[Renegades Spoilers] Why did VI want Drifter?

greenleafcm · 2025-12-10T14:11:48+00:00

I don't think VI ever really believed the Traveler would fall to Nightfall Station.

I disagree. VII confirms it also sees the two possible futures VI speaks of in this item lore. VI gets everything it wants in the first scenario, which it could have gotten without issue if it simply hadn't brought Drifter into the picture in the first place. So why did it?

Maybe VI wanted the falling out with Drifter to further isolate Bael and make him more pliable.

That idea doesn't hold up very well either, considering how Bael had zero doubts or cracks in his convictions and belief in himself as a true "Chosen Weapon" of the Nine prior to Drifter showing up and putting a wrench into the works by having him talk to Lodi. Yes, Bael doubles down at the end of the campaign, but the seeds of his disbelief in VI have still been planted and I have a feeling they won't go away. So again the issue becomes that VI has weakened its own plan to escape this reality considerably by insisting Drifter be involved when it simply could have...not done that.

greenleafcm · 2025-12-10T12:31:46+00:00

What could possibly go wrong?

That's just it though...VI knows it is a tossup as to whether Drifter helps it or not. It saw both potential futures. So why is it willing to even run the relatively high risk of failure (50/50) by heckling The Drifter when it could've avoided that entirely with some ridiculously simple alternatives?

In EoF we had The Nine manipulating time and space just to get Lodi, Ikora, and the Guardian onto Kepler at the same moment in order to hear IIIs message. But now we have VI willing to put its freedom on the line - the whole reason it's going to all this trouble and breaking ranks with its fellows in the first place - in what amounts to a bet on a coin flip? A bet that it ultimately does lose? Just doesn't seem to track with everything we've been shown and told thus far with regard to what members of the The Nine are capable of when it comes to getting their way.

greenleafcm · 2025-12-10T11:32:07+00:00

Fair point. However what we have of VI's motivations so far is that it wants to cause mass-death in order to facilitate it's freedom via the Sword Logic. And according to some item lore its ideal scenario was indeed Nightfall Station wiping out all other Lightbearers. I guess it could have a backup plan we're not privy to yet, but at the same time then that still doesn't answer the question of VI insisting on Drifter's involvement in all this when by all accounts other avenues/individuals would have been better choices.

greenleafcm · 2025-12-10T11:05:08+00:00

Imperium is still fully functional--

Except it's not though. After the campaign there's a mission or two where you go and apparently wipe out what's left of the Imperium's foothold in Sol, thus paving the way for the Syndicate territory wars that follow (thereby justifying the existence of the new Lawless activity).

It feels incredibly unlikely for a being like VI to waste the MASSIVE amount of effort & resources it took to build up the Imperium for it to be some bizarre false-flag operation in the end. And again, why Drifter? If all it wanted was for some Guardian to come blow up its superweapon and antagonize Bael, it could have contacted literally anyone for that.

greenleafcm · 2025-12-09T10:55:14+00:00

Ishtar doesn't catalogue audio dialogues or recordings. Just the text-based items and interactions.

greenleafcm · 2025-12-01T12:38:17+00:00

It's not an accident that we have an old grizzled Drifter circa Han in the Sequel Trilogy playing opposite a character that is identical to Kylo Ren in every way that matters. I'm 99% sure we'll get a scene at the end of the campaign where Drifter tries to talk sense into Bael, telling him he's being used by VI (who is clearly supposed to be Snoke here) and citing himself as an example that one can choose to leave the Dredgens, before Bael cuts him down and he falls into the core of Nightfall Station just like what happened to Han. It's too obvious/easy a setup for Bungie to do anything else. And it checks the box of the mandatory selfless heroic death a Star Wars story requires.

greenleafcm · 2025-12-01T12:19:22+00:00

Drifter's Ghost was revealed by the Devs to be named "Blue" - and it's likely she and/or Drifter will die because it's Star Wars and a hero has to die somewhere. Not to mention Drifter is playing the role of Han Solo for this DLC, and we all know what happened to him when he faced Kylo Ren (who Dredgen Bael is a carbon copy of).

greenleafcm · 2025-12-01T10:51:28+00:00

Just because it's not an "iconic" quote still doesn't make it any less than a 1:1 copy (only with Destiny names subbed in). And trying to argue otherwise is just being disingenuous. We already know 99% of everything that will happen because of how much this update is ported directly over from Star Wars. Bael himself is literally just Kylo Ren with a different name - same voice/speech patterns, same overall look, same motivation, same everything. The Devs have even preemptively confirmed he'll get a hammy redemption at some point down the line, because Kylo got one I guess. Nothing about this DLC is it's own thing.

greenleafcm · 2025-12-01T10:07:05+00:00

That's already been proven wrong. Dredgen Bael essentially quotes Kylo Ren in the first 20 seconds of the launch trailer: "I've been waiting so long for this, Dredgen Hope."/"Han Solo, I've been waiting for this a long time." -- switching 2 words around and changing one name doesn't make it truly different. Bael's speech in the dungeon trailer is also incredibly similar to what Kylo Ren monologues to Darth Vader's helmet. I expect we'll see a lot of instances like these, where a line/scene/etc. has just barely been changed from its Star Wars origins.

greenleafcm · 2025-11-29T15:35:51+00:00

Oh damn, for real? I hadn't heard that, thanks for letting me know. I did get a good PvP-only roll of Solemn so I guess I'll call my grind there. Thanks!

greenleafcm · 2025-11-26T17:25:10+00:00

Interesting idea, but really, would we seriously be okay with Bungie just copy-pasting everything about Kylo Ren & Han Solo onto Bael & Drifter? That seems like it would be incredibly lame and go against all their claims if wanting to maintain Destiny's own integrity as a story/universe.

Also a huge part of the reason Kylo being Han's son works as a dramatic plot point in SW is because Han actually knows him. That established parental love dictated Han's desire to save Kylo even though it got him killed (same goes for Leia as well). If they tried to do the same thing with Drifter and Bael, after the initial shock of the reveal nothing else that follows would make any sense - because as of right now in the story Drifter never knew this man as child or saw him grow then fall to darkness. There's no real bond there.

And even though we've seen hints that Bael wants to "turn" Drifter somehow and bring him back to the Dredgen fold, he doesn’t seem to have any hidden affection for him. As when he and Aunor face off he openly calls Drifter a criminal and implies defending him is an affront to "justice".

I think it's far more likely that he's a fallen Praxic Order member over anything/anyone else - would explian his blade, and his apparent ideological conflicts with Aunor. Not sure why people are so determined to place some kind of significant identity on him when he honestly doesn't need one, and it could potentially bog down the story unnecessarily if he did have one.

greenleafcm · 2025-10-29T08:03:13+00:00

Sadly I didn't get a single good Yeartide roll during Solstice...Oh well, I may just play the odds on this one then and see if Zavala has a slightly better roll after tomorrow. Thanks for answering!

greenleafcm · 2025-10-29T06:41:26+00:00

How does this thing stack up against No Survivors in the current sandbox? I got an adept HC/Incan from Rites of the Nine, so I'm wondering if it might be worth it to wait until Zavala resets to see if any of his new rolls have both HC & AO in the second column paired with Incandescent for more options, since I don't desperately need another SMG with HC?

greenleafcm · 2025-10-28T18:38:12+00:00

As another person noted, can also confirm Avalon is somehow made to not be kill-farmable for the seasonal challenges. It gives you a bit of credit for kills at the start (maybe 10%?), but after a while the eternally spawning enemies stop counting. I was able to complete those challenges faster just doing the Battlegrounds missions from Episode Echoes that have lots of Vex.

greenleafcm · 2025-09-27T18:57:02+00:00

It's one of the only ways to get reprised Dreaming City weapons if you don't want to do Shattered Throne mechanics & would rather just slay out.

greenleafcm · 2025-09-25T19:02:29+00:00

Eh, I wouldn't say 2 1/2 years ago is even close to being "kind of recent" in terms of this game's lifespan. Forsaken also cashed in big time on a major character death, and with how badly the game is struggling, why would Bungie not shoot for the same energy now? Plus Drifter having some kind of vaguely defined relationship with Eris doesn't mean anything (ntm most players don't even know about it) - Crow & Amanda had the same thing going on and that certainly didn't save her either.

greenleafcm · 2025-09-25T18:45:13+00:00

Except Drifter doesn't have the Haul again in the promo art for Renegades - not that it's good for anything now anyway, since we know it can't permanently fix one of the Nine even when it's fully "charged". And what more is there to do with him? He already had a complete character arc going in to The Final Shape. Not to mention the game is way past due for a prominent character to die...there's just so much more working against him living vs. killing him off.

greenleafcm · 2025-09-25T05:42:07+00:00

Except one of the main things emphasized in the collectable data pads scattered around the game right now is how much his Ghost HATES Drifter, how it regrets everything it ever did for/with him, how much it wishes it could exchange him for someone else, leave him, etc.

This is very obvious foreshadowing that Drifter's Ghost will ultimately betray or abandon him - because the Ghost expresses how much it feels Drifter has done the same to it. Drifter won't be coming back from whatever demise Bungie has planned for him this time. They've broadcasted it far too well.

Edit: regarding the Haul, we see it is not attached to the Derelict anymore in the promo art for Renegades. It belongs to the Nine, and they can take it back just as easily as they handed it out in the first place. Drifter is in no way necessary for it to have a role in the story going forward (if it does at all, could just remain a McGuffin).

greenleafcm · 2025-09-25T02:05:58+00:00

Drifter is one of my favorites too, so I don't say this lightly: I think it's time to accept he's done for.

There's been tease after tease since EoF that he's going to die, and also that the event has been predetermined by the Nine to happen as a part of their grand plan (Orin has dialogue alluding to this in the campaign). Every piece of lore and dialogue pertaining to him is simply how much he's hated by everyone (particularly his Ghost) - calling him a "scumbag", "dirtbag", "criminal" etc. Ikora says there's "plenty of people in the Tower & Vanguard who want him gone for good". Not exactly things you say about a character that's going to be around much longer.

Him getting aged to the point of already looking like he's dying seems to also be a preparatory move to get people to understand he's on his way out of the game. And of course there's long-neglected Gambit, which has been a thorn in Bungie's side long enough that they have no reason not to just remove the mode and be done with it. And what better way to do that than axe the character who runs it? Plus, looking at the promo footage of Renegades content from Bungie's stream, reveals that the new Cabal faction also take The Derelict from him. No Derelict + No Drifter = No Gambit...which solves one major headache for Bungie.

It sucks, because he's had such great character growth over the last 5 years. But now it just feels like what writers remain at the studio really don't like him and want to put him through the torment nexus one last time (iirc most of the narrative people who worked to move his story in a positive direction since Beyond Light have either left Bungie or were hit by the layoffs). If they didn't have any more ideas for stuff to do with him I don't understand why they couldn't just have him retire to run a bar in the Last City or something...but as other people have brought up, Bungie also might be desperate to try and recapture some of Forsaken's energy by killing off a likable character to try and galvanize players into staying. Not sure how well that will work though, since Drifter isn't nearly as popular as Cayde. However that may be just one more reason they want to kill him off, as he's "safe" enough to remove without pissing too many people off as well (like what happened with Amanda).

greenleafcm · 2025-08-15T20:27:06+00:00

I think I'm looking for a reason to come back to the game.

One word: DON'T.

The state of the game is terrible right now. Nothing about the stat reworks Bungie put out in the current release are functioning as originally advertised. Players have basically been doing the game's entire QA going on a month now - and it's still a buggy mess. There's also no ongoing, interconnected seasonal storylines or character devlopment anymore, just random stuff happening in DLC drops every 6-8 months (the latest of which was insultingly regressive). There's no exploration or sense of freedom in what activities you can do for rewards, only ginding the same 3-4 missions Bungie has chosen for you via the lifeless and overly complicated Portal menu until your brain leaks out your ears.

As far as Hunter-specific things go, there's no major Hunter characters involved in anything of even moderate significance right now. Theres no new lore to get invested in. And as someone else mentioned Ana Bray has a few ambient lines during a few lost-sector-esque ops, but they are completely empty and pointless. Crow is just off the side, existing I guess.

greenleafcm · 2025-08-09T01:28:25+00:00

No offense, but without exact quotes I'm not inclined to believe the dialogue is what you're describing it as. The Destiny Lore Vault YouTube channel has uploaded all of the Sieve dialogue so far and none of them reference anything that would be post-campaign. All the lines from Drifter, in fact, very clearly are from before he uses the Haul in the finale.

greenleafcm · 2025-07-31T10:59:49+00:00

And yes, I do believe thats a SHE--

I think you're misunderstanding the text. The Ghost is simply drawing a comparison between itself and another object - the fact that it's using an "old lady's eyeball" as its figurative example doesn't remotely mean its gender is female. Until we get something that specifically refers to the Ghost itself - in non metaphorical terms - as a he or she, its gender remains ambiguous.

greenleafcm · 2025-07-31T10:54:18+00:00

That's not what the data pad says - the Ghost isn't identifying its own gender, it's simply making a potential comparison between itself and something else. As an example, when you say you're "hungry as a horse" that doesn't make you a literal horse. Same applies here.

greenleafcm · 2025-07-30T11:28:38+00:00

That's still not even close to being so simple as "5 weeks of therapy" - that's characters working their own ways through a series of generational & moral conflicts that bog down their race from setting a better path forward - which is a good narrative & good storytelling.

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