I'll be sending asks about your guardians to anyone who interacts with this post. Just respond, reblog or just like and I'll jump to your ask box demanding answers about your character(s).
If you want to help, please have any info pinned on your blog or give me their name(s) on this post <3
it's always fun watching people discover dares of eternity just 'cause it's so tonally different from anything else in the game. yeah yeah fighting for our right to exist and determine our own fates yadda yadda what if you wanted to compete in a gameshow. and the horse is the host
Okay so I’m a relatively new light and I don’t have people to talk too about destiny yet so every time I have a thought I’m just going to yell into the tumblr void some really stupid stuff and hope something sticks somewhere
also correct me if I’m wrong on any lore or anything (sources appreciated greatly!!! I love reading those entries!!!)
But like I just started witch queen and I think it’s kinda crazy how they are treating the hive ghosts????
All guardians were chosen by the traveler to protect it right?? It’s stated multiple times that ghosts don’t get to choose who they rise, that they have only one person calling to them and thats their one true guardian. So why is our ghost saying that they are traitors to humanity and could have chosen anyone else when they couldn’t have and he should have known that by being a ghost himself????
How could the hive steal the light if it was gifted to them by the traveler???????? Presumably. because all we know at this point in the story is that ghosts granted by traveler after collapse must protect and we have seen the cabal try and fail to try and synthesize the light and also the vex can simulate it but can’t can’t wield it
So like. Where else would they get it from….???? We have seen the hive eat light I think??? I read something about Eris where it said that she saw one of her fireteam members light be fed to a newly hatched brood of thralls so maybe that idk but. And I can not stress this enough. Have seen time and time again that the light can only be gifted to someone by the traveler. And it’s not the ghosts decision. So why are we automatically presuming the hive stole the light here??? Why is that the first natural assumption to come to??? Yeah maybe savathun is like. The deception guy but idk if you can deceit your way into a blessing from god.
And okay. What if savathun did steal the light or whatever. OUR GHOST WOULDNT KNOWWWW THAT YETTTTUHHH. We have to at least imagine and consider a fucked up reality where the traveler would give light to the hive.
And then that opens up a whole new can of worms of why is it ethical when the humanity has light and kills shit vs. When the hive have light and do fuck all in their own damn plane of existence???
Literally at this point in the story at least what makes crushing a hives ghost any different than crushing a humans ghost?
Obviously the hive are objectively bad. Space colonizers who have invaded our solar system with the purpose of destroying humanity and bringing about the final shape. And we are actively at war with them and have been since the collapse. savathûn, xivu arath, and oryx have killed countless innocent people and have sacrificed even more of their own species to try and reach these ends. But humanity (and the awoken and exos) have done almost the same exact shit with different purpose.
Humanity killed all of the ahamkara, We know that saint 14 has literally given the eliksni generational trauma with his lowkey kinda genocide on them, taking out the eliksni ‘s servitors specifically and strategically to cause them to starve and rot from the inside out, just the entirety of the dark age, also the entirety of the great disaster (though those two are more like the humanity fucking with humanity)
And so what makes all of these things bad when the hive does it, and good when we do? Is it the traveler and its light? Is it to protect the last city? Earths life as a whole? And then why does it extend to other planets that have (at least no clear) human settlements on it? At what point does it stop being self defense and protecting the traveler and begin attacking? Is destroying eliksni and cabal settlements become okay when it’s in the vanguard’s interest? Because they might attack us? What made the eliksni houses redeemable and the hive not?
All of that to say, traveler make an exception I’m sending this ghost back to the manufacturer please give me a new one because mine is space racist please and thank you 🙂↕️
Some people pointed it out already, but it's not entirely clear how Ghosts choose and why. Most of them feel like they have one person they have to rez, but as someone already mentioned, there's at least one example of a Ghost rezing someone that isn't their chosen, so they do have the capacity to rez anyone. There's another similar example here, from early Dark Age where Osiris kills a warlord, but the Ghost is spared and it's stated that the Ghost will "go find someone better." Also:
"The Traveler was… wounded when it created us. That pain echoes. Some of us make choices we shouldn't. Some of us are scared. The process isn't streamlined."
Ghosts can make mistakes! This includes Fynch in WQ, who is a very interesting example. Fynch said that he both felt pressured by others to pick a Hive and regrets this decision as he does not feel like his Hive Knight is really his "Guardian," but also that he did feel this Hive like it was his chosen. Fynch is very explicitly regretting what he did and what he chose, even with what he felt for this Hive, especially since he also felt pressured into it by others and his own beliefs.
Luzaku's Ghost is also an interesting example because of how disconnected they are with what their Guardian wanted. It is very clear that some Ghosts, like Euloch, have their own personal beliefs that led them away from the Traveler and the Light and that they explicitly want to go against all of that, including killing Guardians, even when their Hive Lightbearer protests. This one is also strange; a Ghost who is obsessed with making a perfect Hive Lightbearer, rezing them over and over despite the fact that the Hive itself clearly has an issue with this and is repeatedly killing themselves in hopes of staying dead. This is very grim, and makes me feel for the Acolyte very much, and portrays the Ghost as the one who's the villain here.
It comes with the Light's philosophy of choice; if everyone is allowed to choose who they want to be, that means some will choose to not be good. I think it's perfectly reasonable for our Ghost to lash out and feel betrayed when there's Ghosts who do this sort of stuff, who make mistakes, who have negative beliefs and feelings about the Traveler and the Light and are willing to do whatever it takes to go against them, including killing Guardians and other Ghosts.
More under:
The assumption that the Hive somehow stole the Light also makes sense from the perspective of the characters because it's so unfathomable to believe that the Traveler ever intended for the Hive to have the Light; something that we learn later to be untrue and is crucial in figuring out how to take down Savathun. The Traveler did intend to give Light to the Hive originally, though obviously not through Ghosts. But it proves that the Hive are capable of receiving the Light. Or at least the old Krill of the Fundament were. We just didn't know that until later. The idea that Savathun and her Hive did something to trick Ghosts or the Traveler or that they somehow stole it all were perfectly feasible theories, and it was why there was a whole investigation going on during WQ to figure this out.
As for why is it bad when Hive do awful things but not when humanity does? Well, it's both bad. Great Ahamkara Hunt has always been presented as kinda fucked up and this was recently even more emphasised (Season of the Wish), our warlord crimes have always been condemned, Saint's crusade against the Eliksni was never meant to be perceived as a good thing. All of those things were products of their own time and circumstance, and there were always characters who objected to them. Iron Lord rose up because Lightbearers decided that letting superpowered immortal humans running around killing everyone was bad. While we were fighting the Eliksni in multiple wars, Osiris claimed that they're not our enemy and that they're not different from us. (Also The Great Disaster had nothing to do with humanity, it was a complete slaughter of hundreds of Lightbearers by Crota on the Moon when we tried to reclaim it from the Hive).
I think a lot of people forget that various alien species arrived to our system just post-Collapse to kick us while we're down, and people forget that because we happened to have gotten Lightbearers... Who were also kicking humanity while it was down for XY number of years before the Iron Lords decided to put a stop to warlords. This is most interesting with the Eliksni to me because the Eliksni were also kicked when they were down, and also by their own people, just like humans. Human and Eliksni stories are incredibly similar and both species suffered first and foremost from their own. Random dregs trying to survive are not at fault because their Archons and Kells want to take power and control, same as random humans aren't at fault because of warlords (or bad Vanguard decisions). Eliksni came to the system to survive, and over time we've managed to establish normal relations with them because both humanity and Eliksni chose to do so.
The Hive came here to kill us. That's it. They came here to kill us like they did everyone else in the universe. They're not making a choice to do otherwise, even after gaining the Light. I'm not sure why this is a stumbling point for a lot of people, but the reason we're killing Lucent Hive is because they're trying to kill us. At no point did any Lucent Hive faction decide to behave in any way other than the same old Hive philosophy they were using before. Luzaku notwithstanding, but she's just one person. If any Lucent Hive approached us with the choice to use their Light-given second chance to be better, we would accept it, as we did with Luzaku.
So far, none of the Hive have ever even remotely expressed any kind of interest in not exterminating us. This is especially egregious for the Lucent Hive because they were reborn in the Light, with no memories, and no reason to pick up arms against us, and yet they do. They do because Savathun organised them that way, because they are force-fed their old memories and names and rituals back, because of who even knows what reason that they use to just go back to doing the same thing they've always done, except with the Light now. Maybe it's just how it goes; it did take humanity hundreds of years to move past warlords! Perhaps it is the same with Lucent Hive. Maybe they just need time. Maybe being away from Savathun and her schemes would help. Maybe Luzaku can lead the charge for change among them.
I would personally love to see this because this is the biggest point of the whole story and WQ in particular that I feel like was not adequately planned out and developed over time. The Hive having the Light changes everything, theoretically, but in practice it really didn't. This is strange to me, and it may be a deliberate choice, but I would be much more interested in seeing more Lucent Hive becoming like Luzaku, because that's just what makes more sense.
Or... Perhaps the way Hive Ghosts act and the way Hive hierarchies are structured, Lucent Hive are simply not getting a chance to act on their own. Hive Ghosts act in tandem with Hive philosophy and are rezing their Lightbearers to immediately be subsumed by the same old hierarchy and philosophy they belonged to previously. Because why wouldn't Hive Ghosts pick their Lightbearers and move them away from the slaughter and from their inevitable goal of killing Guardians? This loops us back to why we treat Hive Ghosts as traitors. They seem to be actively encouraging (or at least supporting) their Lightbearers, Lucent Hive, to stay within the known Hive structure of killing and detesting humanity. So how are we supposed to treat them?
In Season of the Risen, which was the first season of the Witch Queen year, Lucent Hive invaded multiple places on Earth and the Moon and were slaughtering Guardians and their Ghosts, as well as using them to create "Light batteries," draining and stealing their Light. There's a lot to be said about how we dealt with that whole thing, as well as how Savathun was capable of manipulating her Lucent Brood, but at the end of the day the reality is that every Guardian and their Ghost is an acceptable target to kill by the Lucent Hive, indiscriminately, and it has remained so ever since. I guess it would be nice if we could sit down with Hive Ghosts and the Lucent Hive for a talk, but opening this conversation up isn't on us, as demonstrated by Luzaku.
I think our Ghost's rant at the end of the Witch Queen should put things in perspective the most. All Ghosts were created at the same moment. All Ghosts have been through the entirety of the post-Collapse world of the Dark Ages. All Ghosts have seen every single event and battle that happened since. All Ghosts, including ours AND those who will eventually move on to choose to rez the Hive, have seen and learned what the Hive have done. Seeing the Hive accepted by the Light, but still behaving the same way they always have and being willing to continue killing both Guardians and Ghosts is definitely something that would give a very unique perspective specifically to a Ghost:
No concessions? How stupid do you think I am? You and your siblings, you killed my friends! I remember Crota, and the Great Disaster! I remember Oryx, and the Taken! I remember what you did to the Awoken and the Dreaming City! I'll never forget what happened to Sagira. To Osiris. I would die before I ever chose to help the Hive.
He's correct! Objectively, imo. The Hive have done nothing except harm all life in the universe and have never, not even with the Light, expressed an interest in changing their ways. Until they do so, there's nothing that WE can do about it except defend ourselves. And Luzaku proves that they are capable of change. But they have to choose it, just as Luzaku did.
I think the point is that everyone does bad things, both individually and as part of a larger whole (like a species), but we're making an effort to change and the Hive are not. Humanity has moved past old wars, amongst each other and with other species. This includes other species too; the Eliksni and the Uluran have both chosen the same. Obviously not every single one of them, and that can probably also be said of humans, but in general, an effort to change and be better has happened over time. We have yet to see anything similar from the Hive. Maybe they just need more time. But until then I think it's not unreasonable to defend ourselves and our allies.
I really want to give the destiny Fandom their flowers cause at least here on tumblr everyone has been NOTHING but nice. Its a very tight knit community and everyone I've met has been so generous and kind, I love seeing urls I reccognize consistently whether it be for my Guardian ocs or the dumb memes I make. I really love and appreciate this space and hey thanks to everyone who makes it that way. 💚
the entire "did the yw or petra shoot uldren" thing is completely irrelevant to me tbh like. I don't think who pulled the trigger matters at all because by the time they both get to that room with guns pointed at his head they're both so deep in this already. even if the yw didn't physically shoot him they still paved the way to get to this moment, and the same goes for petra. I mean that's the entire point of it being kept vague right?? you hear both the ace of spades and Petra's gun at the end because either way they're both complicit in what happened at the watchtower and everything that came before that.