The Path of Toland

Toland, The Shattered was a warlock obsessed with understanding the Hive and the Darkness. He played a central role in Eris' failed raid against Crota, and I believe he played a guiding role in the fight against Oryx. Toland the Shattered, the exiled master of Hive arcana, was a sunsinger (though that doesn't preclude that he was also a voidwalker). [quote]"I have left searing footprints on the dark side of the Moon. I have stood on the spires of Mercury, chilled by the solar wind. I have stretched my wings, and I have flown. That is what is possible when you understand the Sun's song." —Toland's Journal. (Complete the Path quest)[/quote] It's unknown when his dark investigations started, but at some point he was able to commune with the Darkness and learned from it. Interestingly enough, it's unknown how Toland could speak to the Darkness, and Oryx had to kill a god (Akka) to gain this privilege. [quote]Eris: And how do you know this? Toland: It was told to me. [...] Toland: By the Darkness itself. (Might of Crota)[/quote] Toland used his knowledge of the Darkness and Hive sorcery to create the Bad Juju exotic pulse rifle. [quote]Dark energies seep from the barrel of the rifle. It is ready to be born. Return to the Gunsmith. (description of Sated Pulse rifle from the year 1 Bad Juju bounty)[/quote] [quote]"If you believe your weapon wants to murder all existence, then so it will." - Toland the Shattered There must be a structured, mechanical explanation for this weapon's hunger for combat. There must be. But none has been found.[/quote] Eris' fireteam was formed with a desire to avenge the thousands of guardians killed by Crota during the failed attempt to retake the moon from the Hive; this was known as the Great Disaster. Toland was recruited into this fireteam for his expertise on the Hive and the Darkness. [quote]My name is Eriana-3, disciple of the Praxic Warlocks, marked by the Cormorant Seal. Survivor of the great disaster: the day we set out to retake our moon, united in a host of thousands, and found ourselves outmatched by one Hive champion of unspeakable power. The monster's name is Crota. He killed my friends face to face, one by one, and he relished it. In the name of all those lost I devote myself to his utter destruction. This is my confession. If I transgress in your eyes I ask for your forgiveness. In our world Crota seemed invincible. Together Eris Morn and I worked the problem, but found no hope. So we sought forbidden knowledge—the exiled master of Hive arcana. We found Toland. (Crota's End)[/quote] Toland's motives for joining was not about revenge, but for knowledge. He knew about the deathsinger Ir Yut and of her power to kill with just a song. He wanted to learn her song and have this power for himself. [quote]Toland speaks—he hardly seems mad, at times—of the terrible things that await us. A secret song he hungers to learn, and the issue of that song, an ashen burning star-husk that looms above, the utter antithesis of life. He talks of it with a curious ambition I do not want to understand. (Crota's End)[/quote] [quote]We'll learn the song down there. We can learn it from Her. She comes up from the deep dark places where the greater Hive await to sing it to us, and here's a puzzle for you— The song is death. To hear it is to die. To know the words is mortal. (Ir Yût, the Deathsinger)[/quote] The raid failed, and all members of the fireteam died except for Eris Morn. Toland was killed by Ir Yut's deathsong after making contact with her, but his disembodied mind went on. He explored the dark universe known as the overworld which links the throne worlds of Hive gods. [quote]Vell is spectacularly dead. Omar and Sai are quite dead too. Eriana, poor Eriana, she was so very bright at the end, wasn’t she? A brave light. [...] I, too, am detached from my source. The charming Ir Yût made her introductions, and I was very pleased to meet her. We had a conversation, a little tête-à-Yût, a couple old wizards exchanging definitions. I defined myself a friend. She defined for me the quiddity of death, and she sang the song of that fearful autonomy. Revelation, my friends, it does go down hard. The definition killed me. The killing redefined me. [...] Now I fly between green-black suns in the labyrinth beyond Crota’s god-star. This is the Overworld, the Sea of Screams, where the throne-universes of the great Hive fester in eternal majesty. I move among them. I map the shapes and connections of this world. (Ghost Fragment: The Hellmouth)[/quote] From the netherrealms, Toland communicated valuable intelligence about Oryx to us in the grimoire cards ORYX, THE TAKEN KING, ORYX: REBUKED, ORYX: DEFEATED, ECHO OF ORYX, and KING'S FALL. It might even be the case that the flying spark of energy that guided us in the war against Oryx was really Toland, though there is not much hard evidence to support this. Toland observed us kill Oryx in the King's Fall raid, but we have angered him in our refusal to replace Oryx as the new Taken King as Hive tradition and ascendent realm physics dictate. The fact that Toland was observing also lends credence to the theory that he was the spark guiding us. [quote]You fools! You disastrous, bumbling squanderers! It's not right! Who now shall be First Navigator, Lord of Shapes, harrowed god, Taken King? Not you! You might have been Kings and Queens of the Deep! But you have toppled Oryx and you have not replaced him! There must be a strongest one. It is the architecture of these spaces. Why are you leaving? (KING'S FALL)[/quote] Toland's most interesting contribution in my opinion is his theory on the nature of the universe being ultra-Darwinistic. Everything, from subatomic particles, living things, to the stars are all in a struggle for existence. Less stable forms of existence (like primordial particle broths) cease to exist, and that leaves behind the the better more stable and long lasting modes of existence (like atoms) and their descendants to compete against each other in the next era for the dominant for of existence. This is found in a Grimoire card on the Darkness, and this suggests that this is the unconscious logic that governs the nature of the Darkness. Darkness is a force that seeks to be the only and last for of existence by wiping out all others. [quote]Why does anything exist? No no no no no don't reach for that word. There's no 'reason'. That's teleology and teleology will stitch your eyelids shut. Why do we have atoms? Because atomic matter is more stable than the primordial broth. Atoms defeated the broth. That was the first war. There were two ways to be and one of them won. And everything that came next was made of atoms. [...] Imagine three great nations under three great queens. The first queen writes a great book of law and her rule is just. The second queen builds a high tower and her people climb it to see the stars. The third queen raises an army and conquers everything. The future belongs to one of these queens. Her rule is harshest and her people are unhappy. But she rules. This explains everything, understand? This is why the universe is the way it is, and not some other way. [b]Existence is a game that everything plays, and some strategies are winners:[/b] the ability to exist, to shape existence, to remake it so that your descendants - molecules or stars or people or ideas - will flourish, and others will find no ground to grow. And as the universe ticks on towards the close, the great players will face each other. In the next round there will be three queens and all of them will have armies, and now it will be a battle of swords - until one discovers the cannon, or the plague, or the killing word. Everything is becoming more ruthless and in the end only the most ruthless will remain (LOOK UP AT THE SKY) and they will hunt the territories of the night and extinguish the first glint of competition before it can even understand what it faces or why it has transgressed.[b] This is the shape of victory: to rule the universe so absolutely that nothing will ever exist except by your consent. This is the queen at the end of time, whose sovereignty is eternal because no other sovereign can defeat it. And there is no reason for it, no more than there was reason for the victory of the atom. It is simply the winning play.[/b] (Ghost Fragment: Darkness 3)[/quote] Even in death could not extinguish his curiosity, and he remains an exemplar to many warlocks such as myself. [b]For lore 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]