Question time! How do you think things would've shaken out if Savathun or Xivu Arath was the first to the solar system instead of it being Oryx who got here first?
getting to this one early because I got. more asks than I expected skhrgshugr
but! short answer: I think the hive would have defeated us and crunched up the traveler. not without some difficulty, especially since we’re equally paracausal and depending on if eris still gets out of the hellmouth but. even then, I think humanity would be dead and the solar system swept clean of most life
the dreaming city proves that the hive have the resources to run circles around us at the best of times, and savathun is willing to commit to long-term plans layered in as much deception as possible. she’s also certainly the best of the osmium family at tactics which misguide us, waste our efforts and give her advantages to exploit. she understands what we value and then uses it against us (such as the detailed and very believable information in truth to power, and the constant contradictions so even now I’m not sure what to think about medusa and quria) and can deceive and infiltrate the works of an entity operating on an arguably greater scope than humanity (calus, she defaces his lore and embeds her power in the crown of sorrow)
if she was the one to find earth, even alone and without calling her siblings to come beat up the traveler again, I don’t necessarily think it would be a quick defeat. likely it’d take years for the full depth of her schemes to be revealed, and by then it’d probably be too late?
I think the true threat with savathun is that she actively takes an interest in her opponents to tear them down, and given humanity’s limited resources, it’s…. really hard to see us being able to combat that? you can’t just punch being outmaneuvered and predicted and being led down twenty wrong paths while she accomplishes her true goals, especially if she’s dangling an easier objective we can counter to keep us distracted…
so yeah, savathun showing up early would be terrifying and we would die
xivu is harder to get a read on because she has the least presence in-game, though we see her people on occasion. I would argue that she is the most likely of the three to actually call for a reunion if she finds the traveler, because of course she’d want to race her siblings to beat up the traveler, and that would make things… even worse!
but even without that, I think she has an advantage in that unlike oryx she doesn’t have a personal stake in earth. crota’s death forces oryx to care and to acknowledge guardians as a threat worthy of his attention. while I don’t doubt that xivu would want to fight some guardians personally (I Would Pay Money for her to 1v1 shaxx or ikora), she also shows up at the head of a millennia-old army, and would be perfectly happy to throw all of it at the solar system at large
the scope of hive expansion in the solar system in canon is very… piecemeal, and oryx doesn’t bring all of his forces along with him while charging over to avenge crota - I always read it as him bringing his court and a small fleet and supplementing his forces with taken throngs - and that also helps canon guardians fasttrack their way up the sword logic hierarchy. we get access to big threats to slaughter and prove our worth early on, even before imbuing ourselves with ascendant energy. if oryx hadn’t rushed, or taken us so personally, I really don’t think the taken king campaign would have actually been winnable?
with xivu we do have those big threats still but we have a whole lot more of them. entire hordes of ascendant hive, and to get to them long chains of power forged in centuries of war. the scale is just so much bigger that I can’t contemplate the relative size of the last city being able to hold out against that. maybe with the reef’s help, or if the impending doom also bands everyone else stuck in the solar system together but even then, the hive have been battling other paracausal civilizations like the ammonites and ecumene for thousands of years
that’s not to say that humanity would be defeated easily, or that guardians wouldn’t benefit from slaughtering their way up the hive hierarchy! it just… wouldn’t be enough, as I see it
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