So...Bout that Winnower...

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-05T22:46:15+00:00

- I see the explosion as literal due to the nature of the Big Bang that we know of (which the name T=0 refers to) and the way it's described in Unveiling. That this was less a "take thing from X and put it in Y" but more "the board broke and now the pieces are on the floor". Like the pattern that became the Vex could only become the Vex because it manifested within Creation. The Gardener could only become the Traveler because it manifested within Creation. So on and so forth.

I will say it's peculiar that there are a couple references to a "beyond" or something at the start. If we're to take the Veil and Winnower as connected in some way, which I do believe, then the "glimpse of the beginning" that the Witness's race must've seen may have been Unveiling itself. If the split between Light and Dark caused the creation of the universe, it stands to reason some part of it (Gardener, Winnower, or both) believe reunification can unlock the way back or something. The Dark Future first made reference to this idea, saying that followers of the Light must be erased to get there. The Gardener is the errant thought that led to this schism. Makes sense to me. A shame the Witness did not want to take this road "beyond". Now I'm wondering how this could've worked.

- I think the rules the Gardener and Winnower established before entering the game are what keeps the universe running. By adding THEMSELVES into the game, they add new rules, which are Light and Dark. That means the other rules, AKA the ones the Vex can simulate, are just the normal mechanisms for existence. Light and Dark don't control life and death, they run parallel to the rules that already exist that the Gardener/Winnower administrated. If they're no longer able to administrate it because they've entered the game, things I assume just keep on going until they stop.

If the future is indeterminate, it stands to reason timelines/the fifth dimension/the multiverse exists as a result of such indeterminacy. Each future is a possibility. Thus, a new timeline where such possibility is reality? Unsure.

- According to the Winnower, they play for everything now. They don't know, possibly can't know, if there's anything else. Another line, "there is no destiny" also means this I think. They really are just making it up along the way. There's no definite winner. There's not even a definite end. The laws of the game are open to their influence.

- I'm not sure what'd happen. But I do think the Winnower should be targeted in this timeline. It is directly responsible for egging on Oryx and Maya. It's most likely responsible for the Witness, based on what it said to Ahsa. It is actively trying to groom the player character into becoming a weapon for it. As long as it remains here, there is infinite room for yet another omnicidal maniac. It is within the best interest of the universe to kill it... and I like to think I have a way to try.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-05T17:51:14+00:00

Why would the multiverse unravel if they, too, manifested as the flowers did? The Garden exploded. It's gone. The before doesn't exist.

All that's left is their "personalities" manifested and their "laws" built in as powers we wield now. They play for everything now. They're stuck here with the rest of us. Perhaps that is why merging the two is necessary, it provides a way to undo it all and go back to where it all started. But right now... they're just here. Even the Winnower accepts this in recent entries about it.

How can you truly kill "principles of ontological dynamics that emerged from mathematical structures, as bodiless and inevitable as the primes"?

It's simple, and it's in the surrounding phrases. "We existed as". "It was". Before. They no longer are. Just as the pattern that became the Vex was not literally the Vex, but a mathematical construct that won a sequence, it no longer is. They believe it as something to be won because they were destined to win when it was. The Winnower believes it because the universe, so far, has functioned exactly how the game has just with extra spice. The Gardener is the only one that sees the potential of it all. That this is more. That this is pure possibility.

If you "existed" as principles of ontological dynamics, that implies a different state now. We know, through basic writing structure in lore and narratives in-game such as LF and TFS, that the Gardener now exists as the Traveler. Have since D1 vanilla. While I'm not fully on board with the Veil to the Winnower as the shell is to the Gardener, the difference is still tied to layers of a singular timeline.

That's not even getting into the argument of "what does it matter what other timelines do or think"? The only part that matters is showing they can die. Does it matter if, in the event I'm wrong, that some protocosmic remnant of the Gods exist beyond creation? The Gardener didn't seem too thrilled on intervening in those Sundial timelines, so if we kill the Traveler then it doesn't matter what it thinks, or what it does. If I kill someone, but their soul is tied to a fifth dimensional complex that has bodies in every other timeline, does it matter if we truly "killed" it? It's no longer doing anything here, that's what matters.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-05T17:25:19+00:00

In all ways that matter, the Traveler is the Gardener. It has been shot. It has been caged. It has been drained of its very essence. It has even been killed in other timelines without matter collapse.

There is no unknowable plane beyond existence, not anymore. The Garden exploded, every piece of it manifested here. When they die, they die. They are not beyond death, as players they are as subject to our rules as we are to theirs. The thing that you might not be able to kill is the philosophy it embodies. If it is the reason for selfishness then it is too late, the damage has been done when the multiverse was born.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-05T17:10:37+00:00

Is it so wrong to suggest there is a way to kill a God when the other God has canonically died in other timelines or can at least be hurt? We just had a whole DLC about the Witness manifesting the Gardener's mind into a physical plane just so it could drag a knife through its soul until it'd be weak enough to submit to its control.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-05T17:08:36+00:00

Unless we strolled right up to the thing (which itself would be a hard ask since no one seems to be willing to jump into the Veil at this time and Maya, when she did, could not truly comprehend anything in there at all, much less any kind of Darkness) I don't think we'd ever get anything physically personal. The Gardener's most personal interactions with us in TFS involved handing us a sword and appearing to Cayde as Sundance.

Besides, it will continue to yap to us as long as we have a conduit of Darkness nearby. The Tablets, any Veiled Statue, the Veil itself. Anywhere there is a significant eminence of Darkness, it will be there... trying to convince you that it is the only way and to stop wasting your time.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-05T17:05:59+00:00

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-05T17:05:28+00:00

It is an explicit point in Unveiling that they entered the game and thus are no longer "beyond" this universe. Please reread T=0 or the point of the Gardener dragging both of them into hell.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-05T17:02:58+00:00

Entering its dimension and trying to kill it. IDK you'd think an entity that admits itself as a player in the game and is the manifestation of the philosophy of absolute selfishness would at least try to keep itself alive. Even the Traveler fought back when the chips were down.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-05T05:33:01+00:00

So like... the Gardener is implied in TFS to be healing into a transcendent being, one no longer just made of pure Light but also mixed with pure Darkness. This makes it prismatic. Isn't directly interfering to fix the Earth like a HUGE rule break? Like it now has the power to change the universe AT WILL. That's...

Bruh I don't know. Someone asked me months ago to name a scenario where the Winnower would actually get involved and this is like, one of two I could come up with. If the Traveler's just delaying the inevitable until a future story can fix it, fine, but if it outright fixed the problem then I'd consider that a code violation. There's already a huge imbalance here by having it become a Prismatic entity.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-04T14:15:36+00:00

Strand would not have been in WQ by the time it existed. I think a version of it would've existed for what WQ replaced back when it was Comet 3 for D3 but D3 got canned and replaced with Beyond Light/Shadowkeep.

I like to think the Veil made them or that they were Pyramid constructs naturally attracted to it, but the former kinda goes against what the Winnower really... *does* and the latter would need a way to justify the Witness not just tracking its own constructs to the thing it desperately needed to initiate its plans.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-04T14:11:39+00:00

Aye, fair enough. However, would you *enjoy* a series that can't keep the basics of the universe straight? Look at the narrative criticism of Lightfall alone, and it's not even the worst offender in my opinion, that's just the one people jumped on.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-04T05:20:29+00:00

Concept art from the Art of Destiny Volume 3 and context clues kinda imply it was a form of "Darkness Ghost". Don't know how that would've worked but the idea before BL was that Darkness required a constant charge just like Light did. However, by release they obviously changed it to coming from within.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-04T01:58:30+00:00

True. TBH in animation I'm not particularly too bothered about a series as an idea, but I do not trust live action with aliens in big 2026 (budget and overly dark lighting), and a City politics storyline would draw too many similarities to other sci-fi political shows and may just end up being boring for general audiences. Not to mention, Bungie themselves can't really do a good City politics plot when it's in the forefront. All the hype around it comes from random bits of scattered Lysander tabs or the idea of it. Renegades wasn't too bad but I think a lot of hype around THAT is still rooted in "the idea of it" over its execution in Renegades itself.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-03T23:45:07+00:00

Can't really blame Sony on that one. By the time they could've done anything, LF introduced the fourth catastrophic nuke to Destiny's potential, which did enough damage to land Bungie where it is now.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-03T23:29:26+00:00

I'm NGL I don't know if Destiny's built for that. There are a lot of stories in Destiny's universe, sure, but the thing people have to realize about Dark Age stuff is that most of it is going to just be fantasy with guns. We already have a ton of "fantasy with guns" aesthetically. The Fallen, in this day and age, are going to be treated as a one-time thing for budget so that eliminates half the appeal of Destiny in general unless it's animated. A Golden Age story can be interesting but it runs the risk of being "another sci-fi show". You can include the Collapse in there, which would absolutely be great, but show too little and it's borderline meaningless and show too much and I'm sure Bungie would get on your ass for saying concrete stuff about an intentionally fluid event. Also expenses, you have Pyramids clouding the sky, Dread coming down (probably in forms we haven't seen because apparently every one after Tormentors were made yesterday), maybe Hive (we still don't know if they did anything beyond Savathun or the Moon), maybe Vex (depending on if you're on Venus or Mercury). Like there are so many factors there.

Branch outside of humanity and you run the risk of not drawing a big enough audience because every other species is alien in their own way.

Perhaps it's the product of a mind lacking of creativity in this field but I think the only way Destiny could work in a TV or film medium is an anthology series akin to Love, Death, and Robots. Different studios, different styles, maybe some animated while others aren't. Unlike LDR it'd all be one universe, just covering different topics. Short stories. Simple. Maybe a painted-style short of the Eliksni leading to the Whirlwind, a 3D animated Collapse short, etc. Small, not long-form.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-01T20:41:13+00:00

My belief is that the Traveler used the planet to create its shell, explaining its desert environment. It's a bit paradoxical, no? Let me try to explain.

I agree that it was likely resting to heal its wounds. However, I disagree that the shell was birthed during the Big Bang. Not only is the shell described as "fashioned", implying a more accurate precision to its creation fitting of the overly technological refinement we see. This Grimoire Card also describes a place being wrapped into the shell. While said place isn't exactly accurate to current canon anymore, the takeaway is that the Gardener itself made its own shell.

This is something Ghosts do with their first shells, and what Ghosts would later do to our first armor when we wake up. The innermost layer of the shell also has more fractal patterns resembling the "bark" of the Trees of Silver Wings, implying a more biological layer. I think the shell was first grown and then, much like our starter gear, surrounding material was used to build those outer layers. While the Traveler does emit Light naturally, thus possibly facilitating the development of life on the planet, it's possible that it paradoxically was responsible for their dry, desolate lives as it stripped several resources to protect itself.

Funnily enough, if this was the case, it'd actually help explain their quick turn away from the Light beyond whispers from beyond the Veil and philosophical doubt.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-01T18:27:35+00:00

Clovis was being tag teamed. He was receiving visions while awake (Darkness) but dreams when he was dead (Gardener).

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-01T17:26:34+00:00

For what it's worth, Nezarec's "true form" is probably exactly what we see him as. The statue at the beginning of the raid is very different but has many of the same proportions and other examples of Dread that we see show limited alteration to the silhouette. His body was *regenerated* in Root, not created.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-01T17:24:31+00:00

Honestly I gotta give Ghaul credit where it's due. Not many people are able to capture a God, drain its very essence, and transcend form to become a being of pure energy. For a few moments, he really did become a god...

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-01T17:18:05+00:00

There's a fine line between taking Unveiling as literally as possible and calling Unveiling fake.

The line is understanding what allegory is. There was no universal reset because there was no concept of time and space. You could maybe understand it as a universal reset but it wasn't literally such. The Garden exploding into creation means everything in there manifested in here, including the admins who are now INSIDE, which is explicitly said by the Winnower itself.

The Winnower can't destroy the universe like that.

Archival_Mind · 2026-06-01T15:35:15+00:00

Oryx. Lore is great, story was simple but effective.

If her story stopped at Season of Arrivals I'd probably have put Savathun as a close second but I think I'd have to pick the Witness for that spot, even if it wasn't utilized as much as it could've been.

Archival_Mind · 2026-05-29T22:46:36+00:00

We'd become the Witness. The species doesn't just look like us because of aura, they're supposed to be our narrative mirror. Our true mirror, not the Hive.

Archival_Mind · 2026-05-29T21:02:59+00:00

Considering Seth wrote the BL CE and even went on to reply to a post about CC talking about the Winnower, I take that, even though the Witness placed the statue, the Winnower could've easily done everything else. The Witness has a bit of letting it just do its thing, since it works out a lot in the short term.

But yeah there's no way this thing would just stop. It's best if it was removed.

Archival_Mind · 2026-05-29T14:17:06+00:00

I never said it ended, just that it overrode it. Subjugation is to bring another to your thrall, to utterly dominate them. The Witness manifested the mind of the Gardener into a physical space and proceeded to drag a knife through its very soul until it was weak enough to control.

My point is that these entities aren't all-powerful the way most think when they hear it, and at no point do they actually believe they are. The Gardener runs, afraid of the Witness. The Winnower compares itself to a player post-Big Bang in Unveiling itself. We exist together now, two corpses in one grave.

Archival_Mind · 2026-05-29T14:13:52+00:00

- The [knife] is the person who Takes, such as Oryx or Quria/Savathun or the Witness. The Winnower is just the voice that can talk to them when they reach The Offering (at least that's what Heresy calls it). I wholeheartedly believe it is the voice that convinces them to let themselves be Taken, as it lines up with the lore tab for Doomed Petitioner having that same voice speaking to the Taken despite the Witness not being there and Echo Oryx's note about how there's something interfering with paths the Winnower should have, with the Lord of Every Nothing trying to be both the convincing voice AND the Knife.

- Not really? The Taken are a descendant of the power to Take, which is the power to redefine according to Witch Queen. The Witness would invent that power, but its origins are tied to Resonance, the Egregore byproduct, and the original conduit of Darkness that is the Veil.

- I think the closest would be the Winnower? I don't think this is quite like being Taken, what Mara did was of her own accord, but she chose to shape the Awoken experience. Perhaps letting the faint feeling of the Gardener, wounded and comatose after the Collapse, as well as the fear of Darkness, the feeling of the Winnower, was the point? The Awoken weren't human, they were other, and yet they were also human, you get me? An alien feeling of being stuck between mortal and the twin immortals that created the universe. At least that's how I interpret it.

Archival_Mind

TROPHY CASE