I’m so here for No Time To Explain going places and not having time to explain how it’s ended up there. We first get it from Elsie in D1 vanilla, then do some very weird shit to get it again (is it the same gun? did we return it to Elsie? did she have a spare one? she has hers still in Beyond Light) in TTK with Lakshmi’s help and Praedyth’s ghostly presence. That whole quest is fascinating, but this:
(un)surprisingly does get a follow-up! Many long years later, in Aspect (ha!) we find out it was Praedyth who made the rifle after the gun he had been seeing Elsie with in his visions, in order to (very cryptically) warn us of the coming Darkness:
Praedyth carves messages into the last functional pieces of his gear: anything that can serve as a bottle for his messages, thrown out on time's ocean. And what does a Guardian pay more attention to than their equipment? They'll catch someone's eye, somewhen.
He knows the wave is coming. More visions flicker past him now, burning afterimages into his eyelids. More timelines—a possibility or eventuality, he doesn't know—lost to the encroaching dark.
He knows they won't be able to handle it alone. He knows they need a warning. They need to know it's coming.
Soon.
(Aspect: Jussive)
Okay I’m getting hooked now so why don’t we analyse all the lore about NTTE there has ever been. Sit comfortably and strap in, and let’s fucking go.
D1 vanilla flavour text of The Stranger’s Rifle reads:
Ghost's analysis suggests this weapon has been exposed to incredible forces…and that parts of it shouldn't yet exist.
What it tells us for now is that the gun has at least some parts made at a point in time later than D1 vanilla. Put a pin in it.
Then there is the NTTE Grimoire, and oh boy:
Novarro's timeline analysis indicates the weapon is the fabled Exo Stranger's Rifle, enhanced at a future point in this continuity and then sent back to this present.
Deliah's timeline analysis indicates the weapon was built by Praedyth, who based it on his own version of the Exo Stranger's Rifle, and then set it adrift in a time ripple.
Hari's timeline analysis indicates the weapon was built by beings of unidentifiable origin, and arrived here by pure accident.
Inachis's timeline analysis indicates the weapon originates from Earth, late Golden Age, and will eventually be lost to time ripples once again, where its systems will degrade and be replaced until our recent past acquires it as the Exo Stranger's Rifle.
Just for the record: Novarro is a FWC member who left the faction in SotSplicer following Lakshmi’s racist outbursts that caused his children to be harassed for socialising with the Eliksni. Hari-4 and later 5 was also a FWC member and a scientist, as well as one of the few contemporary Exos who suffered a spontaneous reset. I didn’t find any mention of Inachis or Deliah anywhere else in the lore.
I’m tentatively putting forth the idea that all the analyses mentioned in the card--sans Hari’s--are in some ways correct. Also put a pin in it, because we’ll be circling back to this loretab several times.
Now there is the Beyond Light NTTE, which we assemble ourselves with the help of Clovis’ old blueprints:
"The BT-7707 was prototyped as a weapon to combat the Vex; a portable mass driver capable of firing rounds that moved beyond relativistic speeds. I don't know if it was ever completed in this timeline, but a version of it was pulled from another by Clovis during experiments with Vex technology. But it was never completed. The plans exist here, now, and I intend to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. I'll need your help to do it."
- Elsie Bray (Quest: Soon)
Once we finish the weapon, Elsie adds:
"This might look familiar, I know. But it is, in fact, not one you've seen before. During the Golden Age, Clovis performed many experiments. When it came to experimenting with the Vex, it seemed endless. Time travel became possible, but only for short bursts of time, and with few options. It needed an anchor. Something already unstuck from time. This… was that anchor. And it wasn't the only one of its kind. For now, it's yours. And in time, all will be explained."
- Elsie Bray (Timewarped Relics)
This interaction alone felt like a punch to the gut because it suddenly made me question everything I thought I knew about the way time works in Destiny! Also put a very large pin in the first two sentences especially, and let’s go to the BL loretab (I’ll put only the relatable fragments here because it’s long):
Novarro's timeline analysis indicates the weapon is the fabled Exo Stranger's Rifle, enhanced at a future point in this continuity and then sent back to this present…
…on Europa. Late Golden Age. Deep inside a secret lab.
[...]
The old man gears up and enters a strange metallic pod made from Vex parts. Austen-1 stands at a distance from the pod, typing "April 10, 3025" into a console.
"All right, Dr. Bray. You're a go in 3… 2… 1…"
A burst of light.
An icy wasteland. What stood pristine moments prior is now dark, old, and falling apart, as if centuries have passed.
Clovis wades through the wreckage and comes to a frozen, deserted battlefield littered with human, Exo, Vex, and alien bodies. He reaches down and brushes snow from one of the alien bodies, lifting one of its many arms.
Using his device again, Clovis scans the ground until the blinking light goes solid. He digs into the snow until he hits something. He pulls it up halfway—a rifle, shining like new, etched only with one word: Now.
Clovis attempts to fully free the weapon. But it's stuck; attached to something. He pulls harder, revealing an entire dead Exo, hand wrapped tightly around the grip. He takes a good look at its face and gasps.
"Elisabeth…?"
The whirring sound reaches Clovis's ears again, pulling him out of his stupor. The ship heads right towards him. Clovis pries the gun from Elsie's rigid hand and sprints back the way he came, diving into his pod and activating it just as the ship fires on him.
A burst of light.
"You could have been killed," says a familiar voice.
"Instead, I got you a gift, Elisabeth," Clovis responds, catching his breath and dusting himself off.
"One down, an infinite number left to go. It better have been worth it."He looks into her eyes and musters a half-hearted smile.
"We'll make it so."
OKAY now let’s get the first and last pin out. I do have a theory, a tentative one for now--but I think there are at least two, possibly three, No Time To Explains scattered across timelines, that pass through our hands. The first is the one we create in Beyond Light, out of Clovis’ blueprints. I’d also hesitantly assume it is the same one we are given in D1 vanilla, it would understand why some parts of it “should not yet exist” back in D1 times--maybe Elsie reacquired the rifle in some future point and brought it back to give it to us. It would contradict, though her words about how “it’s not the one [we]’ve seen before”; I don’t know if she knows about the TTK No Time we got with Lakshmi’s help, so the only No Time she may know we have ever held in our hands was the one she had given to us in D1 vanilla. This would, then, make the Beyond Light NTTE separate from all the other instances of that gun.
Now let’s circle back to the TTK Grimoire and the theories put forth there. The BL loretab references Novarro’s analysis and seems to confirm that the rifle Clovis found in the future and brought back to the late Golden Age is, in fact, the same one Elsie got from Clovis (what is mentioned also somewhere in the book Legacy’s Lament) and has wielded ever since, also in Praedyth’s visions.
Deliah’s analysis is more or less confirmed in Aspect and in this file from Praedyth’s Ghost.
Inachis’s analysis links to the Golden Age origins of the weapon (which could be echoed in the BL loretab as Elsie acquiring the gun in the Golden Age - it is a timeline analysis, so maybe Inachis’s studied reached only so far down the chain of places the gun had been), but also brings forth the theory that The Stranger’s Rifle from D1 vanilla is the same one as the exotic No Time To Explain.
Now let me bring forth another idea--now much more solid and thought-through, but maybe a hot take nonetheless--that the NTTE Clovis found in the future, frozen on Europa, is the same Praedyth made in the Vault and send adrift.
But wait - I hear you say - the flavour texts disprove it! Look at the flavour texts!
A single word is etched onto the inside of the weapon's casing: “Soon.”
- No Time To Explain (D1 TTK)
A single word etched onto the inside of the weapon's casing: Now.
- No Time To Explain (D2 BL)
And now I need to shed some light on how I believe paracausality in Destiny works in relation to time, and why it is, in fact, timebreaking. It plays a bit into the Vault of Glass’ premise of ‘Guardians make their own fate’, but is way more fleshed out in the Paradox mission. Tl;dr the Vex lure us into the Vault to help them chase out the Taken; according to Praedyth, they believe this is the end of them, the Taken infestation of the Vault (and from there possibly the whole network, as Atheon is, ah, Time’s Conflux), but then we step in:
“They think this is the end of them, a path with no escape. [...] But then, they won't end, will they? Because you're here.”
- Praedyth (Paradox)
This means the Light can change the future outcome, because the way time works in Destiny (and the way the Vex operate in it) is that everything that’s ever happened and will ever happen is still happening (I wrote about it here so I’m not gonna go into details), and so paracausal forces can alter things that has already happened in the future, or the past.
What does it mean in regards to the words etched on NTTE?
Well, we know the “Soon” was a message from Praedyth about the encroaching Darkness. But the Darkness has arrived in the meantime (between us acquiring the TTK No Time and BL No Time), and as the Darkness is a paracausal force, its influence can spread through time in both directions (THE BLACK GARDEN GROWS IN BOTH DIRECTIONS, MAYBE I FINALLY UNDERSTAND???!!). What if its arrival changed the visions Praedyth could see in the Vault--changed his outlook on things--made him realise the time was NOW, not SOON--changed the message he wrote on the gun. And that’s how the BL and TTK versions of NTTE are the same gun.
