugu, and perhaps certain other races, would have been included in the Books of Sorrow, where they were originally just names as one of the races among the Hive's conquests. The Ecumene also had a lore entry for them in "Inspiral" that revealed their connection to Darkness, just as the Qugu had their own. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if one of the future Echoes is connected to the Ecumene - the memory of the race that nearly brought an end to the Hive, if not for Oryx gaining the Taken power.